Tuesday 17 February 2009

Vista and my laptop

Ah, Vista. It seems so long ago that I waxed lyrical about how sweet it looked and how well it worked. Even then everyone and their dog was slandering the OS and I now fall into the fray. My laptop came with Vista preinstalled when I got it in mid 2007. I was impressed because I like gadgetry and it did seem to work well. I have not once lost work because of a system failure and the only long term issue that I have noticed is the notification icons seem to come and go as they please. Not really a big deal. Good times.

Meanwhile, the tubes were clouded with a wrath of complaint at various problems. None that I saw and even my friends had some issues. All this time I was pro vista. 

Now, however, I cant use a memory stick or an external drive. I can't fix it. My USB ports work for other things but Mass storage devices are a no, no. This is a big deal since I can not easily backup my stuff and since I'm writing a PhD thesis you can imagine the paranoia of potential data loss. I have tried many fixes (the tubes are full of these, since it is not an uncommon problem) none of which have worked for me.

Windows 7 to the rescue? Having installed it on three systems so far with no problems and with positive reviews about putting it on my model of laptop - I don't have much hesitation. This OS is 'da bomb'.

It seems to me that Vista has gotten worse over time; aren't operating systems supposed to get better through updates?

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