Has anyone else tried out the RTM build of vista yet? I downloaded it on Friday and installed promptly.

I've had tons of BSOD in every single beta release, at the RC2 milestone they removed the text from the BSOD screen. Under the RTM build, I'm still having spontaneous BSOD's, it seems like they're completely random. I've been playing BF2 for hours, without a single problem, so I'm pretty sure it's not the ATI video drivers. I have a hauppauge 250 card, which I'm guessing the the root of my problems, but vista will still crash while MCE is not active. Half the time it will crash while browsing various websites like engadget, g'news, the empegbbs, etc. Other times it will crash when closing an application (like task manager for example).

Is there any other tools I can use to help figure out where this problem is coming from?

I just received an awesome response from the Problems and Solutions app, the problem will be fixed in a future build of vista.

Anyways, I figured because we have our own resident microsoft employee, i'd see what Tony thought.

I'm also attaching a few pictures of the crashes I've experienced.

Problems and Solutions list

I just got the Business version, but I am actually waiting that the (slow) download of the Enterprise one from the Microsoft VLM website completes, and I will be testing that, next week, on two or three laptop models. We'll see...

I experienced no crashes with previous beta versions, though, on Thinkpad R50e, R52 laptops, fortunately. I did experience some random crashes on older R40s, though. I was testing one of the first betas, at that time, however.

I've only tried the Ultimate Edition. I'm getting it directly off my MSDN developer account. I actually re-installed lastnight because the system started to completely lockup on every startup. Explorer was hanging all over the place. It's weird, all my hardware is pretty much brand new, and XP would run for weeks and weeks without a reboot.

I think this time, I won't be installing vs.net 2003 directly on vista. I need to setup a stupid VM machine to load XP and all my developer tools.

I hate this BBS.

"The form you are using is no longer valid"

I had a really long response typed up here. Fuck it.

I also installed my MSDN on Friday on my Inspiron 6000. I've had no problems so far (except a couple program compatibility issues), and it is running much faster than RC1 did on the same laptop. As it is a slow day on the IT help desk here I'm doing some video editing on it to pass the time.

I'll be loading my T40 with it come Nov 30th when we get our volume key at work. (Of course I may need to wait and see what the company is planning for activation.)

Is it true that one Windows DVD contains ALL versions, and depending on the SN the correct one gets installed? That was my understanding, but on MVL website I saw two separate dwnload pages for the Enterprise and the Business...

Why even bother with all of this? ???? Masochism????

Seems like a lot of fuss just to be able to download the latest spyware, trojans, and botnet client software ?????

-ml

To tell you the truth I don't know what's worse at this point. The garbage system vendors put on top of XP, the complete unsuitability of XP for a notebook type system or the garbage hardware 90% of PC makers design and release.

My GF just got a new notebook with her recent promotion, an Acer Travelmate of some sort. If you were to read the spec sheet it sounds nice. It has all the ports and bells and whistles. But when you take stock of the physical machine it's a design nightmare.

Why would anyone put ports on the FRONT of the machine? I haven't seen physical switches for Bluetooth and WiFi do anything but cause people problems. Who needs so many LEDs on a notebook?

The thing that's pissing me off the most right now is that at some random point after closing the clamshell, the machine will seemingly wake up and start playing some tune. Or just sit there on the desktop ON. The power settings have been taken over by some Acer application (so that you can no longer see the default OS UI for it). But the power option for clamshell close is definitely set to Standby (sleep).

When the machine was first turned on there were no fewer than 15 icons in the tray and another 3 or 4 next to, but outside of the tray. Who was it that said most applications don't install stuff to the tray on Windows? Yeah right. ATI's own craptastic tray icon was there - but at least that one can be disabled from Catalyst Control Center (a huge pile of steaming usability crap itself).

I do two things with Windows right now. One is run my SageTV in my living room (it's the only TV tuner & PVR I use - media PC case with 800GB of HD). The other is to run Canada Post shipping software for my business which is done on a Shuttle system. If I could buy an Intel Mac notebook today I'd be running that software inside a virtual machine.

But these days, the only thing I hate more than having to run Windows is installing Windows. So I don't see Vista in my immediate future. Down the road if I can keep the business going and eventually exppand into some Windows-based software I'll no doubt also do some development/testing with it - likely on Apple hardware.

Looking forward to moving one of my servers to Linux and eventually being able to move my TV/PVR system to Linux as well.

I don't understand the relationship between the shutdown menu and Halo 2.

Bitt, the Acer is about 10 times better than any Dell or Toshiba and generally Acer systems are also better than anything from HP. What does that say about the PC industry?

To me is says that Apple is making the only BMW and Mercedes class machines and everyone else is making Ladas or GM vehicles (ie. the bottom of the barrel).

Most PC notebooks aren't worth the cardboard they're shipped in.

I've had no real problems with either my Sony or my IBM laptops. I'll agree that Dell isn't the best choice in the world, but many of their business-class laptops don't suck.

Basically, the problem is with consumer-grade computers. They're simply not made well. But the quality of the entire line generally seems to increase with the ratio of business to consumer computers they make. That is, Acer, a consumer-only company, makes crappy laptops. Dell makes better ones, but not that much better, as they're still primarily consumer, even if they do a reasonable amount of business sales. IBM seems to make the best laptops, and they have the highest business to consumer ratio.

But there are exceptions. Apple is largely consumer, but make good laptops. And I've had no problems with my Sony, which is very consumer, too. (But many other people have had problems, and their support is lousy.)

Well, Acer is the corporate notebook supplier for the company my girlfriend now works at. The machine is built much better than the Toshiba she had before.

The high-end IBM Thinkpad she had a couple of years ago was by far the best, but none of them come close to the build quality and ruggedness of this 15" aluminum PowerBook. I'm not even talking about the OS now.

Of course the problem I mentioned earlier are caused by these OEMs patching garbage on top of Windows, including custom device drivers and all sorts of other little dodads that are supposed to control their bells and whistles. All those little toys/tools absolutely kill Windows every time. The difference between a notebook and desktop in this regard however, is that you can't do a clean wipe or you will probably lose some of the hardware functionality.

Her company would be better off buying Macbooks and installing Windows via Bootcamp. of course her IT department has issues of its own. They run a Novell network for starters. Hello, 1986 called. They want their netware back.

Well, I find that the crappier the hardware, the more random useless software comes installed.

I was referring to Sony's support, but point taken.

I'm having another issue with vista now that it's actually running for weeks without crashing.

When I RDP into my vista machine, and disconnect before leaving work. I'll get home and my machine will have the monitors in powersave mode and moving the mouse or hitting keys on the keyboard won't get it to wake back up.

I know the machine isn't sleeping or anything like that, because I can still RDP and be at my desktop. The only way I can get back into the machine is to reboot it via RDP.

Anyone else notice this?

When you "disconnect" are you specifically logging out via Startmenu/Clickonthelittlearrow/Logout, or are you just hitting "close" on your RDP client?

I know that those two things are different actions and that you might be deliberately *not* logging out, I'm just wondering if the other procedure produces different results.

Normally I'll either just close the RDP client window, or click on the Start Menu, then click the "X" (which is disconnect in vista when you're connected via an RDP session)

I've also tried to Logoff (by clicking the arrow, then the logoff item from the start menu), and nothing will get my monitors, keyboard and mouse to response (note, the capslock light works at home, but the screen still won't wake up)

The only way I can get back into the system, is to goto the command prompt and type shutdown -r.