Vista: THE WOW!

I have to admit that I'm the author of that stupid joke, feel free to download it from DeskwallMag at the following link.

Vista: Ultimate or Home Premium?

Main restrictions in Home Premium:
- no bitlocker
-no EFS (encrypting file system)
- no group policy management ( so no admin management for users accounts or local security for instance)
- one way remote desktop (Home Premium can control an Ultimate system remotely, but Ultimate cannot connect to Home Premium, probably to protect average users of Home Premium). Remote assistance still works both ways.
- Downloadable Ultimate Extras (new features you get through Windows Update), well as the name says, only available for Ultimate lol.

Now the worse, don't know if that's just funny or sad, is that for instance the EFS function appears in Home Premium, but grayed. The local security management console is there, but when you click on it you get the message: Sorry, you're running Vista Home Premium, and this feature is not available, Upgrade to Ultimate. As you know all DVDs are the same, you just got to order an upgraded version online to get a new key and unlock features (it's called "Anytime Upgrade"). By the way Ultimate (Retail and Upgrade versions) has 2 DVDs in the package: 64 and 32 bit. Ultimate OEM contains only one version.
So it's up to you to buy the version that matches your needs, and the money you wanna spend. If you think you might wanna use Ultimate advanced features, OK, if not, then Home Premium will be enough. You'll still get AERO (with a suitable graphic card) and UAC for security. Home Premium is to Ultimate exactly what XP home was to XP pro. That also means, obviously (for those of you who might have doubted that), that XP pro has advanced features that Vista Home Premium does not have.
I have to admit that the way Microsoft handles all those different versions of Vista (Ultimate, Home Premium, 64 or 32 bit) does not meet what I could have expected from them. Don't know if that was the same with XP home, cause I never saw it, but showing disabled features to the user, in what is supposed to be a limited, but still a full featured OS is not really fair.
It's kinda promoting more expensive products from the same company,through the use of a restricted OS version, and put the end user under pressure. I call that Adware.

Pilotes SAGEM pour USB dongle 760A sous Vista!

Ca c'est seulement pour les francais qui utilisent une LiveBox et auraient lu comme je viens de le lire sur le site Orange que les pilotes du module USB Wi-Fi Sagem 760A ne seraient pas disponibles avant le mois d'avril. LOL! Cela fait trois semaines qu'ils sont telechargeables via un site de Sagem. Voici le lien: http://lgsagem.free.fr/
Le personnel de chez Orange est vraiment en dessous de tout, une fois de plus. Et pour ceux qui auraient des hesitations dans la liste, prenez ca, et rien d'autre, meme si Vista n'est pas explicitement mentionne!
http://lgsagem.free.fr/Telechargement/Driver%20WIFI/Windows/Sagem-UtilityXG760A.zip

et surtout ne vous croyez pas dispenses d'installer l'utilite Sagem livre avec avant d'intaller les pilotes. Si vous ne faites pas ca rien ne marchera!

PGP 9.6 beta: full support for Vista!

I've been notified late at night yesterday: at last, after all that anger and impatience from us users, I must admit that the PGP team did a really nice job. PGP 9.6 beta with support for windows Vista is out and it works like a breeze. Here is the link where you can subscribe to the beta testing till the end of next march. Cannot say if then the final version will be there, or a beta 2. Anyway that's good news!

ATI 7.2 for Vista

as you might not know, I'm running a PC with a P4 2,8 GHz from 2003, and only 512 MB of RAM. So running Windows Vista in those conditions is not always easy, as the new OS is very demanding in resource when running Aero for instance. My graphic card, an "old" ATI 9800 pro 256 MB supports all the features from Aero...but everytime I've installed Vista, the whole system became like crippled after the installation of ATI drivers 7.1. These drivers might have been good, in compare with the ones provided by NVidia for their cards, but not good enough anyway. And yesterday at last, new drivers were released. Catalyst Suite 7.2 for Vista ( think they work on XP too, same file with a different name, but just the same file). These new drivers are awesome! They made my PC run suddenly twice faster as before under Windows Vista. So if you're running a PC with an ATI card under Windows Vista, I can only recommend to install those drivers as soon as you can, the difference is amazing.

comodo firewall 3.0

that's a French expression: no news, good news. As I'm not actually ready to spend half of my time configuring the advanced firewall in Vista, the only alternative I can imagine at this time is the upcoming 3.0 version of Comodo Firewall. This version will integrate a HIPS, as you might already know, and will be fully compatible with our new baby: Windows Vista. The only problem is that not even a beta has been released yet. Come on guys, we need that firewall again. I haven't posted in the Comodo Forum for a while no. Actually for the same reason: there's not much to comment in such a place when there's no beta testing anymore. Not that I miss these long and sometimes disappointing beta testing phases. but I really think that such a firewall, in his new version, without all the bugs that affected it in version 2.4 of course, is badly needed in Vista. If anyone from the dev team there reads this post, thanks in advance.
Here are the usual links to the web site and its forum:
http://www.comodogroup.com
http://forums.comodo.com

why there might never be a Vista sp1...(codename Vienna)

according to gossips found in many places on the web, actually not gossips but founded stories, Windows Vista might just be a temporary OS between XP and the "real" next OS generation: codename Vienna. According to this article of PC World, the Microsoft Team got so busy in the making of SP2 for XP (major security issues back in 2003), that they just left Vista development behind for a while. The result is that many features that should have been implemented are not, like this new file system that was supposed to replace NTFS, and other things kept secret...The planning is now to release Vienna in a bit more than two years, by the end of 2009. In these conditions I can well imagine that the step of a SP1 release for Vista could be easily skipped, unless some really major security flaws came out of Vista in the following months.

XP 64, and other 64 bit OS...

here is a link for a 2 months trial of Windows XP 64. I'll take here an opportuniy to say that Microsoft made a huge mistake by releasing all versions of Vista in both 32 and 64 bit. Jesus, they should only have made a 64 bit version available this time! Thousands of software companie have not yet been able to release compatible versions of their products since the release of XP 64, a couple of years ago (and PGP corporation belong to them). What can we expect from the same lazy teams if they still have the choice? Microsoft should have definitely forced them to develop for 64 bit by releasing ONLY 64 BIT VERSIONS OF VISTA! What a loss of time...I heard Gates say that we were still in a transition phase between 32 and 64 bit OS, when will that transition end? (he actually talked "slowly slipping into the 64 bit era", lol!).

Vista gadgets

desperately looking for brand new gadgets for the Vista sidebar, the gallery is a bit poor...

WinFS

originally intended to be implemented in Vista, the WinFS program was actually not stopped, but not implemented in Vista. It would have given to Vista still more performing search and indexing features, but Microsoft for some reason decided to use a more traditional technology, and the result is still amazing. I believe WinFS will probably be there in Windows Vienna, may be as soon as end 2009. Don't expect it in a service pack for Vista! A service pack can't obviously transform the file system of an OS. Don't be too sad though, NTFS is still fantastic!

here is a good wiki article about WinFS

Vista or XP?

I started yesterday thinking more and more that many Vista features, apart from Aero, were already available in XP, and wanted to describe them here in a new post: a feature like the indexing system was already available through Windows Desktop Search from Microsoft itself, or through Google Desktop with sidebar etc...

This article from Paul Thurott will give you all the guide lines.

don't forget, if actually many features can be installed through the use of third party software, they'll never match the quality of integration that they have in Vista. So don't expect to transform XP into Vista for free! Vista is a new OS, definitely. And Stardock might give you soon or later an aero for XP, because Stardock products are good, I've used them and liked them, but Vista is much more than Aero, and Windows Desktop Search for XP might be fast, but matches in no way the Vista interface, even if it uses the same technology.

Vista Upgrade: part 3

here are definitely 2 serious links:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/930985/en-us

well some of that stuff was not totally crap...

Vista Upgrade: part 2

now I read from a thread in the Vista Community Forum that an upgrade DVD is only bootable for repair. AND THE WHOLE THING MAKES SENS NOW! I guess the article I mentioned in my previous post below is pure...crap. Not to mention that this site shows illegal links to Vista RTM download and cracks...It might be the first time that I mention it in this blog, but anyway here it is: I HATE PIRACY! done.
The ununderstandable part of the article in the Vista Community Forum is that they pretend the 64 bit upgrade version would be bootable...why would it be? not because of a probable incompatibility upgrade process with XP 32, you could always go for a "clean install" from XP, moving the xp install to "windows old" folder... well I'm not gonna buy all Vista versions to test them (lol). Never read so much crap!
It would have naturally been fairer from Microsoft to allow, like before, a clean boot install from an upgrade CD requiring the short insertion of the old OS CD, and its key. They just wanted to make it more secure by requiring the old OS activation too, just in case you would use an illegal copy of XP to launch Vista upgrade I suppose...

why you might not need to buy a full version of Vista

The guys at Microsoft changed the upgrade process in Vista. In old good times, when you for instance upgraded from win95 to win 98, you didn't necessarily have to launch the upgrade from inside 95. You could boot your upgrade CD, and when prompted insert the old version CD, and enter the old key. NOT WITH VISTA! These bastards want to force you to launch the Vista upgrade from inside XP ,that means first install XP, activate it, then insert and launch the Vista CD, and have the choice between an upgrade process (the worse), or a pseudo-clean install that will put all your old xp files into a folder called windows old, with possible rollback. Whatever your choice is, the install won't be clean at all. You won't be able to format and install directly from the Vista CD. Disgusting!
Now some guys found this:

1. "Boot from the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD and start the setup program.
   
2. When prompted to enter your product key, DO NOT enter it. Click "Next" and proceed with setup. This will install Windows Vista as a 30-day trial.
   
3. When prompted, select the edition of Vista which you have purchased and continue with setup.
   
4. Once setup has been completed and you have been brought to the desktop for the first time, run the install program from within Windows Vista.
   
5. This time, type in your product key when prompted.
   
6. When asked whether to perform an Upgrade or Custom (advanced) install, choose Custom (advanced) to perform a clean install of Vista. Yes, this means that you will have to install Vista for a second time.
   
7. Once setup has completed for the second time, you should be able to activate Windows Vista normally. You can also delete the Windows.old directory which contains information from the first Vista install.
   

There's no telling why Microsoft left this loophole wide open with Windows Vista Upgrade DVDs, but this means that any retail upgrade DVD can be used as a fully functioning full retail copy of Vista."

I can imagine why, they just didn't have the choice, as any windows Vista DVD must remain bootable for repair purposes or else, you can naturally boot with an upgrade DVD, and upgrade your install with a new "clean" install" of Vista itself. Well they actually could have prevented the install with no key, that leads to a 30 days trial version, and miss an opportunity to make buy a new license after install, just in case you would like to upgrade you initial key from Home Basic to Premium for instance. That's ridiculous. My conclusion is that anyone wanting to perform a real clean install of Windows Vista should unfortunately buy the full retail version, and avoid the upgrade!

ps. well they could have forced the user to enter a key when booting from CD, and then block the install in case of an upgrade version.But they left it open the way it is open when you boot from a full version, or the way it is open when you launch the upgrade normally, from XP. I wonder what happens when after a no key install, you enter it from inside Vista...probably no possible activation, or no entering of a new key if the product is not already activated...I don't care really. Once again, 2 obvious choices: OEM, or FULL!

Issue on installing Adobe Reader in Vista

This issue did not happen to me after my first installations of Vista, but it did in the two last ones. When attempting to install Adobe Reader 8.0 in Vista you might get the following error message:
the temp folder is full etc...(see picture). I coild not find a solution either on Adove website, either anywhere else on the web, but I found threads in forums from people who had the issue too.
So I just found that work around. There's a moment during the install process when a windows tells you exactly where the installation files are located. Just don't close that window, and go to
C:\users\your account\appdata\local low\Netopsystems. Just copy the files from there and paste them anywhere else on your hard disk. Run the program from the new place and you're done.

Vista Firewall (lol)

thanks for the article Justin, that confirms what I saw and why I haven't used it so far. You must create a rule to see something happen with this firewall, otherwise everything is allowed. Which means that you basically have to manually create one rule for each application that can potentially connect to the network. Can take bloody ages to achieve (lol) ! The argument from Microsoft to give a good out of the box experience of Vista, by not pre-configuring this "advanced" firewall is more than funny!

Windows Vista Firewall: Is it a full firewall?

Read the full article HERE.

Exclusive Vista Tests

With Windows Vista here, you should be preparing to upgrade as we all will have to do sooner or later. Here is an article about Vista from PC World. They did some Vista PC Tests and here are the results!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128273-page,1/article.html

ATI drivers for Vista (part 3)

now definitely available from the links I mentioned in my previous post.

updating: the update manager is already included into ATI drivers for Vista.

ATI final Catalyst drivers for Vista ! (part 2)

a couple of screenshots from the new Catalyst CC for Vista