Curse you Vista, and curse your creators at Microsoft too

The love-hate relationship swings over to HATE for a while

from JoeUser Forums

So I just stuck up an article about problems encountered replacing the guts of my HTPC system.  A Vista x64 (64-bit) based system that had been working nicely enough over the last year, but which pretty much died thanks to a motherboard problem.

With the new motherboard in the box and things settled down (hardware wise) as they should be, I fired the box up and Vista did it's magic in finding the changed hardware devices and such and I thought I was on my way to getting my HTPC box going again but oh how wrong was I.  It turns out that though Vista found the changed devices and drivers for same, that didn't mean that I was going to be able to actually *use* the new hardware for my intended purposes (watching and recording TV).

As soon as I fired up the Media Center application on the system I was greeted by messages that the Media Center application had encountered problems and would be closed.  Vista would search for a solution for me and notify me if it found one.  What the heck!?!?!  I assumed that there might be some issues, but never expected the app to just close on me.

I got a bit smarter and tried troubleshooting by just launching the media center app and then branching into different menus... that worked up to a point, and I thought that perhaps Vista needed to relearn what the tuner was in the system (it kept telling me it couldn't find a tuner).  Going off to try to configure the tuner just kept getting me back to the same place, the land of 'tuner not found' and eventually more fun with the Media Center application closing on it's own.

Darn it, kept plugging away at it and tried firing up the Music Library components in Media Center -- ooops, worse than before.  That kept closing the Media Center application even quicker than before.

Now I knew something was really messed up, but what I had no idea.  Much searching around on the web found lots of others that had problems with the 'tuner not found' issue, but no real solutions.  :-(   Finally figured that I should try just loading up the Media Player and did that only to be told it had problems and then found that it too kept getting closed by the operating system.  Argh.

The end solution?  Blow away Windows Vista and reinstall from scratch.  Something I despise doing.  Why do I despise doing so?  Because in my mind I should never have to wipe out my operating system to get it repaired.  I shouldn't lose my personal settings or need to recover them from a backup.  I shouldn't have to putz with getting my mail application reconfigured.  I shouldn't have to reinstall all my applications.  I shouldn't have to move files around to make backups, delete a bunch of temporary files that I might have around, etc.  None of that should be necessary.

Except with Microsoft and their sorry excuse for a ready for prime time operating system that is often times the case, which is completely and totally unacceptable to me.

Understand that I like Vista, or at least find it normally works reasonably well for my needs.  It integrates nicely with the Xbox 360s that I have in my house, it shares nicely with the Sony Playstation 3 as well, and it works well enough as a DVR for the over-the-air hi-definition programming that I want to record and watch.  But.... when it's bad, it's pretty friggin' bad and there just doesn't seem to be any thing that even a techie can do to fix it short of wipe it out and load it again.

I will say unequivocally that if it's necessary to wipe the box again in the future I'll be wiping Microsoft Vista completely off the box in favor of Ubuntu.   While I might lose some functionality that I currently have, I'd also lose the frustration of spending time trying to solve a problem that is clearly the result of Microsoft's broken operating system and that would be very soothing to my tastes.

I'm sure that once I get my hardware completely settled in again I'll be happily running Vista without issues for a good long while.  but unfortunately I also expect there will probably be 'a next time.'  Will it push me over the edge and turn me off on Microsoft products?  Quite possibly.

microsoft
779 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Here's an interesting thought...I wonder if Microsoft even cares to look at some of these posts. Not necessarily here but on other forums. Be a good idea if they did. Just my two cents worth.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I wonder how well Vista will handle a GFX card replacement.....
I'm soon about to find out ;)
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I have been running Vista since RC1 as my HTPC. I did a media center update in November and my guide went poof. I haven't done anything about it yet due to time issues and the fact that the writers are on strike and there is nothing good on TV anyway.

I am going to have to blow it away soon because now my remote stopped working.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top

Snowman said:

I wonder how well Vista will handle a GFX card replacement.....
I'm soon about to find out

I don't think you'll see many problems with just replacing a graphics card, but then again I really shouldn't have seen problems with my install either.

In reality, I'm fairly certain that the problems that I encountered (and lots of people like me) came from DRM type issues.  Microsoft has tied the Media Player into the operating system so hard and fast that you can't just remove the software and re-install it.  You can 'trick' the OS into thinking you have downgraded to the point of needing a patch/service pack type upgrade, but that's as far back as you can get.  You can't just remove Media Player 11 from Vista though as it's embedded into the OS and can't be removed.

If you could remove it and/or force a repair of it, these problems would likely be gone from taking that approach.

 

Again though, just replacing a video card shouldn't cause a problem, and definitely shouldn't bring up any worries about having to revalidate the install with Microsoft.  That process still works off of the number of changes you make within a set period of time.  Too many changes would set off the alarms and force the revalidation, but for that to happen for most people, they'd have been replacing their entire system.  Replacing one component every 6 - 9 months normally won't raise the flags at all.

Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top

Just John said:

I have been running Vista since RC1 as my HTPC. I did a media center update in November and my guide went poof. I haven't done anything about it yet due to time issues and the fact that the writers are on strike and there is nothing good on TV anyway.

That's what was burning me about my problems, I saw plenty of comments on forums like these where others had similar problems that seemed to track back to updates that Microsoft put out.  Absolutely inexcusable.  If the stuff isn't tested better, and the problems aren't resolved before going out the door then Microsoft has failed (and is failing) miserably.

Worse is that people have contacted Microsoft for support and found nothing but a bunch of worthless non-solutions to try to solve the problems.  Clearly the support side has no idea what needs to be done to fix the problem, short of the total and complete re-install.  There has to be some way to fix things that doesn't get that drastic, too bad Microsoft hasn't offered it out there yet.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've run Ubuntu too, don't expect miracles there either...........

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Clearly the support side has no idea what needs to be done to fix the problem, short of the total and complete re-install.


I would really be pissed about doing the reinstall but I only use it for HTPC apps. As long as I don't have any issues playing back seasons 1 and 2 of heroes I am cool with the DRM that might be on those files.

I do hate DRM but it looks like it's going to be around for a while.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top

raisinjack said:

I've run Ubuntu too, don't expect miracles there either...........

I honestly don't.  In fact, I expect I'd be giving up too much to make the switch

Not that Ubuntu doesn't work.  Not that MythTV and Ubuntu won't work together, but they just aren't quite as friendly as using an Xbox 360 + Media Center are together, plus there are concerns about where to obtain program guide data with MythTV that don't exist with Windows Media Center or Vista (with included Media Center).

I don't expect a perfect solution here, but I do expect Microsoft to do a better job of problem solving when problems pop up, and from what I can see searching the web that isn't the case.

Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top

just john said this:

I would really be pissed about doing the reinstall but I only use it for HTPC apps. As long as I don't have any issues playing back seasons 1 and 2 of heroes I am cool with the DRM that might be on those files.

I do hate DRM but it looks like it's going to be around for a while.

Yeah, I'd be pretty worried about the DRM for stuff like that too, but I don't think it's an issue (don't know for sure until I try to play back the recordings that I had made earlier myself, hopefully tonite if time allows).

Since the high-def tuner card I was using is out for repair (darned cable connector on it broke), I can't record any new HD content for now, but I have some that came from that tuner already recorded, plus some SD content that I had on the drive as well.  I expect all of it to play, but will have to see how things go in testing. 

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Both Vista and I survived the new GFX 'implant' ;)