I just became part of the "I hate Vista" group.

• On 2008 December 5, I called Apple and ordered a Mac Mini. From then until now I have called Apple Support twice:
  • First, because the wireless mouse was shipped DHL and DHL does not deliver in Quartzsite, and the Post Office "Returned, it to the sender". The mini was shipped FedEx and it was delivered fine. When I called Apple the fellow I spoke with couldn't have been more helpful, and said "We will do everything we can to get it to you as quickly as possible." It was delivered via FedEx the next day!

    He also gave me a lot of advice, and assured me there would be no confusion if I used a borrowed Logitech mouse until I got the one from Apple. I did and everything worked fine.

  • Second, I wanted to try the Apple Mail facility. (For the last few months I have been using Google Mail, and it works fine on the Mac.) I didn't want the Apple Mail program to put out my Quartzsite phone company's email address; but instead what is listed on the bottom of my web pages. (It can be forwarded to whatever email service I am using, so hopefully my email address doesn't ever have to change.) Unfortunately, it appears the apple mail program doesn't allow a Reply to address to be permanently set to something different. Both Google and Windows Outlook Express has addressed this. None-the-less the fellow I spoke with took the time to call "an expert" to see if it could be done. Unless the "expert" was wrong, I will continue to use Gmail. I am getting three highly recommended reference books about the Mac software. So I still might find it is possible. ??

  The experience of dealing with HP and Microsoft, is enough to make me an Apple enthusiast. And the Mac also has some great features: One I love is its' "Sleep" mode. It goes into it and comes out almost instantaneously--I don't think either takes a full second. And in "Sleep" it takes so little electrical power my Watts UP ? says: 0.0 Watts! So with a Mac mini it is effectively always on!

I am putting some of my reasons to hate Vista in the following list.

1. The following was written on 2008 May 26
2. I just bought an Hp tx2000Zz it has Vista and an AMD dual 64-bit processor. The hardware is rather elegant--BUT, there is virtually no user manual or even description of the lights and buttons. This really sucks. HP should be ashamed of themselves! Supposedly, everything is on the hard disk, but what is there only belabors the obvious. I haven't yet even found out how to properly turn it off without several mouse clicks.
3. I let the automatic upgrade down-load "Service Pack 1". It was over 276 Megabytes, and then down-loaded "Virtual PC" about 37 Megs. It is insane to even think about the VISTA Up-grades using a dial-up connection. It would literally take days. Who could afford to tie up their phone line for that long? Fortunately I found a friend who has a fast broad-band connection and a Wi-Fi. We spent most of a day getting it done. There are a few more details bellow in green.
4. While I am at it I might point out a couple things HP could improve in the hardware.
   1. I use and prefer a Touch Pad to a mouse. The one HP has is a poor! It is little surprise that most people prefer a cordless mouse. The Touch Pad on an older Fujitsu laptop is much better.
   2. It has a "pen" and a touch screen. I went through the training program for the pen and was very disappointed.
   3. It has a "finger print" reader. But it is marginal at best. In the opening dialog I trained it on my left thumb, but when I tried to use it I could not get it to work. Fortunately, they were smart enough to make you have a password as well. It is far faster to type in a password. I don't know if the problem is in the software or the hardware, but at the present I find it is a useless gimmick.
   4. On the positive: I bought the USB connected floppy drive and it works great.

5. On 2008 August 21 I tried Updating the Map in my Garmin C330

   Of course it didn't work using VISTA 64-bit version which HP says they cannot down-grade to the 32-bit version.

6. I have written lots of programs in Assembly Language under DOS and have many programs which are FAR better than anything available in Windows.
7. I was able to get a "Command Line" prompt. Most of the Dos commands are there, but it will not even start any of my .COM programs. ?Any Suggestions?
8. At the suggestion of a bright young engineer, who works for "Western Digital" I down-loaded MicroSoft's Virtual PC, which is supposed to allow one to run, under Vista or XP, different operating systems. (Google on "Virtual PC" to find more info.) Thinking I was setting up an XP system, after much confusion and uncertainty, it requested a system boot. I connected the USB Floppy Drive and inserted a DOS 6.2 system floppy. After fumbling about with Escape, and Enter it actually booted DOS 6.2 from the floppy. I am not sure it will stay, or if I can make it do it again! I was able to run my DOS programs! However they ran slower than they run on an old 100 Megahertz computer. But, they do run and I don't care that much about the speed. Now I need to figure out how to transfer files from DOS 6.2 to the VISTA world. Hopefully, that is possible.
9. To summarize: Vista takes several mouse clicks to accomplish what was done with one with XP or ME. (If it can be done at all.) And of course, like with most versions of Microsoft software: Each takes longer to get going and quite, even though the hardware is twice as fast. My older computers: one running WinME (the best) and the second running WinXP are simply better.

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