Well, I put all the parts together and have Vista running on the PC. There’s plenty of info about putting a PC together already on the net so I’m not going to get into the details. The case had plenty of room so getting the motherboard and drives in wasn’t a problem. The cover is held on by one thumbscrew but it fits securely and is easy to remove. The only hitch I had was the lack of an available SATA power connector for the DVD reader so I had [...] Read the rest »
Vista PC Build – Parts and Planning
We won’t talk about how long it’s been since I built a computer, but let’s just say that the ATX form factor probably wasn’t even a twinkle in some engineer’s eye at the time. I’ve been eager to get back into it and also get a relatively low cost Windows computer that I could tinker with. Another thing I remember from those old days is value is more important than rock-bottom cost, cheaply made parts extract payment way beyond their price. So here are my requirements for this computer: Quite [...] Read the rest »
For Me: Windows XP Out, Windows Vista In
Actually, it’s not as dramatic as the headline suggests. I’m still primarily a Mac user and my only Windows usage is in a virtual machine. I do very little in Windows (outside of my day job). There’s a couple Windows apps I like – AnyDVD and Windows Live Writer – and I also use it when I need IE. While I did install Vista on my iMac awhile back I never bothered to move over to Vista and actually start using it. This past weekend I fired up Vista, applied [...] Read the rest »
Windows Vista Warning
I’ve been spending more time using Vista and Internet Explorer. I’m still using default settings, at least the security related ones. While browsing to Arstechnica.com the screen went gray and the following popup appeared: Now I think UAC is a good thing so I don’t want to just slam it. I’m guessing this was generated because there was a flash-based ad on the site. The ad didn’t display and using Firefox I saw it was a flash ad. My problem here is the message is useless. I didn’t start the [...] Read the rest »
Windows Vista Home Premium
While Vista isn’t new on the Quest I did add a new flavor, Windows Vista Home Premium. At $100 less than Vista Ultimate it seems to be the version to get. There are only a things Ultimate provides over Home Premium including Windows Complete Backup & Restore, Windows Fax and Scan, and Bitlocker disk encryption. I don’t care about any of those but there is one thing that Windows Vista Home Premium won’t give me, and that’s Remote Access through Windows Home Server. I’m installing this in a virtual machine [...] Read the rest »
List of Software Broken by Vista SP1
Microsoft has published a list of software that has problems with Windows Vista SP1. AntiVirus and security software makes up a big portion of the list. Most of the apps already have a solution of simply (hopefully simple that is) updating to the the latest version. While it doesn’t help Vista’s reputation to have more incompatibilities the list is currently rather small and seems to contain software that puts it’s hooks into the OS. I have to say, makes running Windows in a VM even more attractive, just create a [...] Read the rest »
Windows Vista SP1 RTM
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been released to manufacturing. The roll-out to end-users will begin in mid-March although not everyone will see it then. Microsoft has identified some drivers that work fine in the gold release of Vista but do not work with SP1. So if Microsoft detects those drivers on your PC you won’t be offered the update automatically. Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows has a Windows Vista SP1 FAQ with more information. So, is the release of SP1 enough to improve Windows Vista’s reputation? Update: Paul Thurrott [...] Read the rest »
The OS Quest Trail Log #9
I spent the week dabbling in new software. Pixelmator is out of beta and available now so I looked at that. Still reminds me a lot of Photoshop Elements, lots of palettes. The so-called HUDs are really just transparent palettes. Both are nice but Acorn has more than I currently know how to use and the price is great ($40) so I decided to go with Acorn. Pixelmator is $59. I suspect they may keep leapfrogging each other in terms of features and ease of use and I doubt either [...] Read the rest »
Parallels 3 Upgrade Checklist
I finally got around to updating my Parallels 2.5 installation to the latest Parallels 3. Parallels 3 has been out awhile and I’ll be installing build 4560. I’ll be upgrading Parallels on my iMac and have 5 virtual machines configured. I don’t have Boot Camp installed on my iMac. I checked to see if there was an update to Parallels 2.5. There was an update available for download but I was on the recently released build 3212. I didn’t see any mention of needing the newer version to do the [...] Read the rest »
