In other words, our software sucks and you have to the option to suck less.

M$ will never ship anything better than XP.

I have to agree. While Vista is pretty and has cool features I find it unstable, slow and has rendered a lot of my peripherals "not compatible".

I have no interest in 7. I'm in the market for a new laptop and I can't help but think.... Just let me have xp, please?

Plus if I can't use my chessmaster, I'm gonna be really disappointed.

Thank G-d! I need a new computer, but have not wanted Vista and have therefore not bought a new computer.

I've been testing the Windows 7 Beta - looks and feels like Vista. They have removed some of the bloat so it boots and runs faster.

Great! I'm going to have real need for laptop soon and have heard nothing bur horror stories about Vista.

Waiting out Vista for 7 is a good idea. We have so many clients that still have XPPRO or have bought it instead of Vista.

If 7 turns out to be what Vista should have been, and it appears that it might, there will be a huge backlog of pent up purchases for next year.

I didn't go from 98 to XP until they dropped the free 98 updates, so that is my plan with XP. It looks like Vista is the ME...something to take money from quick adaptors, but not the real product.

M$ will never ship anything better than XP.

Assuming you don't have a 64 bit/multicore processor and/or 4+ gig of RAM.

I played with Vista a bit when it first came out and just reinstalled it a couple months ago with SP1. It is leaps and bounds better than it was before.

I agree, xp is about as good as it gets. In my work, we use these monolithic engineering programs that just take over your computer. XP runs these things like nobody's business. But if you put the same programs on vista, they don't run as well. I just figured it was because the original programs were written for unix, then nt, then xp.

but, vista is certainly not as bad as some people say, especially for home use. I use it for multimedia stuff. It works fine. If you are gonna use vista, load up with as much memory as your system will take.

But the best rule is to not adopt any new operating system until it's been out a few years.

btw

The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday.

This piece of computer code told the worm to activate on April 1, researchers found.

Researchers were analyzing the code of the software that is being dropped onto infected computers but suspect that it is a keystroke logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.

The software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised, according to Trend Micro. The software is heavily encrypted, which makes code analysis difficult, the researchers said.

The worm also tries to connect to MySpace.com, MSN.com, eBay.com, CNN.com and AOL.com as a way to test that the computer has Internet connectivity, deletes all traces of itself in the host machine, and is set to shut down on May 3, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.

Because infected computers are receiving the new component in a staggered manner rather than all at once there should be no disruption to the Web sites the computers visit, said Paul Ferguson, advanced threats researcher for Trend Micro.

"After May 3, it shuts down and won't do any replication," Perry said. However, infected computers could still be remotely controlled to do something else, he added.

I played with Vista a bit when it first came out and just reinstalled it a couple months ago with SP1. It is leaps and bounds better than it was before.

I still have SP1. When I did my last WindowsXP reinstall (I've done about 10 reintalls off the CD) Dell told me on the phone not to download SP2 again as it often brings problems. No trouble since with using only SP1.

Thanks for the info on Conflicker, Corky.

You're welcome. Lots of folks had headaches from SP2 for Vista, btw.

I still have SP1. When I did my last WindowsXP reinstall (I've done about 10 reintalls off the CD) Dell told me on the phone not to download SP2 again as it often brings problems. No trouble since with using only SP1.

I'm speaking of Vista SP1. If you are running XP, you are putting your computer at unnecessary risk if you aren't running SP3. I'll take the problems of running the latest service pack over software vulnerabilities any day of the week. If you aren't seeing any sort of software conflicts relating toward running XP SP3, I would definitely recommend installing it.

Errr...CC, if you were talking about Vista all along, I apologize. I've spent too much time looking at IP addresses this morning and I'm ready for lunch. :)

Been running Windows 7 since the beta came out. Even in beta it is the best OS that Microsoft has ever made. Better than XP and far better than Vista.

Even my Mac addict friends have complimented MS on their work.

Hagbard,
You can buy new XP laptops from Dell Business. I just bought one and it runs great.

I've been running vista for almost 3 years now. I've never had an issue with software or hardware compatibility.

vLite is a great little app too. Excellent for streamlining the install and for slip streaming service packs and updates into the installation.

I use XP at work and support 15+ computers. If they all had vista, my life would actually be a little easier because of UAC, but our software vendor refuses to test their software on vista.

Windows 7 is going to have some nasty DRM on it.

Windows 7 is going to have some nasty DRM on it.

For every person that Microsoft hires to put it in, there are a 1000 nerds working on taking it out...for free.

have heard nothing bur horror stories about Vista.

I've been running Vista for about 8 months-only problem has been between it and Firefox (a couple of times)when going to a posted link. Does need a lot of RAM though and no real improvement over XP...

Here's a nice little backdoor trick in case you forgot your admin password. Not very safe though.

Any geeks here?

I tripped over a kid , throwing the cereal bowl across the room and some landed on the laptop keyboard. I wiped it off...pull the keys and cleaned it....the dried it off with the blow dryer. Some keys did not work for awhile, but started working again. But my jkl;m,. do not respond.

Am I screwed? Easy fix...small repair bill...big MF' in repair bill? Or..give it to the kids to muck around with and buy a new laptop?

Kerrin

We have a network support business and my lead engineer is from Peru. My daughter spilt coffee in the keyboard and when we opened it there was plenty of java still in it and it was dead.

On the advise of our lead guy, we took it apart completely and bathed the whole thing in carbonated water, spraying everything and letting some parts soak.

To my amazement, after it was dried and put back together, it booted right up and is working fine now.

spilt cofee in the keyboard of her laptop - it should read

Kerrin

You can find a new keyboard for your laptop on ebay, and some of the sellers have instructions posted on changing it out.

Look for a new one with warranty instead of used.

If 7 turns out to be what Vista should have been, and it appears that it might, there will be a huge backlog of pent up purchases for next year. -- #7 | Posted by Corky

Maybe, but Vista will always be a memory hog. I'll go Linux before I'll sacrifice that much memory to an OS.

I tripped over a kid , throwing the cereal bowl across the room and some landed on the laptop keyboard. I wiped it off...pull the keys and cleaned it.... -- #26 | Posted by kerrin57

The keyboard isn't the only concern. When something similar happened to me and my laptop was still under warranty, they advised replacing the motherboard.

If your computer isn't under warrranty, you probably don't want to do that -- too expensive, and it may be unnecessary. I didn't take their advice, fwiw, and got another 2-3 years of heavy use out of it.

Thanks Corky....I appreciate the info.
I have replaced disk/dvd drives and cleaned our computers. I had to learn when we had the farm...dust and flies were an ongoing prob.It lent a new meaning to debugging.

Other than that I am a dummy with most of it.

I will check for anymore info on Mon. Right now the weather is superb...and I will be planting my butt off this weekend.
Hope all the pilates I have been doing keep me from being a bent over/sore muscle wreck come Mon.

Safe and happy weekend to y'all.