Documenting here, for posterity, some of my most frustrating moments with Microsoft's Windows Vista Home Premium on my self-assembled computer Quad-core (Q6600), 4 GB, 320 GB SATA + 10 GB IDE. I've installed Fedora Core 9 on the 10 GB HDD.
1) I read up that Vista "assumes" only a single core proc at boot time. Vista can be "shown" that there are more cores by changing the setting in System Configuration -> Boot -> Advanced Options -> No. Of Processors. I try opening the setting, but lo, the "Advanced Options" button just doesn't respond to my clicks! What's more, the list of OSes in the dialog box is empty! Does that mean I have NO OS on my PC?
After researching for about a week, I found that apparently Windows Vista doesn't like the fact that it is being booted through the Fedora boot manager! The solution? I had to delete the boot manager partition on the Fedora HDD.
So now, how do I boot into Fedora? Simple (I thought!). Add it to the list of OSes in Windows Vista's System Configuration -> Boot. Is there a simple way to do this? No way! After some more researching, I finally did it this way: http://www.canerten.com/dual-boot-linux-and-windows-with-windows-boot-manager/. Apparently, Microsoft is trying their darndest best to stop you from even experimenting with any other OS.
The list of OSes System Configuration still shows only 1 OS, although mercifully bcdedit.exe shows the Fedora entry, and so does the new boot menu (Vista's). Also, I can now change the number-of-processors setting to 4, although I don't notice any speed up in boot time.
2) Windows Vista's Backup and Restore Center just doesn't work on my PC. I just want to back up my Digital Photos, but Vista just takes me through some 40% of the process (if the progress bar is any real indication at all!) and just hangs there with the DVD writer spinning on and off in a 5- secs cycle indefinitely. I have left it in that state for over 2 hours, and there is no progress at all. What is worse, clicking the Stop button just re-labels it to Stopping..., with no change in behaviour. The main Backup And Restore Center window is non-respondent, so is any new Explorer window that I open. I can't even eject the DVD. Worst of all - I can't log off! The system gets hung in the Logging Off.... screen. I'd seriously suggest this app be skipped by anyone who wishes to keep his / her sanity intact.
Conclusion:
My 2 cents on what is wrong, systemically speaking, within Microsoft. I've seen closely their dev process (am a dev there myself :). Whereas in all the 3 other software product development companies that I've worked for before follow a process of setting a quality bar for a software release before-hand, and then driving the no. of bugs down to meet that criterion, in Microsoft, it is the opposite! In the final drive towards the euphemistically named ZBB (Zero Bug Bar), the new and existing bugs are repeatedly "traiged" (basically punted to the next release / closed / discarded - anything BUT fixed) at "higher and higher bars" till there are zero bugs left during the release! This actually means that the acceptable product quality is progressively lowered till a release can be made! What an inversion of common sense and logic! I was rudely awakened to this skewed logic when, during the internal dog-fooding of Windows Vista, I filed a pretty bad UI bug. When this was punted out, I wrote back to the PM of the feature passionately pleading to take it up, as the fix was pretty simple, according to a fellow dev who'd worked on the feature, and, more importantly, the UI of the feature could be pretty simply totally messed up by even a novice user. Guess what, the PM replied telling me that the bug bar is now past UI - that means NO new UI bugs were to be taken up! Apparently I was late by a couple days! (And this was a good 5-6 months before the Vista RTM.) Thus, Vista actually shipped with the very nasty UI bug, leaving me speechless, feeling totally cheated.
