Windows Mayhem - Part 1 (Vista)

My sister just got herself a new Sony Vaio laptop from Singapore and she came over today to ask me to move her files from our old desktop to her new machine.

It was my first time to have actually used Windows Vista (poking around display units doesn't count). To be honest, I wasn't disappointed. Why? Because I've read enough bad reviews about it, so I knew what was coming... or what was not coming.

The first thing I did is to configure the wireless network to connect to my home network. It was pretty simple and straightforward so I was done in under a minute.

The real pain in the a** was when I tried to access my desktop. In XP, I would normally go to Start -> Run, type in the network path, then it prompts for my username and password and I'm done.

In Vista, either the Run button is missing, or I'm just blind. Which I am NOT. So I tried it the M$ way, I clicked My Computer, and a "new and supposedly improved" explorer window popped up. I selected a Network icon on the side panel to see which computers are nearby. And the only computer found was itself. I realized that this was a common problem for Windows Networking so I didn't bother to troubleshoot it.

Thankfully, the location bar was still there, but when I typed in my \\hostname, it could not resolve the IP address. This works for my laptop (XP64) and my 2nd desktop (XP32) and I don't understand why it wouldn't work on Vista. Grrrr...

Anyhow, I just used the IP address instead and was finally able to do what I wanted to do. After finishing the transfers, I gave my sister a lecture on how to search and download files through torrents/trackers. I also asked her to put a password on her administrator account. I told her not to use the administrator account, and create a standard user account instead. But before that, I had to scare her by telling her I could easily logon to her laptop and wipe all her files clean. >:)

So I created a standard account for the sake of security. At first, we were satisfied. But after 3 logons/logoffs, we got sick of the security popups asking for the administrator password each time we try to connect to the wireless network after logon, and I ended up changing her account type to administrator. Scr*w the Vista Security!

In the end, we still got to play around with some cool tricks with the built-in camera. Although it was nowhere near the Apple's iSight and Photo Booth. And I mean nowhere.

My encounter with Vista wasn't as good as I expected it to be, but it wasn't that bad too. Maybe I just need to spend some time poking around with it.

I am actually planning to get a copy of Vista soon, specially since Service Pack 1 was already released. Hopefully, it will be better.

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Just a few hours after my sister left, my uncle called, asking for help with his computer...