Recently, I decided to install the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. For over 25 years, I’ve been installing and reinstalling myriad versions of DOS and Windows. Prior to Vista, I routinely ‘clean-installed’ Windows at least once a year, reveling in that shiny, happy moment when Windows is uncluttered by the software I need to get anything done.
Note that I have not felt the need to reinstall Vista on my primary desktop machine since I installed the final version nearly a year and a half ago. That’s a testament to improvements in my setup, which is partly due to Vista and partly due to 2GB RAM and vast disk space. (In contrast, I have reinstalled at least once on my 1GB / 60GB laptop.)
My colleague and fellow New Mexican, Ed Bott, a geek’s geek, has written of the joys of 64. One barely needs to grasp the true differences between 32-bit (standard) and 64-bit to intuit the latter might be twice as good. While the truth may not be quite so linear, 64-bit Vista offers improved performance, stability and security, including access to more RAM (than I have). Designed for the latest processors, 64-bit is inevitable.
After a quick refresh and double-check of my redundant backups, I booted from the Vista 64 DVD. Over all, the installation process is identical for the two versions (32 & 64). However, my first problem arose when the installer reported it could not find a suitable destination. Strangely, the screen displayed the drive I wanted to use plus my external USB drives. Though there was nothing displayed to help me, those USB drives were the problem. I understand they might be unsuitable for booting (though my desktop’s BIOS supports USB booting). I’m shocked that (a) they prevented the installer from allowing the one suitable drive and (b) there wasn’t a clue about this.
Eventually, I shut off my 3 external drive (1.75TB) and rebooted to the DVD. This time, the main drive was acceptable. Vista’s setup doesn’t require any interaction after the first few screens for 30-60 minutes.
I returned to find a boot options screen offering Safe Mode or normal start — an unexpected, bad sign. Because this screen happily boots normally after 30 seconds, I imagine this had come up many, many times before I returned.
I started normally and completed the setup process (name, icon, background image, computer name). I proceeded to Problem Reports and Solutions, which told me of a couple of new drivers. One was for one of my personal video recorders (USB). The other was an IBM program that was far from self-explanatory — did I want this or not? (I installed it and later uninstalled it. I still don’t know what it was for.)
Next, I tried Windows Update, curious what would show given that this installation includes Service Pack 1. Hmmm. Update would not run. Understand: Nothing happened no matter how I tried to initiate Update. Moving right along, I looked at Network and Sharing Settings and saw the first of several things I’ve never seen before: Access Denied, in the middle of the normally helpful dialog. Oddly, I had Internet service, I just wasn’t allowed to know anything or do anything about it.
Somewhere in this Looking Glass moment, I got the first of many, many perplexing error messages. One oddity of these messages was that the look, size, shape and position of the dialog box varied, though all looked rather last-century, as if each iteration was hand-crafted by a student failing Programming 101. Another oddity was that each consistently included a reference to d: and a folder named "rtm" (release to manufacture). D: would be the empty DVD drive; ‘rtm’ seems rather out-dated. Many different actions triggered many variations on this error. None of the messages was the least bit helpful, though I read their tea leaves and carried their entrails to the alter of Google, like a worthy supplicant.
Eventually, I enabled the normally disabled Administrator account and logged in as god. Windows Update and Network and Sharing Settings worked normally — yeah! But the same mystery messages kicked in.
The Update and other limited functioning was resolved by deleting my personal user account and recreating it. No doubt, that infinite boot-loop contributed to some corruption of my account. Still, as Administrator or me, I was haunted by these *ridiculous* messages.
[How many differences can you find?]
Hoping that the problems I ignore will fix themselves (it’s my approach to life — don’t ask how that’s going), I went about feathering my nest, beginning with the Sidebar. The Sidebar crashed. Honestly, that’s not so unusual in Vista, but this crash was awesome. It began when I tried to add the built-in calendar gadget. Crash! From that point forward, every time I restarted, the Sidebar crashed immediately. Worse, though Sidebar crashed, it remained in memory and quickly revved up nearly 100% CPU activity, like a coma victim running a marathon. The catch was that I could not remove the gadget before each crash. Eventually, I had to delete the calendar gadget from the Sidebar folder and manually tweak the Sidebar INI file. (Oh for the days of INI files — often inscrutable, but so easily hackable.) Mission accomplished.
Odds favored a driver problem and, most likely, a video driver problem. Let me say here that even before this trouble, I have been extremely disappointed with nVidia, on many levels. nVidia’s website is not very friendly. nVidia’s naming convention for drivers is bizarre, based on the final 4 digits of a long version number, not the first few. This makes difficult deciding which of two drivers is newer. While nVidia has released many updates to their drivers in the last year and a half, I sense they still don’t have it right. (I’m also specifically disappointed by the card, GS7600, because of the horribly clumsy way it handles output to a TV. I cannot use my two monitors and my TV, even though there are 3 connections — and my pre-Vista setup handled that. To use the TV, I have to disable the secondary monitor, which nVidia’s ornate and otherwise useless control panel makes easy. That scrambles my carefully arranged screen setup.)
For quite some time, I tried various drivers, some direct from nVidia, some Microsoft’s (presumably from nVidia itself). By this time, I had settled on an easy way to trigger the weird messages: Try to use the Photos screen saver. [Insert Vista error sound.] Always the same, with every driver.
[How many differences can you find?]
What I’ve described here sounds like a few bad hours, but this spread out over most of a week and included at least one more clean install and lots of trial and error, error, error. It is not easy for me to quit in such situations. My thoroughness coupled with optimism traps me. "This time will be different," and, I think, even if it isn’t better, the differences will help me figure this out.
In the end, defeated, I had to roll back a week’s wasted time to the previous version. That ordeal deserves its own blog entry.
peace,
mjh
, by Mark Justice Hinton (Wiley Publishing)
, by Rick Hallihan. Windows Home Server has considerable potential for automatically and regularly backing up a few computers on a small network. Like any other tool, you need to understand how it works and to check up on it regularly. Don’t simply trust your backups.
