Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Why I uninstalled Windows Vista


First of all let me tell you I got me a new computer. It's a Toshiba A205-S4617 with 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo, 250GB HD, and so on.
It came with Vista preloaded which I like (by then).
I bought it on vacations so I started using it to download my pictures from my digital camera and uploaded them to my picassa web albums. So far so good.
When I got back home I started to install the programs I need.
First of all, I noticed an extremely annoying pop up a little too often asking me if I was sure about running the setups.
Including setups digitally signed by Microsoft, "what, don't you trust each other?" :)

The first piece of software I installed was Visual Studio 2003, I still have some clients with applications in .net 2.0, and when I tried to run it I got a message telling me that VS2003 is not supported by Vista, and recommending me to go online to find a solution. Well, I went, but got no solution. Instead, I found the confirmation that VS2003 does not run in Vista. At first I got pissed, why would Microsoft do such a thing!. Then I thought, well it's a good time to migrate my old clients to C# 2.0, but then I found that SQL 2005 needs SP2 to run in Vista and SQL 2000 won't run, no matter what, just like VS2003. Now, I'm really pissed... I really can't think of one good thing of not allowing SQL 2000 in Vista.
I tried to create a Virtual PC with the software I need but the I found out that I can't have SQL 2000 in a virtual PC which databases’ file are in the actual PC's drive... so that's it... I formatted my hard drive and installed a fresh copy of WindowsXP Pro wich is great, runs faster, allows me to do everything I need, and I'm used to it.
I believe this is the first time Microsoft creates an OS that does not allows software that ran in previous versions run in the new one.

I know I'll have to move to Vista some day, but it won't be anytime soon.

5 comments:

Bob said...

Sebastian, I ran into many of the same issues with Vista as you but so far I am sticking with Vista. I bit the bullet and installed SQL 2005 instead of SQL 2000. Yes SQL 2005 is annoyingly different but it will be good to get used to it. I did not need to install VS 2003 and VS 2005 is working good after installing the Vista patches. The frequent "do you want to allow" pop ups were annoying at first but now I'm starting to like that the OS warns you when something is running with administrator rights. The biggest issue that may cause me to reformat and go back to XP is iTunes. I restored my iPod image using iTunes after it went through the washing machine and now iTunes on Vista won't let me access the iPod. It says the iPod restore was incomplete and must be done again. I don't have this problem on XP so I may give up and go back to XP.

Sebastián Gómez said...

Hey Robert, glod you wrote!
The thing is I DO need SQL2000 and VS2003 at least for a while to plan my migraion to Vista. Until then, I'll stick to XP, to me, Microsoft's greates OS ever.

Anonymous said...

Sebastian,

I have three PC's on my network. I run Win Server 03 for hosting solutions (you know .. sql 2005), Vista as my development platform and another server i set aside for files (these files everyone on the network can see). Then there's the other two. Kitchen laptop and living room TV (hooked up a pc to it acts as a media center).

I'm having no problems with Visual Studio on Vista. One thing you have to remember is to always have the database on a seperate PC somewhere (on the network).

What if your dev machine fails? My network is running at 100% efficiency even when all the devices are being used, no down time and no issues with Vista and the dev environment.

Good luck on your adventures!
- Steve

Sebastián Gómez said...

Thanks for your comments Steve.
But let me tell you that my case is a little different. My dev machine is a notebook since I need to move arround with it, go to clients and so on, so I need both sql2000 and sql2005 in it.
And second, I can't afford that many computers :(

But I'll keep in mind your suggestions! Thanks

Anonymous said...

I have on my notebook (DELL) also Vista ULT with VS2003, VS2005 SP1 and SQL Server 2005 SP2. I dont have any problems (only warnings on install, but these programs installed successfully). My friend has also SQL Server 2000 and also no problems. We are both developers... Well, I am Vista user that doesn't have any problems (and using it from February 07)... :-)