After finally getting Vista working on my desktop at about 11:30pm last night (it took 11 hours) the nightmare continued today. I would appear that although I purchased the upgrade version and still have XP on the hard drive (although I’m unable to access it) Vista now thinks that I should have a stand lone product key for validation, so essentially I’m unable to validate my totally 100% legal copy of Vista!
I did some digging and finally rang Microsoft this morning. After nearly 1 hour on the phone talking to 3 different people, I received this advice (copied directly from the email):
1. Restart Computer and Boot from Windows Vista DVD
2. Run Setup again, without entering the Product Key
3. Complete installation and boot into Windows Vista
4. While in Windows Vista, boot the Windows Vista DVD
5. Run Setup again and this time enter the product key
6. Complete the installation and you should be able to activate Windows Vista from here.
Yep, they’re telling me to reinstall Vista TWICE! Are they f*cking joking? I asked them to give me a key that works, they told me I’d have to buy it despite the fact that I’ve already purchased Vista and could provide them the Vista key and the original XP key. So I’ve got 29 days before Vista shuts down, I’ve had to reinstall all my software and drivers and now I have to do it all again twice! If I’m feeling brave I might try on the weekend but I tell you what at this point I’ve had enough of Microsoft, I’ve used Microsoft products since DOS god knows what and can still remember running Word for DOS, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on PCs and software and as far as Microsoft is concerned that don’t mean jack! Vista might be pretty, and admittedly it is fairly fast, but the whole Macs just work line is really driving me to the point that my next computer will be a Mac. The lost productivity and work time in dollar figures alone yesterday would have made for a nice deposit.
Go out and buy a new box with Vista pre-installed, Duncan. Upgrades are always ghastly and putting Vista on top of the now well messed-up XP is asking for trouble. Don’t give up on it yet. 🙂
In my experience Macs are no-less troublesome. As a recent switch to Mac, I really don’t find it any less frustrating than Vista/XP.
Though that said, I won’t be switching back to Vista anytime soon – I do now prefer the Mac, but they are not ‘leagues apart’ as some people would have you believe.
A
Thanks for headsup, am in the process of chasing up a an el cheapo whitebox, with a huge monitor, was contemplating vista with a 2 gig of ram, however may run with XP instead.
Best Of Luck Though….
Duncan I just did the same thing with my machine. I bought the Windows Vista Ultimate and upgraded. After upgrading and installing all my software, I went to the store bought a new motherboard for my kids machine. I liked the new motherboard so much i installed it on my computer and gave the old mother to the kids. The motherboard I got was a 3.33 Ghz Dual Core Celeron. I then installed a firewire PCI card, a 1 TB external harddrive, a dual monitor graphics card, and a DVD-RW on my machine. So needless to say the harddrive with Windows Vista did not work one bit anymore. So I had to restore my Windows XP and then reinstall the Windows Vista Ultimate again. Since I run my own webserver for my site. I had to instal apache, and Mysql too. Plus I added two gigs of memory. This all took about 8 hours, and luckily the activation code worked for me. But I do feel your pain, it was a huge pain in the ass to get the Windows Vista running again.
My next computer is going to be a triple booted machine with windows, OS X, and Linux.
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Software activation is one of those things that either works and disappears, or doesn’t and makes you pull your hair out. The issue with OEM keys and retail CDs on XP is another big issue, and probably exists for Vista too. Can’t you install a Vista upgrade without installing XP anymore (XP lets you install an upgrade version from scratch as long as it checks your previous version’s CD)?
Speaking of which, I managed to get Kubuntu installed, up and running, complete with funky Beryl visual effects too in 4 hours yesterday. Am I going to switch to it? No, because there are too many apps I need that aren’t available on it, but they’ve sure improved the install experience.
Duncan I feel the pain.
Having gone down this route with various Microsoft operating systems.
Are the Macs better. Well like Adrian I too recently brought a Mac into my production cycle. Is it easy to operate and use and generally does the OS get in the way. Well yes and no. It is more productive. Does the OS get in the way, yes but only in one instance. Does it just work, – yes, it is true!
Is there a big difference between OSX and Vista, well no. But its and small things on OSX and the Mac that help. Mainly the fact that you can find the reliable add ons you need (like in the old days).
Will my next computer be a Mac or a PC. Well if I can cross grade all the software (and some companies will not let you – GRRR) it will be a Mac. If I could have OSX on a PC then that would be he best of both worlds.
I don’t feel the pain,
I bought a mac last year. It’s is for sure not ‘painless’, but I feel much less fristrated behind a mac then behind a PC. My last system I really worked on was W2K. I have been playing with XP a bit… and I have never seen Vista in my live.
When I bought this mac is just worked, not messign around with drivers, updates and millions of CD I need to put in my computer (and restart one after eachother) just to get sound working.. Or when a piece of software doesn’t work the vedors says: Do you have the newest driver from website XYZ?
A mac is not hassle free for sure, but much less hassle in general!
Ries