Vista RTM installed

November 17, 2006 @ 2:43 am- from Maui, Hawaii

Vista is available for download now from MSDN and I just grabbed it. It came down pretty quickly 2 and a half gig at about an hour and a half while I was out for dinner.

I just installed on my laptop and I'm happy to say that this was a very smooth installation. Install took about 20 minutes to startup screen and the machine managed to come up with all devices configured! Impressive especially since that never worked on XP...

Couple of cool things that happened during install: Vista detected my second monitor as soon as I plugged it in offered a dialog to choose what to display on the second monitor (mirror or extend) and then properly figured out the resolution. Again, this never worked on XP even though this is a plug and play monitor. Cool. Maybe I can put the video nightmares I've been having during the beta period with two monitors behind me...

One of the first things I do is copy a bunch of stuff to my desktop folder and to my SendTo menu which makes life a little smoother. But finding those folders like the SendTo menu is a bit tricky in Vista. They're not directly in your user folder (c:\users\rstrahl\SendTo) but rather they are redirected folders. It turns out they are redirected into the roaming profile under an intuitive path like this:

C:\Users\rstrahl\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

Yeah, that's where I thought I should look for this <s>.

One quirk that I have run into is with ClearType. I’ve given up on using ClearType completely now – it gives me severe headaches after a few hours of coding, so I’m back to running without any font smoothing. So I’ve turned off ClearType and that does seem to work for all applications running, except for Windows itself. Explorer, Internet Explorer (its menus and toolbars anyway and the desktop, icons etc. all still use ClearType which looks really blurry in comparison to the crisp non-ClearType text. That’s pretty lame, but I suppose that’s not nearly as much of an issue as say the VS.NET Code editor <s>…

So now I’m off repaving the box and reinstalling everything. What’re the first 5 things you install on your new machines?

For me it’s Office, EditPad, SlickRun, Visual FoxPro and VS.NET… (and ProcessExplorer).

All up and running now with no problems so far although I haven’t run VS through anything heavy yet.

I’m doing this install connected to my old drive via SATA->USB bridge connector so getting files copied and configurations moved over has been quick and easy for the most part. I’ve been running Office and Outlook and a few internal applications here through their paces and Vista RTM seems quite a bit snappier and responsive than RC1 did. So far – two hours in I haven’t seen any glitches or problems…

A good sign? Maybe? I’m sure I’ll find something that’ll put a stop to my optimism <g>… Murphy loves me. Maybe it’ll be different this time. Yeah right…

Posted in Personal Vista

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re: Vista RTM installed
by Dave Entwistle November 17, 2006 @ 5:28 am

"What’re the first 5 things you install on your new machines?"

1) Total Commander
2) Firefox
3) Yankee Clipper
4) ConTEXT
5) this one I'll copy straight form yur post: VS.NET… (and ProcessExplorer)

re: Vista RTM installed
by Bob Archer November 17, 2006 @ 6:56 am

I generally install the small things that I use all the time first:

Winzip
Notepad2
Beyond Compare
IE7 addins - Inline Find and Dev Toolbar
FeedDemon

Before I even get to productivity and dev stuff. VFP is so easy/quick to install I will install it when I need it. I don't do alot of VFP dev currently.

What, Process Explorer's not on Vista out of the box?

BOb

PS: Looks like you change your CAPTCHA?

re: Vista RTM installed
by Kevin Dente November 17, 2006 @ 8:09 am

In IE7 on XP I recall seeing a setting called "Always use cleartype" in Tools/Options. Don't know if it's there in Vista, but you may want to take a look.

re: Vista RTM installed
by Rick Strahl November 17, 2006 @ 11:29 am

The alway use cleatype option in IE is off and it applies only to the content I think. IE is actually not using Cleartype in the browser - only in the menus and titlebar. It's a bit odd...

Be curious to see if others can duplicate this...

re: Vista RTM installed
by Rick Strahl November 17, 2006 @ 11:31 am

Bob, yes the captcha's been updated to use Jeff Atwood's latest control. As to VFP the reason for the install up front is that several apps I run internally are VFP apps. The message reader for the Message Board and Help Builder in particular, so it's crucial the runtimes are installed. Funny how that 'small' install seemed like a pain some time ago. Now the 2 or so minute install seems like a breeze as does that 4 meg runtime <g>...

re: Vista RTM installed
by Stephen Byard November 17, 2006 @ 12:43 pm

I have just ordered my new workstation - first time in a while I cannot be bothered to build one myself! Now, when it arrives, should I install Vista or use the default XP install?

Workstation is dual Xeon, but it looks like X86 is the way to go due to lack of x64 drivers.

I run a Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Domain controller and manage a forest of other domains, so I need to log into this. I spend all day on VS2005 and SQL Server 2005, so should I go with XP instead? I develop fewer Windows Apps these days, with web sites being most of the work.

Reading some of your Beta and RC issues with VS2005, Vista doesn't seem like the best short term solution, especially as we are still waiting for VS2005 SP1 (the hot-fix doesn't cure my issues)

re: Vista RTM installed
by Sam Gentile November 18, 2006 @ 6:19 am

Hmm, maybe you're right, one should never upgrade-) but it was RC2 to final which is pretty close. Anyhow, I am happy you had a great experience.

re: Vista RTM installed
by Sashidhar Kokku November 18, 2006 @ 6:59 pm

I have to agree....the installation was awesome.....15 mins on my 1.5 yr old sys with 1.5GB RAM.

re: Vista RTM installed
by ravescar November 19, 2006 @ 6:07 pm

"What are the first 5 things you install on Machine?"

Firefox
Textpad
Real Alternative
Office
World of Warcraft

re: Vista RTM installed
by Jereme Guenther November 29, 2006 @ 9:56 am

"What are the first 5 things you install on Machine?"

MS Office
VS.NET
SQL Server Management Studio (haven't got it to work in Vista yet)
TextPad
HEX Color Finder

The management studio problem is the biggest reason I haven't started using Vista in my daily work yet. I was able to get it to open correctly once, ever since it crashes as soon as I try to open it.

Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions: Microsoft Vista - Impressions after Week 1
by Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions December 18, 2006 @ 5:48 am

FORUM MP | FoxPro : Compatibilité VFP et Vista
by MP_NEWS December 22, 2006 @ 8:12 am

FoxPro & Compatibilité VFP et Vista