Vista - REvisited

Post by **DNR** » 14 Jul 2009, 09:59

I took at look through the forum to find a Vista thread to write to - none current so here is my Windows Vista Thread.

I finall broke off the last USB port on my laptop - who was the genius that decided to make USB ports flimsy - they are just held by some solder on the mobo. Mobile computing needs a durable platform.

The good thing is - I got to buy a new laptop - the old one was getting to be about 6 years old - I never would have replaced it unless it broke.

The Dell laptop model i15-157b I got for $599. Intel Core Duo Processor t6400 at 2ghz, 2mb cache and a 800mhz fsb, with 4gb of RAM.

One of the things that I disregarded was the claim of "5 hour battery life!" thats typical bullshit vendors put on display to fool the ignorants. I found that on High Performance or even Balanced Performance - and normal use - like email and surfing - gets you 2h44m.

My last OS was Win XPsp3, but I have been doing a fair amount of study on Vista. While in the forums here, you might find a lot of threads complaining about Vista - I never found much evidence to back it up.

My diagnosis on Vista is this: Any time you have to take legacy hardware and install a NEW OS - something that was coded with the intent of running with NEW hardware - you will always have problems of compatibility. My Sysadmin rule of thumb is only get a NEW OS if you get a NEW hardware ie PC or Server. It will ALWAYS be a problem trying to update old hardware for a NEW OS. My rule - don't do it.

I felt better about trying Vista on a new hardware platform, rather than trying to update all the drivers, devices, and applications on a old platform (a six yr old laptop was a guarantee of problems)

I have only been using Vista for four days, but you know me - I am a pretty adept computer user so I have smacked my new system around to determine if its worthy. I got 14 days to return this laptop and I will know by the end of 13 days if I want this baby!

I got the Vista Premium Home Edition - which is good, you want the tools that are left out of the stripped down plain versions.

Every Windows product I ever had was usually a shadow image of its previous OS, the GUI looks similar, the tools and views are still there. It only took a few minutes to figure out the new paths to find them - MS attempt to make things easier - just moved shit around a little.

Now, a real sysadmin would be more interested in the guts of the machine rather than the cool graphics and effects. So as I worked my way around the OS setting it up to my preferences I noticed some of the not-so obvious new tricks.

The best way to protect yourself has always been "Not to Run with Admin Priviledges", on the Vista this will be the key to protecting your machine.
With the correct privileges (running as a User) the DEP will work as advertised. DEP is the Data Execution Protection - its not new, its been standard for Win2k server. So it was kind of neat to see a server-type protection on a desktop. So far I have not found a program that was shut down by DEP, trusted programs can be Run as Admin priviledges with a check box in properties.

I found the Software Explorer to be new - the detail of all the software on my computer was really neat. With the enhancements, even the Event Viewer looks better, and provides more information than before. Another new tool was the Reliability and Performance Monitor - check out the System Dianosis Report - it is very detailed, I would conduct my first System checkup here if I ever had a problem with a Vista machine.

So far so good, I am happy with Vista. I will be trying some of my old tools on the OS, so far WifiCommView is not going to run. While there is a check box for XPM (winXPsp3 mode) it might not work. I already bet those same tools that will not work under WinXPsp3 will certainly not work for Vista or its XPM.

More later.

Comments for this thread should omit the standard "Vista Sucks" Windows Sucks, etc as there are plenty of those threads. Keep this one positive and useful. If you have something bad to say - provide DETAIL - ex. old legacy hardware install.

DNR

Post by **floodhound2** » 14 Jul 2009, 10:04

DNR - you running a 32 bit version ? I find that most problems in vista are on the 64 bit platform. You should seriously look for a laptop that has a windows 7 upgrade. Trust me you will want 7 its far more stable than vista with much greater speed.

Post by **DNR** » 14 Jul 2009, 10:20

Flood - this is my first 64 bit OS. I agree - problems will be inherent between 32bit apps and 64bit OS. Having the 64bit Vista on a machine designed to host it - rather than rebuild an old machine to 'try' to run a 64bit OS - gives me confidence. I was able to play my SWAT3 game - and it was published back in 2000!

I was holding out for Win7 but its not available today for my laptop - I do plan on upgrading to Win7 but I figure I will become knowledgable on Vista for my customers that will be using it. I will wait a little while after Win7 comes out to make sure the bugs are worked out - I waited this long before going to Vista for the same reason.

Soon, I will find out about wireshark and a few other tools I use - if they work or not on the 64bit OS.

DNR

Post by **floodhound2** » 14 Jul 2009, 10:36

Yes I ran wire shark on my system and if I remember correctly it works great. Well good to see you diving in, for shits and giggles I tend to believe that vista will be sort of like windows ME was. Just a quick flick in time.

Post by **DNR** » 14 Jul 2009, 14:09

WHEEE! I just had fun setting up a home network. I needed to setup peer-to-peer adhoc network because one laptop has the dial-up connection (I am in a rural area). So my network was going to be like this

Vista laptop>>XP laptop>>Internet

As for the printers I just had each laptop with its own wifi connection ability directly to the printer. But also having the printer networked through the peer-to-peer network allowed me to print without having to connect to the printer IP.

All this took only about 10 minutes, I wasted extra time as I was still setting up the XP laptop - removing unneeded progs that were popping up and setting my preferences. I had to reboot it several times.

I had both laptops side by side for the initial setup of the wifi network. For the newbies - just remember - one computer is the host, the others will connect to the host. Sometimes people forget and they try to setup both as the host as they run the network wizards. You want to set up the host first. On the host computer, you want to set it up to "Share Files and Internet".
During this process it will ask for a connection to the "network" - now its time to connect both laptops by wifi discovery of each other (both laptops have their wifi turned on, and broadcasting), on the host(XP) I had it locate and connect to my Vista. At this point - they can connect to each other - but no sharing yet!

You'll chose a network name - this is the SSID. My naming convention went like this:

Nomad_2(Vista)>>digital_nomad (network name)>>Gateway (Wanderer,XP)>>>Internet
The workgroup was the name of my hometown.

Here you will be prompted to chose security type I chose WPA-2 to piss off all the wardrivers in my 'hood. I could see why people don't enable WEP or WPA - the windows OS will deny weak passwords (not enough chars/hex) so people give up trying to create an acceptable passphrase.
how long is my passphrase its this long XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Select "save this network" next
cut and paste passphrase and sneaker net.

Now its very important that some services are enabled - you might have disabled services or chose not to install certain services to secure your box. I made sure I had
File and printer sharing and client for microsoft enabled. You'll also want TCP/IP enabled too. Now, only on the HOST (XP) did I need to set "Allow others to use files and sharing" I did not have to set my Vista that way - only the host needs to share files and connections as it is my internet gateway. The only setting I needed on the Vista Network and Sharing was to enable "Network discovery", file sharing was not enabled (only on the XP, the host)

Now on the Vista I had two things pop up on its "Network and Sharing Center">>Network window; The first one was the "Residental Gateway Device" - this meant my Host (XP) was now networked as the internet gateway! Any settings you need to make for accessing the internet will be made on this device. Connect to the internet by: drop down menu had my dial-up application. Here I can view the IP and MAC address, and set the services I want it to access from the host - DNS, FTP, HTTP (if those services were enabled on the host - which for a laptop they were not) I noticed my host automatically dial-up the internet - I also noticed it did not have the right phone number as I had set prior - so I had to input the correct phone number. This was changed under the host (XP)s network connections properties.

Since I enabled File sharing on the host (XP), I also saw Nomad_1 as a networked device- I could now see the printer via this host and a Shared_Docs folder.

I opened my Internet Explorer on the Vista and it went directly to the Host(XP) and put me right here!

Another nice day with Vista...

DNR

moudy · Post by **moudy** » 14 Jul 2009, 14:21

DNR wrote:Here you will be prompted to chose security type I chose WPA-2 to piss off all the wardrivers in my 'hood.

sorry for this type of question.... Isn't there a way to crack WPA-2 ?

just curious to know

Post by **DNR** » 14 Jul 2009, 14:26

The point is to _chose security_. Better to have a lock on the door than none at all. And I don't trust just encryption to protect my network, its only one part of security.

DNR

Pong18 · Post by **Pong18** » 16 Jul 2009, 03:12

i also am a vista x64 user. i have Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Edition installed in my system now. i have been using it for 2 and a half years (without reformatting due to OS bugs, viruses, or worms). i find vista 64 very nice. only i can't play diablo II and red alert 2. but anyways vista 64 is a very nice OS, very user friendly, secure like DNR said about DEP and the locked door quote, and it has a nifty interface.

but i was quite bored when i first installed vista 64 coz there is nothing more to tweak other than the UX themes to use 3rd party themes. i really miss XP's Bugs, tweaks, vulnerabilities, and other problems in XP that was fixed in vista. i also miss the Blue Screen!!!

The UAC is nice though its quite annoying. i mean i can turn it off but i'd much rather choose to be protected than be vulnerable. plus there are some workarounds if your application is always confirmed before starting at start up, you can configure blocked apps in task scheduler. i think imma stick with vista until 7 releases its final release.

i have also read alot of vista complains on forums, those people who complain about vista are just those typical people who has problems moving on to better technology, or people who have old hardware, or people who don't know how to solve problems or read forums for help.
vista is a great OS. 7 is just an upgrade of vista for me. upgrades in interface, loading, and calculation speeds. vista and 7 uses the same kernel anyway.