{"id":1873,"date":"2009-03-17T21:15:14","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T02:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/03\/17\/i-upgraded-to-vista-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons\/"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:47:46","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T01:47:46","slug":"i-upgraded-to-vista-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/03\/17\/i-upgraded-to-vista-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons\/","title":{"rendered":"I Upgraded to Vista &ndash; But for all the Wrong Reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/02\/12\/why-i-wont-upgrade-to-vista\/\">I swore I wouldn\u2019t upgrade to Vista<\/a>, just recently I bit the bullet and did it anyway. <strong>But I did it for all the wrong reasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/vista.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"vista\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"304\" alt=\"vista\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/vista-thumb.png\" width=\"404\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> First and foremost, I upgraded to Vista because I had already decided that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/01\/16\/i-think-i-will-use-windows-7\/\">I was going to use Windows 7<\/a> when it came out (hopefully) later this year, and I figured rather than make the big jump from XP to Windows 7, I\u2019d \u201cease\u201d my way into it, using Vista as a \u201ctemporary\u201d OS to look for problems and get used to some of the newer ways of getting around and doing things.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, when I upgrade to Windows 7 it\u2019s still going to be a big jump, because I hope to make the transition to 64-bit at the same time, and that means a full reformat &amp; reinstall of Windows (there is no 32-bit to 64-bit upgrade path). <\/p>\n<p>Other reasons I decided to upgrade to Vista \u201cin the meantime:\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally fix that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/14\/really-annoying-flaw-in-ntfs-mount-points\/\">annoying flaw in NTFS mount points<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>Find out whether my current video card can support those fancy Aero Glass effects <\/li>\n<li>Work out the kinks in my unusual user profile arrangement (more on that in a moment) <\/li>\n<li>Get the new version of Windows Media Player <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of those reasons, the NTFS mount point flaw and the new Windows Media Player were probably the biggest reasons I upgraded. But the kinks with my user profile were worth working out in advance \u2013 let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>Longtime readers might remember the bit of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/12\/computer-drama\/\">computer drama I had when I bought my new 500 GB hard drive<\/a>, and how my plans for re-arranging my drives\/partitions\/data\/etc. didn\u2019t exactly work out. In the end, I ended up \u201cmounting\u201d the new 500 GB hard drive to my Windows User Profile directory \u2013 or to put it in terms that UNIX\/Linux geeks might understand, I created a directory junction from my user profile folder to the root of the new hard drive. In other words, C:\\Application Data\\Keith was a \u201credirect\u201d or \u201cjunction\u201d to my 500 GB hard drive. This gave me the breathing room I was after at the time, since my user profile was taking up well more than 50% of my disk space at the time. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/drives.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"drives\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"81\" alt=\"drives\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/drives-thumb.png\" width=\"469\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>The above picture demonstrates the <em>scope<\/em> of my disk space problem \u2013 the C: drive is <strong>just Windows and applications<\/strong>. That K: drive contains just my user profile, and nothing else. <\/p>\n<p>Of course this worked fine (aside from the aforementioned flaw in NTFS mount points)\u2026 but then I upgraded.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that under Vista, your user profile directory is now (by default): C:\\Users rather than C:\\Documents and Settings. Which means that during the upgrade, my profile would have to be \u201cmigrated\u201d somehow. <\/p>\n<p>The Vista upgrade tried very hard, but in the end, a lot of weirdness happened, as you\u2019d expect. In retrospect, I suppose I should\u2019ve just created another mount point at C:\\Users\\Keith <strong>before <\/strong>upgrading and saved myself the trouble\u2026 but that probably would\u2019ve caused problems as well.<\/p>\n<p>However, with all that said, I was able to get into Vista after the upgrade, do some fiddling with user profiles, and mount C:\\Users\\Keith back to my 2nd 500 GB hard drive, and my profile (with my documents, music, and videos) appeared intact. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/startmenu.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"start menu\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"259\" alt=\"start menu\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/startmenu-thumb.png\" width=\"168\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> Now, of course, I have all the time in the world to shuffle things around \u2013 since Vista (and Windows 7) have done away with the concept of \u201cMy Documents\u201d and instead replaced it with \u201cDocuments\u201d and so forth. Currently, my user profile is a weird blend of a \u201cMy Documents\u201d folder, combined with Vista-style \u201cMusic,\u201d \u201cVideos,\u201d and \u201cPictures\u201d folders. Eventually I\u2019ll get it all sorted out so that it matches what Vista (and Windows 7) expects natively. <\/p>\n<p>Then, when I do finally upgrade to Windows 7, at least my user profile (and all my documents\/music\/videos\/pictures\/etc.) folders won\u2019t be messed up and can easily be migrated. <\/p>\n<p>So that was the other big reason for taking the plunge into Vista. (Either that, or I\u2019m just a sucker for self-punishment!)<\/p>\n<p>Still\u2026 there are a few things in Vista that I didn\u2019t really know about before, or that I knew about but didn\u2019t appreciate how nice they are. Things like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thumbnail previews in the task bar <\/li>\n<li>The \u201cWindows Search\u201d built into the Start menu <\/li>\n<li>When renaming a file, only the file name is selected by default (not the extension) <\/li>\n<li>\u201cFavorite Links\u201d in Explorer windows <\/li>\n<li>Yeah, yeah, I do sort of like the \u201cglass\u201d effects! <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, of course, the NTFS mount point problem is fixed in Vista, meaning I don\u2019t have to SHIFT-DELETE when deleting folders from my profile anymore. FINALLY!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/windowsmediacenter.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"windows-media-center\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"312\" alt=\"windows-media-center\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/windowsmediacenter-thumb.png\" width=\"404\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oh, and Windows Media Center finally understands about skipping chapters in a DVD \u2013 something that it just did not do before \u2013 and that really annoyed me. Now, however, when I press the \u201cnext\u201d button on my Windows Media Center Remote, it skips to the next chapter like my DVD player does. (It\u2019s kind of sad, actually, that I had to upgrade my entire operating system just to get this one fix to a media player!)<\/p>\n<p>Of course there are the usual downsides to Vista that have been ranted on a million times before \u2013 things like UAC (user account control), which is still annoying, no matter what people say about \u201cit gets less annoying as you use your computer.\u201d I can\u2019t wait until Windows 7 when I can adjust the UAC prompt behavior with a bit more granularity.<\/p>\n<p>So, all in all, I\u2019m somewhat pleased with my Vista upgrade experience, but mostly I\u2019m just glad that I\u2019m working all these issues out now, instead of later when I upgrade to Windows 7. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though I swore I wouldn\u2019t upgrade to Vista, just recently I bit the bullet and did it anyway. But I did it for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[200,201,5],"tags":[145,62,168,24],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life","category-software-technology","category-technology","tag-computer","tag-microsoft","tag-vista","tag-windows","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-ud","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2549,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/05\/08\/upgrading-from-vista-to-the-windows-7-release-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":0},"title":"Upgrading from Vista to the Windows 7 Release Candidate","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My attempt at upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 RC ends in disappointment - I blame directory junctions for the problem. Guess I have to wait until I make the switch to 64-bit to get Windows 7 goodness on my computer!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2581,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/05\/30\/trying-to-upgrade-from-vista-to-windows-7-take-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":1},"title":"Trying to Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 \u2013 Take 2","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My second attempt to upgrade from Vista to the Windows 7 Release Candidate ends in failure - again. The reason for the failure remains a mystery!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":999,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/06\/on-the-other-hand-or-dont-steal-the-focus-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":2},"title":"On The Other Hand &#8211; or, Don&#8217;t Steal the Focus: Part 2","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Touching again on the whole topic of \"don't steal the focus,\" I thought I'd point out that the Microsoft Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines has an entire section just on Error Messages, and wouldn't you know... they advise you not to steal the focus from the user. Although they may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/02\/12\/why-i-wont-upgrade-to-vista\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":3},"title":"Why I Won&#8217;t Upgrade to Vista","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why I won't Upgrade to Vista: Three letters: DRM.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Rants&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/01\/14\/im-sorry-but-windows-vista-still-seems-too-slow\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":4},"title":"I&#8217;m Sorry, but Windows Vista still seems too slow","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was downloading a file in Windows Vista today - I would say it was a \"medium-sized\" file that took no time at all on my super-fast cable modem connection to download. However, once it was done, this popped up: This new dialog took longer to calculate the time remaining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1650,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/01\/16\/i-think-i-will-use-windows-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":1873,"position":5},"title":"I Think I&#8217;ll Use Windows 7","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I've been trying out the Windows 7 beta lately... and I think I've decided, that when Windows 7 is officially released, I will upgrade to it. ...Let me explain. As you probably already know, I currently use Windows XP. It came with my computer when I bought it, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"win7-desktop","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/01\/win7-desktop-300x225.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}