This morning I was working with a company to try to get their software up and running. All we had to do was delete 1 file from the hard drive of their Windows laptop and all would’ve been jolly. When we looked on the C drive however, we couldn’t find the Program Files folder. It had been hidden from view. The Start > Run option was also not available. This laptop was locked down tight. We couldn’t do anything without administrator rights on the computer.

I understand why companies lock employees out of their computers. It prevents them from making changes that can damage the computer. However it also creates a situation where the employees can’t do some of the things they need to do such as running simple installations to update their software. They waste time having to call their helpdesk for help. This is a tremendous waste of time for the user. It also can cause more work for the company helpdesk. If the user isn’t able to perform certain tasks on their computer, that means the helpdesk has to waste time performing these simple tasks for the user.

In my experience this morning, a 2 minute call ended up taking 40 minutes. 40 minutes this employee could’ve been actually doing work, and about 20 minutes their company helpdesk could’ve been working on a real problem.

I originally thought that the critics were just being hard on Windows Vista. All Microsoft products draw skepticism. After my experience with Windows Vista though, it became clear to me that it sucks bad. I thought I’d share some specific examples.

Options aren’t available unless you are on a specific screen

Many of the options for certain items just aren’t there anymore. You have to find the setting in the Control Panel instead of simply right-clicking the item and accessing them. A good example would be the dialup connections that are located under Start > Connect to… There used to be a Delete option when you right clicked on these items. This option, along with several others are no longer there. I liked being able to access options from several different screens.
You have to sift through tons of screens to find what you’re looking for

You know the 3 click rule? Everything should be within 3 clicks. Well, Vista shoves that aside. It can take up to 6 clicks to find some options. If you don’t know where a specific setting is, good luck!

Dialog boxes start minimized or in the background

When certain programs throw up a dialog box to notify you of an error or event, you might not know it’s there. You often have to look at the taskbar and notice the extra item down there. I’ve sat for many minutes staring at the screen not knowing what my programs are doing only to realize there is something else going on. Only by clicking on the entry for the dialog box on the Taskbar will allow to see what the message is.

Various video problems

I’ve tried 3 different systems running Vista, all with different video cards. They all exhibited some type of video freeze during the time I’ve used them. Not to mention, all the stupid video animations are too much for most systems to handle. Why do I need fancy video animations to get my work done?

These are just a handful of problems I’ve encountered with Vista, and I haven’t used the the operating system for more than 12 hours total yet. I can only imagine what people are going through that have to use it every day.

Some people amaze me. They can’t seem to think for themselves let alone head in the direction of solving problems on their own. It’s just plain laziness to experience a problem and then immediately call somebody else and put them to work for you without trying anything first.

I’ve always been a person that likes to solve problems on my own. I like to use my mind. I can’t imagine ever calling somebody to help me until I’ve exhausted all options on my own. Then again, some of the people I talk to end up breaking things worse. Restarting the computer however is a no-brainer. You have no worries about restarting and causing more problems.

I also love how some people also have an attitude if I suggest that they restart the computer first thing when they call. They never think it will solve their issue. The sarcasm just oozes through the phone. When restarting does work, they usually act angry and question why they have to restart to get it to work properly. It’s a computer people! A computer running Windows. It just needs to be refreshed sometimes.

I know it’s good job security to have people relying on me for computer support, but I think I’d rather be unemployed than have to deal with people that are too lazy to try the simple stuff on their own. Besides, I have plenty of other people that really need my help for real problems.

So I installed ClipMate 7 yesterday, an application I have sworn by for years. Clipmate is software that allows you to expand your cut & paste clipboard where you can have multiple items on it. I have used the application to provide email support for years, but after I installed it yesterday:

1. My menu was blank under Start > Programs.

2. Internet Explorer failed to launch. It would do nothing when I tried.

3. Firefox took up 50% of my CPU time even when open on a blank page.

4. After restarting, it changed my Windows theme back to an old theme I used to use.

I didn’t think people made software like this except AOL these days. Luckily I was able to uninstall the application and things returned to normal.

There is a registry hack that allows you to make Windows Vista crash to a blue screen of death whenever you want.

1. Hold down the Windows Key and press R. Type REGEDIT.

2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then SYSTEM
then CurrentControlSet
then Services
then i8042prt
then click Parameters

3. Double-click on CrashOnCtrlScroll and set the value to 1 to enable this feature.

Restart the computer. Now when you hold down the CTRL key and press the SCROLL LOCK key two times, Windows Vista will automatically crash to a BSOD.

An alternate way to make Vista crash would be to simply use Windows Vista.

I recently created a post about making an icon to lock your screen. Since then I have been playing around with some of the RUNDLL32 shortcuts available for Windows Vista. One of them I found handy was this one to put Windows into Hibernate mode.

1. Right-click an blank area on your desktop.

2. Select New >Shortcut

3. Type ‘ RunDll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState’ for the Location.

Give the shortcut a name like ‘Hibernate’. Now you can just double-click the icon whenever you want Windows to hibernate. This command works with Windows XP and Vista.

Is your Windows system beeping at you? You can disable the beeping sound that usually comes from an internal speaker with these steps.

1. Hold down the Windows key while pressing R and type regedit.

2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then Control Panel
then click on Sound

3. On the right side, double-click on the Beep value and change it to No. Do the same thing for the ExtendedSounds value.

4. Close regedit and restart the computer.  You shouldn’t suffer the beeping sound annoyance anymore.

Create an icon that will lock your screen in Windows XP and Vista.

1. Right-click an blank area on your desktop.

2. Select New >Shortcut

3. Type ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ for the Location.

Give the shortcut a name. Now you can just double-click the icon whenever you want to lock your screen. I like to place mine in the Quick Launch area on the Taskbar. There, I only have to click it once.

Windows Key + L will also lock your screen

I had no idea that you could do this with Windows. Did you know that if you that you can rename a series of files all at once?

I took pictures at a tech show recently and I wanted them all to be labeled show1.jpg, show2.jpg, etc. To do this the easiest way, you can select all the images with your mouse, then right-click on one of the images and select Rename. The file you right-clicked on will be highlighted so you can type a name to change it to. Give the file a name, and after pressing Enter, all the files were renamed filename1, filename2, etc.

Such a simple feature that I never knew about.

How to change how thick the glass window borders are in Windows Vista.

7. Click OK 3 Times.