I've been in system development for over 25 years and frankly, from what I've seen with Vista is extremely troubling.
This post will list my onging issues I've discovered and thank God that I've found an official forum to pass these items along to folks in positions to address them.
| Program | Description | Update | Date | Findings |
| Windows Mail | Won't Import .dbx Express files from XP SP2 | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | ?? MS does not recognize a problem even though internet full of problems. 3rd party software by Aid4 Mail recognizes and fixes the problem for $50!! |
| Control Panel | Monitor/Video Missing different than XP | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Design difference in Vista |
| Windows Mail | Inability to change subject line | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Design issue |
| Computer/Properties/Manage | Memory configuration or Total is not showing | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Poor design issue |
| Windows Mail/Calendar | Can't Change Tasks to Events or vice versa | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Poor design issue |
| Windows Mail Calendar | Inability to select multiple tasks & Print or drag & Drop groups | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Problem is with Vista Kernal and effects various programs when network drive or external USB drive is connected and using multiple file moves/copies. KB946676. It's hard to believe that this was not uncovered in Alpha, much less 1 year after production!! |
| Windows Mail Import | When looking for folder to import from, last directory is displayed twice | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Problem is with Vista Kernal and effects various programs when network drive or external USB drive is connected and using multiple file moves/copies. KB946676. It's hard to believe that this was not uncovered in Alpha, much less 1 year after production!! |
| Windows Mail delete file/folder | You can't delete a file or folder if a previously deleted file/folder existis with the same name. You first have to clear the deleted folder | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Very Poor design issue and I consider this a bug!. Wes reported this to Microsoft. |
| Control Panel Uninstall | When uninstalling software and the uninstallation is complete, it doesn't auto close. You have to manually baby sit it and close it. | SP1 | 4/29/2008 | Depends on software package. Inconsistancy within programs provided by MS |
| System Tools Backup Utility | When backing up files, the status indicator is in the background and is hidden by the backup dialog box. | SP1 | 4/29/2008 | Poor design issue. It should jump to foreground |
| Windows Photo Gallery | When you import it defaults to import folder (fine.). When you drag and drop it to another folder it remains in the imported folderl. If you delete if from the imported folder, it deletes the original. BOO Hissssss. When you import more in the same day, it's stacked on top and you can't clear out the already imported items. | SP1 | 4/30/2008 | Problem is with Vista Kernal and effects various programs when network drive or external USB drive is connected and using multiple file moves/copies. KB946676. It's hard to believe that this was not uncovered in Alpha, much less 1 year after production!! |
| Media Player 11 | When ripping a CD, you can't just double click, you have to also do a confirmation on the CD/DVD again. | SP1 | 5/2/2008 | Poor Design Issue. |
| Vista Explorer | Loses files and doesn't update index in real time when moving files/folders. If you delete the old folder files were stored in, they all go away. It's like it's running in the background and hasn't had the chance to actually change the updated index of NTFS tables. | SP1 | 5/2/2008 | Problem is with Vista Kernal and effects various programs when network drive or external USB drive is connected and using multiple file moves/copies. KB946676. It's hard to believe that this was not uncovered in Alpha, much less 1 year after production!! |
| Power Spec | Changed on board video in V220 to a dedicated geforce 7300 GS dual port video card w/256mb and the graphics performance dropped from 3.2 (3 min for vista) to 2.8??!!! | SP1 | 4/27/2008 | Poor BIOS/Motherboard design issue. Reserved memory can be minimized, but will remain useless for the duration. |
| Performance went to crap on Vista SP1 | When playing CD and working on Excel spreadsheet, the music skips and pauses!! No other activity running!!!! | SP1 | 5/2/2008 | ?? |
| Brother MFC 6800 | Printer works,but driver says USB printer. It's parallel. Brother has no other drivers and states Vista auto detects right driver. Scanner will not work. When wizard is looking for input devices, it only recognizes Xeros (which I don't have). No CD available. | SP1 | 5/3/2008 | Poor assumption by both Brother and MS. Vista was only designed for the USB driver and all parallel connections are history. Thanks guys. I had to buy a $15 cable to convert to USB and then the scanner worked. |
| Vista Backup broke. | It backed up the first time, but would not back up after it. Google turned up several 'suggestions', such as resetting the restore options and then setting the back and rerunning. Bottom line is it flat won't work. It seems if a scheduled backup was missed because the computer was off, you're sol for future backups. Another gripe is that you can set the drive you want to back up to, but you can't set the PATH!! Stuipid, Stupid design. Another problem is that the status bar is NOT brought to foreground and is hidden behnind the Backup Status and Config Window. Stupid! | SP1 | 5/5/2008 | Bug that I can't find recognized by Microsoft. |
| Vista Photo Gallery Import | Currently it creates a unique folder for each picture imported thus you wind up with hundreds of folders with one picture each. Then you have to create a single folder and drag each picture into it and then delete all the old folders. Desperately need the option to NOT CREATE a seperate folder ie a NONE option would be GREAT! | SP1 | 5/3/2008 | Very Poor design issue. |
| Vista Media Center | When you minimize and/or close it on a Dual monitor setup, it resets the screen resolution on one monitor (which sometimes goes black) and the mouse stops working in dual monitor mode. It only works on one monitor. Many problems shown via internet with NVidia graphics cards and Vista in dual monitor mode. | SP1 | 5/5/2008 | No known fix. Some state that unchecking the option "enable pointer shadow" on your mouse helps. I didn't see where it fixed anything. Other sites have stated to disable sleep mode. I'm trying this now. |
| Vista Explorer or/And IE | When you delete a large number of files from a directory (say 3000) the entire system hangs and you can't even kill processes. Forced to reboot. Duplicated many times | SP1 | 5/10/2008 | Known problem in user community, but now acknowledge officially by MS. |
| Vista Explorer and Movie Maker | There seems to be a delay in processing the scroll and/or mouse buffer that results in zero response and then a sudden surge that places you much further than intended. | SP1 | 5/15/2008 | Can't find much documentation on it. |
| Vista Snipped Tool | This is a design issue, but to be consistant with ALL OTHER APPLICATIONS, a print capability from the tool needs to be included. | SP1 | 5/23/2008 | Future design consideration. |
| Vista Windows Mail | You can insert a picture, but you can't copy a picture and paste it into Windows Mail. This is inconsistant with EVERY program produced by MS in the past and frankly sucks. | SP1 | 5/27/2008 | Poor coding and lack of MS GUI and functionality standards. |
| Vista Explorer | There seems to be an inconsistancey from XP in that in the left column, you can't select multiple folders to delete. Only one folder at a time | SP1 | 5/27/2008 | Poor coding and lack of MS GUI and functionality standards. |
| Vista Explorer | File Integrity Problem. Files disappear and leave shortcuts in replacement of file names. This appears to happen when a file name is the same as a directory name. In that instance the index in the NTFS file system seems to get confused. This was NOT a problem with XP | SP1 | 5/30/2007 | Unbelievable. Very poor design hole and undermines the basic purpose of an OS. |
| Vista Windows Mail | This is a minor problem, but when you're dragging the email window (minimized) to a second monitor, if an email comes in during the process, it grabs control and puts the window back to it's first position on the first monitor. | SP1 | 6/3/2008 | Minor, but could stand a better design. |
| Vista Switch Between Windows Utility | If you have Windows Media Center palying a video (dual screen) and select the Vista Switch Between Windows utility, the Media Center window does NOT get displayed. It actually disappears. | SP1 | 6/6/2008 | Medium. It just shows how this is really untested. |
| Viista Explorer shows duplicate entries for my single DVD player | What can I say. The folder view should show a single entry for my single DVD player. | SP1 | 6/8/2008 | High. This is scary because the most basic function of an OS is file management. Duplicates show up, but I've also had files not showing up until after a reboot and then they're magically there. |
| Vista DreamScapes | Dream scapes are only usable on one monitor in a multi-monitor environment | SP1 | 6/9/2008 | This is minor, but with so many folks going to multi-monitor environments and spending quite a bit of extra money for Ultimate, we expect functionality that reflects consistancy with wallpaper and screen savers that DO work on multiple monitors. |