More Windows stuff.

I promised to write some more about Windows Vista and the Windows Defender. It's been a couple weeks and although my wife told me not to blog about computers anymore I got a cool comment about another Vista Victim so here goes.

If you haven't figured out I am a PC guy. Not a Mac guy. I have a brother who is and I can't tell up from down on a Mac. I feel you get way more bang for your buck from a PC. I can also tell you exactly which components are in my box, not to mention which box I have. I can upgrade my computer's memory, HD capacity, video card, motherboard, CPU, and occasionally even the BIOS. I don't have to wait for a new OS to upgrade like most Mac users. I have already touched on how stable Vista is. When it is up and running you have to deal with one of the new features which I believe is called "Windows Defender." Sorry it has been a couple weeks and I have tried to clear the experience from my head so I can't be sure what it is called. Like I said, I'm not a Mac guy. I can almost appreciate the wittiness of the Mac vs. PC ads but they still kind of chap my hide so I either have a deep seeded case of Apple envy or I am a PC guy to the core. This ad is great. I laughed out loud when I first watched it. First I thought it was about a firewall. I remember my first firewall being cinched down so tight that it set off alarms every time I moved my mouse. I didn't realize this was about one of the Vista "features" until I had experienced Vista first hand. You can't open a game, the internet, Word, or pretty much any shortcut without Vista firing off a warning. Even as an admin you have to ok Vista to change the screen res when you launch a game. Am I sure I want to allow this program to edit settings??? I was the one who double clicked!! This ad could not be more accurate without showing actual screen shots.

The other reason I am a PC guy is games. Two of the main reasons to upgrade to Vista per Microsoft are security, see above, and gaming. Pfft. Yes there is a games folder. Yes it does have some cool features. You can sort your games by last played, alphabetical, or any of the other ways you can sort files now. I keep all my game shortcuts in a file on my desktop so this games file is nothing new to me. Some games get cool icons. Not all of them. Not all installed games end up in the games folder which is kind of pointless. Vista will also consider your PC components and rate your system for gaming. But this only gives you a very vague idea. My system is actually only rated a 4/10. Probably because I only have 1 gig of ram but for most games I can run everything max. It doesn't show individual games min/recommended requirements or if individual game ratings. Another cool idea is that the game folder will list which version of the game is installed. This doesn't seem to important but for online gaming like BF2 or WoW it is important to know because you have to have current versions. Vista games folders lists all of my games as 1.0 no matter what. There is no point to display this info. I have way too many issues with Microsoft's gaming initiatives to cover here so as always I will cover it later.

Hopefully if you are buying a computer with Vista installed the company selling it will have support available and unless that support wants more trouble than they can handle their engineers will have put together some stable systems. I know companies like Dell are offering XP installs again. Commodore(Yes that Commodore) is launching a new line of mid to high end gaming rigs that will only be available with Vista installed. If you have Vista I wish you the best of luck. There are rumors about Service pack one being pushed out sooner and if that happens I may buy a $25 hard drive to install it and see if it is ready for the real thing. Until then you can guess what I'll be running.