Windows Vista Problem In Thailand?

[Patmcwill111]

the computer guy in our housing estate told me the reason my laptop doesn't work is because it's new, and has Windows Vista, and he said "windows vista doesn't work in thailand for the internet".

this seems crazy, but could it be true? he said he wants to take my laptop, erase all the memory, and replace windows vista with windows XP, on a brand new laptop. Any thoughts?

[waveydavey]

the computer guy in our housing estate told me the reason my laptop doesn't work is because it's new, and has Windows Vista, and he said "windows vista doesn't work in thailand for the internet".

this seems crazy, but could it be true? he said he wants to take my laptop, erase all the memory, and replace windows vista with windows XP, on a brand new laptop. Any thoughts?

He's talking garbage. I'm typing this on a month old Acer Aspire running Vista Home Premium.

What problems are you having? If you post the details here I'm sure someone will be able to help you out.

[Guest Reimar]

Real Bu..shit!

I work on different Computers with Vista since November 2006 without probplems. May that guy want to get the Laptop for some time in his hand to copy out your original version of Vista and replace with a fake XP! It's looks like!

May you checkout that guy is a better solution as to change your OS!!

[Patmcwill111]

I should also add that in my housing estate, all the houses share this mega computer internet server. i'm not sure how to explain it but maybe it's a "proxy server". I know there's something that each home doesn't have their own internet address (not sure exactly how it was explained a while back). could that have something to do with windows vista? the computer guy seems honorable to me.

the problems i get using the laptop with windows vista are extreamly slow download times, also Internet Explorer browser just freaking out and shutting down all the time. Netscape seems to work a little better but it's still very slow.

i already used the recovery disk with the laptop (toshiba) one time, and the computer is still the same. slow and unstable!

[cdnvic]

It has nothing to do with Vista. He just doesn't know what he's talking about. Regardless of how sincere he sounds, he's talking crap.

[Furbie]

Using Vista right now....no problems whatsoever (aside from trying to figure out all the changes).

[ercorn]

Using Vista right now....no problems whatsoever (aside from trying to figure out all the changes).

Same here.

[lopburi3]

Whatever they are using for your housing area network may not have proper Vista software and that might be the problem. My original SMC modem/wireless router software had problems with frequent loss of sync/lockups and was not properly recognized by Vista as an internet connection (even when working). I have since updated to non wireless software (did not need the wireless) and Vista shows it as a proper link and no more lockups. They should be changing. Telling you Vista will not work with internet is nonsense.

[Wolfie]

I've been using vista since a month after launch, in thailand, multiple locations... never a problem.

[monty]

I would guess he runs some kind of a proxy service where it is required to have some sort of program on your pc to get access to the server.

Wingate is one of those proxy servers, requiring a small program called gatekeeper on each client...

I guess his proxy program is not compatible with vista, and he is not willing to pay for the (probably available ) upgrade!

[jcgodber]

I am sure that Vista is very good BUT I was shopping for a new laptop. I found the one that I wanted, an Acer 6231. I asked to first see a demo of the computer working, AH! Really slooow. I was told by the “clerk” that the computer was slow because the Vista software should have more RAM. As it was the Acer only came with 512.

Bottom line I bought the computer and installed (genuine) Microsoft XP Home sp/2 and am now a very happy camper. I also installed 2.00 GB RAM

Maybe some day I will install the Vista sp/2 or whatever improvement they come up with.

Jim

[Wolfie]

Bottom line I bought the computer and installed (genuine) Microsoft XP Home sp/2 and am now a very happy camper. I also installed 2.00 GB RAM

Maybe some day I will install the Vista sp/2 or whatever improvement they come up with.

Jim

with the 2gb ram upgrade it should happily run vista...

[cdnvic]

Actually, with 2 gb of ram you'll find Vista runs faster and smoother because Vista better utilizes memory over 1gb while XP was never envisioned to have that much. I have an Acer running both (dual boot) with 2gb ram and the XP is sluggish compared to the nimble Vista that gets used 98% of the time.

Why do people choose to downgrade new machines?

[Pomthai]

Also been running Vista right from the MSDN beta release, no problems whatsoever, also it will run ok on 512 if needed, just tweak superfetch in the registry. I tried it on a new desktop PC with 512 a couple days before upgrading to 2gigs. Also cdnvic is 100% correct vista utilises ram far more efficiently than XP and if set up correctly can out perform XP on the same machine.

[onethailand]

vista suuuuuuuucks... 2GB or not.

Wait until SP1 comes out - I'm running that now and it's a LOT better.

Vista of course works fine with the Net, but as Lopburi pointed out, it may well be that whatever equipment they are using does not have Vista-compatible software or drivers.

Nevertheless, you would need to describe in further detail what equipment in the house is used to hook up to the Net. It's not going to be your computer causing the problem, nor should it be anything on their end.

If, for example, you have a network card which requires software other than a driver, you can try to force it into XP Compatible mode by right-clicking on the software, selecting Properties, then under the Compatibility tab check the Windows XP box. You may need to check one or more of the other boxes in order to get things to work.

By the way, I completely disagree about Vista using RAM more efficiently. It does not know how to manage RAM properly at all - yes, some things work faster and better but wait until you hit a resource limit, such as too many windows open in IE - and watch Vista completely crap out on you. XP doesn't do that.

Edited September 14, 2007 by onethailand

[Pomthai]

I agree that there are some things that need to be ironed out in vista but saying that it sucks, well thats just not true in my opinion. As for you your IE issue, well you can eliminate that with firefox and if you really really need IE for something get the IEtab extension for firefox. With XP you could still even do windows update from firefox that way. As far as I'm concerned internet explorer has been rubbish from it outset years ago and it still is. I prefer vista over xp now that I'm used to it and it has become my primary os.

[onethailand]

I agree that there are some things that need to be ironed out in vista but saying that it sucks, well thats just not true in my opinion. As for you your IE issue, well you can eliminate that with firefox and if you really really need IE for something get the IEtab extension for firefox. With XP you could still even do windows update from firefox that way. As far as I'm concerned internet explorer has been rubbish from it outset years ago and it still is. I prefer vista over xp now that I'm used to it and it has become my primary os.

You're entitled to your opinion - and I hope that when SP1 rolls out it really IS the Vista we have hoped to see for a long time - but at the moment it just plain sucks.

Yes, you can get used to Vista - if you have the technical knowledge to do so (I do, I used to integrate high-end systems). But for the average consumer, Vista will drive them to tears of frustration. XP SP2 is nearly as stable but far less buggy (unfortunately, also less secure but there are ways to take care of that too). And it is a lot faster for most things, except for huge applications (read: Micro$oft) which would benefit from more memory (and there Vista has an obvious advantage).

IE - well, to be honest, I'm no fan of IE either. Fact is, it too is a dog. But since I am now a developer, I have to use what everyone else uses. Anyone designing websites for FireFox over IE is sure to go broke.

[cdnvic]

I've yet to meet anyone driven to "Tears of frustration" over Vista. With few exceptions most seem to be quite enthusiastic about it. If my older systems had the power I'd switch them over in a second. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out the bugginess you speak of. Unlike previous OS launches by MS, this one is not the disaster the naysayers would like others to believe. Most of the people I know running it are not especially technical people and they've adapted to it fine. If you are having trouble I suggest you get a good Vista book as I find many people use the term "bugs" like bygone generations used the term "magic", to explain away things they didn't understand.

As for coding websites, its a fool (or an beginner) who only designs for a single browser, regardless of which one it is. It's not difficult to make sites that are near universally compatible, so the IE vs Firefox issue is moot. There was enough of that silliness a decade ago, we don't need to start it up again.

[onethailand]

I've yet to meet anyone driven to "Tears of frustration" over Vista. With few exceptions most seem to be quite enthusiastic about it. If my older systems had the power I'd switch them over in a second. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out the bugginess you speak of. Unlike previous OS launches by MS, this one is not the disaster the naysayers would like others to believe. Most of the people I know running it are not especially technical people and they've adapted to it fine. If you are having trouble I suggest you get a good Vista book as I find many people use the term "bugs" like bygone generations used the term "magic", to explain away things they didn't understand.

It's not a disaster by any means - but it is still buggy as hel_l. It does not manage memory properly, particularly with IE. It is not fully backwards compatible. It uses up great resources for negligble things (ie. Aero Glass - the #1 "wow" factor). And it takes dog years to load by comparison with XP on a similar machine (just for clarification, I have 2GB).

Then you have problems with enormous disk thrashing caused by Diskkeeper, Search, and Superfetch - said disk thrash can render your computer completely useless for minutes at a time. Doesn't happen on XP.

Adapting to Vista is not a problem if all you do is surf and use Word (btw, have you tried Office 2007?) or Excel. But many of the other things that people use are not straightforward "click and use" - for example Skype is sometimes problematic.

I used to build high-end systems for consumers, businesses, and governments in my past life. The only OS more problematic than Vista was Windows (F) Me. A Vista book is not going to help me at all - my experience with integration is far more practical.

Suffice it to say "bug" doesn't just mean "it didn't work" in my case. I can tweak just about any system to exceed its rated capabilities, whether through hardware or software. But Vista does not run properly out of the box, and even with the best tweaks and fixes and workarounds, it is still a dog. SP1 does resolve many of these problems, but the beta version has also introduced a few new bugs which hopefully won't exist by the time the official release is ready.

As for coding websites, its a fool (or an beginner) who only designs for a single browser, regardless of which one it is. It's not difficult to make sites that are near universally compatible, so the IE vs Firefox issue is moot. There was enough of that silliness a decade ago, we don't need to start it up again.

I think you misunderstood what I meant - or more likely I didn't express myself clearly. A good designer will always use what most people use for compatibility purposes - as long as one doesn't stray into fancy-schmancy stuff exclusive to particular software, one shouldn't encounter any problems.

However, as you probably know, something that looks right in Firefox may not look right in IE - and vice-versa. By default, most things work just fine no matter what browser you are using, but if I'm going to "err", I'm going to err on the side of the majority. Unexpected stuff still happens if you use Opera or Firefox, it's not always that simple to avoid.

I'm no naysayer for the sake of argument - I am confident that XP SP1 is still far and away the better choice for the average consumer at the moment. There is nothing special about Vista that should convince anyone to upgrade just yet - especially average users.

[cdnvic]

Strange. Reimer seemed to have similar issues on one single machine with Vista that nobody else was having. I'm wondering if it's a hardware issue with some. I've not had any of the above problems, and the only compatibility problems I've had were on older (oddly) Microsoft games. I did have some problems with my graphics card but that was Nvidia's fault and they (eventually) sorted it.