Vista Nightmares

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I have been the happy owner of a Dell computer for years now and I am in the process of purchasing a new one. The first machine Dell sent me a few weeks ago would not turn on so it had to be returned and I received a second machine about a week ago. I had waited until February to order so that I would receive a machine loaded with Microsoft's much hyped new operating system . . . VISTA.

What a mistake that was!

From the get-go I suffered a host of problems. As soon as I started plugging in my peripherals things began to go off track. To Vista, my web-cam and my scanner are not supported. Vista blithely suggested that I purchase compatible devices indicating it is a problem between me and the manufacturer. When I plugged in my microphone there was no response. I attempted to adjust its settings and had my first Blue Screen of Death - the system crashed. There were many more blue screens when I started loading and running my software. I found that many of my programs are not supported. Even some which are said to be supported would not run. My main program, which is essential to my computer experience, is Adobe PhotoShop 7 - it would not load at all. Many of my programs are older versions which I have not upgraded because I did not need the new features. Unfortunately, the makers of many of these programs no longer are upgrading their earlier versions to make them compatible for Windows Vista.

Needless to say, I spent hours on the phone to Dell's technical support staff trying to sort all this out. I was particularly concerned about the blue screen crashes which indicated a hardware/operating system problem. They made a number of suggestions to fix this. They were even able to operate my machine remotely and suffered the same system crashes. In the end the techies said I needed a new machine. I agreed, but said I would not take any machine loaded with Windows Vista. Unfortunately the system I had ordered only comes with Vista (methinks this is some kind of a sinister contractual arrangement with Microsoft).

Dell is a good company and they deal well with customer problems. They were sympathetic clearly understood I was a very unhappy customer. They agreed that with the return of the second Dell, they will be sending me a machine (an XPS 710) loaded with Windows XP as its operating system. Even though it is a higher end machine, it will be at no extra cost to me. Hopefully my troubles will be over when it arrives.

I have owned a personal computer for over 20 years now and, as a new operating system, I expected that there would be a few glitches with Windows Vista. I certainly did not expect that it would have the extent of failures that it did. I do not know if the problems I encountered are unusual and my situation was just an isolated case. If not, I really question what Microsoft is doing releasing such a flawed product. It has certainly shaken my confidence with their products and I will wait a long time before I try Vista again. Fortunately, by dealing with Dell, I was able to extract my self from this nightmare this time.