# I hate Microsoft!!



## AE35Unit (Jan 27, 2010)

Grrr, we tried to put new music on our mp3 players, but our pc which runs XP SP3 no longer recognises our Creative Zen players! So we roll back to the previous install but then IE7 no longer works, and if we put IE8 on it crashes! IE8 does work with SP3 but then we cant use our MP3 players.....so round and round we go!
We have Mozilla mbut it doesnt work with every site we go on, so our only option now is to use the laptop for putting new music on which runs Vista!
Bloody crazy!!
Note to Bill Gates-not everyone uses iPods!!


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## Lenny (Jan 27, 2010)

Apple makes the iPod (Microsoft make the Zune), and their method of getting music on to the device involves tying the iPod down to a single library on a single computer... put it into any other computer, and it will sync (read: wipe) your iPod with that other library - anything on your iPod that isn't in the library gets deleted.

iPod users had a lot of trouble in the early stages because Windows didn't support them.

A few things to maybe try - update the software for the Creative Zen to the latest version. You might find that it works, then.

Alternatively, instead of using IE or Firefox, use Google Chrome.


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## HareBrain (Jan 27, 2010)

I _knew _there was a reason I never bothered to install SP3 ...


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## The Ace (Jan 27, 2010)

We all do, AE.


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## Tinsel (May 8, 2010)

Maybe update Java.

Just some more info. I use iTunes myself, but okay, lets look at the iTunes IDE. It is written in Java and the Java Virtual Machine is theoretically dependent upon the web browser and not the operating system. It is classed as middleware. This zune IDE might also be implemented using Java, so that is why I will mention that downloading the latest version of Java might fix the problem and Firefox should work as a good web browser but take iTunes as an example, it uses a web browser called safari I think. Anyway, just try updating Java and it might work than.

Link.


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## AE35Unit (May 8, 2010)

Ah no worries, we just use the laptop now,hardly use the PC at all-its pretty much defunct!


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## Tinsel (May 8, 2010)

In the past I've thrown Linux on the old computers and used them for another three or four years, at least for basic Internet surfing use, not for products like hand held devices. Ubuntu would bring it back to life and Linux runs well, it used to run better than Microsoft's platform however I have not had any problems with Windows Vista, so I've stayed with it.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 8, 2010)

Vista sucks! Seriously, everyone who hasn't yet needs to leave that crap behind and switch over to Windows 7. It's somewhere between 11 and 293 times better. It's everything Vista should have been, and then some.

AE35,

Try updating your Zen's firmware. Hopefully that should do the trick. And I'm afraid you're stuck with Windows; last time I checked, Creative's players aren't OS X compatible. I know this was the reason I got rid of mine and bought an iPod when I got my iMac.


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## ktabic (May 8, 2010)

The Ace said:


> We all do, AE.



I don't. I love Microsoft. Their screw-ups and stupid design decisions are why I'm employed. I will point out here that I personally don't use Windows on any of my own systems. It's linux all round. Even on the my phone.


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## Happy Joe (May 10, 2010)

Let me get this straight;
You are not using a Microsoft player, but are mad at Microsoft because Creative (never known, in my experience, for making products with good ongoing support) does not interface well with the newer Microsoft browser.

I would say that Creative needs to provide an update to make their players compatible with updates to the most wide spread software in the world, not that Microsoft needs to support a product that is not related to their operations.

I know it is stylish to hate Microsoft but you really need to ask Creative to support their own products. (Lack of support and having to jump through hoops to make Creative products work is the reason I stopped using them years ago)...Good Luck!

BTW; W7 is just Vista second edition (I too never had problems with Vista, though I mostly just used it on the home theater machine).

Enjoy!


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## AE35Unit (May 10, 2010)

Happy Joe said:


> Let me get this straight;
> You are not using a Microsoft player, but are mad at Microsoft because Creative (never known, in my experience, for making products with good ongoing support) does not interface well with the newer Microsoft browser.
> 
> I would say that Creative needs to provide an update to make their players compatible with the most wide spread software in the world, not that Microsoft needs to support a product that is not related to their operations.
> ...


Nah I just hate Microshaft,period 
Basically we won a creative zen player ages ago and liked it so just stuck with them. At the time we were using an XP machine and it didn't like iTunes so we wouldn't have been able to use an ipod anyway. Then when we updated the PC )bloody windoze updates!) it no longer recognised our player. But is ok because our laptop runs Vista. I don't like Vista (preferred 98 SE) but it runs our Creative software nkw so thread irrelevant,other than generally hating microshaft!


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## GrownUp (May 10, 2010)

IE8 is pants, it breaks for many sites, especially sites not in the UK or US. And a load of overseas sites uselessly have software that uses Microsoft-only code on it, like for rendering foreign characters, x wotsits and the other.

But Firefox does have a load of user-written plugins which can mimic the effect of 
whatever software the browser can't find. For future reference, try installing Firefox plugins (I assume you mean Firefox when you say Mozilla) to solve whatever problem you have. I know you don't need it now, but Firefox plugins solve so much.

Fight the power, man.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 10, 2010)

Happy Joe said:


> BTW; W7 is just Vista second edition (I too never had problems with Vista, though I mostly just used it on the home theater machine).


Oh, that is _so_ wrong. Vista was a god-awful OS. I had been thinking of an iMac anyway, cuz it's just oh-so-sexy, but my experience with Vista was definitely what made the decision final for me.

I have used Win 7, though, and it's a lot better. Faster, smoother, more stable. And it doesn't pop-up that annoying Administrator Confirmation thing every damn time you try to change some settings.



			
				GrownUP said:
			
		

> Fight the power, man.


Considering the way things have been for the last few years, what that really means is that you shouldn't use Apple products...


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## Lenny (May 10, 2010)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Oh, that is _so_ wrong. Vista was a god-awful OS. I had been thinking of an iMac anyway, cuz it's just oh-so-sexy, but my experience with Vista was definitely what made the decision final for me.
> 
> I have used Win 7, though, and it's a lot better. Faster, smoother, more stable. And it doesn't pop-up that annoying Administrator Confirmation thing every damn time you try to change some settings.



I have to say that I agree with HJ and that I'm another one who had very few problems with Vista - my current rig had absolutely no problems at all. Indeed, it ran pretty well.

At the time, Vista was a huge step up from XP. Sure, it ran hotter and slower, but the things you could do made it worth the upgrade. I won't argue that it wasn't a resource hog, that it wasn't slow and that it didn't have it's problems, but it was a decent OS.

These days, Windows 7 is definitely my weapon of choice and I'd never go back to Vista simply because Windows 7 is so much better - a year and a half of running it and I've not had a single problem.

Maybe MS shouldn't have listened to feedback and released Longhorn, rather than re-developing it as Vista... who knows what might have happened? We can all bash MS and Vista as much as we want these days - isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

---

Windows 7 does pop up the UAC box, just as Vista did - the copy of 7 you used just had it turned off (as could be done in Vista).


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## Happy Joe (May 11, 2010)

> These days, Windows 7 is definitely my weapon of choice and I'd never go back to Vista simply because Windows 7 is so much better - a year and a half of running it and I've not had a single problem.


 
X2... I still have the retail, never activated, Vista 64 Home Premium OS from the home theater, used it about 16 to 18 months (now W7 64 Ultimate) if Devil's Advocate would like a blast from the past. Interestingly, some of the Vista Media Center functions worked slightly better than the initial W7 version (fast forward when playing music, for example).

I still have this (disposable) internet machine and several LAN machines running XP (mostly pro) but have long since gotten rid of (or converted) all of the W98 SE and ME machines. MY preferred rigs are now all multi-core W7 machines. (It, sometimes, pays to jump on the "early adopter" deals from Microsoft to get multiple copies of operating systems; unfortunately these offers are now all closed).

Enjoy!


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## Devil's Advocate (May 12, 2010)

Well, I guess you guys got lucky. My Vista experience was bad. Bad, bad, bad. I hated that damn thing. My computer was slow as hell, programs would crash far too often, it just had way too many bugs. And let's face it, MS knew it sucked. That's why they worked overtime to release Win7 so soon after Vista.

By the way, I think your experience was better because of the version you had. Lenny, were you using 64-bit, as well? I was running plain old vanilla Home Premium, but I'd heard from friends who were running the 64-bit Vista that it was a lot more stable. Though I'm not sure why that would be the case...



> Windows 7 does pop up the UAC box, just as Vista did - the copy of 7 you used just had it turned off (as could be done in Vista).


Are you sure you could do that in Vista? I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that one of the gripes about UAC was that you _couldn't_ turn it off, which they fixed in Win7.


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## Lenny (May 12, 2010)

Start > Click your Account Picture > Change UAC Settings > Untick the box.

The only difference in Windows 7 is that you're given a slider to change the severity of UAC, rather than the simple box Vista gave you.

The first thing I figured out how to do when I installed Vista.  Started with 32-bit Ultimate on my old rig (now that _was_ horrible, but the machine was plagued with problems throughout it's lifespan. It was an AMD, you see...) and bought a copy of 64-bit Ultimate with my rebuild. Used that for four months then switched to Windows 7 Beta last January (bought 64-bit Ultimate on the cheap the October just gone and had it up and running on an SSD two days after the release).  I've still got it installed on an old HDD at home though, and I've got a VM for it which I dive into if I forget how to do things in Vista when helping people.

---

From experience, the 32-bit version of Vista was easier to maintain - I struggled for a while to find drivers and programs for my 64-bit version.


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## Happy Joe (May 12, 2010)

> It was an AMD, you see...


 
Tch!, Tch! 
I rarely run Intel (I'm naturally penurious), AMD is nearly always is reliable for me (except when I let the magic smoke out during an overclocking run).

I was given a flaky AMD machine once; it had bad capacitors (not AMD's fault, processor still worked).

I was (by design) a late adopter of Vista and had little problem finding drivers.

...some are just lucky I guess...

Enjoy!


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## Interference (May 12, 2010)

Lenny said:


> We can all bash MS and Vista as much as we want these days - isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?



Some of us had the foresight to use our hindsight in advance


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## Lenny (May 12, 2010)

Happy Joe said:


> Tch!, Tch!
> I rarely run Intel (I'm naturally penurious), AMD is nearly always is reliable for me (except when I let the magic smoke out during an overclocking run).
> 
> I was given a flaky AMD machine once; it had bad capacitors (not AMD's fault, processor still worked).
> ...



My main problem with that machine was the motherboard - an MSI board with a fatal flaw in that any large packets of data sent over IDE shorted something out... everything single time I tried to burn a CD, my computer shut off. MSI were not helpful, and I don't buy MSI products any more.

I ended up with three sets of bad RAM over the years I had it, but Corsair customer services were always good so I still buy Corsair.

The power supply had an amusing habit of not letting me use the computer... I'd turn it on at the plug, then have to turn it off again to let the capacitors power down. Once that had finished, I could turn it on at the plug once more and use the PC. Fine when it only takes five minutes, but when I had to turn it on before I went to school so I could use it in the evenings, well, not at all fun. I bought another Xclio PSU for this PC though... it squeals at me if my processor usage goes above 15%. No more Xclio products for me.

The processor was an AMD Athlon X2 something or other. 2.2ghz dual core. It ran hot all the time, regardless of what I did with cooling - new heatsink, more fans in the case, no effect. If it was in this machine then I'd probably have no problems, but the constant blue screening (even on XP) that I experienced has soured my thoughts towards AMD.

I was an early adopter of Vista 32-bit, and something of a late adopter for 64-bit; finding drivers for 32-bit was a doddle, I just used the XP ones.

---

Talking about XP and Vista, me mam has a Creative Zen MP3 player - our XP PC is SP3, and it worked fine on her Vista laptop.

Some people do just get lucky.


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## Majimaune (May 13, 2010)

*cough* buy a Mac *cough*

They make everything so simple.


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## Happy Joe (May 13, 2010)

> *cough* buy a Mac *cough*


 
NEVER!... Get thee behind me...

Like I said I'm naturally penurious, I can put together several, (typically) better performing, utterly reliable, PCs for the price of an Mac Apple.

The early AMD X2s were little heaters, but a good heat pipe heat sink would tame them (never got much of an overclock from them though).  My last one ended up in the HTPC, it is very happy playing movies/music (W7 64 ultimate).

I'm a contrarian; ...I like Microsoft operating systems (mostly)...

Enjoy!


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## Luc Valentine (Mar 17, 2011)

I'm a Mac, trapped in a PC.


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## Deathpool (Mar 17, 2011)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Well, I guess you guys got lucky. My Vista experience was bad. Bad, bad, bad. I hated that damn thing. My computer was slow as hell, programs would crash far too often, it just had way too many bugs. And let's face it, MS knew it sucked. That's why they worked overtime to release Win7 so soon after Vista.
> 
> By the way, I think your experience was better because of the version you had. Lenny, were you using 64-bit, as well? I was running plain old vanilla Home Premium, but I'd heard from friends who were running the 64-bit Vista that it was a lot more stable. Though I'm not sure why that would be the case...
> 
> ...


 
You probably installed on a computer that couldn't handle it. I didn't have any problem with mine. I'm never getting a Mac because Macs don't have very many programming languages that can be used. The other operating systems aren't any more secure than Windows. They aren't even really a target so claiming that you're more secure is actaully puting you at risk. Another thing is that Apple computers are so expensive. I can't justify spending over a thousand dollars for an entry level PC. I know because I checked. I find that Mac and Linux loves don't really know that much about security and what the bad guys are capable of. The reason Windows Vista wasn't working well was because the poeple downloading it weren't insalling it on computers that could hanlde it, not installing the Graphics Media Accelerator Driver, or the device companies weren't coming out with the Device Drivers quickly enough. There can also be combination of the list. It's not luck it's downloading Windows Vista properly. One must check the recogmended system reqiremnts not the minimum. I've never had a problem with it. Why don't you go build you're own operating system and find out how hard it is? That's what I see the companers that sit around complaining about every little thing they don't like. I installed a game on a computer that met the minimum system requirements and it would crash ever few minutes. It wasn't the games problem. It was because the computer was barely fast enough to play it. I get tired you all bashing perfectly legitimate companies. I tried installing Linux one time and the installing came up with an error. All of Microsoft's software has worked flawlessly for me. It can work that way for you, but you have to make sure you're computer is capable of running it first of all. I saw a screenshot of Linux and it looks like an amature did it. Mac looks much better. You're listening to liars Devi's Advocate. There's a way turn off the UAC, but it's there for a security reason. What it does is it prevents anything from running without permission that would affect other users. If it's set up properly only programs that don't affect other users can be ran with administrator priviledges. See that addressed a security issue. It makes me so upset when I find a product that at has at least one advertised feature that doesn't work.


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## Vertigo (Mar 18, 2011)

Let me first say I do not dislike Microsoft - people forget so quickly what things were like before they came up with what is effectively an industry standard OS. It may not be the best but the fact that nearly everyone uses it means an awful lot.

For those that don't/can't remember back that far: before the PC and DOS came along every computer was different (typically even between different computers from the same manufacturer). Consequently if you wrote an application it would only run on the one target computer system. Consequently something like a Word Processor (if you could really call them that back then) cost in the order of £20k - I kid you not. Anyone want to go back to that. Not to mention that changing computers required a one week course on the new system.

When the PC came out you could write a single application that had a potential marketplace big enough to offer the software at sensible prices. With the advent of Windows everyone got used to a particular style of interface, to the extent that when you got a new piece of software you just started using it; no need to spend a week reading the operators manual. Admittedly with some of MS's new interfaces it now seems we are going back to square one again, which I hate. So it may not be the best but MS gave us a standard that made all computer work easier from that time on.

Now my grouch. I have just gone to Windows 7 and I hate it with a vengence. It may be more stable than Vista (I managed to skip Vista altogether) but it is far, far, far less stable that XP. With my old XP machine I almost never had lock ups requiring the power switch to kill it (maybe once or twice in a year) I have had at least a dozen in the two and half months I have W7. Half the time when I launch a new program it does not load on top of other applications but behind them and I have to bring it forward. I've had to switch to Live Mail whose address search combo goes bonkers when it has drilled down to two options. I'm going to have to replace the Windows jpeg quick viewer thing as I do a lot of work with photos and now each time I open a photo to look at it it comes up in a new instance of the software (and MS say that can't be changed) and within a short while I discover I have about 50 open coies of the Windows Image viewer. The list goes on; mostly small irritants but irritants that weren't present in XP.

In fairness I am a software developer and that does generally give OS's a hard time - testing your own software that contains bugs that mess up the OS. But it is all much worse than when I was on XP. Then again I have moved from a laptop with a single processor and 2G of memory to a laptop with 8 processors with 8G of memory running 64bit W7 and I can barely notice any improvement in general usage speed.


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## Deathpool (Mar 18, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> Let me first say I do not dislike Microsoft - people forget so quickly what things were like before they came up with what is effectively an industry standard OS. It may not be the best but the fact that nearly everyone uses it means an awful lot.
> 
> For those that don't/can't remember back that far: before the PC and DOS came along every computer was different (typically even between different computers from the same manufacturer). Consequently if you wrote an application it would only run on the one target computer system. Consequently something like a Word Processor (if you could really call them that back then) cost in the order of £20k - I kid you not. Anyone want to go back to that. Not to mention that changing computers required a one week course on the new system.
> 
> ...


 
I don't know of a way to change that. You people keep blaming the wrong company. It's the fautl of the driver company for not hurrying and their drivers out. They took too long. Again I had a game that kept crashing and I thought it was a problem the game itself. It turned out I was running on computer that was just fast enough to run it. On my new computer it ran flawlessly. It's not about luck it's about knowing how to do it. Vertigo I believe you mean eight cores. Multicare processing doesn't make a difference unless multiple applications are ran or the program has been multithread. Multithreading is programming code splits the program into more than processes so it can be ran in it's each individual core.


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