Entries Tagged 'Vista' ↓

When I power my workstation on I have come to expect a short delay as the BIOS and OS load (it is a older and underpowered system). What I can't stand is the need for Windows Update to delay the load of the login screen to complete the installation of updates.
I can understand that some updates need a re-boot to complete - when I select the 'Update and Shutdown' option, I expect that the computer should do whatever it has to to apply those updates.
When a user turns a computer on, the system should be ready.
Twice in the last two weeks I've had to boot-up my workstation to solve a problem at work, I've had to wait for updates to be applied.
My biggest fear regarding this issue is that the practice will continue in future versions of the OS, and possibly spread to older versions via service packs. As I said, the OS should do what ever it needs to once the command to update and shut down has been given.
Please post a comment if you have any idea how to change this behavior.

I liked it.
The system worked well on Vista when outputting to my 21" TV and feed by 25 feet of composite cable (essentially the worst quality possible).

Last week there were posts on several blogs about how to enable this before NetFlix gave you the feature. When I logged in to try the trick I discovered that they had already enabled it for me.

Last night I gave it a more comprehensive test. The biggest problem with the service is the selection - but I expect that will only improve over time. I selected one of my favorite movies of all time: The City of Lost Children. The movie is originally in French, so it contained sub-titles. The text was small on my screen, but was perfectly legible. I watched briefly at full screen on my 21" CRT monitor and the picture quality was great.

My biggest concern was the CPU load because my system isn't the fastest and I wasn't sure if Vista would be an additional hinderance. While I was watching the CPU load it was hovering around 60% with no other applications running.

If you are already a subscriber, I suggest you find the instructions for enabling the service (you get an hour of streaming for every dollar you spend a month). If you are not a NetFlix subscriber and enjoy watching movies at home (or on the go from a laptop) I suggest you subscribe today.

A few words about my current set up at home.
I've got a computer with a 2.4Ghz AMD processor and tons of disk installed. I think the current total is about 750GB. I've got a supper sweet ViewSonic 21 inch CRT that I borrowed from work, and a ton of other peripherals too. The most important addition is the TV Tunner (Haugepauge TV-250, fyi).
Late last year I picked up a white MacBook, with a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo and a DVD burner. I have since upgraded the internal hard drive to a 160GB drive and last week I upped the memory in it to 2GB.
The MacBook has the latest build of Parallels Desktop with a copy of Windows XP to make sure that I can get work done.
The computer has my own copy of XP installed, as well as MSDN 'evaluation' copies of Windows Media Center and Vista Ultimate.
In the future I'll detail how I've managed to connect everything, and of course I'll keep you posed on my views of Vista.