Vista/Toshiba venting

[Chatmaster]

I am about to through my brand new Toshiba notebook into the nearest dustbin. I am fedup with Vista changing my screen settings at random, my network connections that simply connect and and disconnect when it desires and the freaking firewall that keeps on asking permission to do anything. My 3G keeps on giving hassles as well, because Windows has some issues every few minutes. I cannot uninstall Vista and install XP because of the stupidity of Toshiba to make hardware compliant to the Vista OS and the lack of installation disks because they decided the notebook is made for Vista. I cannot wait to buy my new notebook in January, Grrrrrrrr

[Dave A]

Vista certainly looks to be a challenge in a LAN setup.

We got our first Vista machine, a laptop, and the setup for our LAN has not gone well. Access to internet via the LAN, no problem. But to access a shared printer or shared files - not funny.

It's a little ironic. The main step forward from a user point of view when XP arrived (apart from the Windows 98 hanging issue), was the user friendly networking functionality. Now Vista seems to have gone exactly the other way. Networking functionality has become the PITA of all time.

Well done Bill. Real smart!

[Chatmaster]

It is so frustrating, everywhere I go notebooks seems to be sold with Vista, whether or not I prefer XP or not. What to do? If I didn't need my notebook for presentations I wouldn't mind, but seriously, this is getting ridiculous.

[duncan drennan]

If you have the business version of Vista, you can pay a small downgrade fee (R120) to get an XP version. Well worth it if you have a business version...

[Chatmaster]

I eventually found the true culprit. It is Norton, it kept on locking my network without telling me.(default setting) I will give Vista another go but it is still most annoying having to digg to find solutions because they seem overly paranoid.

[Chatmaster]

Just reached a point where I decided to uninstall Norton from this notebook. It is possibly the worst Anti virus software out there, simply because it doesn't allow me to tell it that my network is safe and keep it that way. I am fed up and now I must find a way to uninstall it. Which obviously is not that simple either, grrrrrrrr

[Dave A]

Norton's has become a nightmare. The new version seems to be totally network unfriendly (I've read similar complaints elsewhere).

If you remember, Norton's was struggling to come to terms with the Vista core and launched a lawsuit against Microsoft to open up their code to facilitate them. I haven't heard much on the subject recently, but I suppose Norton's wouldn't tell if it still was a problem for them.

[Chatmaster]

Finaly removed Norton and what a pleasure. My 2 Vista notebooks and my desktop (Win2000) can now fully utilize the network. I am truly disappointed in Norton now and wouldn't recommend anyone to use it.

[murdock]

i removed nortons a long time ago using bitdefender...only problem i have with bitdefender is whenever it updates the laptop almost comes to a stand still.

[Chatmaster]

I will probably use AVG again. The free version has never let me down.

[duncan drennan]

Currently using the free AVG on Vista with no problems.

[IanF]

Currently using the free AVG on Vista with no problems.

DSD
I use nod 32 since last year on 4 computers no hassle. This is with 1 teenage daughter who used just click and load software but has got over that. It is worth the cost.

[Chatmaster]

Currently using the free AVG on Vista with no problems.

Glad to hear that! Also glad to hear someone else that are happy with their product.