70 processes?

Right now - counting all the antivirus, audio,video,joystick, kb and mouse drivers and other "background desired" processes - I have a total of 48. Those process amount to 15 - so you should be down to about 30 -35 OS related threads, then add in the extras.

I have to agree - a full, CLEAN install is the way to go. Put on necessary up to date drivers, SP1 and such. Then when your fully up to date, add all the apps you think your parents will have use for.

Also - if you want the XP way of doing things - just set Vista to run with the XP GUI.

Vista in its default configuration - especially coming "preinstalled" - is nothing but pure bloatware. That isn't so much the fault of the OS, but all the crap thats piled on top.

Honestly - I suspect the crashes your getting are from the bloat - not the OS. Think about this - XP support is going to be gone soon - want your parents on a box that can't get further fixed? The time you have spend trying to "clean" the mess on that box, you could have it clean and running by now - likely problem free.

Remember that removing alot of the bloat can cause OS issues because many "propietary" apps have tie ins with other things. Seriously - format the bugger and then go from there. Your going to have to do that anyway to roll to XP.

The notebook came preinstalled, without any DVDs. The Samsung Recovery Solution of course allows poyu to make bootable recovering disks and saves an image onto the HD, too.but thta means you cannot install Vista alone.

The 130 background taks where some shock to discover. With XP, after fresh installation, I have some low 20 processes, and later some low-mid 30. Before launching FS9, I use to dump the number down to below 20.

Anyway, I handed it over to them today - and without doubt will spend the next days to visit them time and again. :D Way to go - dry weather, new bike, and good biking options in the MÜnsterland.

Does anyone know "Team Viewer"? I asked in a thread, but nobody seemed to care.

http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

Nope never heard of that one

I've never had any problem with Vista except during several day after first installing it which I got rid off by installing the latest MOBO BIOS. If I have to complain: I still can't figure a way to organize my installation in the start menu folder list. even after nmaing the folder it got ignored and installed in a default way quite messy I must say.

70 sounds about right. Plus minus a few. Unlike XP, Vista is still able to run smoothly with a large number of background 'noise'.
I got a pretty large number with around 60 to 70 (which includes the processes for several addons, like keyboard, virus scanner etc). Most of those are unfortunately essential or important for my machine. :nope:

Bloatware sucks. :down:

Well you could just as easily have said Microsoft sucks. :har:
They don't have a single consumer OS and/or application software that isn't bloatware.
Its a real pity that the only "usable" products are the server ones.

Even Windows 7 is bloatware, a nice shiny coat of paint over Vista and some inner tweakings. We will see how well they do when they dismiss completely 32 bit compatibility. :D

The computer I had built came with the Vista OS and absolutely nothing else. No email come-ons, third party programs or other crap to sign up for. This is the bloat-ware that sucks and takes up hard drive space.

I use Vista Enterprise at work, and it's fairly easy to get a handle on, once you get settled. So you can mark that as a problem.

I get users complaining about Vista after moving from another OS, and the problems they're finding are usually those that existed in Windows XP/2k, only amplified because it's a new environment.

Again, the Vista I use and troubleshoot is Enterprise, the big daddy of the lot.
The girlfriend has Home Edition, and it drives me mad. Like driving a car with a compass and a stopwatch. I'm sticking with my XP Media Centre for the time being, mostly due to lack of funds for a new computer:P
I never can understand the tendency towards editions. Home/Professional should be enough. The business model of fewer features/lower price just doesn't work for an OS.

That said, how it takes Vista an hour to copy a GB or two is beyond me.

Plus point for Vista - It needs more RAM than XP, so RAM manufacturers vastly increased production in anticipation of a mass uptake. Which didn't really happen. Hence, lots of cheap RAM for us.

Vista's not a bad OS its better than XP imo, you just got to run vista on lots of ram and tweak it. Straight out of the box vista is bloated & if your going to do nothing about the bloatware well yeah your going to be frustrated at times. Beats me how techs complained about Vista but if they really new what they are doing they would know that all it takes is some tweaking of the OS and your end up with a sleek faster system than XP will ever be.

Before you even install Vista you should use Vlite this gives you choices on what you want to disable during install you will end up with a very fast OS

If can't be bothered doing that then once Vista bloat version is installed download and register with "Tweak IV Ultimate v1.0" (sept 2008) or later. This tool lets you tweak everything under the hood so to speak.

There are so many things - mainly services - that should be turned of in Vista. Same with XP really. Especially in a home environment.

Not using a wireless system? Kill zen. Not sharing data between local pc's? Kill server. etc etc etc.

At least in 7 they FINALLY got rid of that freakin indexer! I hated that thing from day one - and finally it can be YANKED instead of just turned off.

You mean you didn't like that "If you do anything with your computer, like use it for something other than a dust magnet, the indexer will not perform as fast as possible" message?:yeah:

As far as turning of services. I have not touched that. The machine runs like a hot knife through butter. Feed the need of Vista. I just might look into that turning off of services. :D

One thing I noted is how incredibly slow things go: security scans. Okay, obviously CPU and Hd speed have a word here, but still: I scan via Avira AntiVir, Spybot S&D, A-squared and Ad-Aware. the notebook has not even 20 GB of data on the working partition. I compare to my own PC, a P4 with 3 GHz, and around 100 GB of data on the HD. Full scans on my PC system take 30 minutes for Spybot, and around 1 hour for the other scanners (in full mode). On the note book, with five times less data. antiVir scanned 40 minutes, Spybot was okay with 15 minutes, A-square scanning 90 minutes, and Ad-Aware I interruoted with crippled nerves after 2,5 hours and 50% of the progress bar visible.

HS! Do that once a week and you need a new HD inserted into the thing every year. :dead:

My Mom also now hates Vista, she says she can't remember the way where it sotres data and how it guides you around. But from that perspective it should be noted that now she is fit (without me giving many explanations), to navigate my own PC - running on XP.

She also currently suffers some form of mental paralysis due to the culture shock. She knew it is a big digital world out there- but now she gets an idea of HOW scaringly big it is. :DL

I also installed Air Hockey for her. She plays it like a crazy 16 year old, laughing all the time. :D

I oversaw this. Where and how to adjust that? I will try that next time I have access to their machine.