A few weeks back – my venerable home computer (Athlon 1400) finally just gave up – it won’t even boot to the BIOS. I figured after years of slipping in new parts and tiny upgrades – it was finally time to get a new computer. I figured that I had avoided upgrading long enough to make a whole new computer worth my time.
And since dual Intels were the norm – I was double pre-disposed to upgrade.
I grabbed the Sunday paper and found an ad for a $400 Compaq with 1GB RAM, 250 GB HD, and dual Intels (mmm tasty). I drove over to Best Buy and purchased it – just plopped down the credit card and took it home – I figured – this was amazing hardware for the price. I figured I would try Vista which it came with and if I did not like that I would drop back to XP – I even looked at the restore capability in the store to make sure I knew how to “go back”.
Vista was plan A. XP was plan B.
So I get it home and fire up Vista – I kind of like it – but after things were set up the way I like it – none of my printer sharing worked – Vista and Mac OS/X do not seem to be on speaking terms w.r.t. printers. Yikes – I should have checked with Google first!
So I figured – back to XP I go. I install XP on the new Compaq and it comes up great – except for the hardware drivers that are all missing – not even a network driver so I could search for other drivers – yikes!
Hey I have done this a bunch of times – off to the Compaq site to get the XP drivers for my shiny new hardware. Big OOPS – this is a Vista Only computer. Now I am starting to get mad (mostly at myself for not checking for XP drivers before I bought it). I figure oh well – I will just restore to Vista and see what happens – at worst I might give the new hardware to the kids and start over.
Nope – this does not work – the restore that comes with Compaq it *NOT* a separate partition – it is the virtually useless WIndows “System Restore” capability – when I whacked the first partition – I whacked my ability to get VIsta back. Now I do own a legal copy of Vista Ultimate (Thanks Chris) – so I could have formatted it and gone back to Vista – or I could have waited a few days and got a CD from Compaq. But I was in impulse mode – I started this adventure on an impulse and did not want to start thinking rationally at this point.
So I started to get mad. I got mad at Vista for not interoperating with Mac OS/X – I got mad at Compaq because they did not give me XP drivers – I got mad at Best Buy thinking about the conversation I would have to have trying to return hardware which was unrecoverable and a totally formatted first partition.
In my anger I decided to try to take the computer back to Best Buy – pay the restock fee – take my lumps and buy something else. On the drive to Best Buy I rehersed my speech to the customer service person at Best Buy – I rehearsed everything – faces – tone everything – It was about to be a masterpiece of acting. But knowing this was my stupid mistake, I was ready to (a) pay a restock fee or (b) keep the computer install Vista and give it to my son for games. I knew I had really screwed up – so I wanted to do my unhappy customer bit and than once that was done – I would keep the box if necessary.
Best Buy cheated me out of my grand speeches – they were amazingly nice and amazingly intelligent. The first person I met said “sure we will take it back” – when I offered to pay a re-stock fee – she said that would not be necessary. When I insisted that I had messed up the hard drive so I should pay a restock fee – she agreed to get a Geek squad guy to talk to me (this was not going according to my plan at all). The Geek squad guy was really nice and really sharp – quickly we were talking about which partition and which restore was needed and how was sorry I missed the fact it was using Windows Restore – he just looked at me and kept telling me everything would be fine. He said he would take a quick look and let me know.
Ten minutes later I had 100% of my money back – no matter how hard I tried to punish myself for my poorly-researched purchase – Best Buy provided me awesome customer service. I was stunned and very impressed and very pleased. I need to write a letter thanking them.
So I immediately went back in the Best Buy store and bought an iMac for $1200. Ironically Apple has a better commitment to old versions of Windows than Compaq. I figured I would go the BootCamp route.
So I walk out with a bright shiny new iMac and a big smile on my face. I get home and fire up the mac – get the OS/X side working – get Parallels working – get all my software installed and then start on BootCamp – The repartition works well. I drop in my XP / SP1 disk and boot it up. I notice that the partition map does not look anything like I expect – I don’t see the partitions I want to see and the size of the partition I do see is wrong.
I figure – what the heck – must be some magic emulation fakery going on. So I format the disk and install XP SP1. This is looking great – until the reboot at the end of the install. Nothing – blank screen – there is no longer *any* bootable partition – anywhere on this hard drive.
Back to Google – I quickly find that when it said XP/SP2 on that popup – I should have read more carefully. Now my shiny new iMac was trashed. But not to worry – I popped in the Mac restore disks (thanks Apple) and after an hour or so was again treated to the welcome movie on the mac – I love that music and video – I might reformat a system from time to time just to watch the “welcome” video”.
This time I decided to go with Vista on BootCamp because I did not have an XP/SP2 disk handy. I knew this would make trouble with printers but I was still operating on adrenaline – with the family computer down and out – I was on the hot seat.
So I install my legal copy of Vista Ultimate under boot camp and make it default boot into Windows for the family. When I am working I will just boot into OS/X.
Once it comes up I start noticing things I really really like about Vista. It notices my Brother Network-attached printer immediately. DVD’s play beautifully out of the box. The User interface is better than XP by a long shot – I love the right side widget dock – I put family pictures rotating on everyone’s account (this saves me a $100 electronic picture frame).
So now I set about fixing my printer sharing problem. I realize that it is just silly to share printers through computers. My Brother ink jet printer is Ethernet already and it has drivers in OS 10.5 and Vista (XP requires an install) making it so that the operating system is not a factor in printer sharing is great.
I decide to trash my Hp LaserJet 4 and get a Brother Laser with Ethernet for $100 – this will solve my problems forever!! But it turns out my brother has an old JetDirect card laying around – I install that and dang if it just works on XP, Mac OS/X and VIsta. Things are looking up.
Now I have all my printers working – the family liking the new computer – me loving the fact that I can work on a iMac with a nice big screen and perhaps save my vision a little bit. I love the fact that the iMac has no box under the table and almost no cables (there is a bit of a USB rats nest behind the computer). The iMac and Air is a super combination (Thanks to Ian D for that suggestion about four months ago).
About Vista
As the month of post-Vista has passed am really growing to like Vista – not for development – but as an end-user operating system. I tried to force my family to use OS/X to simplify my tech support calls (mostly about printers) – but they did not like it and even after I taught them a few things – they still did not like Mac OS/X. Brent liked Mac OS/X so he is a convert (Garage Band helps in this religious conversion). When I gave them Vista – they liked it.
Here is the interesting bit – When I compare XP to Vista and XP to Mac OS/X – the amount of cosmetic change is pretty significant in both situations. So I felt that perhaps that in some ways Vista is simply more usable than Mac OS/X in some ways.
I still love the Mac – because I am a developer – I could never ever use an operating system unless it was based on UNIX. Sorry Windows. But for end-user things – Vista is pretty nice. I like the start icon and system tray better on Vista – I like the color scheme better on Vista – I like the fact that menus stick with the windows (an increasing problem as screen sizes become gigantic). All in all – as wonderful as Mac OS/X is – there is a little catching up to be done IMHO.
I also love Vista because of the fewer patches and more functionality out of the box (more like Mac OS/X). Even after a few weeks, I would not go back to XP – XP seems so clunky all of a sudden compared to Vista – both in usability and in maintenance. Vista just built-in more stuff that I had to add before. Funny – it took far longer for me to let go of Windows-98 compared to how long it took me to let go of Windows-XP.
I think that it would be nice for Mac OS/X to look at Vista and see if there are some ways that Mac OS/X could be improved. I would like the best of both worlds. Not that I dislike Mac OS/X – but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps as we switch from the current UI to the iPhone influenced UI – they could do a little nip and tuck in the Mac UI without seeming to admit that Microsoft *might* have done something right :)
Summary
So this experience surprised me in many ways – I learned a lot. My pre-concieved notions about how things would work out were often wrong. The heros and goats of this saga are as follows
Heros of my Story
Best Buy impressed the heck out of me in their competent and courteous service.
Microsoft Even though people are dissing Vista all the time – Microsoft has made something pretty nice – and I think that if you give it a chance in the right situation – I think that like me – it will win you over with capabilities well beyond XP. It makes XP look sad (of course I am talking about home use and not gaming/hacking here – just normal humans doing normal human things).
Brother Printers the future is networked printing – Brother has this built Ethernet and (usually) WiFi into their cheapest printers now – laser and ink jet. The next time your printer does not work – throw it away and buy a Brother printer – reward the company that chooses to support all operating systems for direct networked printer sharing. It is cheaper to replace your printer hardware than to bring in Geek Squad for $250 to debug your $50 ink-jet printer. Hey when you run out of ink – throw away your printer and buy a networked Brother printer. Note to Hewlett-Packard: HP should learn a lesson and put in cheap JetDirect support in every single printer on down to the lowest ink Jet and make sure to support it on all operating systems – even old ones – if you do not Brother might just eat your lunch. Brother is about 2-3 years ahead of HP on this one.
Apple – Funny how Apple makes a stronger commitment to supporting multiple Windows operating systems than some Windows-only vendors. Apple Hardware kicks arse. It is more expensive – but with the ability to do more than one thing – it is like you are getting more than one computer. The iMac is such an awesome piece of hardware for a home computer.
Goats in my Story
Compaq – They build great hardware that they treat like a microwave – it is throw-away. There is no commitment to thinking about how I will use it or giving me flexibility. I am thinking that they change hardware IDs just to spite me. I am glad to be rid of that hardware – technically it was beautiful – but the tech support was equivalent to the support you would get with a vacuum cleaner. Of course for $400 it costs about the same as a vacuum cleaner – so I should not complain so much. Interestingly we bought a $400 Dyson vacuum cleaner and did not like it so much either.
So in conclusion – this was fun once it was over and I am really happy with my current home configuration – like any technology transition – you don’t want to do this very often. But if you wait a while and make a big jump – it can be pretty nice.
Just a little side note to Microsoft – Apple is a better friend to Microsoft than Compaq – when your operating system is viewed through some of these Windows-only vendors that sell hardware with poor support – it ends up reflecting badly on Microsoft. The fact that Compaq picked a silly way to handle restore is not your fault – Compaq was just trying to save a buck.