Vista is a Joke

[sapi]

Vista's fine, for the most part.

You just have to get used to it.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I'm not sure I want to get used to my computer crashing and probably having to have everything re-installed just because Vista failed to install some updated properly.

[AggonyDuck]

To be honest that really doesn't sound like problems with Vista itself, but more like hardware/driver issues.

[Rhyfelwyr]

No, I think it was the automatic updated that mucked it up somehow. Anyway, I used the repair my PC function on the Windows Vista installation disk, and now it works again. For justnow anyway...

[Husar]

I've got to be either a computer professional or I'm blessed by Bill Gates personally. I have vista and I have 2GB RAM, and I didn't have to remove any of it. Search google for "memtest", download it and let it run for a long time, my guess is it will come up with a lot of faults in either or both of your RAM sticks. I'm updating Vista quite often, I have set it to notify me of new updates and i always download them, there hasn't been a problem once.
However just today I learned/heard that it can produce some weird bugs, try downloading the updates again and see whether that results in the same errors, though backup any important data before doing so.

Apart from that it could still be a hardware problem and it always reminds me how often I had Linux crash. XP doesn't always work properly either btw, the world isn't perfect and Vista is new. Yeah, I got it for free.

Oh, I need a point, well, I don't think it's a joke, it's not perfect, but joke is too strong a word.

[sapi]

Yeah, well it definitely sounds like hardware/driver issues to me; haven't had a single crash on vista since I got it installed.

You wouldn't happen to be using the 64 bit version?

[Xiahou]

To be honest that really doesn't sound like problems with Vista itself, but more like hardware/driver issues.

Maybe, but we still don't have to like Vista.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I am indeed using 64-bit Vista. I think the crash was caused by either the updates that installed, or the ones that failed to install properly. Its run smoothly for a week with just the 1 RAM stick. When I ran with just the other (bad) RAM stick, it crashed a lot more than when I used both. So I'm fairly certain it was just the one bad RAM stick that caused that problem.

I've googled tests for RAM before, but everything I come across tells me I need to buy a disk first.

[sapi]

Ah, 64 bit vista - that explains it

It's not so much microsoft's fault as you'd think, but the driver support is atrocious.

Hopefully it'll improve over time...

[Tran]

Just curious (and slightly off-topic) what's the differences between "64 bit" Windows XP/Vista and "normal/common" Windows XP/Vista? The graphic?

[Lemur]

I've googled tests for RAM before, but everything I come across tells me I need to buy a disk first.

Memtest86 is free. Download it, burn it to a disc, test the RAM. (You'll want to download the ISO image.)

[Whacker]

Memtest86 is free. Download it, burn it to a disc, test the RAM. (You'll want to download the ISO image.)

Might I suggest this (Memtest86+) instead? It's a bit more up to date and has a few better features. Direct link to the ISO image also.