For whatever reason (pick one: insanity, drunkeness, mild retardation, whatever) I decided to format my laptop sometime in the summer months and make a go of it with Windows Vista. I previously was running Windows XP Home edition. I was running XP Home edition instead of XP Pro because I was too lazy to format the laptop when it finally did arrive from Dell (late 2005/early 2006). During the summer the craptop, as I so lovingly refer to it, was having major slowness issues. I did about every virus and spyware scan on it that I could think of, and each time the scan would come back clean. I came to the conclusion that it needed a good format to fix its issues. I could have just as easily formatted and went to XP Pro, like I wanted to initally (but was too lazy to do), but nooooooooooooooooooooooo. I had to be all about upgrading to the latest and greatest OS.
BTW, take the words latest and greatest with a grain of salt. If I could describe Windows Vista in two words they would be “down” and “grade”.
Vista has a pretty facade, but that’s about it. Its just a prettified version of Windows XP. I really haven’t found any particularly useful features about it. The task bars, menus, and control panels are setup differently. Why? I don’t know. It takes twice as long for me to find what I’m looking for. I looked for about 20 minutes this morning through various menus to adjust the size of my icons on the desktop. Oh, but its not in the display menu or personalize menu as you’d think. NO no. You have to right click on the desktop and then View -> Classic Icons. What. The. Fuck. Seriously. Is Microsoft trying to make me go insane?
Reading the above, you should know that I did do technical support for 4 or so years for an decent sized ISP in Pennsylvania. I have supported the following OS’s: Mac OS 7.5.1.-OS X, Windows 3.11 thru Windows XP. The fancier OS’s came out after I was promoted to another department. I am not an idiot, this OS just plain sucks bad. If I had to pick, the worst OS we had to support was by far Windows ME (Millenium). I’m guessing Tech Support departments all over the world have a brand new hatred for Windows Vista.
Anyway, I’ve gotten off course. The point of this blog was that I finally reached my breaking point with the craptop this morning. Rich and I have been throwing around the idea of getting a MacBook for me because its versatile and can run Windows and Windows applications, and can do everything this craptop can do, but looks better and isn’t a piece of crap. I don’t really like the idea of spending 1200 dollars on a laptop though. I’ve been having a variety of issues with the laptop before the Windows Vista fuckage even come into play. First of all, since I’ve started using this laptop, the spacebar sticks. I could be typing and not looking and then all of the sudden I look up at the screen and half of the line I just typedlookslikethis. The battery life sucks. With my old battery (the OEM battery) I got about an hour of use while unplugged. I should have been getting like 2 or 3. Rich bought me a new battery off of ebay that gets 5 hours of life, so I’ve been using that. My left mouse button broke. It is permanently depressed. I’ve tried prying it up, but its stuck down. Luckily it still works, but it just pisses me off that I’ve paid so much money and and am having this problem. Also, one last thing — the hinge between my screen and keyboard needs to be tightened. If you were to move my laptop, the screen wobbles back and forth. I got into a chatroom with Dell Support today to see if I could get these issues resolved. We had purchased an extended 2 year warranty on the craptop, so I didn’t think it would be an issue. First of all, they refuse to fix the hinge, because “it can be tightened by adjusting 2 screws on the bottom”. I still haven’t located these screws. I guess I’ll have to take the battery out and check there. They opened a call tag for the depressed mouse button issue. Maybe if they give it some zoloft it will pop back up to its normal self. I’m going to have to send the damn thing back to the Service Depot for 5-8 days to get that fixed. Then the woman refused to have them fix the keyboard-spacebar sticking issue at the Service Depot because “it is labeled as a customer replacable part”. Meaning, she was going to send me a keyboard and have me try to replace it. I am sure Rich and I could have figured it out ourselves, but what the fuck am I paying for a warranty if I have to fix the damn thing myself. Finally after about 20 minutes of going back and forth, she agreed to put an exception on my case and have them try to fix the mouse and the keyboard in one shot at the Service Depot. It may or may not come back with the keyboard fixed. If it doesn’t, I have to get back in touch with Dell Support to get a replacement keyboard shipped to me.
Totally horrible support = Dell
So anyway. I’m done. I’m fed up with these shenanigans. I’m going to be ordering a Black Macbook in the next week. Hopefully it will get here before I have to send this one to Dell. Michelle w/out PC is not a good thing, kids. Besides, I think I deserve one little splurge with my severance check. Especially with the amount of frustration this POS causes me on a daily basis. Once the laptop is fixed I am formatting it and selling it.
Out with the Craptop and in with the Mactop.
M Davies on November 25th 2007 in Technology Hates Me
