I am no longer a user of Windows Vista.

It has been nearly a year since Microsoft released Vista. I first wrote about it when I tested the upgrade process from Windows XP to Vista Business Edition. Shortly after that I upgraded my laptop and resolved a few minor issues with the optical drive, the Intel wireless configuration utility, Media Player, Explorer, Small Business Server, and constant system beeps that were starting to drive me nuts.

For most of the year now I’ve used Windows Vista Business Edition on the laptop in my home office and the laptop at my work. Both are about the same hardware spec - dual core CPU with 2Gb RAM. The home office laptop originally ran Windows XP Professional with only 1Gb RAM and was very fast. I later upgraded it to 2Gb RAM after Vista was installed. The laptop at work arrived with Vista pre-installed by Dell (which I stripped right back, removing all the ridiculous apps they ship with) and had 2Gb RAM from the start.

Why have I stopped using Windows Vista?

My primary gripe is the performance of the work laptop. It is just unacceptably slow. When I sit and consider my morning office routine I realise that it is based around how long it takes for Vista to boot and be at a functional desktop with my email and web browser open ready to start work. It takes forever.

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Whinging about UAC is for wimps, this is a real Windows Vista annoyance.

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate through the folder tree in the left pane (eg, navigate to C:\Temp)

2. Drag and select one or more files or folders in the right pane that you would like to delete

3. Hit delete

Windows Vista wants to delete the Temp folder that you had last selected in the left pane, not the files or folders you just selected in the right pane.  Windows XP or Server 2003 would delete the files you had selected in the right pane.

This feature was stinging me about once a week when I first started using Vista.  Now it catches me out far less often, but it is still very annoying when it does.  Even more annoying is if you are being reckless and hit Yes (the default answer) without really reading the dialog, or are using Shift + Del to bypass the Recycle Bin, or are deleting files from a network drive (when Recycle Bin does not come into play).

Its a very annoying feature, but luckily it won’t be a problem for me any longer.

There is a good story on the Windows Vista Team blog about a bust on a Chinese software piracy ring.  The story is a good one because it demonstrates the positive outcomes from the Windows Genuine Advantage program that many people gripe about.

Well done to Microsoft I say.

Here is a pro tip for you all - when upgrading the memory in your laptop you should always first bring it out of hibernation mode and shut it down properly before reaching for the screwdriver.  Whoops.

I’ve been working with a new laptop at work lately. I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping a set of earphones plugged into the laptop all day so that when I want to listen to some music or a podcast I can do so without bothering colleagues, and just generally in case of random application or website sounds that might crop up. I also tend to have the sound muted as well just to be safe.

Today I happen to have the earphones in when I was doing some work and noticed I had forgotten to turn off the default Windows sound scheme, so I was hearing the annoying *click* each time I navigated between folders. I went straight into the Control Panel and set the sound scheme to “No sounds”.

Immediately I noticed something even more annoying - as I launched my Citrix Program Neighborhood and starting navigating through that the laptop would beep each time I clicked on anything. This was despite having the earphones in, the sound muted, and the sound scheme set to “No sounds”. Because the sound was audible to my colleagues it had to be coming from the system speaker as opposed to the speakers for the sound card. As soon as I re-enabled the default Windows sound scheme the beeping would stop.

I tried a few things like setting a custom sound scheme with no sounds selected, or with just one or two obscure sound events selected, but this did not fix it. The solution turned out to be in the registry.

To fix the problem launch Regedit.exe and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound. Look for the values “Beep” and “ExtendedSounds”.

Set both of these values to “No” and reboot your system.

Now you can set your Windows sound scheme to “No sounds” (or anything else you like) without the system beeps occurring.

Note that you can run Regedit.exe and edit the keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER without requiring administrative privileges (user accounts are permitted to edit their own registry settings since this is how they are able to make changes to settings). If your corporate systems administrator has locked down Regedit.exe access you may not be able to do this yourself and would need to contact your IT support team for assistance.