2 posts tagged “vista”
I know that I said this was going to be a security blog, but I figured I would continue on my rant on Vista after this happened.
Ok, so there I was...
I saw on Betanews.com a article on Vista Hardware Assessment Tool Addresses Upgrade Dilemmas by Scott M. Fulton, III of Betanews, which toted of a Windows XP tool to check for hardware compatibility for Vista.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I downloaded it (25.5 MB). I simply wanted to see if my machine could handle Vista. Installation starts and tells me that it needs SQL Server 2005 Express and that it is going to download and install it for me. And I'm thinking (Oh great, my computer is now going to have an outdated Microsoft SQL server on my system. yay me!) I click ok, whatever. It downloads, then installs SQL Server 2005 Express, and starts to install "Windows Vista Hardware Assessment" (just a tangent, but shouldn't there be something like "tool" or "wizard" on the end of that?) and it gets to a certain point and stops for a bit. It continues after about 10 minutes. And then stops again at about 65%. At this point I need to go to bed and I do so. I wake up the next morning to be greeted with the following screen:
Yes it was still at around 65% and no my computer wasn't frozen. So I came to the conclusion that if I can't even install the "Assessment" then my computer isn't compatible. I also get the added treasure of a failed install of SQL Server 2005 Express. I wouldn't suggest this tool until it gets looked at again, or some third party makes the same tool without the need of a \insert expletive here\ SQL Server.
P.S. Richmond has tried it's hand at WGA again. Check out my digg article here:
http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Windows_Genuine_Advantage_Part_2
Well, I made it. I get to go to Launch Tour 2007. I will have a lot more about Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows SharePoint 2007 as well. Just a couple things about the current talk I am currently in.
Windows Vista introduces:
- 2400 GPOs (+800 from XP / Win 2003)
- Policies are XML based which lends to third party updates and changes.
- Device restriction: (Which means you can disallow USB devices. You can get it granular as well, where you can allow USB keyboards, mouses, etc... But not USB flash drives. You can even get down to the level of exact device name. Such as USB\SanDisk1GB_ )
- This is not restricted to USB, this is all devices.
- With GPOs you can configure when your computers turn off the hard drives, and monitors. Even on desktops. This is a huge feature for large enterprises that die when the power bill comes in.
