Vista is driving me bonkers !

[Loiseau]

I am using a newish, cheapish laptop running Windows Vista.

It has an infurating habit of jumping from full-screen display to smallish-screen display for absolutely no reason.  Well, when I have clicked somewhere, such as on the side bar on the right, intending to scroll down or scroll up - or even just when I click somewhere in the window, in the document I am working on. It will suddenly jump to a shrunken size, and when you click again ont he page, it jumps back to full or large screen or whatever I want to be on. And when you click again - small again; large again.... ad almost infinitum.

Sorry, this is rather garbled and un-techie I am afraid!   But I hope somebody knows how to cure it...

Also, the WinMail, that takes up where Outlook Express left off, is being very strange about inserting the email addresses of my correspondants.  With Outlook Express, I just had to start typing somebody's name for it to appear as a suggestion in the "To" slot.  Or to click on the "To" word, and find the whole list of address book entries and click on the one I want.  But NOT WinMail - oh no.   It never completes an address for me.  So I have been obliged to go to the "To" word and find the address there.  And today it is offering a list of addresses that is not the same as usual.  There are some regular correspondents I cannot find in it.  And yet when I open the "Windows Contacts" file from the top of the page, there they all are in, seemingly, a slightly different version of my address book.

I don't *believe* it!

And while I am at it, can anyone suggest how I can make the hairline marker (that you position in order to start typing at a certain point in your document) a bit stronger and easier to see?  I spend most of my time squiggling around ont he touch pad trying to find where it is...   Grrrrrrrrr

 

Angela  [:'(]

[Geordie girl]

I had the same problems as you and it drove me mad. We had vista taken off the laptop, windows xp put on and since then its worked like a dream

[Jacqui Too]

[quote user="Loiseau"]

I don't *believe* it!

And while I am at it, can anyone suggest how I can make the hairline marker (that you position in order to start typing at a certain point in your document) a bit stronger and easier to see?  I spend most of my time squiggling around ont he touch pad trying to find where it is...   Grrrrrrrrr

Angela  [:'(][/quote]

Hi Angela

I think I can only help on this one!

Click on start

Click on control panel

Click on mouse, When the mouse properties box comes up , click on pointers, you will see that text select is there about sixth down in the custom box ( which is the one I think you are referring to) look just under scheme and click the drop down box and you will find about 25 options or you can browse, you can click on each one to see which you prefer, but just to enlarge is down towards the bottom called Windows standard extra large.

After you find some thing you like click apply then click OK

When you next go into windows mail ect. you should see the difference.

Hope this has helped if not I'm sure someone more tecie than me will be along later.

Jackie

 

[CBC]

Is this an expensive operation?

CBC

[CBC]

[quote user="Geordie girl"]I had the same problems as you and it drove me mad. We had vista taken off the laptop, windows xp put on and since then its worked like a dream[/quote]

Is it expensive to do this? 

P.S.  Sorry for double-post, couldn't delete first one.

[CBC]

[quote user="Geordie girl"]I had the same problems as you and it drove me mad. We had vista taken off the laptop, windows xp put on and since then its worked like a dream[/quote]

Is it expensive to do this? 

P.S.  Sorry for double-post, couldn't delete first one.

[Geordie girl]

It cost me 250 euros to do but worth every penny sorry centime just to keep my sanity. You have to have vista removed and pay for the disc to have windows put on. I am not computor savvy so someone out there may know of a cheaper way. I don't know where you are. We are in 50. I could give you the guys number. Since then (touch wood) we have had no problems while others are still struggling with theirs.[:D]

[Loiseau]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the input!

Jackie, I went to the Control Panel as you suggested, and have made something a bit darker now, so hopefully my aging eyes will be able to see it better!  Many thanks.

Geordie Girl, that sounds like the way to go.  I wonder if I might be able to take the computer back to John Lewis, in London, from whom I bought it, and get them to do it under guarantee.  It'd be a bit tiresome, as it's quite a heavy laptop which I bought to leave at my residence secondaire. And as I usually fly over, it would mean having to lug it back as hand baggage via plane, train, tube and bus.  Hmm, would be worth doing I think, to save 250 euros ... 

It's a relief to know there is a solution out there. [:)]

Angela

[Tim]

I've been running Vista on my laptop for 6 months now and I've not experienced any of the problems you're describing. I was a little nervous about getting Vista as I am pretty 'au fait' with XP but I'm happy with Vista.

I'm not sure about your display problem, but as far as the e-mail address issue is concerned - have you taken a look in the Windows Mail 'Tools' menu? In there you will find 'Options'. Select that and then select the 'Send' folder. Put a tick in the box marked ' Automatically complete e-mail addresses when composing' and this should sort out your problem.

I hope this helps - Tim

[Geordie girl]

Loiseau we tried taking ours back and they said we chose to buy with vista on it so tough luck to us.Maybe timcos advice will help. Like i said i'm not computor savvy so it was easier to get someone in to remove it.

[Loiseau]

Thanks for the advice Tim.  How silly of me not to think of that!  Works perfectly.

And the new improved pointer is much more visible, thanks Jackie!

Sadly, the all-jumping Vista is still driving me up the wall, but two out of three fixes is pretty good!  Thank you again, everyone.   I shall try and get the thing changed to XP as you advise, GG.

Angela

[AnOther]

I've been messing around with computers of various shapes, sizes and operating systems for the best part of 20 years, even written a couple of little programmes, albeit a long long time ago and in BBC basic however, outside of the odd curious and cursory glance in a shop, I have yet to properly lay hands on a machine with Vista on it, nor do I feel any desire to.

Frankly it's little more than worthless eye candy and whatever spin Microsoft try to put on it the bare fact is that it's substantially been a FLOP and only has the market penetration it does because it is preinstalled on 95% of new PC's and Laptops sold and you cannot claim those as sales. In terms of legitimate sales for new installs and upgrades it's strictly for the geeks and the "must have" early adopters.

If I were in market for a new machine today and could only get one with Vista then my very first action on getting it home would be to wipe it and replace it with XP, there are plenty of genuine CD's available on eBay.

I'm not a techo luddite by any stretch of the imagination but can sum up my feelings about Vista in one simple word.

Why ?

If I were thinking to make a change of OS it would be to Linux.

[Tim]

I tend to agree with you Ernie - but in the end, the reason that I decided to leave Vista on this relatively new laptop was because I often get asked to sort out friends and relative's computers, and it was only going to be a matter of time before one of them popped out and came back with a Vista OS on their machine. I thought I ought to, at least, have some sort of idea of how it worked - just in case.

As it's turned out, I think if you were to see this machine you may think it was running XP anyway - I suppose turning off alot of the 'bells and whistles' has helped.I also got it working very well over my own little network with a couple other machines running XP.

I make no comment about whether it's a flop, or not, all I will say is that I have had no problems at all with it - and it certainly seems to be more resiliant against some of the usual internet junk than XP.

As far as Linux is concerned - I am already running Unbuntu on a spare machine - so far so good, although I've not had a good play with it yet.

To sum up, so far I've had no reason to want to change it to an XP machine. But as with all these things - it's kept 'under review'.

Regards - Tim

 

[AnOther]

[quote user="Timco"]I often get asked to sort out friends and relative's computers, and it was only going to be a matter of time before one of them popped out and came back with a Vista OS on their machine. I thought I ought to, at least, have some sort of idea of how it worked - just in case.[/quote]Double edged sword Tim, you could use unfamilarity as a perfectly valid excuse for saying sorry, can't help you on this one [;-)]

[Tim]

I'm my own worst enemy sometimes Ernie[8-)] - I find it difficult to say 'no'.

[tel]

Hi,

I agree with Timco, I have been running Vista Home Premium on one of my PC's for 8 months with no problems, as he says once you have turned off the dross it is an excellent operating system.  XP took 3/4 years to iron out so I expect Vista to take roughly the same.  Built in Internet security is much better than XP and for the average user there are many helpful guides on using Vista (one of the facilities I turned off)  I run another PC with XP Pro and comparing the operating systems' abilities to deal with various tasks I still prefer Vista.

Regards

[Loiseau]

Just as an update to my query about the screen-sizes jumping around...

Somebody suggested getting one of the little USB mice/mouses and using that instead of the laptop's touchpad.  I picked one up cheaply in a HyperU and used it for the remaining few days of my stay.  No problem at all with the screen sizes.   [:)]
In fairness, I did not have cause to use the computer much, but it did seem to be perfectly OK.

Angela