In Vista, if I go to Windows Explorer and expand the Network, I can see my laptop (called "Maxs_Laptop")
I'm currently at work, so the following is based on my memory of what happened. Even though "Maxs_Laptop" showed under Network, clicking on it prompted me for a username and password. When I enter my laptop's username and password (which I do everyday at work, so I'm 100% sure there was no typos, especially after all the attempts), it is still saying it's wrong.
At work, I'm always mapping drives although in my work environment we don't have Vista, but the principal is the same. ie Select the path, click on "logon as a different user", enter your username and password and Voila - you have a mapped drive. Yet for some reason, Vista won't let me map to my XP Pro laptop. I had no problem doing it when the office PC had WinXP Home on it. Also I'm having no problems mapping to my loungeroom PC which has WinXP Home (but don't forget that it boots directly into the OS without asking for a username/password, unlike my work laptop) and my Ubuntu computer's shared drives.
I appreciate any suggestions, so keep them coming, but I am getting very frustrated with Vista as there are other issues that I'm having. These include:
- my digital TV card is pixalating when either viewing TV or recording it - I've updated my Video and Sound drivers as well as drivers for the digital TV Card and the Support personnel from the VideoMate DVB-T300 company are still trying to determine why. Especially when under WinXP on the same computer it runs flawlessly.
- VNC programs don't work anymore. Admittedly the company's such as TightVNC will need to bring out updated software, but obviously there's some security setting which is stopping programs from being backward compatible. I used VNC to remote into my loungeroom computer to set up recording schedules on that digital TV card as trying to do it in the loungeroom with the computer outputting to a TV meant that the text wasn't very clear.
- I tried to install Cyberlink PowerDVD 6 thinking that installing a DVD player might install some Codec which may resolve issue 1 above, but on trying to run the program after installing it, Vista told me that it wasn't compatible and I would need to upgrade the program. Once again, an operating system should allow programs to be backwardly compatible. What used to run on XP should be able to run on Vista. I can understand that the reverse wouldn't be true - ie a program designed for Vista may not run on WinXP.
- I right click on a file, eg a robocopy batch file, and go into the properties and mark it so it runs as Administrator, but when I run it, I still get a pop-up asking whether I allow it or not. I've found out from trial and error when my robocopy script which copies files from one local hard drive (D Drive) to another local hard drive (E Drive) would hang on the first directory it came across because not running it as Administrator meant that it couldn't over-write any files that had changed.
Last night I was looking at the event viewer to see if there were any messages that might help as the last week or so I've been getting a Rundle32 error on bootup, and I have over 1000 critical errors (once again, this is from memory) even though I only installed Vista prior to Christmas when I had some time off work.
I actually purchased Vista but didn't install it straight away for 2 reasons:
- I was waiting until I had at least a whole day to devote to installing the OS, drivers, programs etc
- Was hoping SP1 would come out.
I've heard that SP1 will fix a lot of problems and perhaps it might fix the VNC and remote mapping problem. I can't wait for it to be released.
Sorry for the rant, but as I get more and more frustrated and my productivity on Vista is declining, I just feel like I have to vent my frustrations.
If SP1 doesn't fix my problem with the digital TV card for example, then I'll either think about moving it over to the Ubuntu box or wiping Vista and going back to XP. I'm only learning with Ubuntu, but it's pointless having a digital TV card that records shows that are unwatchable due to lines of pixalation and/or audio/visual sync issues etc.
FYI, my system is AMD Dual Core x64 4800+, 2GB RAM, 2 x 250GB SATA drives, 1 x SATA DVD drive, and my video card was upgraded last week from nVidia 7100 128mb to a RADEON 3850 256mb card (thinking an updated card may help my TV Card issue).
Cheers