Roll back from RTM to MCE 2005?
I’m running Vista Ultimate RTM at home and I have to say I hate it. I know the problem isn’t necessarily Media Center’s. But some combination of Media Center + Drivers + Codecs is ruining my experience with Media Center and as a result I watch all my content in an old copy of VLC. I absolutely cannot believe that they released to RTM in this state and are only weeks away from consumer launch.
If any OEMs are reading this and have machines they’d like to beta test that they feel work well I’d be more than happy to trade space in my living room for honest feedback (public or private).
Comments(26)
I hear ya!! I too have hated my experiance of media center in vista. For some reason, on my system after running for a day or so the system slows to a crawl, i’m talking up to a minute just to change from one screen to the next, usually meaning I hit the reset button!!
I waited for RTM to try Media Center on Vista because of the problems I’ve previously read about. I thought it would be an easier to transition on the released version, but so far I’ve had 2 huge problems, the first was that the included DVD decoder did not work for me. I had to install nVidia’s PureVideo and tweak the registry to make it work. The second problem is that it did not play DVD’s from my DVD drive. I can only play DVD’s that are stored on my hard drive.
Geez – I am glad I didn’t get the thing installed!!
It freezes when I get to the license agreement; see my post here: http://jonathan.faces.com/Blog/Posts/16279/
Starting to sound like they have some work to do!
I agree completely. I’ve installed it, had a very bad experience overall, and decided I won’t waste a minute longer of my time with it. I’ll try again when they release the first service pack, and if I read lots of positive feedback on the net. I’ve reinstalled Vista too many times, and the RTM is not much better than the previous beta releases.
OK, can someone tell me if this is an issue with Vista per say or drivers? It should have been obvious that drivers and codecs were going to be less than wonderful out the gate. You *HAVE* to actually release the damn thing so hardware vendors can say, “OK, this is the real deal, let’s develop drivers against this.”
I wouldn’t wait for a SP for Vista, but I would wait until each hardware vender had released at least one, maybe two, versions of real, non-beta, “Made for Vista” drivers. Sorry, but expecting XP or beta-cycle drivers to be up to snuff is short-sighted.
I’m personally not upgrading to Vista on my MCE machine simply for machine specs. I’m running a low-end machine that gets extended down to my 360. When I tried Beta 2 of Vista it took my older, low-end machine to it’s knees. The extended experience, in a word, sucked.
I’m using Vista Beta RC2 Build 5744 on an old P4 laptop with 1GB RAM and have no issues with speed. Sure, I don’t get Aero Glass but no big deal. Works as well or better than XP in my opinion.
Now, media center is another issue. I really hope MS gets this figured out. I have a MCE 2005 desktop that I use and was planning to build a Vista Media center for my living room but I’m holding off based on all the comments thus far.
Can you post some hardware specs? I’m running Vista rtm with a 3.0 g proc/2.5g mem and a radeon 9600/hauppage 150. I’m not actually a big mce guy but it seems to work well, no slowdowns or crashes. My biggest complaint is the mouse lockup bug when running 2 monitors – still not fixed and it’s quite annoying. I regularly run mce on the second monitor at full size and am always having to release the mouse by clicking the windows key and waiting for the gyrations to stop.
But really my experience with Vista and MCE is quite good.
Amazes me just how bad Media Player 11 AND Media Center in Vista are when it comes to album cover art…
There is a bug with it frankly!. No matter how you categorize it, it will often show the wrong cover art. Even if you have internet recognition from a CD DB turned off, the algorithm still manages to ignore your own FOLDER.JPG in each folder and use it as the album cover art view or just extract the embedded cover art picture where this does exist for the album art view.
Each of my songs are in a parent ARTIST folder and the name of the album for each song is the artist name (that way in ALBUM view you get ONE cover art for each artist and when you select it you get a list of songs).
Ive tried putting the Album name as the single track name and put the tracks into their own folder etc and it STILL gets it wrong. BUG DID NOT EXIST in MCE2005 and Media Player 10!
Im one of a few people who have every song with meta data and cover art embedded as well as a gernic album cover art FOLDER.JPG for each folder.
I dont need to use album art fixer or anything like that cause the meta data is correct to start with.
Hehehe, as some guys would say..
“We told you so !!!!!!!”
It was not ready to be released. Quality-wise and Feature-wise.
Most of the issues mentioned are problems with drivers, as evidenced by the fact that many of us (myself included) are running MCE Vista flawlessly. I have an idea, wait for the consumer version to actually be released. Maybe the third party drivers will be straightened out by then.
Some of these criticisms smell an awful lot like user error. For instance, my library of ~6,000 tracks does not have any issues with album art. In fact, seeing all that art up there in the new user interface is making me start to appreciate the horizontal scrolling (something I was very critical of at first).
I’m running the latest beta Vista ATI drivers. And the album art is a known issue with IE, not user error.
well, beta=beta.
Matt you should be shamed to come out and say something shit like this…were’nt you working on Vista MCE before you left Microsoft?
You sound like a disgruntled employee!
Same experience here. I believe the built in codec and the lack of vista drivers for the tuners i’m using are to blame. nonetheless, the experience was less than stellar. I have enough issues with MCE 2005 so it will probably be a while before I try Vista again.
And to Yard’s comment about Matt being a a disgruntled employee? I don’t think what he said was out of line. What he said is completely accurate. I think he’s just disappointed like the rest of us are!
Vista MCE is not a flawless solution.
I won’t even get started on the lack of DVB-S, over-the-air EPG or record from buffer thing.
Most people that deploy MCE boxes want to do more than just watch DVR-MS files, they want to watch other types of content. Whilst it is highly probable that codecs etc could be causing an issue, Vista MCE without the codecs isn’t a justifiable upgrade from MCE 2005. People want the same or better than what they have, an upgrade to Vista MCE just isn’t worth it at the moment.
Matt,
What kind of problems are you having? I was running MCE 2005 before, but am now running Vista Ultimate x64 RTM.
I have a twin DVB-T tuner – Cinergy 2400iDT which works fairly well. I do have a minor stuttering problem I’m hoping to resolve, but apart from that no problems with excessive CPU etc. In fact Windows is far more responsive than under XP (especially with multiple users/apps active).
I do use iTunes for most music though (together with Last.fm which is great!). iTunes has some problems with screen redraw but just about struggles along. It’s one of the few apps I’ve had grief with
the machine has a dual core CPU (2*2.8) with 3Gb ram and a few SATA disks.
I had vista premium and i hated it
i hated the whole mce interface
i hated how videos were grouped with pictures WTF?
i hated how cluttered the new interface was.
Once i installed audio drivers (beta, yes i know) to get 5.1 working (because the Vista ones didn’t have any options) I got a blue screen. I haven’t seen one of those on my own computers for probably 3or 4 years
I have the retail version. Legally.
Matt,
I have been a MS tech shop in the I.T. field since 1983. I have seen lots of OS releases from MS. I like XP and have told many friends and clients that XP was the best OS MS has ever released.
Having said that, I waited to try Vista Ultimate until the RTM. In every area other than the new icon options and views, Vista is crap! It brought my top of the line Dual Core P4 Extreme Ed with 2Gb sys ram and NVIDIA 7900GTX 512MB to its knees.
MCE is worse than 2005, could not play some of the mpeg, avi and DVDs that I was able to with 2005.
Everything takes at least twice as many clicks or more compared to XP.
Vista found all my hardware and installed the supplied drivers. I am getting blue screens, lock-ups and massive slow downs opening media folders etc. MCE has crashed so many times I just stopped using it.
This piece of crap is an administrator’s nightmare and the biggest piece of spyware I have ever seen.
I am so pissed at MS for destroying a good track record of releasing an improved OS compared to the last.
My theory (marginally plausible) is that MS creamed over the MAC OS and reverse engineered it. Couldn’t figure out how to make it as good as XP so the coders had to change everything we have grown accustomed to like toolbars etc… If the Vista operating system is the best MS has to offer, GOD Help Us.
My business depends on MS operating systems sales. As it stands I can’t sell Vista and am seriously considering a class action suite to force MS to continue providing XP to the distribution channel throughout the Vista life cycle
Jeez,
I gotta admit it does sound a little like sour grapes. I have installed the RTM on my 3.0 GHz P4 w/ 1GB mem and it seems to be working pretty well. I also have the newest beta drivers from ATI. However, I fully expected to have some problems. One of the reasons I believed MS staggered the release for business and comsumers was to give hardware manufactures more time to test drivers. I really like vista MCE. I know there are some issues, but I like the new interface as compared to mce 2005 which I have been using for over 2 years. My Suggestion to all is that unless you are willing to put up with some glitches, wait until feb before attempting to install vista (for mce use), and as always download the latest drivers for all hardware.
goodluck
Matt,
I have been a MS tech shop in the I.T. field since 1983. I have seen lots of OS releases from MS. I like XP and have told many friends and clients that XP was the best OS MS has ever released.
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Until the official luanch of Vista, it will be. Remember people saying Windows98 was so much better than XP? I do. Perhaps it is the fact the people don’t like change when they can’t comprehend it??
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Having said that, I waited to try Vista Ultimate until the RTM. In every area other than the new icon options and views, Vista is crap! It brought my top of the line Dual Core P4 Extreme Ed with 2Gb sys ram and NVIDIA 7900GTX 512MB to its knees.
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Well…having your own shop you surely realize that your system is NOT top of the line…thus making such BS claims either suggests you have a confidence problem, don’t know what you are talking about, or are simply a 2-bit noob who doesn’t know how to configure a system and instead of blaming himself, feels he ought to blame Microsoft for the ineptitude of not being able to properly configure a computer. I have Vista running on a P4M 1.8GHz with 1GB of RAM…works flawlessly. Right now running on a PD820 with1GB RAM…MCE works amazingly with 20,000 songs and over 300DVD being referenced from my server in another room (which might I add is running Longhorn IDX FLAWLESSLY!!!)
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MCE is worse than 2005, could not play some of the mpeg, avi and DVDs that I was able to with 2005.
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Could it be CODECS?! Yep…you gotta be a noob.
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Everything takes at least twice as many clicks or more compared to XP.
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It is like that to protect noobs.
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Vista found all my hardware and installed the supplied drivers. I am getting blue screens, lock-ups and massive slow downs opening media folders etc. MCE has crashed so many times I just stopped using it.
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PEBKAC error!!!!
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This piece of crap is an administrator’s nightmare and the biggest piece of spyware I have ever seen.
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Perhaps it is spyware….but you know what? All my versions are 100% legit and I have nothing to hide.
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I am so pissed at MS for destroying a good track record of releasing an improved OS compared to the last.
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They hear that every time they release software to the masses. They are used to it…there is always someone with a bigger mouth than brain.
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My theory (marginally plausible) is that MS creamed over the MAC OS and reverse engineered it. Couldn’t figure out how to make it as good as XP so the coders had to change everything we have grown accustomed to like toolbars etc… If the Vista operating system is the best MS has to offer, GOD Help Us.
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HAH…god forbid you ever need to use the command prompt too, eh?
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My business depends on MS operating systems sales. As it stands I can’t sell Vista and am seriously considering a class action suite to force MS to continue providing XP to the distribution channel throughout the Vista life cycle
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Your business exists because Microsoft exists. If Microsoft went tits up what would you do? That is of course if you even have your own business. A REAL businessman…a SMART businessman would see a new product as a means of creating new customers. If there are flaws, what are the flaws. MICROSOFTS PROCUT IS YOUR PRODUCT!! But I suppose a smart businessman would already know that. BTW, your class action suit wouldn’t see the light of day! No lawyer would be stupid enough to attempt to tackle something that would never pay off.
And for the record, I use embedded graphics in all my mp3’s and I get that glitch sporadically too. But it is not significant enough for me to whine and cry. Through my use of the product, I make it a better product. I will let you get back to your 8-track audio pleasure now…
You *definitely* need the final drivers for all the HW in your machine. If you don’t have these, the experience is *significantly* degraded, as you folks have accurately noted.
For the Vista MCE team’s takehome program, we have been getting frequent driver updates from all the vendors… if you have beta drivers that are at all old (eg., Windows Vista beta timeframe) then you are absolutely not getting the experience as it will work once all the drivers are available.
We’ve worked very hard to get “final” drivers actually ready in time for general availability this coming week — at home the MCE machine(s) I run on vista are very reliable and play at least all the content I throw at them. I still expect at least 1 more driver update than what our team has.
I think if you give all the HW vendors a few weeks to get their stuff all totally done and deployed on WU, it’ll be worth another try. The experience is at least as reliable for me as MCE 2005 was, and there’s so many nice new things (digital cable HD! Large library perf!) that it’s very worth it in my (heavily biased) opinion.
thx
Hi,
I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista. Unfortunately the Windows Media Center on my Vaio (VGC-RA828G) is not recognizing the factory installed Tuner card (Giga Pocket® MPEG2 Realtime Encoder/Decoder board with TV Tuner). I called Microsoft and they tell me I have to go to Sony. I called Sony and they tell me to uninstall Vista.
So my questions is… Is there some other (preferably free) DVR software that I can now use on my newly Vista installed Vaio machine that will also work with my Tuner card (Giga Pocket® MPEG2 Realtime Encoder/Decoder board with TV Tuner)?
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated!
i also recently upgraded to vista nad am havin gthe same problem with my tuner card..ive tried evrything i can think of to fix it, but i can’t..any help qoulb be appreciated.
tuner card:
Giga Pocket® MPEG2 Realtime Encoder board with tv tuner
Recently chatted with Sony Support about clean install of Vista on Vaio machine and they suggested bookmark the drivers page for your model and keep looking for updates for vista compatible drivers for the TV tuner.
Giga Pocket MPEG2 Encoder/Decoder I believe was mfg by Sony Electronics almost 7-9 years ago as of 2007.
I get the feeling Sony is in no hurry to service customers with 3-6+ year old machines. Leads good research would be apreciated…
I wish I could get WMC 2005 on my Vista Ultimate machine. The Vista Media Center has too many buttons, and there is no way to control what folders/content show up in each of the media categories.
Like usual, Microsoft tries to DO IT FOR YOU. WMC 2005 was the best piece of software they ever made, and not they’ve screwed it up.
I have been using Vista on my main machine since early-mid beta. I have Ultimate running now on a P4 @ 3.2, 2.5GB RAM, BFG Geforce 7600GT, with NO problems that can’t be easily fixed. Make sure you have the best drivers.
I would say that the vast majority of vendors were way behind on their drivers, and some still are. Why be mad at MS when it is a 3rd party driver problem? As far as the graphics problems, I still laugh when I hear someone saying that they can’t run Ultimate with integrated graphics.
Sone simple solutions:
1) Have the best drivers,
2) Read documentation (you CAN change the folders in VMC),
3) DON’T expect a new OS to be PERFECT, they NEVER are and NEVER will be.
With all the new content that is in Vista, it is a no-brainer that not all machines will run it flawlessly. Look at the system requirements before you try ANY new software program.