About two months ago I purchased a new computer with Windows Vista already installed. Even though this is the most powerful computer I have ever owned, I wasn't too impressed with the new operating system. I have continued to use my older Windows XP system as my primary computer. You can read my earlier article at http://tinyurl.com/3yqm7h.
Today I am even less impressed. Windows Vista died on my two-month old system.
The system was left running over night. When I went to use it this morning, I found an error screen displayed and nothing else. I re-booted and Windows started to load. After about thirty seconds, a message appeared, stating that Windows was corrupted and asking if I wanted to repair Windows. Not having much choice, I selected "Yes."
The hard drive worked furiously and various messages flashed by on the screen. Eventually, a dialog box asked me to "select the appropriate driver from the following list." There was just one problem: the list was empty!
A phone call to the computer manufacturer confirmed what I already suspected: there would be no recovery. Luckily, Hewlett-Packard includes full diagnostics with each computer that can be run without loading Windows Vista. The diagnostics found no problem with the hardware.
The tech support representative helped me attempt a Windows restore to an earlier date. That also failed with errors. Finally, he gave me the instructions on how to re-format the hard drive and load Windows Vista again. We then said "good-bye."
This afternoon I went out and bought a Macintosh system for use as my primary desktop computer.
