Vista from a Geek Squad tech's perspective...

[silverpig]

I remember in 2003 people were keeping win98 around as a gaming OS because XP was too slow and bloated. Seems it'll be the same thign over again.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Swampthing

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar ...

Um, isn't the Geek Squad "uniform" just a white collared shirt and tie?

The true uniform for IT is a t-shirt. If you're good enough your organization will cater to you.

The higher up the support food chain you are the more lax the dress code.
We're shorts, t-shirts and sandals here. Actually I'm wearing my fuzzy slippers right now which is typical during the winter.

 

[Bill Kunert]

Originally posted by: Swampthing
no offense man but the "geek squad" is like the mcdonalds of the computer world, barely one step up from phone tech support people in computer ability and expertise. I worked in minneapolis for a private IT contracting firm back when the geek squad was privately owned and not a part of best buy and was up there when best buy took em over. Not only are you guys laughing stocks for your dumb uniforms but most of the people that work there are first time techs with no real experience that couldn't handle a real computer problem if their life depended on it. Even now i hear nothing but complaints about them from guys still up in minneapolis, about how they end up having to go in and REALLY fix whatever the geek squad guy was supposed to.

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar high skill profession being trivialized and franchised by the goofy geek squad.

Vista runs fine on a decent system. On those bare bone 500$ pieces of crap you guys sell at best buy it runs like garbage, but so does XP.

OK - now without the sugar coating why don't you tell us how you really feel about the Geek Squad.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Swampthing

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar ...

Um, isn't the Geek Squad "uniform" just a white collared shirt and tie?

The true uniform for IT is a t-shirt. If you're good enough your organization will cater to you.

The higher up the support food chain you are the more lax the dress code.
We're shorts, t-shirts and sandals here. Actually I'm wearing my fuzzy slippers right now which is typical during the winter.

Do you guys get free candy and soda too? :thumbsup:

 

[stash]

We're shorts, t-shirts and sandals here. Actually I'm wearing my fuzzy slippers right now which is typical during the winter.

Lucky bastard. I don't even get to a MS office most days...I'm usually stuck in a customer office. Which means I have to get dressed up. Although it isn't as bad as it used to be, because I used to wear a tie everyday.

No free soda for me either.

 

[tickyour]

Originally posted by: Brentx

I just feel that Vista seems like it is unfinished. It is still buggy. And the flash of Aero wears off in about 2 days.

Does anyone here agree with me?? I just needed to rant after getting off from a long day of work.

I strongly dissagree. I suppose it depends on the hardware, If you run it on mediocre hardware (integrated graphics etc), it will seem slow, especially if you load it up with bloatware like Norton AV....

Anyways, I'm thrilled with Vistas performance on my machine: blistering fast, by all means not slower than XP that I run on it now. I ran vista for about 3 weeks and loved it, but I decided to switch back to XP due to driver issues. I will sure upgrade when its more seasoned, and I cant wait.

My System:
E6600 @3.4ghz
2GB G.skill ram
BFG 7950gtoc

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Swampthing

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar ...

Um, isn't the Geek Squad "uniform" just a white collared shirt and tie?

The true uniform for IT is a t-shirt. If you're good enough your organization will cater to you.

The higher up the support food chain you are the more lax the dress code.
We're shorts, t-shirts and sandals here. Actually I'm wearing my fuzzy slippers right now which is typical during the winter.

Do you guys get free candy and soda too? :thumbsup:

No free candy, no. We're fat enough as it is

We get:
Soda machine that doesn't take money
Starbucks coffee
Hot chocolate.
Bottled water.

However, with the Vista + Exchange + Office launch it has been nuts the last few days. Free Popcorn, pizza, funnelcakes, Moe's burritos and beer. Very fun.

It's tough to stress out an IT guy that's wearing fuzzy slippers you know.

 

[imported_OrSin]

I have no idea what people are doing wrong with thier Vista installs. I have VIsta on 6 systems. The slowest begin a Biostar with a on board MX card with an AMD 2500 and it works fine. Plays all the on board games and works perfectly.

People have to remember that Microsoft don't write drivers for hardward. If some piece of hardware dont owrk its your manaufacture fault not Microsoft. They had almost 2 years to get drivers ready. The only problem i had with anything is a 1600 ATI card. and it was the drivers for that card. The 9800 and 9600 worked fine. All NV worked.

Why do people this Vista will just make the world go around all by itself. If you want o install vista on a system do it on a old systems or a brand new system. anything with driver 6 months old dont owrk becuase those fool was busy writing XP drivers and never got around to get the Vista drivers right. 6 systems and every one works fine.

PS
if you have shuttle download the dirvers before you install Vista since they need drivers for the mothboard. If you are not sure if you have driver for your system then don't install Vista now. It not like you have to.

 

[RyanGrob]

Originally posted by: Swampthing
no offense man but the "geek squad" is like the mcdonalds of the computer world, barely one step up from phone tech support people in computer ability and expertise. I worked in minneapolis for a private IT contracting firm back when the geek squad was privately owned and not a part of best buy and was up there when best buy took em over. Not only are you guys laughing stocks for your dumb uniforms but most of the people that work there are first time techs with no real experience that couldn't handle a real computer problem if their life depended on it. Even now i hear nothing but complaints about them from guys still up in minneapolis, about how they end up having to go in and REALLY fix whatever the geek squad guy was supposed to.

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar high skill profession being trivialized and franchised by the goofy geek squad.

Vista runs fine on a decent system. On those bare bone 500$ pieces of crap you guys sell at best buy it runs like garbage, but so does XP.

I couldn't really of said it better myself. I don't think people are doubting the OP's technical ability, but the fact you posted as if the Geek Squad is some supreme organization kind of threw people off. No offense to the OP, but the Geek Squad really is a joke.

Back on topic. I've had Vista Business installed for a few weeks and I love it. Only a few crashes at the beginning (thanks nVidia sound driver) but now it's running rock solid. Won't go back to XP anytime soon

 

[Schnieds]

I've got Vista on my desktop & laptop, both run flawlessly. Right after you install, Vista is a little slow for a few hours because of the indexing and such that MS is performing after the install. There are some bugs and issues with applications to be sure, but considering the amount of code that has changed in this OS release and the architecture changes, it is VERY impressive how well everything works.

If you are installing crap software (NAV) right after the Vista install, you are definitely going to experience slowness because of the indexing and because of the crap you are installing... basic logic here.

After the indexing has finished and Vista has learned your usage patterns a bit, it is extremely fast.

I am afraid I have to agree with everyone else in this thread about Geek Squad, SuperGeeks or any of the other various fast food tech shops. I have been in software development for seven years now after completing my CS degree. There is a reason why computer-related jobs get paid so much and cost so much, it is a very complex job and there is years and years of knowledge that goes into it (if you want to do it right). The fast food computer shops basically take advantage of the average consumer IMO, because they usually either don't fix anything or make the problem worse. From my experience, they dole out crappy advice about subjects they know nothing about while acting like experts or think that everything is solved by installing a magical suite of applications that do everything (NAV.)

Whoooo... ok, I just dropped a huge load of aggravation... I feel 10lbs lighter. *flush*

 

[Nocturnal]

LOL typical Geek Squad rhetoric.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: Schnieds
I've got Vista on my desktop & laptop, both run flawlessly. Right after you install, Vista is a little slow for a few hours because of the indexing and such that MS is performing after the install. There are some bugs and issues with applications to be sure, but considering the amount of code that has changed in this OS release and the architecture changes, it is VERY impressive how well everything works.

If you are installing crap software (NAV) right after the Vista install, you are definitely going to experience slowness because of the indexing and because of the crap you are installing... basic logic here.

After the indexing has finished and Vista has learned your usage patterns a bit, it is extremely fast.

I am afraid I have to agree with everyone else in this thread about Geek Squad, SuperGeeks or any of the other various fast food tech shops. I have been in software development for seven years now after completing my CS degree. There is a reason why computer-related jobs get paid so much and cost so much, it is a very complex job and there is years and years of knowledge that goes into it (if you want to do it right). The fast food computer shops basically take advantage of the average consumer IMO, because they usually either don't fix anything or make the problem worse. From my experience, they dole out crappy advice about subjects they know nothing about while acting like experts or think that everything is solved by installing a magical suite of applications that do everything (NAV.)

Whoooo... ok, I just dropped a huge load of aggravation... I feel 10lbs lighter. *flush*

 

[Schnieds]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal

Originally posted by: Schnieds
I've got Vista on my desktop & laptop, both run flawlessly. Right after you install, Vista is a little slow for a few hours because of the indexing and such that MS is performing after the install. There are some bugs and issues with applications to be sure, but considering the amount of code that has changed in this OS release and the architecture changes, it is VERY impressive how well everything works.

If you are installing crap software (NAV) right after the Vista install, you are definitely going to experience slowness because of the indexing and because of the crap you are installing... basic logic here.

After the indexing has finished and Vista has learned your usage patterns a bit, it is extremely fast.

I am afraid I have to agree with everyone else in this thread about Geek Squad, SuperGeeks or any of the other various fast food tech shops. I have been in software development for seven years now after completing my CS degree. There is a reason why computer-related jobs get paid so much and cost so much, it is a very complex job and there is years and years of knowledge that goes into it (if you want to do it right). The fast food computer shops basically take advantage of the average consumer IMO, because they usually either don't fix anything or make the problem worse. From my experience, they dole out crappy advice about subjects they know nothing about while acting like experts or think that everything is solved by installing a magical suite of applications that do everything (NAV.)

Whoooo... ok, I just dropped a huge load of aggravation... I feel 10lbs lighter. *flush*

Do you typically to there and ask the computer store employees questions just to make them feel inferior to you?

No, but that is an interesting idea... hehe j/k

No, my frustration comes from two areas:

a) I will be in a computer store (or electronics store in the computer section) and over hear a conversation between a general consumer and a fast food tech employee. As stated above, 90% of the time the advice I hear them giving is going to make the problem worse, is incorrect and is going to cost the consumer a lot of money.

b) When the fast food tech chains first came out I sent some friends and family there for their computer problems as I don't like to spend my free time working on computers. When they came back and told me the solution they were given and the amount they were charged, I was disgusted. I no longer send anyone to the fast food tech chains, but I still have people ask me whether or not I agree with their recommendations once and a while.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'll have to agree with those that blame the hardware to an extent. Vista runs as good or better than XP did on my Core Duo with 1 GB of RAM and Intel 945GM graphics with Aeroglass enabled. I assume Vista would run very poorly on my XP1700 with 512 MB of RAM and a Radeon 9200SE with an old 7200 RPM 2 MB cache 40 GB hard drive. But guess what... when XP came out, it ran poorly on 5 year old hardware too. /shrug

There's also many reports of XP to Vista upgrades performing extremely poorly compared to a clean install on the exact same hardware. So... as a tech in the IT world, if Vista runs like crap on old hardware, that's good for you. You get to sell them software AND hardware. If all else fails, send them to Dell or HP for a $500 computer with Vista pre-installed on hardware capable of running it.

 

[Brentx]

I completely understand where you guys are coming from. I work for them, and I still feel that a lot of their policies are a joke, and some of the stuff that people do are just ridiculous. However, either way, I couldn't get a job anywhere else with my availibility, and with no certs. I am a full time college student, so they are pretty flexibile with my hours and I love the people I work with. I still make more than anyone else I know that is my age. And being fresh out of HS, no distinguished IT company will want to hire me.

And if I came off as if the Geek Squad is some "superior" organization.. I am very sorry, I did not mean it that way. For the most part, I agree with what a lot of you are saying .

And back to topic... No we are not installing Vista from MCE 2005, these are the same models of computers from HP / Gateway/ Compaq / whatever with Vista loaded on from the factory. We had received them in store about a week before the Vista launch, but could not sell them until the 30th. We in no way perform upgrades on new computers without the customers approval. An we no longer have any XP computers, they were all sold out on the 28th of Jan.

I have not really done an install on a "blazing" fast system, except my own, which I just did today again. It is nice, however the only complaint I have is video performance. I don't think ATI's drivers are up to snuff yet.

Now the new PC's with Vista I am talking about have P4's, and Intel GMA950 or nvidia 6150 graphics in them. The eMachines *shudders* have these, which would explain the performance. My question is still why would any of the manufacturers put XP on anyone of these slow machines? Even the notebooks that are spec'd with a Celeron M and GMA 950 have Vista.. gah!

 

[pcgeek11]

I don't see any problems on my Dell Inspiron 1501 with integrated graphics card ATI X1150 256MB (128MB Dedicated ). I am running Vista Home Prem, 2 GB Ram.

pcgeek11

 

[smashp]

Spysweeper should fix the problem

 

[daytrader7]

I didn't think you were presenting yourself as an "elitist geeksquad pc hitman". Am I the only one? You were just giving some background info to support your post topic.We all do what we do to get by and sometimes you have to be a little shameless. Anyway, I shouldn't have said anything as the whole screw geeksquad thing is off topic.

 

[Piuc2020]

Well for me Vista has been quite the smooth ride, it worked fine with my 9600SE, 1GB RAM and provisional slow as hell maxtor (I didn't want to mess with my SATA XP drive), the UI is slower but a lot better and even so some stuff is faster, for example, all my apps opened faster (3 seconds for Office 2007 as opposed to 20s on XP) and Vista booted faster... once I upgrade my 9600SE to a 6800XT, added an extra 1GB of RAM and reinstalled Vista on a snappy 250GB Seagate Vista became a speed demon, its really great and stable and secure, I'm liking it a lot, I still have XP for games but the rest of my computing activities and work have migrated to Vista with quite successful results.

As an added note... on my Mac Pro, Vista is a LOT faster than XP and much better, Vista is better suited for high end machines.

 

[Looney]

There's probably a reason why you're working at Geek Squad if you're getting BSOD or setting it up so that it's actually slower than XP on a brand new box.

Here is a hardcore Machead that likes Vista: http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/2007/01/running_vista_o.html#more

And Vista runs faster on my machine than XP does.

 

[Brentx]

Originally posted by: Swampthing
no offense man but the "geek squad" is like the mcdonalds of the computer world, barely one step up from phone tech support people in computer ability and expertise. I worked in minneapolis for a private IT contracting firm back when the geek squad was privately owned and not a part of best buy and was up there when best buy took em over. Not only are you guys laughing stocks for your dumb uniforms but most of the people that work there are first time techs with no real experience that couldn't handle a real computer problem if their life depended on it. Even now i hear nothing but complaints about them from guys still up in minneapolis, about how they end up having to go in and REALLY fix whatever the geek squad guy was supposed to.

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar high skill profession being trivialized and franchised by the goofy geek squad.

Vista runs fine on a decent system. On those bare bone 500$ pieces of crap you guys sell at best buy it runs like garbage, but so does XP.

Wow!! all i said was i worked for the Geek Squad not that i ****** it in the ass every night!! you got some serious mommy and or daddy issues my friend! may I entice you in to buying a $99.00 data backup?? that will make you feel better.
Thanks for the rant

love the company that makes more money than you on every scale you can imagine!

 

[ObscureCaucasian]

Hehe, I don't usually listen to what the "Geek Squad" says, they're usually just kids that think that it would be cool to be a computer nerd.

 

[bigdaddy51]

There's also a little word play going on here. There's Vista ready and Vista capable, and they don't mean the same thing. www.microsoft.com/vista

 

[Frankie]

Originally posted by: Swampthing
no offense man but the "geek squad" is like the mcdonalds of the computer world, barely one step up from phone tech support people in computer ability and expertise. I worked in minneapolis for a private IT contracting firm back when the geek squad was privately owned and not a part of best buy and was up there when best buy took em over. Not only are you guys laughing stocks for your dumb uniforms but most of the people that work there are first time techs with no real experience that couldn't handle a real computer problem if their life depended on it. Even now i hear nothing but complaints about them from guys still up in minneapolis, about how they end up having to go in and REALLY fix whatever the geek squad guy was supposed to.

No real professional technician would degrade themselves by wearing those stupid uniforms. Working in IT is a white collar high skill profession being trivialized and franchised by the goofy geek squad.

Vista runs fine on a decent system. On those bare bone 500$ pieces of crap you guys sell at best buy it runs like garbage, but so does XP.

Sounds to me like someone is jealous that they weren't smart enough to think of something like Geek Squad, or Geeks on call, and make more money than they know what to do with.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[MrUniq]

Vista runs just as good...or faster than XP on both of the machines in my sig. I didn't even notice game slowdown too.