iPods and Vista Do Not Play Nice Together

EliotVanBuskirk
EliotVanBuskirk
Founding Member

Posted: Mar 28, 07 8:22am

Since so many Microsoft employees own iPods (80% of the MP3 players owned by Microsoft staff are iPods), you may have thought it would have occurred to at least one of them to check whether the company's new Vista operating system worked with Apple's audio players.

Far from it. Either intentionally or unintentionally, Microsoft Vista had lots of trouble with syncing to iPods right off the bat. Apple warned iPod users not to upgrade, and released a new version of iTunes specifically to address the issue, but without action from Microsoft, early Vista users still faced at least one major iPod-related issue.

Today, a patch to Vista users designed to fix a Vista bug which caused users who ejected their iPods using Windows' "safely remove hardware" function rather than iTunes' own iPod eject button to corrupt the hard drives in their iPods.

Even before the patch, victims of Vista's iPod bug could uncorrupt an iPod by resetting it, reformatting it, and reloading it, and the patch should (should) solve remaining problems. But to be fair, Microsoft really should have ironed this out before they released Vista.

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9 Comments // 6 Members
Moll Flanders
Moll Flanders
Founding Member

Posted: Mar 28, 07 11:36am

Since so many Microsoft employees own iPods (80% of the MP3 players owned by Microsoft staff <a href="http://www.wired.c...

Ha! I knew it. I won't upgrade until I absolutely have to. I knew not to trust microsoft--and I still don't.

Which brings up something I'd love to hear your opinion on, Eliot. I would think that anyone even paying a little attention to this mess would have the willies about buying a new computer that comes with Vista as the OS. I wouldn't buy one right now if that were my only option. Doesn't something like this ultimately hurt computer sales? (not that I'm up on what's on the shelves of Best Buy this week). You'd think that Dell and Sony and Toshiba etc. etc. would be all over microsoft about this.

Or do you think they'll simply shove it down our throats until it sticks?

EliotVanBuskirk
EliotVanBuskirk
Founding Member

Posted: Mar 28, 07 10:47pm

Ha! I knew it. I won't upgrade until I absolutely have to. I knew not to trust microsoft--and I still don't.

Which brin...

Good question. One advantage of buying Vista with a new system is that they'll have enough processing power, RAM, and disk space for it to run smoothly. Also, despite a few hiccups with the iPod, iTunes, and so on, I have a hard time believing that Microsoft would release something as important as this if it had bugs so serious that they couldn't be remedied pretty easily (as you point out, Microsoft's hardware partners are probably a big part of the company's motivation on that front). They delayed Vista's release for ages -- allegedly to rewrite ton of code from scratch to fix problems. And I know it offers better security, better search, and a nicer look.

Still, a little prudence is probably the best option, letting the early adopters run into kinks such as this iPod issue, and then upgrading once those are ironed out with some sort of Vista Service Pack upgrade.

ZaZumbaDeb
ZaZumbaDeb

Posted: May 24, 08 9:22am

Since so many Microsoft employees own iPods (80% of the MP3 players owned by Microsoft staff <a href="http://www.wired.c...

Is this still the case? I have my new pc ready to set up (with Vista) and I use my IPOD daily to teach my fitness classes. Hadn't heard of this issue before reading this March 07 post. Hopefully they have it figured out now.

Fromz
Fromz
Founding Member

Posted: May 24, 08 11:16am

Is this still the case? I have my new pc ready to set up (with Vista) and I use my IPOD daily to teach my fitness class...

ZZD, the word on the street is Microsoft released the "final patch" on May 22.

Microsoft being microsoft with a long history of patches that either didn't solve the problem or introduced new ones, I would not download it if I was not having problems.

Elito, you can get the same power, ram, and a better OS with a MAC. Mac also runs Microsoft Office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2008_for_Mac

darroll
darroll
Founding Member

Posted: May 24, 08 12:22pm

Since so many Microsoft employees own iPods (80% of the MP3 players owned by Microsoft staff <a href="http://www.wired.c...

XP is still full of bugs also.

When I loaded Vista I got all kinds of surprises.

I went to write a DVD and it informed me that it would take months.

I have old E-Mail from the mid 70’s (the net was private). It would (Vista) not read my old mail at all. I had to read my mail with Word7, then save it. I need a pop server to send copies of my old mail. No pop server with high speed internet. MS wanted money to give me their software and get pop server.

Sense a worm crashed my other computer, (It was fatal and IBM would not trust me with the ability to flash my BIOS)(I really don’t blame them as this is a tricky trick) I went to install Word 07 to no avail on my new computer. Word crashed and then informed me that my software would not work until I get a legal copy. I called MS and they were a big help. I think the guy from India still thought I was pulling a fast one.

I have a private computer that never gets on the net. I decided to load (I Have two versions of Word) Word7 on this PC for a spare as Word03 will not work with Word7. It snooped in my other computer, knocked it down and I had to do a reload on that PC. I have software that you can’t buy anymore on that PC.

I got ticked and went and bought Word for the Mac. This is also a spare computer and at least I can compose a letter if I have to. Now I have a unused version of Word7.

Vista is a good OS. They have fixed most of the bugs. It’s fast and very dependable, it does not do games well. It’s like the old saying “turn it up and let the customers test it”.

JohnnyWheels
JohnnyWheels
Founding Member

Posted: May 24, 08 12:22pm

Since so many Microsoft employees own iPods (80% of the MP3 players owned by Microsoft staff <a href="http://www.wired.c...

Does Vista "play nice" with ANYTHING?

I'll not willingly "upgrade" to it. I'm running XP and Life is Good. Well, hardware life, anyway.

Another problem I have is that Vista is such a resource hog that I wonder what all that processor power and RAM could do with XP.

And then, you could always convert over to Linux, and when asked "What can you do with it?" you can say "Uh, I dunno, it's kinda cryptic to get anything to install and launch, but hey, at least I'm Sticking It to The Gates..."

darroll
darroll
Founding Member

Posted: May 24, 08 12:54pm

Ha! I knew it. I won't upgrade until I absolutely have to. I knew not to trust microsoft--and I still don't.

Which brin...

The store bought computers are doing fine running Vista.

What I have against them is all the programs that come with your new computer. Some of these programs are hard to get rid of. Like Norton and that Defrag program, you have to run defrag to keep your machine running smoothly.. How can you when the icon is gone? PM me and I will tell you, no charge.. All they want is money to activate them.

To be fair Mac has had their problems also with their new load..

Have Fun, d