Vista Question

[den]

Okay, all you clever geeks, I have a problem.


New Toshiba laptop with Vista. Want to connect it to the office network (LAN And/Or Wireless) Can see the network, can't connect. Any idea how to do this? How do I change the Workgroup? In XP there is an option to connect to the Internet via a connection that is always on. Where is that in VISTA?

How the hell do you OPERATE Vista, anyway. It seems to work on a need-to-know system that the user doesn't need to know.

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If you have Vista Business and this isn't a tablet PC, then step 1 should be to exercise your rights under the license, reformat, and upgrade to XP Professional immediately. If you've got Vista Home, then return the machine on the grounds that it doesn't work and get one with a working operating system.

If you must stick with the slow, buggy spyware-infested piece of crapulence that is Vista for some reason, well, it *should* work out of the box: plug in a network connection, and the Network control panel lights up with happy little notification that it's trying to connect. Since DHCP works by default, this means you're connected, almost immediately, most of the time. When you open up the Control Panel and hit the Network options, what does the Local Area Connection entry actually say when you plug in a wired connection? Does it say you're still Network Cable Unplugged? Does it say Limited Or No Connectivity?

Changing the workgroup name is almost exactly where it was in XP - right-click on $Account_Name (formerly "My Computer"[1]) and go to Properties.

[1]: And what bit of brilliance was THAT change? Sure, "My Computer" was insipid and confusing to new users, but it's been that way for 12 years - and now you've changed a critical icon that's going to be used constantly to something that *changes for every user*? Are you completely insane, UI designers? Have you never encountered a customer or considered how often people need to be walked through stuff over the phone or the internet? And you disabled NetMeeting at the same time?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

$Account_Name wasn't on the desktop by default, but now I know what I'm looking for I got it working at home. For my next trick, I get it working at the office.

There was no Properties on the right-click menu, but that may be under the need-to-know settings that the user doesn't need to know. It DOES have an Open option, which opens the system and drive directory, and Explore (see: Open.)

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

oh yeah. Company laptop, under warranty, cheap, came with no disks apart from a restore CD. As much as I would like to "downgrade" the OS, I can't. Plus, I get to use Vista and learn all its poxy tricks on someone else's computer.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"get to" is such an unfortunate choice of words.

And if it's Vista Business, all you need is an XP Pro CD. Any XP Pro CD.

But yeah.