Vista F3 Issue..

I recently bought a new laptop and decided to try vista for the hell of it and now I am regretting it..

I found that when I was playing WoW and hit F3 the search window would open up for explorer which is causing some issues. I have searched trying to find out how to disable it and the registry key I have been told to change is not there. Has anyone found a way to disable the windows shortcuts like that? Its incredibly annoying to have that window popup when I am multi-boxing because then it hides that WoW window and I can't see whats going on with my healer.

I really wish I had an extra copy of xp o.O

I didn't even think about the f-lock and I will have to look when I get home from work. The F keys do work fine though other than the whole shortcut thing. I can't believe that they would allow it to override another program though when F keys are commonly bound to actions.

Or it could go.

1. Open CD Tray
2. Insert Linux CD
3. Reboot
4. Boot To CD
5. Format / install
6. ????
7. Profit
8. Install WINE / Cedega
9. Play WoW
10. Throw away Vista CD, vowing to never make THAT mistake again.

Sounds a lot like what I was getting with keyclone - in my experience it will sometimes add the taskbar to its window list as an unnamed entry, for some unknown reason, and F3 is passed to the taskbar, it can be worked around by suspending this invis entry.

I have to chuckle at the Vista haters here...I multibox on 5 PC's with Vista and haven't had any major issues...

I'd guess its not so much haters as some people who have genuine issues with that buggy piece of rubbish...

:P
I remember when XP first launched there were similar tales of woe, I'd guess (I wasn't in the trade then) that when 98 and 95 were released there were similar tales.

Down the road when Vista's successor (linux ;)) comes along there will be similar tales then...

Personally I'd love a copy of vista, so I can learn how it works, at the moment I'm stuck with 1 XP license between three PCs, having to reformat one every 30 days sucks. And the virus I got trying to get round that limitation sucked too. :D

Here's a tip for getting around virus's....

Buy your software, don't steal it.

Here's a tip for getting the most out of Vista - Actually give it a shot on hardware designed for it. My machine runs Vista just fine, I have zero issues with it. There ARE shortcomings with support for vista, however it's not a failure on MS's end.

As for the F3 thing - I've had that happen once ever... I have noticed the phantom window being added to the list, I always remove it but would wager I missed it the time I was having the F3 problem.

Thanks,

Getting Linux to work on a laptop is a helluva hassle, because you generally have to write all of your own drivers.

it's not that bad.. unless you are dealing with brand new hardware. linux has the most extensive list of hardware driver support of any other operating system (or so i read somewhere)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by keyclone

it's not that bad.. unless you are dealing with brand new hardware. linux has the most extensive list of hardware driver support of any other operating system (or so i read somewhere)

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If it came with Vista, it's at least close to brand new. *shrug* Going to run this machine into the ground before I get a new one. I don't want to hassle with Linux, and I can't stand Vista. Maybe SP1 will brighten the situation a little.

i have read that winxp does install and work on many laptops... even though they supposedly don't. just before, and i mean the last moment before, you decide to toss it and give up... try installing winxp and see what happens. winxp works far better then my vista box... which i haven't touched in weeks.

Texic, it sounds like your box is giving window focus to the desktop, which will cause the explorer search dialog to pop up when you hit F3. Not sure what would cause that but you might try running WoW in a window instead of full-screen and see if that fixes it.

First off I don't really hate Vista. In fact I like a lot about it minus getting used to it after being on XP for so long.

Also I do run WoW in a window rather than full screen as its easier to control keyclone that way :)

Btw Zanthor I think I will check that out. Seems possible but I never tried it without keyclone so I need to.

BTW: I only had it happen once, and I generally do remove that ghost window added to Keyclone...

Also I'd LOVE to see someone post that they are running Vista sometime and NOT have the thread insta-fill with vista-haters.

Its partially my fault that it got started at all but I'm sure it would have come anyway. We shall see how much it improves with SP1 not too far off. This is really the only problem I've run into with it but I don't use my laptop a whole lot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zanthor

Also I'd LOVE to see someone post that they are running Vista sometime and NOT have the thread insta-fill with vista-haters.

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Can anyone say anything negative about Vista without being labeled a "Vista-hater?" Some of us have been working directly with Microsoft since beta and know well the exact nature and scope of some of the bugs that were blessed in order to get Vista out to the markets. As someone else mentioned, it's really no different than pre-SP1 Win2k or WinXP. I'll grant you that some folks are more vitriolic in their editorials but it isn't all just nose-thumbing. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

Its sorta hard to show any kind of support for Vista.

There have been many posts here with "I have x problem, I'm running vista" in the context.

It just further supports the fact that Vista offers the end consumers absolutely nothing in the forms of productivity or enhanced performance.

In fact, it has much steeper system requirements than its previous versions, more bugs, less control over your own computer, more DRM showed in your face (See all the new "vista certified" LCDs hitting the market?), and Microsoft attempting to force people to upgrade with the bloatware known as Direct X 10. (read some reviews... pretty clouds, horrible performace).

There is no need for Vista. And the problems its causing support abandoning it all together more than even attempting to "stick it out" until the thing starts working right via service packs or whatnot.

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Most of the problems with vista I've seen posted here stem from applications being used that were not written/updated to work with Vista. The funny thing is - you see exactly the same thing happening with your addons every time Blizz does a major patch of WoW. They all become broken or don't quite work correctly until the authors update them to work with the latest version.
Steep system requirements? Not really: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...uirements.mspx
Thats pretty much well below the industry standard on any new pc or laptop these days.
More bugs? Less control? I haven't come accross anything I havent been able to do in Vista that I could do in XP. As for bugs, its about on par with XP when it was released. With vista vertified hardware - Microsoft has had a certifed hardware list since Windows 2000, nothing new here. If you have a pre-vista laptop or PC, i'm pretty sure you'll find a "designed for Windows XP" sticker on it somewhere. I haven't read any reviews about DX 10 being a horrible performer. In fact, you’ll find similar performance in DX 9 and DX 10 when you enable the same effects. But you’ll have more graphics options you can enable with DX 10. Check out some of the crysis screen shots here for an example of this:
http://www.incrysis.com/index.php?op...sk=view&id=511

No need for Vista? Quite frankly, I don't want to be using XP forever - I actually like the Aero interface. I like the extra eye candy that DX 10 brings. With any type of OS transition, there's always going to be some pain with the time for applications and drivers to catch up...its a fact of life.
I'm not saying everyone should move to Vista, XP is tried and tested, and if you're using it and it works for you, why should you change? But if you're buying a new PC or laptop, there's no reason you shouldn't consider Vista.

For the record, I've got 5 machines running vista and 3 running XP, so I am talking from experience here...

Texic, did you ever get your problem fixed?


(thread derail continues...)

Stealthy, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you that, properly supported and with an educated user, Vista is a perfectly viable option. What is not common knowledge is that the majority of today's "commodity" PCs will NOT run the Aero interface and do, in fact, suffer both compatibility and performance hits versus XP. Keep in mind that we here are probably pretty far ahead of the curve in terms of knowing what to expect and being able to afford the right hardware. I have a couple of machines at home that run Vista just fine. I also have a couple with some older CPUs and graphics cards that went from merely average on XP to nearly unusable under Vista. Of a total of about 40 systems I manage with both XP and Vista on a daily basis, I flip back and forth quite often so the differences are painfully apparent. I'm speaking from experience, here. (See what I did there?)

The difference I see between now and back when XP hit is that there seems to be a very vocal crowd of snobs that can afford good PC hardware and that just sneer at anyone that says adopting Vista as it stands today does have some caveats. Not everyone can afford a new Vista-certified Aero-ready (WTF does that shit even mean to Joe User?) system. And I won't even start on the whole Trusted Computing Platform hardware DRM chain situation.

If we really wanna continue with the ups and downs of Vista, we should probably get outta Texic's thread with it. ;)

Here's my point -

I have BLAH problem with BLAH 3rd party product that states clearly in it's FAQ that support on Vista is BEST EFFORT.

I am running vista, I state this so others who I'm asking for help know the context in which I'm asking.

I challenge you to show me a post that starts in that format that doesn't have someone saying "Drop vista, reformat your computer, and start fresh with XP/Linux/Whatever."

The fact is the choice is already made, I spent my money on Vista, I don't have any interest in downgrading and you'd have to do a LOT of fancy talk to convince me to reformat my machine to make a game play different anyhow... I have easily 40 hours of setup and configuration into my system (Visual Studio configuration, MS SQL Server setup and config, etc etc) because I'm a software developer... it's not just a machine for gaming, it's a machine I game on.

So what I'm challenging all the anti-vista monkeys out there to do is keep your views on the OS constructive. Posting 'Thats a known issue in vista with this application, there are no plans to fix it' is a LOT different than...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

1. Open CD Tray
2. Insert Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro CD
3. Reboot
4. Boot To CD
5. Formart / install older Windows version
6. ????
7. Play WoW

:D

Ok, all sarcasm aside, it sounds like you don't have the f-keys enabled. By change, is there an F-Lock button on your keyboard?

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Which honestly is a guy so rampant to slam on vista he didn't even read the post saying that the F3 key IS bringing up a search dialog, it's NOT an issue with F-Keys not being enabled...