At this point, it’s like sand off a beach, but here’s my story about an experience with the latest “issue” (a euphemism at best) with Windows Vista:
So I packed up my computer in Florida on May 27th, the day before I left for Washington. It had been working “fine” (read my previous post “Windows Vista: Pile of Crap”) for the year that I was in Mexico Beach, specifically regarding my wireless connection to my roommate’s router which was upstairs. I got out to Oklahoma City on the 27th of June, and as soon as I was able to get my computer connected again, it immediately froze solid at the login screen, forcing a hard reboot.
I had not touched anything since it was packed in my car a month earlier, so what the hell was this? After numerous restarts in safe mode, I was able to narrow down the root of the problem, which at first I pinpointed the Extensive Authentification Protocol (EAP) service that ran at startup. When it was enabled, my computer froze at the login screen, when disabled, it ran “fine” again. Great! I’ve solved the problem.
And then the cable guy came over to connect my cable and internet. I found that I got internet when I was hardwired to the jack, but as soon as I tried to get a wireless signal, my computer couldn’t find anything. When asked to diagnose the problem, it responded that the Windows Wireless service was not running. Ah, so the EAP service must be a requisite. Entering the service module, I quickly enabled the EAP service again, fingers crossed, and found that the computer continued to run. Weird. Well, maybe it sorted itself out. The computer diagnosed the problem again, and asked me if I wanted to start the Windows Wireless service. I clicked yes, the window came up saying the problem was solved, and the computer locked up into another irrecoverable situation.
I laughed to myself because of the irony staring me right in the face. I find myself now connected to the internet via a cable running across my bedroom, because no forum online has faced this problem quite like I have. They should have called this crap Microsoft Osprey: a horrible idea that somebody said was good to go and released to the public with more problems than solutions.
Any Microsoft staff responsible for this crap’s release without proper QC has a free ticket for a ride down a flight of stairs off my foot, redeemable anywhere. Thanks.
