See update below!
I'm still running Vista RC2 (as well as XP MCE) on my Gateway laptop. I've officially run into the first of what I consider a major issue with Vista...wireless connections.
My router is in my home office. When moving to other rooms in the house, the signal seems to degrade much faster with Vista than with XP. In fact, when I move with my laptop to the family room (approximately 45 feet from the router), my connection is sporadic at best. Internet connectivity will work for a while, then drop for a few minutes, rinse, lather, repeat. I can immediately reboot into XP and have ZERO problems, but with Vista, it's nothing short of extremely frustrating.
The wireless adapter in this Gateway laptop is a Broadcom 802.11g. There has been an update for this adapter since I initially started with Vista in Beta 1, but this problem persists. Could it be my router? I'm running a Linksys WRT54G (v 1.01.0 firmware). Generally I keep this router in mixed mode due to an 802.11b device in the house, but even when I force it to G-only, the problem persists. I'm at a loss here, short of purchasing an antenna/signal booster.
Any thoughts?
Aside from this, Vista seems to be running smoothly. I'm running the following apps with no problems:
Avast Free Antivirus
AnyDVD
DVD Shrink 3.2
GAIM 2 beta5
Flickr Uploader
Update!
I found this article regarding power saving issues with Vista and wireless cards. It seems that in pre-RTM releases of Vista, the wireless adapter was, by default, set to a power save mode when running on battery. This was problematic for some routers that didn't support it, so there were problems just like mine with communication. I changed the mode of my wireless adapter to maximum performance when running off battery and so far, so good! I just spent about 40 minutes straight online from the family room with no connection drop at all!
BTW, thanks to ChaCha for helping me find this. I've been Googling and Googling trying to find some more info about this issue, with zero luck. I entered "Vista wireless problems" into ChaCha and did a search (without Guides) and the FIRST result was this exact article with the problem/solution I was looking for.
Showing posts with label Vista. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vista. Show all posts
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Vista voice recognition
I just finished some basic playing around with the voice recognition on Windows Vista (I'm running RC2) on my Gateway laptop utilizing a Logitech USB 250 headset.
The setup and tutorial is a bit repetitive and time-consuming (around 20 minutes total), but I suppose it needs to be! This tutorial does a great job of walking you through basic commands for controlling Windows and dictation. Right now my girlfriend's 9 year old daughter, Hannah, is making her way through the tutorial under her new Vista account and seems to be doing well!
I'm very impressed! I haven't messed with voice recognition since Dragon Naturally Speaking probably about a decade ago, so obviously it has come a LONG way. The system integration is phenomenal. I was having a lot of fun with "launch internet explorer", "close window", "switch to wordpad", etc.
I'm an Internet geek, so I will have to practice with using the VR to control Internet Explorer in ways that I often use it. "Show Numbers" seems to be the most used command right now. I tried to make my way through GMail with it, but I was having a hard time selecting a recipient through the dynamic dropdown in the TO: box. My guess is that I either can't or there is a trick. I'll continue to play around with it, and maybe update this post using Vista's Voice Recognition.
The setup and tutorial is a bit repetitive and time-consuming (around 20 minutes total), but I suppose it needs to be! This tutorial does a great job of walking you through basic commands for controlling Windows and dictation. Right now my girlfriend's 9 year old daughter, Hannah, is making her way through the tutorial under her new Vista account and seems to be doing well!
I'm very impressed! I haven't messed with voice recognition since Dragon Naturally Speaking probably about a decade ago, so obviously it has come a LONG way. The system integration is phenomenal. I was having a lot of fun with "launch internet explorer", "close window", "switch to wordpad", etc.
I'm an Internet geek, so I will have to practice with using the VR to control Internet Explorer in ways that I often use it. "Show Numbers" seems to be the most used command right now. I tried to make my way through GMail with it, but I was having a hard time selecting a recipient through the dynamic dropdown in the TO: box. My guess is that I either can't or there is a trick. I'll continue to play around with it, and maybe update this post using Vista's Voice Recognition.
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