Oh yeah - that was fun...

Moving to a new computer is always interesting, but my latest migration had much more at risk. First off, my accumulated files of music and photos made the move much larger than ever before. Second, Windows Vista is another breed of cat altogether.

The good news:

• The "Transfer Files and Settings" program included with the startup screen worked (sorta). I used my network to hook up the two machines, and after about 2 hours, the old one showed the transfer worked, the new one was unsure.
• To the best of my knowledge, I haven't lost anything valuable.
• My software seems to be reloading OK.
• The Internet hooked itself up simply by plugging into my router.
• It is somewhat cuter, and the sidebar is interesting.
• The new wide screen monitor is a huge improvement.
  

The not so good news:

• MS Outlook does everything it can to make migration impossible. First you have to find the darned .pst file with all your messages, contacts, dates, etc. on it. Not easy. The transfer programs did zip for this data, so I had to do it by brute force. Not pretty.
• QuickBooks 2006 may or may not run OK on it. My re-installation will not download updates. Only QB 2007 is guaranteed to work. Thanks a lot, Intuit! [Kiss $200 good-bye]
  
• The User Account Protection feature is horrible. You are constantly interrupted with warning messages and it takes multiple clicks to get going again.

The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness. [More]

• The UAP can be disabled, but there is serious discussion about the wisdom of that too.
  
• The file transfer program added some weird driver from my old computer that won't work, so I get a warning messages every time I boot up. I'm working on this one.

I backed everything up completely before starting, but that is a cold comfort.

Wait, speaking of cold comfort, is it thirsty in here or is it me?...


More if I survive...