Vista and .Keystore

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Roedy Green - 12 Mar 2007 00:22 GMT

I am in the process of switching over to Vista. Home edition premium
came with the new machine. It is hiding the .keystore file on me and
refusing to let me access it.

1. where is it? Presumably somewhere in C:\Users\myaccount

2. how do I back it up, edit it etc. ?

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
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Roedy Green - 12 Mar 2007 01:29 GMT

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 16:22:34 -0700, Roedy Green
<see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

>1. where is it? Presumably somewhere in C:\Users\myaccount

.keystore is in C:\Users\myaccount\.keystore. It appears to have no
unusual attributes, but it does not show up in directory listings. I
was able to find it with Mitch Gallant's Keystore viewer..

When I try to copy it in a DOS box, I get "access denied". I am
running as an administrator.

IBM's KEYMAN can't seem to open it either.

Perhaps the problem comes with form adding the concept of owner to
Vista files.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for oil shortages.

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Luc The Perverse - 12 Mar 2007 03:15 GMT

>I am in the process of switching over to Vista. Home edition premium
> came with the new machine.

My consolations on the OS there.

One of the main problems that you will find is that the more tech savvy seem
to be the least likely to upgrade first (with, obviously some exceptions) as
there has been a great deal of bad press surrounding Vista in many eclectic
tech forums.

I know my 90 minutes with the OS angered me past any reasonable theshold.

--
LTP

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Roedy Green - 12 Mar 2007 07:15 GMT

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 19:15:49 -0700, "Luc The Perverse"
<sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
quoted someone who said :

>I know my 90 minutes with the OS angered me past any reasonable theshold.

The main irritation has been the way it hides files and denies access.
The other big complaint is the huge memory footprint, without doing
anything extra.

There are a few nice things. See
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/windowsvista.html

There are some bugs:
1. LAN connections drop mysteriously
2. you can't log on in both directions in peer to peer LAN.
3. backgrounds for progress bars turn into a row of chicklets
4. the DOS box goes black on black.

It drives you nuts with very slow warning dialogs before anything that
could be considered configuration, e.g. setting an environment
variable.

I am trying to figure out what the MS people were doing all that time.
The main thing seems to be to disable the right click object-oriented
way of working.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for oil shortages.

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Luc The Perverse - 12 Mar 2007 10:27 GMT

> On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 19:15:49 -0700, "Luc The Perverse"
> <sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> 3. backgrounds for progress bars turn into a row of chicklets
> 4. the DOS box goes black on black.

That is no minor bug!

> It drives you nuts with very slow warning dialogs before anything that
> could be considered configuration, e.g. setting an environment
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> The main thing seems to be to disable the right click object-oriented
> way of working.

Oh good - they are turning it into a mac.

I spent 10 minutes looking for a menu bar. Found out I have to use the
keyboard to activate it. Thanks Bill.

It seemed to completely ignore the open each folder in a new explorer
window. Even holding Control Alt or Shift (I tried every combination)
would not allow me to open a new window. I am forced to use the stupid back
and forward buttons (they weren't even nice enough to include and up tree
navigation button. I am now forced to do the ridiculous cut and paste file
operations.

I wrote a three page blog on what I could see from 90 minutes of using the
POS that made me want to kill myself (not literally)

Any OS that denies you complete access to your own files is downright
offensive.

I wonder if anyone has succeeded in getting a windows XP interface working.
It is the modifications to windows explorer that I find most offensive.

The most annoying part is that Bill Gates knows his OS is a piece of crap.
That is why he is forcing it down everyone's throats so quickly. OEMs are
being theatened with loss of kickbacks if they don't switch all new consumer
lines immediately to Vista. Offering Windows XP is a punishable offense.
Why? Because the less tech savvy need to have it installed on their
computers before they hear that it is a bad thing. If they hear it is bad,
they will get windows XP and then possibly never upgrade.

--
LTP

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Roedy Green - 13 Mar 2007 19:28 GMT

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:27:38 -0700, "Luc The Perverse"
<sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
quoted someone who said :

>> 4. the DOS box goes black on black.
>
>That is no minor bug!

it happens after an error message, not all the time. :-)

TweakDun does not run. Vista complains it uses obsolete Visual Basic.

It seems to problem is the complexity has got so big humans simply
cannot manage it.

I see two ways out:

1. artificial intelligence to manage the detail and to enforce the
consistency. It could then compose every user a custom OS with just
what they needed and only gradually introduce features to them.
Much of what makes an OS confusing are features you are not currently
using. It turns everything into a needle in a haystack problem.

2. greater compartmentalisation. Device drivers run in the device
hardware or in their own virtual micro-machine. Keyboard drivers
handle all command combos as well so they are consistent across apps,
and can assigned to specialized keyboard hardware in a uniform way.
Apps run in air tight boxes. They can access only their own data files
by default. Code updates are handled in a uniform way, with
guaranteed rollback and data export. see
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/darkroom.html

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for oil shortages.

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Roedy Green - 13 Mar 2007 19:30 GMT

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:27:38 -0700, "Luc The Perverse"
<sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
quoted someone who said :

>I wonder if anyone has succeeded in getting a windows XP interface working.
>It is the modifications to windows explorer that I find most offensive

Apple does a delightful spoof of the new windows Vista "security"
system that just keeps asking "Are you sure you wanted to do that?"
before every innocuous operation, in there fat guy/cool guy ad series.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for oil shortages.

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Roedy Green - 12 Mar 2007 13:35 GMT

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 16:22:34 -0700, Roedy Green
<see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

>1. where is it? Presumably somewhere in C:\Users\myaccount
>
>2. how do I back it up, edit it etc. ?

it is C:\Users\myaccount. You can get at it, but only if you start
with the myaccount entry in the start menu. They you can copy/paste
it.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for oil shortages.

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Vista and .Keystore

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