Day: April 6, 2007

Vista upgrade– UAC quirks and Dell (un)reliability

UAC created a unique problem for the laptop, intended to dual-boot XP and Vista. More precisely, it was dual booting until a recent “update” from Windows Update rendered the XP side inoperable with a blue screen complaining that registry could not be loaded. But that can not be blamed on Vista. (Yes in principle, one could load the crash dump in a debugger to investigate in copious spare time.) Attempting to rescue files creates an interesting problem, because accessing the XP file system requires exercising the “take ownership” privilege granted to administrator accounts in Vista. UAC gates the exercise of administrator rights, in keeping with least-privilege principle. Under XP take-ownership is applied automatically and would work seamlessly from Explorer. Browse to the documents folder of the other OS and you are authorized every step of the way, because access check logic helps itself to the ownership shortcut.

Under Vista, that doesn’t work. It leads to not one but 2 UAC prompts, after which you end up with an error message to the effect that getting access will require using the Security Tab. (Right click, Properties / Security.) It is here that the ownership can be changed to one of the accounts on the Vista side, and this has to be done recursively by checking “Replace owner on sub-containers and objects.” After a few more UAC prompts, the directory is open to browsing.

But the trouble does not end there– trying to open a Word document results in an access-denied message inside word. Ownership had been changed, but the permissions on the file were not updated and still referred to the non-existent accounts from XP installation. On the other hand, copying the files to a different location, for example to burn them on a CD, required a single prompt in Explorer, suggesting that it is up to each application to detect and work-around these error cases

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Vista upgrade battle stories

So far, so good. After installing Ultimate edition on an older vintage laptop and new desktop PC, the situation is stable. No pressing need to roll-back, no application compatibility issues, no horror stories of data loss, missing drives or precious iTunes collections going up in smoke.

But installation experiences followed decidedly different trajectories, with the desktop working out much better. An AMD x2 system from Dell, it was already labelled “Vista ready” (although the definition of that phrase is in dispute currently) and shipped with a dual-monitor capable graphics card, enabling Vista Ultimate to shine with the nifty Aero Glass visuals. Strange that Dell website made no mention of the dual-monitor capability, unlike other models where customers are given the option to purchase a second monitor.

The laptop, a Dell Inspiron 700m about 18 months old, did not fare as well, perhaps because it was not designed to run Vista. As far as quality problems, that would be the least of its problems. After about 1 year– no doubt coincidentally, the warranty period– the battery no longer holds a charge more than one hour, rendering the machine an expensive brick, unless it is tethered to the wall and drawing juice. But then again given the inclination of Dell batteries towards spontaneous combustion, one must be grateful for a merely useless battery. No more Dell laptops for this blogger.

After the upgrade, the 700m runs noticeably slower but remained perfectly usable. The perceived responsiveness of the system approximates the way blogger’s favorite Compaq TC1000 tablet PC with TransMeta used to run plain XP Professional circa 2003. Vista had no problems recognizing the NIC, wireless card, Firewire controller and smart-card reader. Biggest challenge has been the integrated touch-pad which is currently recognized as a standard mouse device. One of the key pieces of software from Dell website is a custom driver for the touch-pad and associated software that allows fine-tuning the sensitivity of the tracking surface. Without that it is extremely sensitive and the slightest glancing finger movement registers as a click. When typing away at a hurried pace, clicking at random will result in moving the cursor to a different place and scrambling existing text– or worse hitting a button such as “send” on unfinished email. Very frustrating. No Vista drivers from Dell yet.

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Supreme court speaks but will the EPA listen?

In what is being heralded as a milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. If that sounds like re-iterating the obvious, consider that the decision was handed down with the slightest margin of 5-4, the votes aligned on party lines for the most part with Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas dissenting. (Justice Kennedy cast the deciding vote.) EPA itself has been resisting the call from advocacy groups to regulate emissions for the past 6 years, claiming that policies to curb US emissions will do nothing to curb global warming resulting from emissions in developing countries. Quoting the decision the New York Times wrote in a first page article on Tuesday:

by providing nothing more than a “laundry list of reasons not to regulate,” the environmental agency had defied the Clean Air Act’s “clear statutory command.”

Strictly speaking the decisions does not require EPA to intervene but leaves an unusual way out for the agency: by declaring that greenhouse gases are not harmful and do not constitute a danger to the environment. It remains to be seen whether bogus science will be called on once again to support the expedient option.

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