I mentioned before that I had problems using Windows Vista Media Center. I also mentioned that I couldn’t figure out how to provide feedback to Microsoft about my specific issues. Shortly after my post, I received several emails from people stating that there is a feedback icon on the desktop in Windows Vista. Oops, guess I overlooked that…

The biggest issue that is preventing me from making the switch is that when I turn off my 52″ DLP and turn it back on, the display never comes back on.

Back when I originally had the problem, I tweaked a whole bunch of things to try and resolve it (installed various drivers, played with power settings, etc.) After trying a whole bunch of things (including some pretty drastic measures), my machine wouldn’t boot anymore.

Yesterday I decided to reinstall Vista JUST TO SUBMIT MY FEEDBACK. That’s right, I spent two hours reinstalling the OS just so I could submit my little bug in hopes that it would be fixed in some future version.

Once I reinstalled the OS and applied all of the latest updates and drivers, I was still able to recreate my issue 100% of the time. Great! So, I double-click on the feedback icon on the desktop and click on the link in there to download the feedback tool. Then, I see this:



Grr… So, I try it a couple of more times with the same result. After taking a break to eat lunch, I came back and tried it again. It worked! Okay, maybe Microsoft was having some server issues… I can forgive that.

The tool asks for a reasonable amount of information, so I fill it in:



After that, it takes a couple more steps and I give my consent for the tool to grab anything it needs off of my machine and send it off. When it’s all done compiling the information, I click the send button. That’s when I get this:



So, I took a break and tried again a little later. This time it made it a little further, but now I got a different error:



and, this one:



I tried several times over a timespan of four hours. Still not working. By the way, every time one of these errors happened, I lost all of the information I entered. After the second time, I learned that I’d better save it before clicking the “Send” button.

I know what you’re thinking… Well, Anthony, it looks like a connectivity problem. Are you sure your internet connection is working? YES, I checked all of that stuff. My internet connection was working fine. In fact, in between retries I was surfing YouTube. Yep, working fine.

So, I have the cab file it generated with my issue in it and all the info about my machine. But, it never got sent to Microsoft. That was a waste of 6 hours.

—

The bottom line is this: The feedback tool is the ONE THING that should ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY work in Windows Vista. If not, why are you having a beta period? I spent WAY more time on this than most people probably would have. And, what did you get out of all my efforts, Microsoft? What did I get out of it? A big fat nothing.