Like many I’m also fed up with Microsoft software in general and Windows in particular. But like many I too am too lazy to make THE CHANGE to another BETTER OS.
Until now!

Why make the switch?

The last couple of years I’m preferring Open Source alternatives for almost every software. And it’s a true eye opener. And today I’ve made the bold move to do this with my OS also!
Yesterday my 6 year old Windows XP desktop (almost) stopped working: it’s so slow now, that it takes tens of minutes to start any application.
Thus a great opportunity to try out Ubuntu 9.04.

Also just recently my nephews Windows crashed (again)! And while he and I both have a registered and licensed legal Windows versions installed on the computer, the CD’s we’ve got are only recovery versions! And because he already had formatted his drive he could not use his legal CD anymore!
This made me realize how ridiculous this situation is…not Microsoft, but the computer manufacturers are here to blame…I know!
And he also made the switch…although he’s not that tech savy!

Will everything work? Out of the box?

And I’m very pleased I have made the switch. And I’m actually writing this post on my Ubuntu desktop now!
I was afraid I had to search, find and install drivers for my video card, sound card and the ethernet/network card…but it all worked out of the box!
And because Windows made me a coward I’ve also installed the Linux version of the superior viruskiller Avast. Although I’ve read I don’t realy need to…

What have I got now?

A good looking, great performing, FREE OS with some free software already installed like GIMP (alternative for PhotoShop) and Open Office (alternative for the Microsoft Office)!

What’s next?

Because I have still gigabytes of software to sort out and clean up on my VAIO laptop which I’m also working on my upcoming projects from I will not switch to Ubuntu on that…yet.
But I will soon.

And everyone should make the switch also…now!

I should have known better than giving Windows the benefit of the doubt! I thought WAMP/WampServer screwed things up: suddenly I couldn’t connect to http://localhost anymore. Nor to phpMyAdmin, nor to MySQL.
And because I could connect to the internet, I figured it was my local server…and not a Windows Vista related issue.

However it seems Windows Update, Vista 32-bit, screwed the host-file and the localhost was only reachable via http://127.0.0.1.

Following the instructions from the Wampserver forum solved the issue:
Entering the line 127.0.0.1 localhost, just above the already existing line ::1 localhost.

To actually edit the hosts file in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc you have the give your self the proper rights first:
You can do this by right-clicking on the hosts file, selecting properties and the tab Security and selecting Users and pressing the Edit button.
You might give yourself writing rights or full controll: Edit the file and put the original settings back, since you don’t know what Windows might crash next if you don’t!

Hope this helps others out of misery also…and I’m soo close switching OS, when I finish these projects and make enough money to buy me enough time!

PS: I’ve understood the same issue and solution is also applicable for XAMPP.