Microsoft Vista

[SPIT]

Hi
I have just got a new computer (lucky boy) and it has Windows Vista.
All my h/ware for the Printer,scanner and Photo editor are configured for XP drivers and the new computer wont load it ??.
How do I overcome this as all the equipment mentioned is only 12/12 old if that.?:{:{:confused:

[cats_five]

Go to the various maker's web sites and download the Vista drivers.

[P.Pilcher]

And when that doesn't work, consider downgrading your OS to XP!

P.P.

[DouglasDigby]

Had the same issue with an expensive item of hardware.

Can't remember the exact software/hardware selection process or sequence, but somewhere in the loop, I went to the hardware(?) properties & there was a feature to nominate XP as the base driver.

Sorry I can't be more specific!

[The late XV105]

I took delivery of a Lenovo T61 last week replete with 2.4Ghz Core Duo and 2GB RAM and Vista Business without SP1.

On Friday this week I revert to XP Pro SP2.

Why?
Hopelessly unstable Cisco VPN (I work from home and in the wild abroad in equal measure) vs rock steady on XP Pro
Half my software doesn't have Vista drivers and some of it is quite recent
I can't get my Canon MPR800 wireless printer to work properly whereas it was trouble free before
Network status on Vista is not accurate on any wifi network I use
Anything that uses the web is slooooooow. As an example, BBC News pings at 600ms versus 32ms from my identically specced (in headline terms) Home PC running XP SP2 MCE and 40ms that I used to get on my 1.6Ghz 2GB RAM Lenovo T42 laptopI may come back and try again in future, but after a week of trying hard to become a convert and implementing every performance and stability tweak I can find in as controlled a manner as possible, I can't wait to leave the party.

XV105

[Rossian]

Flat Spin
No, you're not alone. I was forced into a new computer last week, and after all the tales of doom and gloom in this forum I was very leery of Vista. However, apart from a few annoying little quirks, which I'm sure will get ironed out (I started by dumping Norton 360) so far it has been a positive experience. My internet connection seems to run nearer it's advertised speed for much more of the day than it used to. Please god let it stay that way!
The Ancient Mariner

[marlowe]

Rossian could not agree with you more about dumping Norton360 i went the Zonealarm/AGV route and my new lappy with 2G ram is a pleasure to use.

[Rossian]

One is still cautiously pleased with it but today we ran into the first biggish snagette. Trying to set up Windows Mail, my account went in OK but SWMBO's Hotmail account ran into a block that said "we don't support http accounts anymore" (or words to that effect). After ages spent trawling around various links links labelled "help" none of which did, I now turn to the source of good gen - you guys. Does this mean that SWMBO has to set up a completely new e-mail address? (Which will be the usual pain of informing peeps of new address, and the address book was one item we were NOT able to recover from the hard drive after the problem that generated the purchase of this new machine) All offers of reasonable solutions gratefully accepted. And, no, Thunderbird was a real pain in the butt when I tried to get into that.
The Ancient Mariner

[vapilot2004]

Rossian - your Vista PC need Windows Live Mail.

Details on the issue here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926374/en-uk) and direct link to Live Mail here. (http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview)


Good Luck!




Hardware and software vendors make billions from these M$ OS upgrade incompatibilities. :mad:

[Rossian]

Vapilot2004
Thanks for that steer, I now have a happier SWMBO and the blue cloud that was surrounding the desk is beginning to disperse.
The Ancient Mariner

[Binoculars]

Binoette4 has been struggling along with a prehistoric laptop for a few years (poor precious, at 15 years old, I hear you say). Now she works part-time I told her I would contribute X dollars to a new laptop, and she could decide how much she wanted to contribute.

Naturally enough she didn't want to spend much money, and I told her anything would be a huge step up, so we went along and bought an el cheapo Compaq. I was alarmed to see the store (a generic appliance store) selling a Vista equipped machine with 512mb RAM and asked if I could have XP installed. Que??? was the reply.

OK, says I, and explained to B4 that I would purchase and fit an extra 512Mb, though I knew 2Gb RAM is recommended for Vista. I thought perhaps Vista Home Basic might run ok on 1GB with no heavy demands being made on it.

Of course it's as slow as a week of wet Mondays, to the point where I think it's actually slower than her 1.3Gb Acer with 256Mb RAM. How are these people allowed to get away with this?

More importantly, how is the MS virtual monopoly allowed to introduce massively expense new programs which provide no benefit whatsoever to the average user and force older users to upgrade? Yes I know: how else is MS going to increase its earnings and thence its share price? It's a real bummer when they have a system that works for most people. A real cynic might get a vague hint that inbuilt faults are a Good Thing.

Surely not?

[Nani]

Bino,

See if this http://www.mwave.com/mwave/index.hmx? company sells to AU as they have the best buys for memory modules to upgrade the RAM.

My HP came with 1gb,bought 2gb from them for $45.00.

[Binoculars]

Thanks Nani. Access to reasonably priced RAM isn't a problem, I was just having a moan about having to do it in the first place. :uhoh:

[Nani]

I was just having a moan about having to do it in the first place.

Go on then Bino,I know it makes me feel better...:ok:

[Dan Winterland]

New laptop with Vista. God, it's slooooooooooooow! And it won't run my company's software. Going back to XP soon.

[MarcJF]

I'm interested in the posters who have dumped Norton 360. I recently purchased an HP Quad core running at 2.20Ghz with 3mb memory. It should be a half decent machine, but it runs slow as a dog.

Do you think 360 in the background is slowing things down, and if so what's the best system to replace it with. Thanks.

[frostbite]

Think you can almost bet on 360 slowing it.

I use Avast without any 'incidents' over the past few years.

[Shunter]

10 years ago Norton used to be half-decent software. Since then Symantec have bought it and transformed it into the biggest suite of bloatware garbage known to mankind.

The best thing you can ever do for your computer? Get rid of Norton. It's slow, it's crap, and it makes you unneccessarily paranoid.

A decent antivirus (eg. AVG), the built-in Windows firewall, and a small dose of common sense is more than enough for most people.

[419]

A few weeks ago, I asked on here about what difference getting an upgraded HDD for a laptop would make. (it was being replaced under warranty), so I took the advice given, and paid a few pounds extra for the higher spec unit.

Initially the computer had Vista ultimate, but now it's been returned to me, I've installed XP pro, and the difference in performance is amazing. (I can't tell for sure if it's the XP, the new HDD or a combination of both).

It is now, without a doubt, the fastest computer I've ever used, with programs opening almost instantly.
I might consider going back to Vista sometime in the future, but it certainly won't be until they have released a couple of service packs to fix the numerous niggles with with it.

[Earl]

I bought a Compaq laptop new from Pantip plaza in BKK, was loaded with a not so legal copy of XP, the norm there as most of Thailand.
Loaded a legal copy of XP pro that I paid 300 USD for, and all worked well except for the audio, was told that I needed to upgrade to Vista by the Microsoft help center as the audio was not supported on XP, drivers etc.
Paid another 159. usd for vista premium home edition back in the USA.
Audio worked as expected, computer did not, normal vista problems as we all know.
Re installed windows XP after a full format, when it came time to activate had to call the windows number for activation.
Told them what happened and was informed that you cannot down grade from windows vista to windows XP, some kind of legal issue and they would not activate it, so much for being honest.
Going back to BKK soon, will buy the 4 usd copy of XP with service pack 3 included.
I understand why people do this now.
Bill Gates is his own worse enemy.

[The late XV105]

I took delivery of a Lenovo T61 last week replete with 2.4Ghz Core Duo and 2GB RAM and Vista Business without SP1.

On Friday this week I revert to XP Pro SP2.

Why?

Hopelessly unstable Cisco VPN (I work from home and in the wild abroad in equal measure) vs rock steady on XP Pro
Half my software doesn't have Vista drivers and some of it is quite recent
I can't get my Canon MPR800 wireless printer to work properly whereas it was trouble free before
Network status on Vista is not accurate on any wifi network I use
Anything that uses the web is slooooooow. As an example, BBC News pings at 600ms versus 32ms from my identically specced (in headline terms) Home PC running XP SP2 MCE and 40ms that I used to get on my 1.6Ghz 2GB RAM Lenovo T42 laptopI may come back and try again in future, but after a week of trying hard to become a convert and implementing every performance and stability tweak I can find in as controlled a manner as possible, I can't wait to leave the party.


Some feedback; for me at least, this proved to be the right decision. Having reverted from Vista Business to XP Pro SP2 I now have a blazingly fast laptop that behaves like it ought with 2.4Ghz core duo and 2GB RAM, drivers for everything I need to use, Cisco VPN that is totally reliable, and web browsing and remote file transfer that is a joy not a tediously slow chore. As it happens, after so many colleagues having experiences like mine, our employer has now put its Vista rollout programme on ice and as well as reverting existing Vista Users to XP Pro SP2, is also purchasing all new kit with this o/s installed.

[Rossian]

Further to my post #7 - AL1. This morning SWMBO came rushing through in a panic "Mayday!!
When she switched the computer on it came on in its "fresh-out-of-the-box mode"; all the data she'd spent hours putting in, address book, new accounts system,Firefox, photos etc all apparently gone. I tried system restore (which seems to be less flexible than that in XP) and it came up with an error notice that the restore had failed and did I want to try again. I was just about to launch into it when Madame noticed that all the icons were back in place and a couple of quick checks showed everything back to normal. Any ideas out there as to a cause? In my advancing years my heart can't stand many more 0630 shakings awake and panic cries for help with systems I don't REALLY understand. Maybe it's an aircrew thing - my mate who is still flying says that the commonest phrase heard on the flight decks of today is "what the bl66dy hell is it doing NOW??" (as opposed to the captain looking up from his crossword and asking "Was that for us?").
The Ancient Mariner

[castin]

After years and years of finding myself being driven mad by win 98, ME, 2000, XP and now Vista i did the only thing i could do to save my sanity:ugh:
I BOUGHT A MAC:O

[Rossian]

Yeah! Right! I've spent a moderate amount from my tax paid pension buying a new computer and when I have a problem the answer is to buy a Mac costing twice as much?? Yeah! Right!
The Ancient Mariner

[Barnaby the Bear]

I have been using vista for a year. I have never wanted to throw a computer out if the window, but I have contemplated it many times since.
Vista is awful and very slow unless you can afford maximum processing power and memory.
I was told if you ask the manufacturer to install XP when you purchase, they will.
Must admit having seen a couple of friends Macs. I am tempted.

[allthatglitters]

Vista on the new laptop computer, 2 gb ram, ugh, s o s l o w. and I could not imagine a computer with Vista and Norton.:ugh:

[d71146]

I was wondering if anyone has had problems with installing and using a computer with Vista Service Pack 1.
I was installing a new Flat screen monitor on my sister in law's computer yesterday noticed that some updates were waiting to be installed so installed them no problem then another update appeared which was the Vista Service Pack 1 downloaded Ok but when installing got to 65% then would go no further and locked up with the result that I found myself doing a system recovery.
Has anyone else had this or a similar problem ?
Should mention they have Nortons Security installed that came free with the machine.
I would be gratefull for any advice.
Thanks.

[Bushfiva]

Did you temporarily disable the antivirus?

[d71146]

To be honest I did not completely forgot on my own machine at home I don't at all never a problem but then I do not have Nortons on anything I run.

Grateful for your reply,
Many thanks.

[tallsandwich]

The management, reliability and ease of use of updates for XP and Vista has gone downhill recently (yeah yeah, "how low can they go?" I hear you say).

I have bashed my way through an Vista sp1 update and an XP sp3 update and it is only through determination and domain expertise that I succeeded. How the average punter gets it done I just don't know.

Key solutions (apart from having the persistence of a starved dog) for me were:

- On the XP machine, droping Zone Alarm and McAfee in favour of combined Fortinet AntiVirus/Firewall etc was key.

- On the Vista box it was disabling many resource hungry features like search indexing and fancy desktop features that gave me half decent performance.

I seriously considered an alternative, but who wants a friggin' Mac? If M$ don't get better in the next 12-24 months I'll be forced to go Mac and put up with the vomiting in repulsion, albeit over a more stable but expensive and thoroughly unattractive machine/OS. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place...

[Jimmy Macintosh]

I've just bought a new machine that comes with Vista basic home preinstalled (AMD dual core 4200+, 2Gb RAM, nothing special but a vast improvement over my current offering). I've heard nightmare stories about people trying to uninstall Vista and installing XP instead. Should I just swap out my old hard drive with XP installed then format the new one and use as a second storage area.

Or any suggestions as to a good way forward?

One of the reasons I'm upgrading is to get DirectX10 compatibility, does DirectX10 work with XP or will I need to keep Vista installed?

[Bushfiva]

If you have no idea why you would prefer XP over Vista, and have no idea why you would prefer DirectX 10 over DirectX 9.0c, why install XP? Why do you need DirectX 10? My guess is, if you can't answer any of the questions convincingly, you have nothing sensitive to DirectX 10, DirectX 9.0x or DirectX anything.else on your computer.

[Jimmy Macintosh]

You have some good points, I don't know enough about Vista except that there are a lot of complaints on the internet, even this thread alone. The only Vista I heard worth having is Ultimate. I have no problem with XP.

I can see why you asked the questions, rereading my post seems to have no point, clearly I was thinking ahead of my typing and not including all of my thoughts.

The question I missed asking is, is it worth having Vista, especially the lowest end of their range or should I keep XP? which then lends itself to the rest of my post.

Part of the reason for upgrading the machine is to get better performance, but if the operating system negates the hardware upgrades then it wouold seem to be a pointless purchase.

As to the directX 10 question, I know that compatible graphics cards have improved performance as it allows essentially multi core processing and hence utilizes the card to it's best potential. DirectX 10 was initially a Vista specific version of DirectX. If I'm upgrading the machine and graphics card to be compatible with DirectX 10 then I would like to make sure it is used for this capability. I've heard and read rumour that there is a DirectX 10 for XP but I've not found any evidence yet. So if there isn't DirectX 10 for XP then my question is answered and I'll need to see what I can do with Vista. Is 9.0c the XP equivalent of 10?

I use flight sims for recreation and would like the best performance out of them. I've held back from FSX mainly as it's a pointless upgrade over 2004 until I had the hardware to make use of it's features.

[Mac the Knife]

"I seriously considered an alternative, but who wants a friggin' Mac?"

The ARE other alternatives you know.....

My two main machines run Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy) and when I get a moment I'll take them up to Heron (the next Ubuntu incarnation). Do everything I'd want and more (I'm not a Linux purist).

The days then Linux was hard to install and maintain are long gone and we've now converted two of the girls in the office to Linux one their PCs and they made the transition effortlessly.

As for the Mac, well, I LOVE my Macbook.....oh and I run XP in a virtual machine on it for those few occasions when I need to test something for the Windows world.

:ok:

[Jimmy Macintosh]

Linux has always intrigued me, unfortunately my first experience with that type of system was back when it was more DOS like. Where is a good site to go and find out more about Linux?

[Gonzo]

I now have three Vista machines running, an cumulative total of two and a half years. Not one crash.

Two issues:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 says on loading that it is not compatible with Vista. Seems to work fine.
My work VPN Outlook won't allow me to send emails from my work address. No biggie....in fact, it helps me in that I'm not constantly doing work from home!

[Saab Dastard]

Directx 10 was never released for XP, and never will be as long as MS desperately needs some reason for people to move to Vista!

There are some games and applications that require DX10, but not many (what developer is going to limit their sales unnecessarily?).

There is an unoffical "port" of DX10 available for XP, which may be worth trying.

SD

[Jimmy Macintosh]

I've been reading as much as I can about Vista.

Out of curiosity, who is running on the 64-bit version and who is running the 32-bit version?

It seems that most of the driver and software problems stem from the 64-bit version. Most software and drivers being written in 32-bit. Some articles I've read also point to the processor in use, some 64-bit processors have difficulty in running 32-bit software, hence need patches or software downgrades (which kills the system speed). Apparently some run in 32-bit mode and have additional addresses for any 64-bit code that comes along - trying to find which processors currently are organised this way (seems to be AMD X2 chips).

I don't have a conclusion ... or really a point yet ... but as far as I can tell all of Vistas problems stem from incompatibility between 32 and 64 bit.
Either the processor is running in 32 or 64, the software is written in 32 or 64, the drivers are either 32 or 64 and none of them talk particularly well to each other.
It also seems that the 64-bit side of things can't read 16-bit applications.

[ZEEBEE]

And when that doesn't work, consider downgrading your OS to XP!

P.P.


Correction. What you meant was "consider UPGRADING your OS to XP" !

[P.Pilcher]

I suspect Mr. Gates and his hard working sales team would disagree with you - but I take your point!

P.P.