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I Know There Are Some Vista Users Here


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What's the verdict? I just picked up another old computer that has a fresh install of Vista Business 32-bit (the refurbishing shop got a good deal on an obsolete license). It's my first dual-core computer, which I needed in order to play with the Harrison Mixbus software. It'll run under Vista.

 

Is it OK to keep the Vista installation, or should I use up one of my Windows 7 installs (I think I have two left from a package) and just start out my new computer life with that? Mixbus will run under XP, so I'm also considering taking a step down to something I know pretty well. But if I'm going to ditch Vista (which I'm sure plenty of you will advise me to do) I want to do it before I start using the computer.

 

Now that Vista is obsolete, is it really as bad as everyone said it was when it was new? I did let it suck up all the updates.

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Vista is a great system once all the updates are installed. Its as stable if not more then Win 7.

 

It had many issues when it first came out. Much of it involves the indexing, security and software bloat which slowed the OS down and made it slower then XP. Since Win 7 came out, the upgrades to Vista borrowed many of those improvements to fix Vista. If you take the time to install all the updates and service packs it runs as well as Win 7.

 

Last time I reinstalled it on my one computer it took most of the day to download, install and reboot all the patches. It was worth it though because it does fine now. I went about 4 years between full installs and only had to do it then when I had a drive flaking out. Most other OS I've run needed a clean install sooner then that to get back the performance you'd have after a fresh install. The only major differences between vista are a few menus here and there which is no big deal. Other then that they are nearly identical systems now.

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Once it's all updated, it should be a pretty reasonable OS. The big problem with it, as WRGKMC suggests, is that the large increase in the codebase came before the available, affordable hardware base had 'caught up' with the much greater resource requirements.

 

When I finally moved from XP to Win 7, I was overall happy with the OS -- but I can tell you flat out that while my hardware is arguably 4 times as fast/powerful as my old hardware, the machine in normal use is nowhere 4 times as fast. (Number crunching stuff, though, with the OS and GUI out of the way, is plenty fast, though -- so you should see more of the implicit hardware upgrade in performance on DSP processing and such, I'd think.

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It was pretty bad. I gave up on Vista early though. I don't consider XP a downgrade from Vista as much as I consider Vista a bum steer. XP is still lighter, faster and a lot less work to get stable from initial install IMO.

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I skipped Vista, although Craig has told me that it's quite good once all the patches and service packs are installed - it basically is quite similar to Win7 at that point, as I understand it.

 

Having said that, I went straight from Win XP to Win 7 64 bit, and I found the transition essentially painless. It's a new OS, but not that dissimilar to the one I was familiar with, and it's been relatively easy for me to get around on it.

 

I see a lot more programs these days that have Win 7 listed as compatible than I do Vista or XP, and for me, that would be a big consideration. If you're used to XP, either Vista or Win 7 is going to be a bit new to you, so IMO, it's probably better to go with the learning / using the newer OS, since it's more likely to be compatible with current software, and remain so for longer than the older OS will.

 

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Agree with go with the newest OS possible since it'll be around longer. Vista is OK these days with all the updates but 7 is better. But since it already comes with Vista installed, why not try it out first? You can always use one of your 7 downloads later if you don't like it, right?

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Thanks for the input. It's pretty much as expected. I'm glad to hear that Vista seems to have settled down and it's not something to avoid at all costs (which was my impression a number of years back, so I did).

 

I have only one Win7 system (everything else is XP) and I don't find much difference between this Vista installation and my Win7 system. I have both set up for all the "classics" that I could find and the two audio programs I've installed both work.

 

As for "go with the newest because it will be around longer" . . . well, software doesn't wear out. It will be around as long as I want to continue to use it. But as Phil pointed out (and I have, too) there's more software and hardware that's written for Win7. The reason why I set up a Win7 system was to run Pro Tools 10, but what i gave up with that system was the use of my Mackie 1200F interface since its driver development stopped at WinXP.

 

Another thing I gave up (and this might be temporary) is that the only loose Firewire cards that I have laying around are too tall to fit in this skinny case. When I clean off the bench, I'll probably stick one in and leave the cover off just to see how the Mackie "i" mixer works with Mixbus.

 

This new system is here because I wanted to try Mixbus, which will run under XP, but wants a dual (or more) core CPU. Now that I know that the program works and a bit about what to expect from it, I should try it on one of my old Pentium 4 computers to see if the dual core requirement is real, or to what extent.

 

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Yes, by "be around longer" I meant that more software will be written for newer versions for a longer period and MS will continue to support it for a longer period. People are troubled now that MS is no longer supporting XP ending support for Vista will be next up. I still have a computer somewhere with Windows 98 on it. It's "still around". It just isn't useable for much, however.

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Yes' date=' by "be around longer" I meant that more software will be written for newer versions for a longer period and MS will continue to support it for a longer period. People are troubled now that MS is no longer supporting XP ending support for Vista will be next up. I still have a computer somewhere with Windows 98 on it. It's "still around". It just isn't useable for much, however.[/quote']

 

 

 

Don't know if that analogy holds true here. Vista and Win 7 are nearly identical now. It would be more likely they'd drop support for Vista, 7 and 8 at the same time then just drop one. XP in comparison was a different OS all together. Despite how it may have looked or ran it had many things that prevented it from being directly upgradable.

 

UAC is the Main technical Difference, plus there were many other things dealing drive encryption, file indexing and others that couldn't be upgraded by previous methods. The best they could do is back up a good deal of XP profiles and settings, save them, wipe the drive then reinstall those settings. You still had to reinstall all your programs however which made the backup/upgrade feature a waste of time and drive space. A clean install is the best method of installing Vista, 7 or 8.

 

Luckily all work fairly well with older XP software and so long as you can find drivers for older peripherals they should work well too.

Most driver and software made for Win 7 will work fine on Vista boxes just so long as there isn't anything unique to the win 7 OS system Vista didn't have, but that list is fairly slim. Win 7 does have some extra services. in its list but nothing that's going to force a Vista user to upgrade to a nearly identical system.

 

Time will tell however. So far my Vista system does all the same updated Win 7 does and on the same days Win 7 does.

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Actually, the end of lifecycle dates for Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 are all different, at least according to Microsoft.

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

 

The first date column is the end of mainstream support date, the second is the end of the extended support date. Vista is already out of its mainstream support period, while Win7 SP1 is not.

 

 

[TABLE=class: wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_table wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_wysiwyg_table_table4Col]

[TR]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Windows XP[/TD]

[TD]Service Pack 3[/TD]

[TD]April 14, 2009[/TD]

[TD]April 8, 2014 [/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Windows Vista[/TD]

[TD]Service Pack 2[/TD]

[TD]April 10, 2012[/TD]

[TD]April 11, 2017[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Windows 7 *[/TD]

[TD]Service Pack 1[/TD]

[TD]January 13, 2015[/TD]

[TD]January 14, 2020[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Windows 8[/TD]

[TD]Windows 8.1 [/TD]

[TD]January 9, 2018[/TD]

[TD]January 10, 2023[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

 

 

* Support for Windows 7 RTM without service packs ended on April 9, 2013. Be sure to install Windows 7 Service Pack 1 today to continue to receive support and updates.

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Vista is a great system once all the updates are installed. Its as stable if not more then Win 7..

 

+1 :thu:

 

I have one machine with Vista on it and an OEM copy of Win7 ready to go but Vista got a whole lot better with the updates and I'm fine with it as it is now.

 

Terry D.

 

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I ran my DAW on Win 7 first, then I swapped things around and have been running my DAW with Vista. I do find I have less crashes pushing the box to its limits using Vista, But this may just be the OS works better on my particular box of the Older M-Audio 1010LT cards just work better with the Vista drivers, and the older software just runs better.

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OK, so here's a Vista puzzle. I ran into this same thing when I set up a Win7 system and just worked around it, but dammit, I want to know what's making this happen.

 

Why do I see a bunch of folders under Mike that are the usual Windows documents names that I don't have access to? I'm the only user, and the administrator, so why shouldn't I have access to everything, especially things that are in folders under my own name?

 

On Win7 I just didn't use these folders but made equivalents with better names under the root directory, but I'd like to know what's going on here and why the default is that the presumed owner can't access his own files.

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Hum, Did you right click on them and go into folder properties? There should be a tab that says security and you can give yourself full rights.

Some of the stuff may be set up for shared if you're on a network. Doth think that would stop you from accessing the folders though.

 

The only other thing that comes to mind if you open up the control panel, then select folder options, you can make global access changes under "View" You can try reset first, or you can click on show hidden folders and drives. This will let you see and access system critical files. Normally you wouldn't need to go into those unless you really know what you're doing. They hide those so you don't accidentally click on the wrong folder, or have a bunch oc crap you don't need doing a search.

 

The only other thing I can think of is in the control panel, is click on User Accounts. You can go in from there and manage your accounts.

If I remember right, you can install software as a user or an administrator. If for example, you have an open software disk and just click on the install it sets it up under the user name. If you right click on it you have the option of installing it as an administrator so all users can use that program if you authorize them to use it.

 

It gets a bit confusing. You may want to google up details. The main reason for it is if you have a house with a number of users on the same computer. If your kids log on with their user name you can block them from using your programs or using your files. A good feature if you have a family.

 

In my case I'm the only one using my computer so I shut all that crap down. During installation of the OS you are the administrator. If you choose to have a secure log on, you are then a user. You have to give yourself the same rights as the administrator and then you'll have access to everything.

 

This is one of those UAC things people hated in the beginning. Luckily there's a billion articles that teach you how to shut it off. In an office where you have allot of people it does keep people out of your computer but a home computer, turn that crap off.

 

http://www.mydigitallife.info/turn-off-or-disable-user-account-control-uac-in-windows-vista/

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Hum, Did you right click on them and go into folder properties? There should be a tab that says security and you can give yourself full rights.

Some of the stuff may be set up for shared if you're on a network. Doth think that would stop you from accessing the folders though.

 

That was the first thing I looked at. Both Mike and Administrator have all permissions. When I tried to add permissions for EVERYONE, it denied access.

 

The only other thing that comes to mind if you open up the control panel, then select folder options, you can make global access changes under "View" You can try reset first, or you can click on show hidden folders and drives. This will let you see and access system critical files.

 

Got that. No, these are folders like "My Pictures," "My Videos" and "My Documents." Oddly, there are folders named Videos, Music, and Documents (also under the Mike folder) that I am able to access. So who's this "My" that can't access the folders? It's the "My" folders that appear in the Start menu, so I assume those are the ones that common users are expecting to use.

 

The only other thing I can think of is in the control panel, is click on User Accounts. You can go in from there and manage your accounts.

If I remember right, you can install software as a user or an administrator. If for example, you have an open software disk and just click on the install it sets it up under the user name. If you right click on it you have the option of installing it as an administrator so all users can use that program if you authorize them to use it.

 

When I open the User Accounts, the only user that shows up is Mike as Administrator, so presumably everything I do will be as an adminstrator.

 

This is one of those UAC things people hated in the beginning. Luckily there's a billion articles that teach you how to shut it off. In an office where you have allot of people it does keep people out of your computer but a home computer, turn that crap off.

 

I'm pretty sure I turned off UAC. Something that I tried to do popped up a window saying I couldn't do t and referred me to User Access Control. I can't remember what that was.

 

It seems to me that when I was setting up the Win7 machine, I had access to all of that stuff until I connected it to the local network, then access was blocked. I don't know if I ever had access before setting it up on the network because that's one of the first things I did. Is it possible that there's something that keeps it from recognizing that I'm local to the system and should have access?

 

The other thing is that when I try to access this Vista computer from another computer on the network, it asks me for a user name and password. I never set a user password on this computer. Could this have something to do with the Windows Firewall? I have that turned on because I didn't feel like screwing with anything else and wanted to have some protection while it's connected to the Internet. I'm pretty sure I went through this same thing on the Win7 computer and I can't remember if I ever resolved it or just made file transfers from one computer to the other by "getting" rather than "sending" (which works fine - I can see, and get files from other computers on the network from the Vista computer).

 

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I still have Vista installed on one of my laptops because at this point, it's essentially Windows 7. There are some programs that don't support Vista but in most cases, they'll work anyway. I understand from Cakewalk there are some "under the hood" changes between Vista and 7 that will matter to Sonar eventually, but remember that Sonar is tied very closely to the operating system...generally more so than ported programs.

 

One thing I found about Vista is that it isn't very good about telling you about updates. I had to reinstall Vista once and thought I'd done the updates. Vista didn't show the need to update, but when I went to Windows update...another bunch of megabytes and installs. I had to do this several times before ALL the updates were installed, and there were a lot of them. Took a full day IIRC.

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One thing I found about Vista is that it isn't very good about telling you about updates. I had to reinstall Vista once and thought I'd done the updates. Vista didn't show the need to update, but when I went to Windows update...another bunch of megabytes and installs. I had to do this several times before ALL the updates were installed, and there were a lot of them. Took a full day IIRC.

 

Sheesh! I can't leave this thing turned on for an hour without telling me that there are updates waiting to install (I have it set to tell me about updates but not do install them untii I say it's OK). This computer came with a fresh install off an OEM source so it didn't have any updates. First batch was, I think, 192. Now they seem to be coming in batches of 10 or so. Most of the latest ones are security fixes for NET Framework 3.5 and 4.5, both of which it installed in the first batch of updates. I guess they don't update the updates so you get the latest ones the first time.

 

I found a skinny Firewire card in the closet, plugged it in, and the Mackie 1640i worked with it. And the cool thing is that there's a Vista (but not Win7) update for the Mackie 1200F so I can get a little more mileage out of that. But a new computer sure is a time soak!

 

 

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