WindowsVistaCare.Com - Microsoft Windows Vista Latest Update & OneCare (News-Media-Download-Directory)

Like many people, I’ve spent the past few weeks installing Windows Vista on my PCs and, like many, I’ve enjoyed varying degrees of success – from no problem at all to utter frustration. Since this is a subject which will inevitably run and run, I have devoted this article to problems you may discover when first installing Vista.

Compatibility issues
If you’re installing Vista on an older system, you’ll have two main hardware concerns: first, whether it will be fast enough; and second, how much of it will be compatible with the new operating system. With Microsoft making big claims about driver support, many people assume the former is the more important matter. But in my experience so far, support for older devices is the biggest issue of all.

Don’t get me wrong, Vista likes plenty of hardware muscle at its disposal, especially Ram, but after installing it on several systems, I’m still surprised by the number of older devices that worked fine under P, but refuse to play ball with the new operating system. So, if you’re thinking of installing Vista, the first thing you should do is run Microsoft’s own Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool. Don’t forget to connect all the peripherals you intend to use.

Beyond this you should check the support pages of your various device and peripheral manufacturers to see if there are any specific Vista drivers or comments concerning support.
Older, more obscure devices may never be supported but, worryingly, many common products can also cause problems.

For instance, although I use broadband to connect to the internet, I still like to have a 56k modem for sending the occasional fax.

My particular fax modem is a Dabs Value PCI card employing a popular Conexant chipset, but Vista refused to see it. I then, perhaps rather foolishly, tried to provide Vista with the latest XP driver and it virtually locked up the entire system. One swift device removal later and my system was running smoothly again, but any hope of sending faxes with my old modem had been scuppered.

Next up, the Promise Supertrak EX8350 Raid controller card featured in an earlier Hands on article was again unrecognised by Vista, despite it being a modern card from a well-known manufacturer. Promise assures me that a driver will be available on Windows Update by the time you read this, but why wasn’t it there, or on the Promise website, from day one?

Then there were my Black Gold digital TV tuner cards. Pairs of these are found in media center PCs because they work without problems. They’re a popular choice for DIY enthusiasts and system builders, but despite the manufacturer’s efforts, you won’t get two operating simultaneously under Vista Media Center.

So, if you’re ‘upgrading’ MCE 2005 to Vista and currently employ a pair of Black Gold PCI TV cards, you’ll lose the ability to record two shows at the same time. Newer Black Gold cards, which offer dual tuners on a single card, work fine under Vista, but if you’ve got the older single tuner PCI models, you’ll only be able to use one of them under Vista.

Upgrading to a dual tuner card may not be that straightforward for owners of older motherboards either, because many dual tuner cards require a PCI Express slot. It’s for all these reasons that my own media center PC is sticking with MCE 2005.

I should also mention that my admittedly ageing webcam and USB video capture box didn’t work under Vista, and due to their vintage I’m not expecting this situation to be resolved in the future. Both worked fine under XP though. The moral, therefore, is to check very carefully for support for all your devices and peripherals, or you could end up either unable to use several of them, or forced into buying newer models.

Hard disk controller driver
One of the highlights of Vista’s installation process is the ease with which you can provide third-party drivers for disk controllers. As detailed in last month’s Hardware column, previous versions of Windows could only accept third-party drivers from a floppy disc, with the catch-22 being that there are few, if any, modern PCs equipped with a floppy drive.

While Vista still accepts drivers from a floppy disc, you can now alternatively supply them from CD or an external USB device such as a memory key. Good news all round, but you may not be in the clear yet. For some bizarre reason, Intel still exclusively supplies the drivers for its Matrix Storage Manager in a self-extracting executable, which looks for a floppy disk on which to expand itself.

While a floppy may still be necessary to supply the driver to older versions of Windows, you’d think Intel would be considerate enough to also provide the files alone for Vista installers to download straight onto a CD or USB key. As it stands, Vista installers will still need a floppy drive just so the Intel executable can expand the drivers onto it. Or will they?

Considerable relief can be found under section 7.2 of Intel’s Readme file for the floppy executable file, here. By entering “c:\iata_enu.exe -a -a -pc:\<path>” without the quotes in the Command prompt, the drivers buried within the iata_enu.exe file can be extracted to a path of your choice. Bingo. Simply extract the files to a USB key and feed that to Vista during its installation to enjoy the best disk performance from motherboards employing Intel chipsets.

File sharing
Before wrapping up, I should mention one aspect of Vista’s file sharing that had me fooled for some time. Vista has changed the way file sharing is handled, and it’s no longer so easy to just share any folder you like. For example, the Progr am Files and Windows folders don’t allow the same sharing options as other standard or user-created folders. This makes a certain amount of sense, considering they’re system folders or contain files that are best left unshared, but this nannying can catch you out under certain circumstances.

I run Apache server on one of my PCs for locally proofing web pages before uploading them to a live site. I know Linux followers will roll their eyes, but I’ve always run this Apache installation under Windows and it has worked fine. Simply install the software and you’re ready. Enable File Sharing on the htdocs folder (the place where Apache stores web pages) and anyone on your network can transfer files for local hosting and proofing.

Well, they could if the htdocs folder were fully sharable, that is. Like most Windows applications, Apache for Windows defaults to installing itself in the Program Files folder. This doesn’t cause any problems on earlier versions of Windows, but Vista considers this folder and any sub-folders within as precious, and so limits your sharing options. Consequently, network users can’t modify files in this folder, and I also found certain Apache or MySQL services refused to start automatically.

The solution is simple: if you want to share a program’s folders or files under Vista, don’t install it in the default Program Files folder. Instead, create a new folder in C and install it there. Job done. Well not entirely. I’ve also been experiencing additional networking problems between my two Vista PCs, where one regularly loses the ability to access any shared folders on the other. Some have blamed Internet Connection Sharing, while others say support for IPv6 is the problem. After several highly unproductive days, I ended up reformatting one system and reinstalling XP, while looking into a dedicated server running CentOS. Both solutions felt pretty good.

If it ain’t broke
As with all new operating systems, there’s a learning curve to Vista as you figure out what has changed and how to get it looking or working the way you’d like. And like earlier upgrades, as you curse one aspect, you notice another that is really neat.

The thing I wasn’t quite prepared for was the sheer number of devices I owned that had worked fine under XP, but just wouldn’t play ball with Vista. To be fair, many were getting on a bit and only connected as and when I needed to use them. Hence, they were missed by any initial compatibility scans, but nonetheless there were more than a few moments when I regretted making the move.

As someone who needs to test the latest software as part of my job, Vista was a mandatory installation for my own systems, but if it wasn’t strictly necessary I’d certainly think twice about putting it on an existing PC. Indeed, I’ve stuck with XP for my media center PC because it works fine now. As a mission-critical system for this TV addict, I’m not going to take any chances. Besides, as mentioned earlier, I know Vista won’t support my existing pair of digital TV tuner cards at the same time.

So should you avoid installing Vista? Not necessarily. It’s a fine operating system with many worthy features, but I personally wouldn’t bother unless you can verify every bit of your hardware is fully supported – and that includes all the peripherals you wish to connect. Again, to be fair, the situation with driver support should steadily improve as time goes on, but there will remain some devices that will never be officially supported.

So, if you’re buying a new PC and own modern, well-known peripherals, I’d say go for Vista. But if you’re thinking of upgrading an older system and are in any doubt over support for devices you don’t want to replace, then I’d steer well clear – at least for the time being. As the saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Gordon Laing