I might be crazy but...
I think I'm going to buy a computer with Windows Vista on it.
* MultitrackStudio is Vista compatible
* my soundcard is Vista compatible
* none of the computer stores in my area sell modern inexpensive computers with XP
* I don't want to build my own computer
* I don't want to struggle with finding SATA drivers for XP
* the new computers I'm looking seem to have been built for Vista
* I've spent the last few years on an old system; time for something new
* some other programs I want to run are Vista compatible
* I feel like being adventurous
You might well be crazy but don't worry your not the only one. Several months ago I nervously bought a new Vista PC after a computer crash. MTS works just fine and even some of the none compatable VST software works ok.
You can do the same sort of tweaks as on XP to reduce cpu for better performance. It is one of the main issues with Vista, the huge amount of cpu it uses.
It will be interesting to see which of my favorite programs will work on it.
Most of my favorite programs were written to be compatible with Windows 98 (my current system level). I had decent results with some test runs on XP so far, but I know Vista is quite different. I'm hoping programs can be run in compatibility modes if not straight away.
If I get the courage, I might try and install XP on a separate partition and add a bootLoader menu. But that's not my immediate plan since I have a feeling it wouldn't work with my chipsets, etc.
Hey, I have been reading about UAC and I was wondering...
1) What happens if I give admin priveleges to an install/setup program originally designed for an old system (Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows XP)?
20 Will I be at any risk of losing system files by them being overwritten with older versions?
I read this recently...
Quote:
In ?UAC Administrator Approval Mode?, the default mode in Vista even for administrators, if an application attempts to write to certain prohibited registry or folder locations, Vista will ?virtualize? these operations writing to a different location instead. This can be very confusing to an end user since files are not written in the expected location. Additionally, virtualization only applies to the X86 flavor of Vista.
3) Where are these virtualized locations?
Thanks for your help.
With your answers I'm hoping to find out if I'll be able to install Cool Edit 2000 and see if it works on Vista (other Windows 98/2K/ME/XP programs as well).
Hi MrHope, I'm not much of a computer techi but XP and Vista are very different under the bonnet.
The UAC is weird. I'm not sure I can answer with confidence the very good question about system files being overwritten. Just to say that I have not experienced older programmes over writing the sytem files. Older programmes may not work or may even cause the dreaded computer freeze but nothing tooooo drastic has occured.
I'm also not too sure about the virtualization of files and how this works. I think it is designed to help with the compatibility of programmes and saves to the users profile on the hard drive, but at the same time protecting, in some way, the registry from corruption, I think. But then I guess that would answer the first question. This link may help http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVi ... x?mfr=true
I'm spending the holidays with family so will be away from my computer for several days, hope things work out for you with Vista.
Well I just got done installing MultitrackStudio Pro Plus on Vista. Most everything went smoothly and the program is running as it normally does.
The only conflict I had was installing the vintage reverbs. The installer somehow couldn't copy any of the reverbs. However, I had my reverbs backed up on CD-ROM so this wasn't a major problem. I just copied them over.
I also copied over my patches and patchmaps and samples. When I ran MTS, it recognized the patches (and linked sounds) as if they had always been there.
Anyways, I'm relieved that it's working. My control surface is working. My soundcard is working. All that's left is to do is load up VST(i)'s.
MrHope wrote:The only conflict I had was installing the vintage reverbs. The installer somehow couldn't copy any of the reverbs.
Did you use an old copy of the vintage reverbs?
The vintage reverbs have a new installer since Januari 2007, it reads version 1.01.
Vista didn't automatically ask for administrator rights with the old version.
Note that all installers need administrator rights in order to be able to copy files to the 'C:\Program Files' directory. In most cases Vista will ask for this automatically (if it's a recent installer or the file name contains the word 'setup'). If old software won't install you can try rightclicking the file and choose 'run as administrator'.
Anyway, the reverbs haven't changed so your copied files are OK.
Thanks, Giel. It's possible that I didn't run as admin and/or used an older copy of the reverbs installer. I'm not exactly sure. Anyways, thanks for making a program that is Vista compatible. It's great to be up to date. I'm still using the ASIOsndNoPan driver and it's working just fine.
I was also able to install CoolEdit 2000 using the Windows 98 compatibility and installing/running as admin (also with Win98 compatibility).
I'm really happy. MultitrackStudio and CoolEdit 2000 are my two most powerful programs and they work well together. So I'm glad they both work.
CoolEdit has a minor conflict with Windows Media Player fighting over who gets ownership of .WAV files, but CoolEdit still runs and can open .WAV's using "Send to CoolEdit" instead of "open with CoolEdit".
Vista is a bit to get used to but so far so good. I turned off Aero features thus far. I'll see what other tweaks I can perform and post some of the helpful info up here if I find out anything useful.
P.S. - Giel, thanks for making the help file format recognizable by Vista. It's nice to have that handy since the original WinHLP.exe was discontinued by Microsoft.
Just wondering how this all came out . . . I'm a IS Director and an old programmer/network engineer/systems tech . . . anyway, I haven't gone to Vista for other reasons . . . too many other software conflicts. Waiting for service pack 1 to fix some issues.
<note>
I've heard mixed reviews of how good it is and how big of a memory/CPU hog it is. The tech people I know keep telling me not to move. I'm assuming your a non-techie, and this is the type I need to give an unbiased opinion. We computer techie people seem to be very opinionated, (and extremely hard headed with change).
</note>
Well, I'm not exactly a techie, but I'm not exactly NOT a techie. I know a lot about Windows 98 SE, and a bit about DOS, but I know next to nothing about Windows 2000, ME, NT, XP, Server, or Vista.
Well I know a little tiny bit about Vista, but that's just because I've been using it over the last few days and reading a bit about it online.
So far things are going pretty well with it. Most of my Windows 98 SE software and a few XP programs that I downloaded work on XP. Here's an overview of my installations:
* UAC (user account control security) was left ON at all times
* Unused programs such as games and AOL and time-limit demos were removed
* No Windows services were disabled (contrary to DAW optimization guides)
* Vista visual enhancements were all turned off except for displaying thumbnails and a few other minor enhancements
* Display mode was reduced to 16 bit instead of 24 bit
* no older/non-Vista system software installed --- to avoid serious conflicts
* no older/non-Vista drivers installed except for a Vivitar digital camera driver written for XP (amazingly it works)
* every installation was run while logged in as administrator with installer properties set to admin mode for current user AND admin mode for all other users
* every installation was run in the compatibility mode corresponding to the operating system it was designed for. (So old Window 98 programs were installed in Windows 98 compatibility mode)
* every non-Vista program was configured to run in the corresponding operating system compatibility mode
* a system restore point was created after almost every program installation
* older programs that don't need installation (portables/programs from zip files) tended to run with ease in Windows compatibility mode.
* Screen savers were turned off
* Sleep settings were turned off
The specs of my computer:
Gateway GT5622
Dual core 1.8 GHz
3 MB RAM
DVD?RW/CD?RW drive
400 GB Western Digital hard drive w/ 8 MB cache
regular Gateway keyboard (Not a USB keyboard)
regular old mouse (Not a USB mouse)
Soundcard: M-Audio Audiophile 2496 with current Vista drivers from M-Audio website. Built in ReakTek soundcard disabled in Windows.
Issues encountered:
- Some Windows 98 SE programs failed to install or run properly.
- *Some old programs needed to be given admin rights in order to write their settings to the registry and/or to store registration settings. After
settings and configurations were done, the admin rights could be taken away and the programs would still run.
- Windows Vista blocked the autorun function of some older programs that ran from the start menu or that ran from automatic run registry settings. For example, RAMboss and NoteZ, would not correctly load up on startup, even when given admin rights.
- Windows Vista doesn't include the old WinHLP32.exe program needed to display older help files. .CHM files display, but some old .HLP files don't display. Newer .HLP files do display. Copying the Windows 98 SE WinHLP32.exe to the Vista computer makes it possible to open the old .HLP files, but only manually.
- Windows Office installation was only a time-limit demo.
- Windows Vista doesn't allow searching file contents.
- The DVD/CD drive seemed slower than on my Windows 98 SE, 750 MHz 256 MB RAM computer. (The new drive is an Optiarc; the old drive is a Memorex).
- Of the programs that do run, a few of them have troubles displaying the Open/Save window consistently. It disappears and the program has to be switched out of and back into for it to appear again (alt-tab).
- Occasionally an icon for the start menu would appear on the desktop incorrectly and unexpectedly. It would disappear after logging out and back in.
- The recycle bin icon would not correctly change according to being full or being empty in the admin account.
- Although all programs were installed while logged in as admin, some programs were installed for all users while others were installed for just the current user.
- Windows Media Player was unable to play some .WMV videos downloaded earlier this year. Ace DivX Player (freeware) was able to play those videos however.
- Older DirectX plugins, such as AnalogX AudioArpeggiator were not recognized and AnalogX DirectX Manager couldn't register them for recognition (it didn't work). Other stuff:
- Evolution X-Session USB MIDI control surface works as intended. No drivers necessary since it complies with USB device standards.
- The hard drive would be busy during idle periods due to disk indexing happening in the background. Eventually I turned off disk indexing just because the hard drive noise was annoying.
- There isn't much Vista freeware out there on the web yet.
- Drive letter D: was taken by a Recovery partition which is NOT hidden
- Drive letters E: through I: were taken up by Media Card ports.
I have not yet tried to run any program in any other account besides administrator. I anticipate that some programs might not work correctly in those accounts.
Well that's that... I hope this is helpful in some way. Take care.
Monitoring the CPU load and RAM usage showed not much activity. MultitrackStudio Pro Plus 4.3 edits were much faster. Latency for the STS-26 softsynth was noticeably less than on my older system, but still not quite fast enough to play anything other than slow pads. Other VST instruments were fast enough to play in realtime.
The bus speed of the new computer is 800 MHz.
The new hard drive speed is 7200 RPM. My old hard drive speed was 5400 RPM. The CPU of the new computer is an Intel with Intel chipset. The video card is an integrated Intel one.
I still haven't done much multitrack recording yet, so I can't yet report any results for track counts or anything like that. However, with my old 5400 RPM drives and 128 or 256 MB of RAM I didn't have any troubles so I don't anticipate problems with the new system/7200 RPM drive.
Mess around with the Delta ASIO drivers and the latency setting in the Delta Control Panel, also the Asio controlled by host toggle, may work better one way than the other, you should be able to get realtime play on your softsynths very nicely with that kinda speed. But it might be an age difference in software and Vista, dunno.
One thing you might consider, keep the '98 box and use it as your dedicated sampler box now, hooking its SP/DIF out to the Delta's SP/DIF in on the new box. Then all the good old win98 synths and samplers would be running native but the audio gets digitally piped into the new DAW for recording. I have one old win98 box set up like that here, still has the old Live card and APS on Live rogue drivers in it, also gigasampler of a very early version, works a treat as standalone sampler box and one 61 note midi keyboard hooked to it as controller.
Hi Mrhope, good to see your having success with Vista. Its neat CoolEdit 2000 worked out, it would be a real downer to loose a favorite programme.
Vista might be a bit of a cpu hog but to date I haven't had any problems. Cpu hogging vst's like the Moog Modular V2 do ok, I've ran three instances of the Moog V2 at one go on 1GB memory. The more memory the better I know and will add more somtime, but my computer has a intel core duo processer and this appears to make quite a difference for the better performance wise.
I'm quite new to computer recording and never really liked computers that much anyways. So it was and still is a huge learning curve. I nearly had a nervous break down when I needed to go inside a computer to install my first sound card. Gradually getting my head around computers though and despite the brain ache we can do amazing things musically with them.
