Hi Editors:

                    Now that MC ver 3.0 is compatible with a version of Windows Vista, should I upgrade to Vista now ? The reason I am inquiring about this is the max amount of RAM I can use with my HP nw 9440 is 4 GIG, which I have installed, but as you know, Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2 only maps 2Gig of RAM max for any application. I installed 2 x 2Gig DDR2 667 Mhz Ram to operate in the full dual channel mode and use the Avid Memmory patch to force Windows to appropriate the extra RAM (2.7 Gig only) the rest Windows XP hogs for itself. Would it not stand to reason if I went up to Vista, that I would be able to map the full 4 gigs of my system Ram for MC ??

Please advise.

Mark

I can't speak for Avid on Vista but so far my experience with Vista in general is that it's a lousy OS.  I had a new laptop that came preinstalled with Vista and 2gb of ram and I ended up having to shut off all the Aeros stuff and other bells and whistles to get it to not freeze from just using IM over wifi.  I ended up installing XP and have been much happier

I can only agree.  I'm currently using the preinstalled version of Vista Home Premium that came with my laptop.  It's an absolute (insert expletive of choice here) of a piece of software, and I'm currently fighting with my supplier to get a copy of XP Pro instead - although I may just give up and install Ubuntu, since it's never going to be an edit machine.

 My experience as well. I just bought my niece and new laptop and after much frustration rolled the OS back to XP Home. I hate Vista. It's content provider friendly and content user hostile when it comes to handling media.

Not only that but Avid is having a much easier time writing code for XP than just about any of the other two OSs. Leopard is a little more friendly and Vista is the toughest of the three.

Wow Guys ! Sounds like I should stay put with my pre-installed Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2 . You know, everytime I ask someone about Windows Vista, I'm getting simular feedback. Sounds like Microsoft has done a very poor job on Vista. Maybe it will work by Service Pack 3 ? I thank you all kindly for taking the time to inform me.

Mark

jwrl:

 and I'm currently fighting with my supplier to get a copy of XP Pro instead

 Anyone with a Vista lisence can downgrade to XP (any MS OS gives free access to older MS OS) for free. Microsoft says so.

So it should be nothing you have to "fight" for.

If you can get XP Home or Pro depends which Vista you have (i guess).

TerryO:

jwrl:

 and I'm currently fighting with my supplier to get a copy of XP Pro instead

 

 

 Anyone with a Vista lisence can downgrade to XP (any MS OS gives free access to older MS OS) for free. Microsoft says so.

So it should be nothing you have to "fight" for.

 

If you can get XP Home or Pro depends which Vista you have (i guess).

TerryO,

Speaking as a computer technician (day job) who has to fight Microsoft for telephone authorisation regarding legitimate downgrades on a regular basis, sorry to tell you but Vista downgrades are limited.

OEM (the one you get bundled with a new machine) Vista Business and Ultimate have downgrade rights to XP Pro.  None of the other OEM Vista versions do. 

see: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc

And as a quick note: Vista x86 (ie: the 32bit version) is still limited to 4GB of memory address space - less will be available after video card memory mapping, BIOS address space and other card mapping have had their bite at address space.

see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765

Dose that mean we can load Vista x64, load it up with LOTS of memory and run MC happily?  Strongly suspect that the answer is "only if MC is written as an x64 application."

Regards,

Long suffering Edit Assistant, DVD Authorer, bottle washer and Avid box maintainer

Yes, thanks.  The issue is that I want to go from Vista Home Premium to XP Pro.  Even though XP Pro is cheaper than Vista Home Premium, they're still making me go through the hoops.

For what it is worth we just upgraded to Vista Business with the arrival of MC3. I was lucky in that I got a new laptop at the beginning of the year which came with Vista Business installed so I have had 6 months to get used to it (and yes I HATED it for the first 2 months).

When we came to install MC3 a month ago I had no problem taking the decision to move up to Vista Business on our HP xw8400s here. An additional bonus is that Vista Business seems to handle multi-boot systems way better than XP so, due to one of our xw8400s needing to host ProTools as well which cant reside on the same OS with MC3 due to Digidesign driver issues (and which currently does not support Mojo etc under Vista (up to 7.4cs5)) we were able to create a dual Vista Business boot machine with no issues (not tried Vista Business and XP dual boot however).

MC3 has run fine on Vista Business (the Avid qualified version) for the past month...no hint of trouble and apparently improved performance (allbeit subtle). I should emphasise that all our xw8400 hardware is 100% Avid qualified systems so I can't promise it will work with unqualified systems.

If you are on a qualified system, make a restore point using Norton Ghost and try it on Vista Business, you never know it might actually work.

Some years ago, there was an animated discussion in the old forum why You shuld use w2k instead of the inferior OS Windows XP. (I think this debat as going on since dos 3 and if I trust this discussion dos 3 was the best OS ever because every new MS os is not as good as the predecssor).

I have descided to wait to upgrade our editing computers to Vista until the we know more how it performs with MC3. MC3 is a new software, and using it with a next to new software (and new to Avid developer) is to expose to more problems whan I will. I think i will upgrade to vista next year then Avid hopefylly have sort out most of the vista/MC issues. (Think of the firewire problem Avid have with the new version of OSX)

I have not used Vista with AVID, so I cannot say anything about that. However, Vista is a fine OS. It's more secure than XP, and has many features you'll like.

For those having problems with Vista - Vista has a way to see exactly what is causing your problems. Go check that out - and learn that Vista is not the problem, but in fact, it's your third party drivers and software. Just because third parties are too lazy to update to a 2 year old OS does not make Vista bad - it makes your third party apps bad.

The real tech-y guys, like Leo Laporte, are now just laughing at all the Vista hate - since there's no rational reason for it. If software and hardware companies refuse to write drivers for Vista, what can Microsoft do? How is it their fault? When you hear the Vista hate, just sit back, laugh, and wish folks well with their vacuum tubes. Don't fear technology. Don't be afraid to be moderately current.

First let me say Hi, this is my first time on this forum and my first post.

OK one common denominator with every "anti-Vista" post - OEM, or pre-installed versions of Vista!

I too have a Sony laptop which has preinstalled Vista Home Premium and it is slow, sluggish, and forever doing things that make you say "WTF are you doing now!!!" as the HDD light flickers away when you haven't touch the keyboard for ages.

My home built PC, on the other hand, has a full product Vista Ultimate installation and is a dream! it is super quick (OK it is the 64bit version with 8g RAM) and after 5 months of heavy daily use it has never (touch wood) thrown up any problems.

I also built my son's PC which is not as powerful (barely min.spec), that has Home Premium (full version) and that too has been the subject of a great deal of use including gaming, and no problems.

I have not used any Avid product on it yet because as far as I know Avid do not recommend installing their products on Vista and their support team responded to me by simply saying 'some functions may not work / or work as anticpated. When Avid get with the 21st Century, I'll give it a go. Having said that, I only just found this forum so maybe there's now a patch to load MC onto Vista PC's.

I strongly believe that all the problems people have with Vista are due to pre-installed OEM versions, the PC magazines are ful of people complaining about Vista and all their letters begin "I just purchased a laptop with Vista pre-installed.."

Paul

Atomike:

learn that Vista is not the problem, but in fact, it's your third party drivers and software.

I love quotes like that. "Vista is a fine OS...as long as you buy all new software for it". Man if Avid did that, the screaming would be heard for miles.

 And by the way, in case you haven't noticed, XP Pro does not run with or on vacuum tubes.