After my first fling with Vista a few months ago, I had finally decided to give Vista a second try. Wouldn’t want to make any new judgments on Vista before trying. Wouldn’t be fair isn’t it? And so it is a 64-bit Vista to be precise. And why 64-bit? Because since it is going to be a complete system ‘overhaul’, why go for the ‘intermediate’ 32-bit? If everything goes well, I might consider staying there.

And so I started out on the tedious journey of backing up all the important files, imaging the whole XP hard disk for insurance, checking my hardware compatibility with 64-bit Vista and also downloading all necessary 64-bit Vista drivers. Started the format-wait-install-wait-toilet-wait-eat-wait process and voila!, I am now Vista 64.

Then come driver installations. Drivers for my Asus P5K/EPU motherboard installed perfectly. So did the nVidia GeForce Vista 64-bit driver. For my D-Link DWA-110 WiFi USB dongle, no Vista 64-bit drivers are available from D-Link. But Microsoft did say it is 64-bit Vista compatible with No Action Required. Luckily I was able to find a compatible Vista 64-bit driver for DWA-110 dongle. And some technical steps are required to install the driver. First hurdle.

Then came a minor bump. Microsoft IntelliType driver. The 64-bit version of the driver installed with no problems at all. But in XP, whenever I press the volume keys on my keyboard, an aesthetically pleasing volume bar will be shown on my screen. But in Vista, it is nowhere to be seen (Aero or non-Aero). So is Microsoft incompatible with Microsoft or did I just upgraded my Microsoft wireless desktop set to some unknown China brand? For me, this feature is important as I would always love to adjust the volume to a certain level before starting a game or movie session, and thus the over-reacting whining.

After all the drivers are installed, I started installing softwares as anyone would be doing at this stage. OpenOffice, Adobe, anti-virus applications, system tools, games etc… 32 or 64 bit, all went fine. I fact I was starting to like Vista.

But there are a few software that do not work in Vista. First to notice is a great free tool Unlocker. A version for 64-bit Vista is still in progress. Then the non-compliance of freeware jetAudio Basic with Vista Aero interface. So whenever jetAudio is running, Aero is automatically disable but will be enabled again after I close jetAudio. But the again, Microsoft should not be held responsible for these software problems. I’m just trying to let you guys know that not all XP applications will work in Vista, especially the 64-bit flavour.

So in summary, I had honestly begun to like Vista. Aero is not necessary but nice (2GB ram with 9600GT). And I am still with Vista at this very moment of writing. But unless you have a quite new computer (with quite new hardware with), Vista is still not yet the way to go unless you are capable of solving (or at least going around) these driver and software issues. As I had predicted in my first article on Vista, half a year from now would be a good timing.

Stay tuned as coming soon… my very own Windows Mail tray icon minimizer!

Related posts:

• Windows XP or Windows Vista?
• Vista Users, Time for Firefox or Opera!
• Improved Version of Vista Mail Tray

- Written on Friday, November 21, 2008 22:24 - 0 Comments -