Vista users, please read : some advice.

[Bodhi]

I've been dual booting XP and Vista for some time now, haven't had an issue. Don't see what all the moaning's about tbh, it's XP but flashier.

[Kryten]

I've not been dual booting, however have Vista on a separate 80gb drive. I'm waiting to come across a cheap eSATA controller so I don't have to keep diving inside my case to swap over (Because I got rather bored of dual booting, and more to the point the wife kept whinging at all the menus at startup)

Now that raises a point - I've not tried transferring anything large over from the Vista drive to XP whilst using the latter - might give it a try, unless Bodhi feels like doing us a favour and trying

If not I'll have a look tonight.

[Kryten]

Update:

Slightly bored, so gave it a go - and sure enough, any .exe file from Vista is CRC'd when it's copied over to XP. Might see if I can get hold of some of the chaps over at MS to get this properly confirmed, as there's still nothing mentioning this either on their support forums or knowledgebase.

[Bodhi]

All my drives were formatted in XP could this be the reason I've had no problems? Could it also be the answer if you need to still use XP?

[soze]

Originally Posted by Kryten

Update:

Slightly bored, so gave it a go - and sure enough, any .exe file from Vista is CRC'd when it's copied over to XP. Might see if I can get hold of some of the chaps over at MS to get this properly confirmed, as there's still nothing mentioning this either on their support forums or knowledgebase.

During set up on my laptop i moved a far few install.exe files about messenger ect and i did not see a problem but like above dual booting machine. Formating your drive in xp could well be the answer to a happy Vista Install.

[Kryten]

It is indeed.
Put simply, Vista will work fine using XP's NTFS file system and you won't have any issues transferring anything over from that.
I mentioned using FAT32 for external/backup drives merely to be on the safe side - I tend to do this anyway in case i need that data urgently on a non windows system - saying that, nearly all the major Linux dist's read/write NTFS now. I wonder how they cope with Vista's version of it.

[ford prefect]

Yeah I've had the same issues as Kryten on three machines at work. Upgraded all three at the same time and then found they had a hardware incompatibility, then came across the ntfs bug too, it was a nightmare. Luckily I'm old fashioned and still keep a tape backup on everything on my office network, so managed to restore XP and all the office files without too much hassle.

I would advise anyone who is thinking about upgrading to vista at work to hold back until service pack 1 has been released and well and truely tested.

[soze]

Originally Posted by ford prefect

I would advise anyone who is thinking about upgrading to vista at work to hold back until service pack 1 has been released and well and truely tested.

Thats abit OTT you just build a test machine fr your network if it works use it if not don't. All this waiting for a SP seems silly. Can see why the Vista guy joked and said and we will release a 12k patch tomorrow called SP1 on release day. Soo many IT people saying dont touch it till SP1

[Kryten]

Depends entirely on the circumstances. The larger companies have access to virtualisation technology to test compatibility before large scale rollouts/upgrades, and for smaller people, it doesnt hurt to make a small partition for testing purposes on a spare box to see how it goes.
I'm not having any other real issues, at least none that would stop me upgrading to Vista.

Most the problems that Vista is having is really "targeted" to home users - there's not a great deal for office workstations that's gonna bother a vista pc. Unless the user is streaming media and copying files over networks

[soze]

Originally Posted by Kryten

Depends entirely on the circumstances. The larger companies have access to virtualisation technology to test compatibility before large scale rollouts/upgrades, and for smaller people, it doesnt hurt to make a small partition for testing purposes on a spare box to see how it goes.
I'm not having any other real issues, at least none that would stop me upgrading to Vista.

Most the problems that Vista is having is really "targeted" to home users - there's not a great deal for office workstations that's gonna bother a vista pc. Unless the user is streaming media and copying files over networks

Yeap thats where Virtual PC being free is a god send you can test applications with out a seperate box

[PLightstar]

Just reading through some of those posts, as I am thinking of putting vista ultimate on a new pc that I am building. But I am still unsure wether to make the jump or not? its primarily going to be a gaming PC, I have an external HD which has most of my info backed up onto. Does anyone know if I will run into any problems transferring the data onto a Vista HD?

[Kryten]

If it's formatted by XP using NTFS there's a possibility of that indeed. What might be an idea, as its an external drive, find a friend thats gone over to Vista and plug into his system, copy over a couple of .exe installer files or compressed zip/rar files and see if they run/extract fully.

[Jonty]

Hi Kryten

Thanks for the advice, it might save me some headaches as I'll be downgrading from Vista to XP today. I've used Vista for almost a year and, as someone who generally likes Microsoft's offerings, I really feel sick and tired of them recently (except the Office team, who still seem to be heading in the right direction).

Over the last year there have been so many issues with Vista: driver problems, incompatabilities with Microsoft's own products, and my computer's performance is gradually degrading despite my best efforts (and despite the fact that Vista is supposed to optimise itself).

The final straw came recently after installing SP1. I know it's only a Release Candidate, but I found it addressed very little (goodness help companies who are waiting for it). I then sadly bought some new (Microsoft) hardware, installed it, and something when catastrophically wrong. Sometimes I'll boot and a whole host of system programs will fail immediately upon logging in. I tried to fix things, but I can no longer access the control panel or other important system utilities because of permission errors (even though I'm an administrator). I can't rollback my system, all user accounts are affected, and attempts to manually revert to an earlier statIe are unsuccessful.

So today I'll backup my data (carefully, thanks to your advice) and switch back to XP. I hope to buy a new laptop this year and it'll almost certainly be running XP or Leopard after my experiences. I know this is nothing new for many people, but as someone who's taken so much stick for supporting Microsoft in the past, it seems a very sad day indeed.

Kind regards

Jonty

Update ~ Sorry, I just felt like moaning before, my future posts will be more constructive. Roll on Windows 7 please

[Kryten]

heh, don't worry about it - a problem shared is a problem halved and all that - we're all entitled to a moan every now and then.

You've been a stranger of late though, Jonty - where've you been hiding?

[Jonty]

Originally Posted by Kryten

heh, don't worry about it - a problem shared is a problem halved and all that - we're all entitled to a moan every now and then.

You've been a stranger of late though, Jonty - where've you been hiding?

Hi Kryten

Thank you I'm now happily back using XP. Perhaps when I buy my next laptop I'll try Vista again (I would consider a Mac if they weren't so exorbitantly expensive for ones with decent hardware).

As for me, I've just been very busy with work and life, but I'm happy so I'm not complaining. However, you and the others are the stars here, so I'm glad I'm not missed

Kind regards