Vista - first impressions

After a long, long wait and the expected installation trauma, I've finally got the Acer AMD Turion dual core processor machine up and running Vista.

My purpose is to keep in touch with software, and to see what Vista can and can't do. I haven't had it running for long, so maybe many of the hassles will disappear as I understand the thinking behind the changes, or discover what I'm doing wrong. I don't really want a flame war, and most of all I'd appreciate any positive suggestions that don't revolve around Linux, Apple etc.

I am rather negative at the moment. Here are some examples of why. As originally installed, the display was terrible because the front-screen icons were frequently unreadable against the default (on an Acer machine) wallpaper. Reverting to a black background helped a lot, but has the disadvantage that some of the windows have black (or transparent)  backgrounds, resulting in a situation where the minimise/maximise/cancel field 'floats in space', making it easy to close the wrong window.
Many of the error messages are even more misleading than Microsoft's usual standard. Try to access a non-existant folder and you get a message "You do not have permission to access this folder".

The new audio mixer app is weird. Maybe they brought the person who wrote the old mixer interface out of retirement for another go? Seems almost as bad, but maybe I'm not familiar with it yet.

Installation of drivers for odd things like my Tascam US-122 fail as expected, but uninstallation of the failure is not clean and bits are left all over the place. There are no drivers yet for my Tascam FW-1884.
I have been attaching an old Labtec webcam to the back of the Land Rover cabled to a laptop on the passenger seat to see the towbar coupling accuracy, so I thought I'd download and try the new Vista drivers from the Labtec site. Just another failed installation, and, after uninstalling, a message that appears every time I start Vista saying that the Webcam application is unable to start.

The internal soundcard is about average for a laptop card, but I'd really like to get something better. AA 1.5 is installed, but I'm getting some clicks on playback of the demo file. This was clean under XP. Has anyone heard of external soundcard that actually works? USB2 would be preferable to firewire, I think, as it would be powered from the laptop. Trawling manufacturers' sites fails to come up with much. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft's new audio driver model is like when there is an interface that works.

Vista does look like beta software still, but I'll stick with it for now. I've not seen anything yet that persuades me there is any reason to change to Vista on a working machine, so I'm still at the stage of thinking "What's the point?" However, as it's not a machine that I use for audio, there is little pressure.

AA 1.5 is installed, but I'm getting some clicks on playback of the demo file. This was clean under XP.

That does rather accord with what others have said - Audition doesn't run as fast under Vista.

I do appreciate the effort to test Vista to share your experience on it, and I admit that Vista looks great and runs even faster than XP on my box. And as long as it's not on a production machine, why not? Long live dual boot!

But your report just adds to the numerous other reports on Vista: such a waste of time and effort if you have "legacy" hardware and software. My two soundcards, scanner and webcam are not supported by the manufacturer for use under Vista, so there you have it: a no go.

And I didn't even mention the DRM thing, and other disturbing things I read. If you have an hour or two to spare: http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,5966.0.html.

One of the points that was less than clear in my earlier post was that I expected my Tascam 'legacy' usb soundcard to have problems, but the FW-1884 is a current Tascam model and there are no drivers. I quoted the webcam because, although it's not new, it does supposedly have drivers but I can't make it work with them.

Manufacturers' websites (eg Edirol, m-audio) seem very reluctant to mention Vista, and I haven't yet located a usb audio interface from a reputable manufacturer that works with Vista. I've not really looked at Creative. There seems to be a basic usb interface from Behringer that 'requires no drivers with Vista', whatever that means or implies.

I really need to get to the stage where I have a quality (but cheap!) card that works with Vista so that I can look at the new 'audio stack' within the OS. If I understand it correctly, it sample rate converts everything to whatever you set manually so that Microsoft 'bongs' and your precious audio are both converted to the same sample rate so they can co-exist.

I feel I should be making a list of questions and becoming organised about this. If heads are in the sand, the sands of time are running out 

Anyway, I'm still chasing the glitches in all audio. Diagnostics show that Realplay.exe is popping up on a regular basis, but I haven't installed Real Player, and it appears to be invoked by a process called e-security. Maybe that, or maybe the regular file indexing are what cause the twirly 'hourglass' to flash up every few seconds, or maybe it's something else altogether. Hours of fun here. Sorry if I'm boring everyone 

If I understand it correctly, it sample rate converts everything to whatever you set manually so that Microsoft 'bongs' and your precious audio are both converted to the same sample rate so they can co-exist.

Just what we need.  A Microsoft-implemented sample rate conversion that we users have no control over.

<unjustified speculation mode on>
Ready to have your 96kHz / 32 bit audio automatically converted to 22.025kHz / 8 bit when you click on a menu?
<unjustified speculation mode off>

[What's the point?]

Anyway, I'm still chasing the glitches in all audio. Diagnostics show that Realplay.exe is popping up on a regular basis, but I haven't installed Real Player, and it appears to be invoked by a process called e-security. Maybe that, or maybe the regular file indexing are what cause the twirly 'hourglass' to flash up every few seconds, or maybe it's something else altogether. Hours of fun here.

I'd guess that this is all a part of MS's overall DRM policy, and also a large part of why soundcard manufacturers are having some difficulties with drivers. MS would need to intercept the output stream to a card in order to do this - simply in order to nobble it when it plays something at a resolution MS think that you aren't entitled to be using. So, if they are forcibly intercepting the stream, then they might as well do a low-quality sample rate conversion on the fly at the same time, I suppose...    But, you must realise that MS are improving the experience for you, and that this really is in your best interests... MS knows best, after all! 

Which really just emphasises the point about no point that you made in the first place:

I've not seen anything yet that persuades me there is any reason to change to Vista on a working machine, so I'm still at the stage of thinking "What's the point?"

Isn't the point that we'll have to join them, beat them or move to Linux?

I really need to get to the stage where I have a quality (but cheap!) card that works with Vista so that I can look at the new 'audio stack' within the OS. If I understand it correctly, it sample rate converts everything to whatever you set manually so that Microsoft 'bongs' and your precious audio are both converted to the same sample rate so they can co-exist.

That can be true if you use it with no understanding - they try to make it work somehow for you even then.  But they've actually made it far easier for intelligent software to bypass the nonsense. which is part of the justification for the new audio stack - it just requires all those new drivers to be written properly.  If the applications and drivers ask it right, Vista can map the sound card's own memory directly into the application's address space with no additional buffering at all.

Paul

Isn't the point that we'll have to join them, beat them or move to Linux?

I'm already planning my move.

[made it far easier]

But they've actually made it far easier for intelligent software to bypass the nonsense. which is part of the justification for the new audio stack - it just requires all those new drivers to be written properly.  If the applications and drivers ask it right, Vista can map the sound card's own memory directly into the application's address space with no additional buffering at all.

Well that's fine - but why then are so few manufacturers actually managing to do this at all if it's far easier? And does that effectively bypass all this DRM nonsense? I rather doubt it...

Having dug deeper into the Edirol site I see that they do have Vista drivers. I have actually got an Edirol PCR-1 here which, as well as being a midi keyboard, has a primitive audio interface. It will be rather awkward to use, but at least I won't be tempted to buy Behringer.

I've also had a reply from Tascam support saying that Vista drivers are expected within the next 2 months, and that they have proved hard to develop because "Unfortunately Microsoft have incorporated Digital Rights Management at
hardware level on vista."

In response to Steve's point, I think it's most unlikely that, if drm is a feature of Vista and Microsoft have to approve new drivers for them to be "allowed", any drivers will bypass the drm.

I've also had a reply from Tascam support saying that Vista drivers are expected within the next 2 months, and that they have proved hard to develop because "Unfortunately Microsoft have incorporated Digital Rights Management at
hardware level on vista."

In response to Steve's point, I think it's most unlikely that, if drm is a feature of Vista and Microsoft have to approve new drivers for them to be "allowed", any drivers will bypass the drm.

That sounds as though it pretty much writes off Vista for pro audio, then. Who in their right minds is going to put up with that?

[We don't care if it works software]

That sounds as though it pretty much writes off Vista for pro audio, then. Who in their right minds is going to put up with that?

Steve, this is the way it's been for donkeys. "Here's the new OS you need to aspire to, write your drivers for this OS. We don't care if you don't comply but soon enough, all your systems will grind to a halt because you won't write programs to incorporate our latest, "We don't care if it works software" and we're gonna even stop supporting your OS although you can continue to use it in it's arcaeic (I need to be careful using THIS word LOL!) form of life.

The idea of Linux "SEEMS" plausible enough but how many are going to get the time to learn a new OS. I know Vista is a new OS but based on the existing structure (I'm not an advocate BTW, even though ECHO have the drivers and I have the M/C's).

This, BTW isn't any form of a rebuff, it's very simple. Through time, Adobe Audition will eventually migrate to Vista and therefore OS upgrades naturally follow. Sad though it is.

Mark

Steve, this is the way it's been for donkeys.

Since when has any OS ever got in the way of a soundcard output, that couldn't be got around?

If you read around a bit, you'll find that there are some large corporations that are flatly refusing to let Vista in its present form be put on any of their machines - especially if they are mission-sensitive. Dell are re-introducing XP machines after massive customer complaints - the badvista site has at least six pages of links to Vista bad-news stories, and even MS are back-pedalling somewhat. Come on, wake up and smell the coffee... people were cautious about XP certainly, but nothing like all this happened, did it?

Well Steve, if what you say is true, (I'm not doubting it for a second) then that's a positive outcome. If the software manufacturers are at last dictating to Microsoft about how the OS should be implemented regarding audio, then Happy Days. All I'm trying to point out is how it's been in the past. I won't be upgrading any time soon.