Vista Premium and loading open-source public tools

So Vista Home Premium installed Ok last night.

Score so far is 2 Ok of 3:
- Vista Home Premium: success - is happy with my old Motherboard
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6: failed to install
- Creative Audigy 4 driver: success - Windows Media Player works

Reminder: I am NOT trying to find new things that work - only if the tools I am comfortable with work. For example no doubt Vista comes with a snazy media player, but I want to use VLC from http://www.videolan.org/ - so if no VLC, then no Vista for me (yet).

U3 on my portable drive:
Beep - big not-o. I have a 2GB USB drive which contains FireFox, OpenOffice and all of my normal tools and settings. I use this daily on 4 to 5 computers at work. My ScanDisk u3 Cruzor USB device shows up as broken under Device manager and no virtual CD shows up under Windows Explorer. The "data" section of the drive shows up, but since it is encrypted it cannot be accessed without the "LaunchPad" working. Having Windows search for an updated driver gets the nice message "It is up to date" but it doesn't work. www.u3.com is pretty useless (as of today) since it just says click your U3 task bar icon to update ... but of course I have no U3 task bar icon since LaunchPad doesn't work.

Score so far is 2 of 4 Ok:
- U3 USB sticks: failed - they don't mount

FireFox 2.0.0.1
So, no USB stick with FireFox so lets see how official non-portable FireFox works from http://www.mozilla.com. Oops - I get the error "FireFox Setup 2.0.0.1.exe" is not a valid Win32 application.

Score so far is 2 of 5 Ok:
- FireFox 2.0.0.1: failed: isn't even recognized as valid Win32 app

Aarg! I just noticed Vista Windows Explorer STILL starts up in my "Start menu" directory. Holy cow - such an idiotic thing; of all the things they change mindlessly, they don't change the one dumbest decision Microsoft ever made! Why don't they start Windows explorer in my home directory or some other SANE place!

I look at my download directory and see that FireFox never downloaded - it is an empty file. Guess that explains why Vista complained. So I try to download again, and just to be safe don't agree with Vista that this is an application. Now it installs fine. Mozilla Corp did a nice job of signing and all of the Vista admin popups have nice, clean messages!

Score so far is 3 of 5 Ok:
- FireFox 2.0.0.1: sucess, but first download failed for some reason

Mounting my DLink DNS-323 raid file server:
I have a NAS or network disk array with dual SATA 150GB drives. I use it to backup my files and share downloads between systems. That way none of my home systems share their own files. Windows Explorer lost the old menus - so no Map to Nework Drive anymore. Hitting the help button is useless as a search for "mount network drive" pulls up 30 items unrelated to mounting a network drive. One of the first items suggests I go to Windows online help for IT professionals!

Ok, use your head Lynn. Under the Start Menu is a Networks selection - this opens up my network and shows all of my homes systems, my NAS, and even my DSL router. Must be a UPnP thing since my Digi network devices don't show up. But alas, I cannot log into my DLink NAS using my name and password; Vista must have changed the way passwords are handled. DLink has no support info related to Vista and DNS-323. So another task for another day!

Score so far is 3 of 6 Ok:
- DLink DNS-323 NAS: failure: won't allow Vista to connect to drives

How about Java Runtime:
I go to www.runescape.com - a massive online game that just costs $5 per month and is pretty sane for me. I don't get off on killing fellow players and have many Singapore friends. FireFox sends me off to find the Java plugin, which is unavailable. Before I try manual install, lets try Microsoft iExplorer - it happily to download plugin J2SE Runtime 5.0 update 10. My player LinseLA happily can head off to the fourth level of the security dungeon by Edgeville to stock up on blood mage runes. The game seems a bit laggy - but then with 120,000 players online it could just be the server system. Better still, this also setup java for FireFox so that works as well.

Score so far is 4 of 7 Ok:
- Java Runtime: success: but had to install under iE ... FireFox couldn't find the plugin

VideoLAN 0.8.6a - VLC media player:
I like the VLC player at www.videolan.org. It offers DVD support without asking for money like most of the "free" OEM players included with systems. Plus it includes many codecs common online. One gets so SICK of needing 4 or 5 "main-stream" media players. For example Windows Media Player handles a few Windows forms, but no DVDs. WinDVD plays DVD, but one also needs QuickTime and RealPlayer and yuk. VLC just plays them all without all the popups and reminders to upgrade for $$$ etc.

Oops - it installs, but isn't self-signed so the install is ugly. Plus it plays a high-definition video Ok with beautiful audio - but there is no video overlay image from my ATI X1600. This could be an ATI issue, not one with VLC.

Score so far is 4 of 8 Ok:
- VideoLAN 0.8.6a: fails: audio is wonderful 5.1, but no video overlay (may be ATI issue)

Recheck ATI Radeon X1600 video driver:
Since VLC cannot reach the video overlay, I need to double check my ATI driver. My Radeon X1600 driver is dated September 2006, which is probably too old for Vista's newness. http://ati.amd.com shows a newer Vista 64-bit driver dated 29-Jan-2007 ... hot off the press. The ATI Catalyst system is bit top-heavy and bloated, but no point under-enabling my modestly nice graphics hardware. Need to reboot

Score so far is 5 of 9 Ok:
- latst ATI video drivers: success

Yah know, as Vista starts up I hear quite a bit of chatter in my Raptor - the downside to its speed is its chatter. I certainly hope Vista is meddling with XP in ways it should not be - probably is Ok. Vista mounts the old Samsung drive as C: and the Raptor as E: Guess I won't be opposed to Vista using the Raptor as swap space, but heaven knows where Microsoft moved such a setting in Vista. :-)

Recheck VideoLAN 0.8.6a - VLC media player:
Nope - still no video overlay.

So today's score is 5 success and 4 failures:
- Vista Home Premium: success - is happy with my old Motherboard
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6: failed to install
- Creative Audigy 4 driver: success - Windows Media Player works
- U3 USB sticks: failure - they don't mount
- FireFox 2.0.0.1: sucess, but first download failed for some reason
- DLink DNS-323 NAS: failure: won't allow Vista to connect to drives
- Java Runtime: success: but had to install under iE ... FireFox couldn't find the plugin
- VideoLAN 0.8.6a: failure: audio is wonderful 5.1, but no video overlay (not an ATI issue)
- Latst ATI video drivers: success

Installing Vista Home Premium

I suppose Vista stuff will be blogged ad-nuseum, but I was curious to see how useful Vista may be. I will try Vista for a few weeks to answer ... why? Will I get any value to upgrade one of my Win XP licenses to Vista? I own 3 XP licenses - 2 by OEM computer purchases and 1 by an official upgrade CD for an old Win98 license. I will install Vista Home Premium since that's likely the one I'd invest in.

I am NOT trying to find new things that work - only if the tools I am comfortable with work. For example no-doubt Vista comes with a snazy media player, but I want to use VLC from http://www.videolan.org/ - so if no VLC, then no Vista for me.

The installation:
My system has 1GB DDR400 SDRAM, AMD A64 2GHz, ATI X1600 graphics card (which has modest hardware pixel shaders etc.), dual 1280x1024 LCD displays, and 150GB SATA Raptor 10,000 RPM drive. Since I didn't want Vista to change or "adjust" anything on main XP disk, I disconnected the main drive and just installed Vista onto a fresh 50GB NTFS partition of an old 5400RPM 80GB drive, which already had Ubuntu 6.10 Linux on the rest of the drive.

The first hiccup was Vista refused to install onto the empty 50GB NTFS partition. It detected and showed me the 3 partitions, but declared it "could not find a suitable partition" to install into. Hmm, after some goofing around, I finally deleted the Ubuntu Linux partition and then magically Vista decided the 50GB NTFS partition was suitable and to its liking. So I suspect Vista didn't like the GRUB boot loader pointing to another partition. In the old days, Windows would have just silently over-written the old boot loader ... which is what I had hoped would happen here but didn't. No big deal, Ubuntu re-installs a bit faster than Vista and the new GRUB boot loader happily added Vista to its menu.

A side note - sadly GRUB doesn't seem to like USB keyboards. I have a Saitek backlit USB gaming keyboard which the PCChips BIOS seems happy with. I have no trouble using the USB keyboard in the BIOS setup or F8 boot menu. But sadly to make use of my Ubuntu GRUB bootloader menu I need to plug in a 2nd PS2 keyboard. I hadn't noticed this before because the few time I ran Ubuntu I just left GRUB do its default. Something to solve another day, but this system may be short-lived anyway.

The Result:
Vista now boots fine and actually seems to like my hardware better than I had suspected - rated it 4.0 Windows Experience Index out of 5.0. I had run a Windows Vista tool a few months ago and unless I'm forgetful it had declared it a pretty mediocre 3.x - complaining about the fact that my A64 was a mere 2.00GHz. Overall I'm rated:

• Processor = 4.0 (AMD Athelon 64 3000+)
• Memory = 4.2 (1.00 GB)
• Graphics = 4.3 (Radeon X1600 Series)
• Gaming = 4.7 (607MB total graphics RAM)
• Primary HD = 4.2 (39GB free of 49GB)

I was actually a bit surprised it rated my old slow 5400 RPM PATA100 drive as 4.2 ... I cannot begin to convey the performance impact moving to the 10,000 RPM SATA drive had on WinXP. My system which I had seen as pokey for years even after several fresh OS reinstalls was suddenly peppy. Oh well, I'm not looking for Vista to be peppy at present. My plan is still to upgrade this system to a dual-core next summer after AMD's next generation hopefully catches up to Intels Core Duo. At that time I'd also get a better graphics card.

First Impressions:
Well, it looks sweet ... but the way dialogs fade in and out will take getting used to. I mean, my first impression is Vista's pretty poky; but I suspect this is a mental side-effect of the dialogs fading in & out instead of the more traditional "snap" open and closed in older Windows. I guess if they opened too fast, one could not see the way they load my graphics shaders to fade in and out :-) I play around - set Windows colors to cherry red. The claim to support themes, but didn't see fit to offer any beside "Vista" or a Windows 2K look.

To avoid the constant Windows Security warning ... and for fun "to see how" my first program to install was a free 30-day trial of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0. Vista told me I had 5 supported Anti-Virus options: Kaspersky, Symantec, CA, TrendMicro, and MS OneCare. After my giving permission to Kaspersky to install, I received a number of Program Compatibility Warnings about unsigned drivers. I am instructed to uninstall drivers "kl1.sy" and "klif.sy" and go to the vendors web site obtain properly signed code. Well, so their free trial (version 6.0.1.411) doesn't work with Vista and the correct version (6.0.2.614) isn't available as trial. So I uninstall it. Vista is a bit more paranoid about uninstall - I get popups that I must close some tasks I don't see running - but at least they give me the process id :-). I also get more "blocked/failed" warnings as Vista prevents Kaspersky from uninstalling - "avp.exe" is being blocked. Seems a bit odd to squander this promotion by Vista on par with Norton by supplying tools which fail to install.

So far score is 0 of 1 so far:
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6: failed to install, but was blcoked from uninstalling also.

What about Drivers:
So far I've been lucky - Vista had no trouble getting my PCChips mobo up - lucky since they do NOT have any beta drivers for Vista for my old socket 754 mobo. but somewhat oddly Vista seemed clueless about my Creative Audigy card - Device Manager shows it as the broken device item. So I get Creative's Beta 2.12.0001 driver. Lets see if it has better luck than Kaspersky did.
Click run and see the "Unknown Publisher" warning - guess Creative cannot be bothered to even self-sign their betas. Our programmers say self-signing makes these Vista warnings less ominous and "unknown", so vendors will need to learn to at least self-sign "unsigned" drivers. You'd think it is to their advantage anyway since self-signing at least makes malware additions to the code bundle less likely. Man, slow to install. Plus at the end CtHelper.exe causes a warning to popup due to non-death after I agree to reboot.

So far score is 1 of 2 so far:
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6: failed to install, but was blcoked from uninstalling also.
- Creative Audigy 4 drivers: seemed fine; Windows Media Player works