[yorobbie]

Yes I'm having a problem with the creative drivers also, they worked on the Beta2 32bit, but the install fails on 64bit. Mine is a Audigy4Pro. I 'm using avast, vista says it's slowing down start-up as well as the ATI drivers. Duel boot was simple using two HD's. I sure would like some sound though.

[yorobbie]

I feel like a thread plague, I contribute and the thread dies. Anyway, I switched back to 32bit Vista, and the creative drivers work now and life is good. thanks for all your ideas.

[allandg]

Two questions please:

1) Does anyone know of a NIC that is compatible with Vista - either natively or with Vista drivers? I can't find any. Just need a 10/100 - not a gigabit.

2) I'm dual booting with Vista in its own partition. If I decide to "uninstall" Vista, can I just format that partition and change restore the original boot.ini, or do I have to restore the Acronis image of my XP System partition to restore the orignal boot sector?

[PangingJr]

Originally Posted by allandg

Two questions please:

1) Does anyone know of a NIC that is compatible with Vista - either natively or with Vista drivers? I can't find any. Just need a 10/100 - not a gigabit.

2) I'm dual booting with Vista in its own partition. If I decide to "uninstall" Vista, can I just format that partition and change restore the original boot.ini, or do I have to restore the Acronis image of my XP System partition to restore the orignal boot sector?

i'm new to Vista too, just installed it a few days ago so i'll tell you what i know now about this,
you can get the info you need by going into the Device Manager of any Vista system then attempt to update any device under the node network adapters and then you can configure the update driver software wizard to "Show compatible hardware", and just cancel the driver updates.



or try using this - Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...r/default.mspx
but i've not tried the program myself so i don't know what info you would get when using it.

about removing the dual boot...
as of now i don't have any experiences with the new boot loader of the Vista so i still have to use a third-party boot manager to load every operating systems that i've installed on my computer system. the third-party boot manager is acted as a primary boot loader when the system starts, and then after i choose one of the operating systems to boot the operating system's boot loader takes over. so in my case i can remove any of the installed operating systems including the Vista by just remove or reformat the installed partitions and then resetting the boot entry in the third-party boot manager.
as of now i use two software vendors of the third-party boot manager, Paragon bootmanager and BootIT NG, they are on a different computer systems. both boot manager programs are working well under the Windows operating systems that are installed in RAID0 volumes, or on a non-Raid drives but the hard drive controller has been configured in BIOS for using RAID or AHCI modes.
anyway, somehow i'm sure you will be able to remove the dual boot between your XP and Vista, i just don't know how to do it right, or as easy as possible and without damaging the other installed operating systems.

note-- i should also tell you this... the Paragon bootmanager comes with Paragon hard disk manager or partition manager and it needs to be install in 32-bit version of XP, it cannot be installed on an x64. as for the BootIT NG, this program has and use it own OS and can be installed on its own primary partition. anyway, if you have any question about these 2 programs then just ask.
and if your system is not configured for RAID, or use PATA hard drives or use SATA in IDE mode i think you can use any third-party boot manager like GAG 4.x (freeware). reasons that i use the two boot manager programs because as mentioned above, and i already have them, and it's just happened to be working after i installed the Vista.


----------------

i installed Vista beta 2 x64 on a non-Raid drive, along with the other two Windows XP's (but since the system configured for RAID the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver is required and it's to be loaded during the installation. i use Intel Matrix Storage Manager 6.0.0.1022 64-bit for my Intel ICH7R southbridge chip and it was working fine. the installation of the Vista went and finished quite fast, this could be because i ran its setup program and installed its installation files from within a local hard drive. and i still waiting for an installation file for Office 2007's beta to arrive... also running the PC-cillin Internet Security 14 beta, it's working okay on Vista beta 2 x64 and on both the full and minimal installs.

anyway, i can perfectly understand the feeling of people who have tried the Vista and have found that it's one of the most memory, CPU or resource hogs operating system. but anyway, as for myself, after using this OS for a couple of days, i think it has a lot of new features, and it's not just an updated version of the XP. i think it's so far so good and so i can say that i like this Windows OS.
i'll see it again when it's released, see how much it'll cost me on both the new OS and include new hardwares to run it, as i can see that running the Vista Ultimate's under 2GB and Intel P4 3.0-3.5 Ghz are not that bad it's just not good enough, right now it's like running an XP on a Intel Pentium III 800MHz - 1.0Ghz with 512MB or so.

[PangingJr]

now the Vista is a lot better than what i had a few days ago, i think i will definitely see it works quite good on a computer that had a better performace than mine and of course after this beta testing is finished and it's been released...

turn off tranparent glass and six items in the visual effects settings (animate..., 3 fade or slide... and 2 other slide's...), add a couple more paging files, one is on the 2nd non-Raid drive and another one is on a RAID0 volume (just leave default paging file that is on the system/boot partition as it is, by default, it's using system managed size), and also installed some applications onto the other hard drives other than the system drive (not other partitions on the same hard drive or Raid volume of the system drive), also move some system and non-system files that i knew these files are used most often by the system from the system hard drive to other hard drives. these helps increasing overall system disk I/O.


5-6 programs are running as about the same as the XP x64... the Vista overall system performance is now more like the XP x64 without any tweaks on it, except Vista do quite a lot more on paging files.

[Bubber2]

Well, my system works fine, but apparently there doesn't happens to be a graphic card driver for my GeForce4 MX440 :-(
nVidia gives opportunity to download many graphic card -drivers for Vista, but not mine...
Does anyone have a solution?

[Meanclo7h]

Okay. I installed Vista on a seperate partition, it runs great and everything works well.
But I have one big problem, on the boot menu I can choose to Load either Vista or XP as you all know. Well when I choose to load XP My screen goes black and my pc just sits there not even trying to load anything. The HD light flashes for about 2 seconds after I click "load previous windows" and then nothing. I really need to get on my other operation system for certain programs that don't yet run on Vista. Plz Help.

[Tipstaff]

Originally Posted by Bubber2

Well, my system works fine, but apparently there doesn't happens to be a graphic card driver for my GeForce4 MX440 :-(
nVidia gives opportunity to download many graphic card -drivers for Vista, but not mine...
Does anyone have a solution?

Geforce FX 5xxx and up series cards are the only ones supported by Vista. Sorry.

[PangingJr]

"PQBoot for Windows" as an OS boot selector for the multibooting Windows systems
this third-party program works within Windows, it will hide all primary partitions except for the one that i'm about to booting from on next system boots. it's part of the partition magic (symantec or powerquest), i own an older version of the partition magic program which is version 8.02 and i just found that the PQBoot for Windows is working okay under the Vista.
note that-- i just tried using the PQBoot for Windows program only, have not tried installing the partition magic program in Vista.
and beware and be warned! before attempting to use the program (or even before you try to create a dual boot or multiboot Windows systems) you should at least have a full backup of your main operating system to go back to.

here are some pics of the program and the hard drive partition layouts

- installed each Windows's onto its own primary partition.


- configure the PQBoot for Windows in each Vista's.




have fun with Vista beta tests...

[Rasta Monsta]

So, did you install PQBoot within each installed OS?

[PangingJr]

not at all. in order to use the program i only need to have the two files (in the pic),
i've saved the files in its own folder long time ago. i store this folder in a shared partition, made a shortcut to run the program within each Windows.

sorry, i mean you don't need to have the whole partition magic program files on any Windows at all if you already have the two files for the PQBoot for Windows... otherwish you'll need to install the partition magic in Windows XP or 2K/98 in order to save the files, and test it to see if it works, maybe it won't if you have a different version of the partition magic than mine.

[PangingJr]

Realtek High Definition Audio Driver for Vista (beta drivers)
New beta version -- Vista_HDA5272.zip Direct download here - ftp://61.56.86.122/pc/hda/alc880d/

[RIV@NVX]

I wanted to try Windows Vista on my dad's laptop (Pentium IV 2.2GHz, 256MB RAM, GeForce 4 Go), but it crashes on language selection or (when it passes language selection) on clicking "Install". Also, all the menues and stuff look unstyled and ugly. Is this normal? I know this computer is too weak to run Vista, but this is IMO by no means excuse to produce crashes.

[Cube623]

bit confused so can anyone clarify this for a n00b like me

providing all goes well i should have my computer back tomorrow and i will ASAP install Vista Beta 2 to see what it's like.

But i want to keep my XP HE install, i'm only installing Vista to see what it's like.

So i should just install Vista 2 on a different partition and it should just appear on the boot menu and it instead of automatically loading XP it should give me the option to choose XP or Vista? and will both work? (e.g. i want to test Vista 2 but then i want to go back into XP i just simply choose XP from the boot menu at startup?)

Also how do i get Vista to install to the other partition (i have 2 hdd - main one 120gb, c:, has XP and all files on it, secondary one , d:, 82gb has nothing on it) does it give me an option in the installation to install it on the partition that i choose? and how is it best to install it? (install it in Windows or boot from the DVD and install it that way)

And say after this i want to unistall Vista, how would i do that? just format the partition or is there another way to uninstall? and if i do uninstall how do i get rid of the vista option in the boot menu?

also is there anything i should do prior to installing Vista? (backup - unless installing Vista is risk free, make sure certain settings are on\off etc)

Cheers
Cube623

[Randomletters]

So I see the download from windows.com has been taken down their no longer offering it from the site, would it be legal to get it from other sources?

[Tipstaff]

Originally Posted by Randomletters

So I see the download from windows.com has been taken down their no longer offering it from the site, would it be legal to get it from other sources?

Legal? Well, being a beta it's a tough call. I would say no just because of the reaction M$ had when it got dumped onto BitTorrent.

Anyways, when you signed up for the beta M$ gave you a CDKey that you used to install, and activate it with. Yes, activate. The Vista beta requires you activate it within 14 days, so if the key is already in use then you're gonna have that long to test it out.

[Randomletters]

Ahh yea I figured it might of been a grey area, Didn't know they give you beta activation keys, Not a problem though, no real loss.

[22197]

Does anyone know if you can view media center in one screen and operate the pc on the other with a tv aux and monitor setup.

Thanks
Dan

[Skinner.Daddy]

Hi,

I've installed Vista (Accidently over XP...I didn't read up properly first) it's got all my old programs etc in windows.old and I just wanna clear it up. It's messy.

Has anyone done a clean install (on a formatted drive)? Will the DVD boot at DOS? Has anyone had any problems doing this? Just I don't wanna format then try and install if it's not going to work. my specs are as follows

Opteron 146
NF4 UT SLi-D
Mushkin XP RAM
1 x Raptor 75GB HDD
1 x Caviar 250GB HDD
Pioneer 111D DVD DL R/W

Cheers Guys

[PangingJr]

if i remember correctly, people already have a solution to remove the vista and restore XP to the previous state from the files/folders in the Windows.old folder. it's just i can't seem to find the messages that i used to read some months ago.

[PangingJr]

Skinner.Daddy, i found the messages that i mentioned above... http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/188

[rubbercake]

this is gonna be a pointless and quick question, but is anyone else having problems publishing something from windows calendar?

[LaidlawUk]

How do you get Vista off ? Completely ?

[temeteus82]

Originally Posted by LaidlawUk

How do you get Vista off ? Completely ?

Format vista drive and if you have xp cd' (no recorvery) boot from the cd and go recorvery console and run fixboot and fixmbr for C:\
That's how I got rid of Vista...

[LaidlawUk]

How do you Format Vista ? all I'm getting is a blue screen saying 'Unmountable_boot_volume' 3 whole day's I've been trying .. pc will be going out the Window soon!

[Rasta Monsta]

Originally Posted by LaidlawUk

How do you Format Vista ? all I'm getting is a blue screen saying 'Unmountable_boot_volume' 3 whole day's I've been trying .. pc will be going out the Window soon!

As stated in the PLEASE READ sticky above, no one will be able to answer this question unless you post your machine specs. Are you running RAID, or a mixture of PATA and SATA, by chance?

And, are you booting from the installation DVD?

[LaidlawUk]

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (400MHz) Processor .. ASRock K7S8XE Motherboard .. PC3200 DDR400 512mb Ram .. Maxtor 200GB 6Y200PO 7200RPM ATA133 8MB IDE (PATA) .. Radeon 9200 SE AGP 128Mb .. Optorite CW5205 CD-RW .. Nec ND-2500A DVD±RW .. HP DVD Writer 840b .. I went and Upgraded from XP Pro to Vista Beta 2 (What a Fool) .. Was on the phone to Microsoft for 2 hours (they phoned me back) they said to reformat again but I've already done that 3 times .. can now only boot to XP Pro sometimes, it keeps shutting down and restarting .. done the fixboot and fixmbr .. had to get my friends Vista Disc but that done nothing!