Vista 64 Bit work around

[Robert Wilson]

Hi All,
My laptop went down and the only options I was happy with for a new one came with the 64 bit version of Vista. Just thought I would share a work around I succeeded in for getting my Pinnacle working. As has been stated previously the 32 bit drivers available through tech support did not work. What I ended up doing was buying VMWare which allowed me to install XP on the same machine as Vista. It creates a seperate area on the machine as a virtual machine. I installed Corel and the drivers in the virtual area and all is well. It operates just like another application window so you can switch back and forth by minimizing or shutting it down. You can also copy files by dragging and dropping between the windows.

I got the computer on sale ($170 off) and the program costs about $189 so I guess I am out $19. I wish I did not have to spend it but I do like the new machine. Other than the laser everything else I do with it seems to work in Vista.

Hope this may help.

Bob Wilson

[Tim Bateson]

Robert,

Did you try the Run in Compatibility Mode? Right click on the program - not a shortcut, but the program executable. Click on Compatibility tab. Click Run the program in compatibility mode for: See if there is an option for 32bit or even XP. This is the only way I can get PhotoGrav to work with my 32bit Vista. My "Vista" compatible PhotoGrav.

[Dave Johnson29]

What I ended up doing was buying VMWare which allowed me to install XP on the same machine as Vista.


Hi Bob,

I hate to add this, but a note here for future searches on this topic. Sun Micro offers a free Virtual Machine Host called VirtualBox which does pretty much the same thing as VMWare.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Well, it is almost the same thing, it currently does not support the LPT: Port output, but that is being worked on as an Open Source Project. The USB port is supported though and you can get a USB to LPT (Centronics) adapter cable for under 20-bucks. I have one made by APC and it is working fine with W2K (Guest) and win3.1 (Guest) in a VBox running under XP-Home as the Host.

Very cool stuff.


Forgot to mention, M$oft also have VirtualPC 2007 for free but it only runs on Professional, Server and Enterprise versions of XP and Vista. I have just found a link to M$oft's site for VirtualPC 2004 which I believe can be installed on lesser versions of XP and Vista. I will be testing it in about an hour. Stay tuned. Well, if anyone is interested! :)

[Stanley Waldrup]

I also lost a Laptop and replaced it with a HP TX2000, I ordered it From HP with Vista 64 bit.. Would not work with the Laser and some of the Data Bases I had. I sent HP a message to there Tec support and recieved a reply to go to a web address they supplied and was able to pick up the Vista 32 bit system Restore disk for $15.00 shipping. It worked. But I still HATE Vista.
Stanley

[Tim Bateson]

You'll get no argument from me Stanley. Vista's got some cool features, but not near as reliable or as versatile as XP Pro. I love those Apple Commercials were they poke fun at Vista.

[Larry Bratton]

Vista..waste of software programming time. I hate it!!

[Frank Corker]

Vista..waste of software programming time. I hate it!!

Hit it right on the head there Larry. I had a friend of mine around at the house today, he had just been to my neighbour who has it installed on their laptop. All the neighbour wanted was to install another PC to run off the same router hub. Apparently due to a lot of changes that they made for security reasons, have made what was simple, very difficult. In order to install what is a very simple procedure in XP using p&p, he had to give it an IP address and instruct vista exactly where to find it. How crazy is that? Suffice to say, I don't need to convince myself to stay away from it.

[Bill Cunningham]

I just bought a brand new computer, and got it with XP Pro and not vista.. I had the choice.. There still seems to be supplies of XP for new machines..

[Dave Johnson29]

I just bought a brand new computer, and got it with XP Pro and not vista.. I had the choice.. There still seems to be supplies of XP for new machines..

Hi Bill and Frank,

XP was first released in 2001 so it has now dropped out of M$oft's free update support period of 5 years and is well into the critical security support only period which too will expire in 2011.

Suffice to say though, there is a ton of non M$oft support out there for XP.

However, not wishing to defend M$oft or Vista, I have Vista-Home on a laptop and when I first got it, it was woefully hard to do anything as Frank is describing.

Over a period of about a month, I slowly worked my way through it and changed or disabled a lot of the annoying features and now it hums along as well as or better than XP. OK, so beat me up because I did not document what I did as I was really only experimenting and thought I would remember it all. HA!!!

The problem with all of that is it requires a geeky-type (been programming since 1976) to get into the working guts of Vista and not care of it kills it. I didn't kill it and as I said above, it is a respectable and very useful operating system.

Would I buy it again? Not in a fit! Actually when I got the laptop, I also bought a new hard drive for it and installed W2K-SP4, arguably M$oft's best Operating System. Unfortunately I could not get screen drivers for it so had to unplug the new drive and put the original back in there. That's when I got serious about digging into Vista. I have friends who suggest I am using XP but with copies of Vista's graphics. :) Not so, but I sure hope W7 lives up to expectations, but then, considering...

[Roy Brewer]

What I ended up doing was buying VMWare which allowed me to install XP on the same machine as Vista. Robert,
Went to buy a replacement PC; I, also, was surprised to find 4 out of 5 systems @ Costco are now Vista-64bit! Luckily, Epilog has had their 64bit driver on the website available for download for several months now (although it is still labeled beta, seems to work fine).