Help with my PC

[Pblais]

For dual booting it works perfetly fine iff you have second partition and install Xp first then add Vista but select the other partition. You need the loader to help. A thrid ways is Make C,D,E. Install XP to D then install Vista to E. The loader can go on a tiny partition C: All Microsoft O/S can only boot from C:. There are partiton boot products that can fake it out too with hidden partions and changing the partiton table on the fly.

If you had an upgrade version of Vista the above won't work. Then you need to install a second copy of XP to E but you don't need to avtivate it, then install Vista on tiop. Nothing from the XP install needs to be saved but the upgrade version won't install to a clean disk.

[dacust]

Creating a disk image to restore back to a partition won't work. There are some items the have to be at a specific place on disk and can't be moved. Restored to a partition, would change their locations. Also, any disk image utility I have seen requires that the disk you restore to be the same size (or larger) as what you took it from.

[Randyonr3]

I understand some of the workings in vista are an inprovement but I'm a Photographer and this is my workflow...
And I'll be honest when I see something flash on the screen that says that
"The Color Scheme Has Been Changed To Fit The Program" and color is where my work is, or I get this BIG red stop sign that reads, "Missing Files Detected, Please Reinstall Photoshop", I really start getting spooked..
I guess I just need to get adjusted to it, and I'm just venting my frustration.

[dacust]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

I understand some of the workings in vista are an inprovement but I'm a Photographer and this is my workflow...
And I'll be honest when I see something flash on the screen that says that
"The Color Scheme Has Been Changed To Fit The Program" and color is where my work is, or I get this BIG red stop sign that reads, "Missing Files Detected, Please Reinstall Photoshop", I really start getting spooked..
I guess I just need to get adjusted to it, and I'm just venting my frustration.

It's totally valid to get spooked. As Paul said, if this is your work, it doesn't matter what the exact features are, which is a "better" operating system. it matters what works so you can do your job. That's why at my company we are all still on XP. With several thousand PCs hundres of different software packages, we can't change operating system releases without a LOT of testing and planning. I don't have any Vista machines at home, either. They are all XP or older.

From the outside looking in, I think your idea of getting a new disk and loading XP would be my choice. Then you can use the old disk to experiment with Vist. As new versions come out, you can load them there and see hwo they work. When you finally get the toolset working there that you need, you can migrate to Vista. A separate machine would actually be my choice, but the disk-swap idea is next best.

[hellosailor]

Randy, if you've been using Adobe products all these years, surely you must have noticed that Adobe never really "got" Windows, never really "got" NT, and still is pretty much infamous for awfully dumb programming errors. (Like, leaving files open and locked after the user has finished with them--so nothing else can touch them.)

Can't really blame that on the OS, Adobe seems unable to deal with any OS change until a couple of years have gone by--while others do their work during the pre-release period, like good campers.

Take PageMaker 6.5 and Quark 4.x, both released in NT4/NT5 days. The Quark product STILL works under Vista, without any trouble. PageMaker? Nope, won't run under Vista, and the "Bloatware from hell" package with InDesign CS, which is supposed to have import filters for it? Won't always recognize the filters, or the files, either. That just tells me Adobe was "too clever" in their programming, and I suspect the same lead programmer is still on the job.

We won't even go into what an Acrobat installation can do to Vista, apparently some of the "known incompatible" versions will really trash the system. Apps aren't supposed to do that in NT. (Plenty of blame to go around.)

[Beausoleil]

A little late, but here's advice for others:

If you do purchase a PC with Vista, you do have the option of refusing the EULA (End User License Agreement) when you first boot up. Microsoft does have a process for getting a refund for Vista. Then you can install that retail copy of XP that you have, or better yet (yes - I'm biased), install a copy of Linux - Ubuntu, PCLinux, Fedora, OpenSuSE.

In the original poster's case, Linux may not be an option, as he has some "mandatory" Windows XP software which doesn't run on Vista and probably will not run under Wine (the Windows API translator for Linux/Unix) - although it very well may work.

As Paul pointed out, Microsoft was negligent in not forcing the Windows developer community to adhere to the security standards set forth for XP. And almost all of the problems are indeed because many, many developers don't have the foggiest idea of how to develop secure software...

[SelkirkWind]

Sorry guys, I think you are missing an opportunity.

Why delete or otherwise expunge Vista? Face it, all the future software and communications stuff is being written for it. If this machine is going to be used for only one function, maybe I understand.

The statement that you have to have a "separate hardrive" is IMHO wrong. Vista computers can be set up for "dual boot." It can be done with drive partitions as well as independent drives. If it were me (and as I use Maptech which is Vista compatible, it isn't), I would setup a dual boot. I would use XP when I needed it and Vista all the rest of the time. XP is coming to end of life and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably older than me. And just to add insult to injury, even Apple computers can do this! Mac and PC hardware are the same (since Apple went to Intel processors). There are some boot differences (largely in the use of the PC BIOS chip), but in function they work the same way.


There are several sites that can teach you how to setup a dual boot, including Microsoft.

Good Sailing!