Text 20573, 150 rader
Skriven 2006-08-29 08:50:00 av George Vandervort (1:382/8)
  Kommentar till text 20569 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Window Power...
=======================
Hello Alan!

In an effort to get this Topic related to Windows..


=== Cut ===

Vol. 6, #35 - Aug 29, 2006 - Issue #242


  Adventures with Vista

  Editor's Corner

Adventures with Vista (and Why I Went Back to XP)

As those of you who follow these editorials know, I've been happily using Vista
as my main working computer for the last few months. Yeah, I know Russ Cooper
disapproves (see http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1438)

but I happen to disagree with his postulation that you shouldn't run a beta on
a production or Internet-connected machine. In fact, I am indeed running anti-
virus software on it, and it's safely tucked behind our ISA firewalls.

I've had zero security breaches with it, and to all appearances it's at least
as secure as my XP machines and one heck of a lot more secure than all those
Windows 98 computers that are still out there running on production networks
and directly connected to the Internet.

Of course, the machine on which I run Vista isn't my only system, and I'm dual
booting Vista on it so I can always go back into XP if I need to do so. But I
really love the Vista interface and I'd stay in Vista all the time - except for
one not-so-minor issue that's been driving me nuts, especially for the past few
weeks.

For years, I've worked with three monitors on Windows 2000 and then XP. When I
installed Vista, it recognized my ATI x600 PCI Express video card and the two
monitors connected to it with no problem - but alas, the third monitor, which
was connected to a Matrox 450G PCI dual head card, was sadly blank. After a bit
of research, I learned that Matrox was not providing Vista drivers for their
cards and has no plans to do so until the operating system is commercially
released. Even then, who knows whether they'll make Vista drivers available for
"legacy" cards like the 450G?

Well, I slogged along with two monitors for a while, and most of the time, that
works okay. Then I had a major research/writing project to work on, and I
really missed having that third monitor so I could "spread out" and have my
Word doc open on one screen, my browser on another, and the outline from which
I was writing on another, without having to switch between windows. I know a
lot of people who've never used multiple monitors think it's silly and
excessive, but everyone I know who has used them absolutely appreciates how
much more productively you can work with all that screen real estate.

So I set out to get that third monitor functional again in Vista. I didn't
realize I was embarking on an adventure.

It was obvious that I was going to have to buy a new video card. So I thought
I'd take the opportunity to add more "bling" to my Vista system, and get a card
with a TV tuner, since the Vista beta is Ultimate Edition, which includes Media
Center. There's a CATV jack in the office that we're not using, so I figured
I'd run the cable to my computer and be able to record TV on my Vista machine.

I found an ATI All-in-Wonder 2006 that was very reasonably priced for a tuner-
equipped card with 256MB of memory and HDTV output ($137 from Amazon). It was
listed as compatible with Vista. Its interface was PCI Express, and my Dell
workstation came with three PCIe slots, so that should work, right? Well, when
the card arrived, I relearned a lesson I'd forgotten: never take anything for
granted. I opened the case to find that, indeed, there were two empty PCIe
slots - but one was a 1x slot and one was 4x. My cool new card, of course,
needed a 16x slot, and the single one of those that I have was already taken by
my ATI x600 video card.

Okay, so I could just replace the x600 with the All-in-Wonder, and have my
Media Center functionality and be slightly better off than before, although
still without the third monitor, right? Well, no. The All-in-Wonder has only
one monitor connector, so if I did that, I'd lose my second monitor too. I
could watch TV, but I wouldn't be able to get much work done. The All-in-Wonder
went into the closet and I went back to the drawing board.

I did have two regular PCI slots open, but it seems ATI has no PCI cards that
are Vista-capable. Oh, I did read about a rumor that they released a PCI Radeon
x1300 in Japan ... hmmm. I'm afraid flying to Tokyo in search of a video card
would cost more than the other alternative that I was actually seriously
considering at this point: buying a whole new computer that has more than one
16x PCIe slot. Dell's top of the line Dimensions and Precisions have two 16x
slots, but they cost a bundle. Surely there was a less expensive solution to my
problem. I even thought about buying a new 24 inch monitor to give me more
screen space with just two. After all, that would cost less than $1000, whereas
the new high end computer would cost close to $2000.

I keep looking, and finally found an Invidia Geforce 5200 card with 256 MB of
RAM that supports DirectX 9.0 (required for Vista) and had a regular PCI bus. I
read more and found that some folks were using that card with Vista. And the
price was right, $82 at New Egg. So I clicked my way through the order and
eagerly awaited its arrival.

It got here yesterday, and today I cracked open the case on the Dell again and
installed it with much anticipation. Booted into Vista, downloaded the Vista
drivers, and ... got an error message saying the installation failed. Tried a
few tricks that often work in such situations, but no joy. Now I had three
video cards in my computer, with a total of six monitor connectors, but I still
could use only two in Vista.

It was enough to drive me back to XP. And in fact, I booted back into XP to
check whether the new card worked there. Yep, when I opened my display
properties, there was the monitor that was attached to it. All I had to do was
check the "Extend my desktop" box and I had three monitors again. And since the
Matrox card was still in there, it actually thought I had four monitors. Well,
it just so happens there was an extra 19 inch flat panel sitting on the floor
in a corner of the office; it had come with a Dell computer we bought a few
months ago and we didn't need it. Just for kicks, I hooked it up to the Matrox
card, and now I have a four-monitor array ... but only in XP. Here are some
photos Tom took as I was configuring them:

http://www.wxpnews.com/LOIW49/060829-MultiMonitors

So now I have to choose between Vista with two monitors or XP with four. When
it was two vs. three, the decision wasn't as difficult, but I am loving having
a desktop that just goes on and on. I have a feeling I'll be working in XP a
lot more now, at least until these video card vendors get on the ball and get
me some Vista drivers.

Windows has almost 97% of the desktop market

We recently surveyed our readers about which operating systems they use, but
now there's a much more accurate analysis from OneStat.com, which has data from
over 50,000 subscribers. We keep hearing about how Linux and Macintosh are
gaining market share, but their statistics indicate that Windows is in no
danger at this time; 96.97% of users run some variety of Windows, with XP way
out ahead at 86.80%. Macintosh came in at 2.32% and Linux at less than one half
of a percentage point. You can read the whole story here:

http://www.wxpnews.com/LOIW49/060829-Desktop

=== Cut ===


Regards,
George Vandervort
InterNet EMail: georgev@austin.rr.com
Tech Support: http://home.austin.rr.com/llr/spa/

'Using yesterday's software to create tomorrow's problems today'


...Is Windows XP: Just another pretty program loader?

... When your Computer has a Virus, Don't feed it Chicken soup!
--- FMail/Win32 1.60
 * Origin: Bill Gates does my Windows (FidoNet 1:382/8)