Sat, Nov 18 2006 6:46 PM Erwyn van der Meer

Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

This post is coming to you from Windows XP. I am glad I didn't flatten my hard disk when installing the RTM build of Windows Vista. On my home machine I am having more problems with the RTM build than with the beta 2, RC1 and RC2 builds!

Yesterday evening when my PC came out of standby, the screen on my main monitor remained black because the monitor stayed in the enery-saving mode. It took a while before I figured out what was going on. I have two monitors connected to my PC. I rarely use the second monitor so it was turned off. Nevertheless it had suddenly been assigned by Vista to be the primary and only monitor. When I turned it on, I could unlock my PC and switch the display back to my main monitor. Annoying, but not fatal.

Wireless networking is still kinda flaky for me in Vista. Just as on XP I regularly have to repair my wireless connection to get it working again when the computer comes out of standby or hibernation.

I was having trouble with the wired LAN connection as well. Windows Vista wasn't able to acquire an IP-address from my DHCP server. Turning off Windows Firewall didn't help. I had to manually configure an IP-adress, default gateway, etc. to get a connection :( On Windows XP I never experienced this issue.

The real problem occurred this morning. During the boot process, after showing the Vista splash screen (which sucks big time BTW *) and playing the startup sound, both monitors turned black because they went into power-saving and there was no way to get anything on the screen.

Hopefully it's just a display driver issue. But it would be strange if a beta version from the ATI site works better than the RTM display driver included with Windows Vista.

So after posting this, it's time to boot into "safe mode" :(

Update 20:04: Upgrading to a new display driver gave a bit of trouble. The ATI setup wouldn't work in safe mode, because hardware detection failed. I had to disable the ATI drivers and boot back into normal mode. This time Vista booted with the standard display drivers and I was able to see something again. I could now install the new drivers. Rebooting after installation gave yet another black screen. The only difference: the monitor didn't go into power saving.

So it was back to safe mode again. After some experimentation I managed to get the ATI display driver working after disabling the Hauppage WinTV PVR PCI II driver. This is a Microsoft approved driver. Nevertheless it causes a conflict with the display driver.

*) Where is all the cool stuff that Microsoft was supposed to put in the RTM build? Apart from the problems I am experiencing, I hardly notice any difference with the RC2 build and I am unimpressed by the new Windows Vista sounds. Microsoft hasn't even put a decent graphic on the boot splash screen. It's just a green progress bar with "© Microsoft Corporation" beneath it.

Filed under: ,

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Saturday, November 18, 2006 11:33 AM by m2xdam

I'm utterly surprised! Having faith in Microsoft (well not as usual, but this time in self-induced blind faith) I did format my laptop and installed Vista. No guts no glory right? And glorious it was and still is. I've got no complaints whatsoever. I'm enjoying the new look and feel, and even the new Vista sounds sound great: It's the power of subtleness, finally we are free of those dramatic orchestrated chimes which were the first things I disabled in a newly installed Windows. (Although in relation to the splash screen I must agree they went a little too far on the subtleness thing :-)) The performance is also very satisfying; animations, shadows and transparency seem to work more smoothly than ever. The single only problem I've encountered untill now is an occasional malfunctioning mouse cursor in my Virtual PC. But since it's the beta of Virtual PC 2007 I can live with that.

All in all, 2 thumbs up, although possibly partially thanks to a lucky hardware combination.

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Saturday, November 18, 2006 3:36 PM by Erwyn van der Meer

If you want to see a nice app compat problem, try out the XSD DataSet Designer in Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista. Completely unusable!

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Saturday, November 18, 2006 3:44 PM by nielsvk

I'm interested to know how you solved the LAN issues. I setup all my regular XS4ALL settings, but end up with the same diagnosed error as you: no valid IP address. XS4ALL is known to have a good service desk, but there still not supporting Vista. Newsgroups do not prove useful either. And having Vista RTM without Internet, is just not very appealing when compared to my XP installation. :/ And I have the Ati board as well. Didn't have the beta drivers installed yet, and was already wondering why the resolution was so low and why it was higher in RC1 again. :) Your experience with installing the new thing isn't very comforting either. :) It's still scraping better drivers online under XP. Currently I'm looking for Intel mobo drivers, since my soundcard isn't working either. No luck finding that yet too... *sigh*

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Saturday, November 18, 2006 4:13 PM by Erwyn van der Meer

Hi Niels. I knew the subnet used by my ADSL modem (SpeedTouch 716) and it's IP-adress. I manually configured the IPv4 settings for the LAN connection and entered 10.0.0.1 as the IP-adress for my computer, 255.0.0.0 as the subnet mask, 10.0.0.138 as the default gateway and also 10.0.0.138 for the DNS server.

You might have to set different settings. For example, 192.168.1.254 for the gateway and DNS server, 255.255.255.0 for the subnet mask and 192.168.1.66 for the IP-address.

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Sunday, November 19, 2006 12:59 PM by nielsvk

Thanks Erwyn, the LAN connection is established by setting 10.0.0.138 as the default gateway. Too bad I tried setting up VPN in 12 different ways, but to no avail. Do you have XS4ALL by any chance, or are the IP addresses you suggested some standard IP's for Alcatel modems? I still have an old SpeedTouch Home modem...

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Sunday, November 19, 2006 1:35 PM by Erwyn van der Meer

Hi Niels. Yes, Xs4all is my ISP. I think 10.0.0.138 is the standaard for the old SpeedTouch Home modems.

What I wrote does not completely describe my situation. I use the SpeedTouch 716v5 as an ADSL modem and as the DHCP server for my WiFi LAN. It has the IP address 192.168.1.254.

I use my old SpeedTouch Home ("updated" to act as a SpeedTouch Pro) as the DHCP server for my wired LAN. It uses the IP address 10.0.0.138. My old modem is not connected to a phone line anymore so it doesn't provide an Internet connection.

I use the WiFi connection for Internet access and the wired LAN to transfer files among my computers at high-speed.

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Sunday, November 19, 2006 1:52 PM by nielsvk

Sounds like a nice setup, and very unlike the basic connection settings XS4ALL suggests for XP. :) Since I don't know any other settings apart from what you suggested (which at least helped me with the LAN part), I'll have to do with the suggested settings for VPN. Vista does the VPN setup apart from the actual "Internet connection", unlike XP. I guess that's confusing me even further. I do not have much experience with stuff like DNS and DHCP, since it always worked fine with default settings. I guess -on topic- having high hopes for Vista doing all the work for me when defaults are not sufficient was kinda naive. :)

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Sunday, November 19, 2006 2:05 PM by Erwyn van der Meer

Niels, are you still running your SpeedTouch Home as a Home modem? If you "update" it to act as a Pro modem, your modem automatically logs in at Xs4all and acquires your external Internet IP-address.

That way when you connect a computer to the LAN, the Internet connection just works and you don't need PPTP and VPN stuff.

On your LAN you use a so-called private subnet like 10.x.x.x or 192.168.1.x. These IP-addresses are not reachable from the Internet. Your SpeedTouch modem can act as a firewall, so your LAN is automatically secured.

This page has a more complete description of this situation and how you can upgrade your modem: http://www.petri.co.il/upgrade_from_alcatel_speedtouch_home_to_pro.htm

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Monday, November 20, 2006 1:34 AM by Dennis van der Stelt

I installed it this weekend after a complete format of my laptop.

So far my problems:

- SQL Server 2005 won't install

- Outlook Web Access the DHTML editor isn't available anymore

Besides that, everything's working great! :-)

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Monday, November 20, 2006 12:41 PM by nielsvk

Ok, thanks. Seems like a nerve wrecking experience (since I don't have a backup modem :)), but worth the try. I tried updating the firmware last week, but I got weird errors like filename too short etc., so I gave up. The tutorial you suggested however does support the firmware version I have installed, so I'll give it a try. Thanks again.

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:13 AM by pabes

I also have the same problem with DHCP as you Erwyn. I also have an "upgraded" speedtouch modem which i use for my connection to XS4ALL. But i also use a linksys wireless router which is working as a DHCP server. This always worked fine in WindowsXP but not under Vista :( .. I did read somewhere that SPI on the linksys router can cause trouble for the TCP stack of Vista, i disabled it but it didn't do the trick.. So for me is setting the IP settings by hand the only way to get things working.

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Friday, November 24, 2006 8:18 AM by Christopher Morgan

The reason there's no boot screen is because it would slow down the boot - apparently by about 6 seconds (http://www.aeroxp.org/board/lofiversion/index.php?t6833.html). Also, there were issues with OEMS changing what happens before boot and displaying custom screens apparently. In any case, i'd rather have a quicker boot and no screen. My big beef with RTM so far is that last night my Master Boot Record decided to disappear for some unknown reason and running the recovery tools from DVD claimed to repair the partition tables but seemingly did no such thing, nor fixed the MBR. In the end, I settled for installing Vista again onto my 2nd hard drive. Bcdedit is a nightmare to use, so after reinstalling the wifi drivers (by pointing at the Windows partition on the MBR-less drive to find them) I stumbled across a nice freeware program to sort that out: EasyBCD. (neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1). So... I now boot from the MBR on the other drive and use boot options to use my old vista image. But what a pain! Why isn't the MBR backed up too? I don't mind having an image on each drive because it means one for Dev and one for Entertainment but still... :-(

# Windows Vista Hibernate Mystery

Friday, November 24, 2006 6:04 PM by Erwyn van der Meer

I've been booting into Windows Vista instead of Windows XP for the past week. The ride is still not very

# re: Still running Windows XP instead of Vista

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 10:57 PM by Martijn

I bought a new laptop and it was hardly powerful enough to run Vista. I decided to install Ubuntu Linux on the second partition and gave it a try.  Ubuntu's interface is working very smooth, and it's 3D accelerated desktop (Using Beryl and Emerald) hardly ask anything of my integrated video card. I have used Windows for years, worked with a Mac and messed around with various Linux distros and I must say I'm impressed by Ubuntu. Not by Vista. I will give it another try in a year or so, but for now i need to by more expensive hardware to get that hog running. Amazing.