Jody Thornton

So if I use an application in XP Pro that uses DirectSound, is it incompatible with Vista?

Uh, I was trying to be friendly and definitely I'm not adheriong to mob mentality. But are you saying that you'd even ignore Micorosoft's own admission that ME had problems? I'm not saying don't be happy using it, but you seem really cheesed that other users had legitimate issues with the OS. That's not the users' faults, is it?

Is there any trick that would allow either a WinXP style theme (as in Royale Noir), or even the Classic desktop? I understand that there is a Classic Desktop style skin, and that the true Classic style was removed from Windows 8. But there must be some registry hack that can reveal it, no?

Yeppers. My girlriend's HP notebook PC runs Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Edition. I upgraded her version of Internet Explorer to v11, and Gmail began running slower than a turtle. No answers but lots of results from others when I researched the issue. So I uninstalled it and now everything works just fine on IE10. By the way, I observed all of the proper tricks (ie. disabling Compatibility View, trying both IE10 and IE11 view in the F12 menu, etc...)

I won't slam Windows ME, but I don't know how you could say Windows 2000 Professional was junk by comparison. It was probably THE MOST STABLE version of Microsoft Windows ever produced. SP3 onwars was quite mature and worked VERY WELL. Whereas, I had lots of stability issues with ME on more than one machine. I had good luck with it, but it's plain denial to say Windows ME was without serious issues.

Sorry for the delay. I'd be interested in your findings. http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/chum-spragge-jun17-63.ram http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/spragge-chum-june63.ram In fact, any *.ram link from http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/ will be worth trying.

I have noticed over the last few months that nothing has been left in the $hf_mig$ folder. I wonder if that should worry me. Updates are downlading and installing every month without incident.

Well I installed the experimental x64 version of VLC v2.11. It can load the stream by having the user provide the URL for the Real Media item (it even shows the time length). But since there are no 64 bit Real Media codecs installed (or in existence), it won't render the stream. Now it appears (though I've not tested this) that if I had the *.ram file locally present on my hard disk, I could then play the Real Media file. But it's a no go for streaming. So I gues I'm sticking to MPC-HC x86 (by the way, MPC has most of it's own codecs too; I only add the "Alternative" apps for Real and QuickTime)

I loved the silver/blue feel to both Windows ME and Windows 2000.

Two Fitjitsu U320 SCSI Drives

Notebook: Windows XP Professional Workstation: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Server: Windows Server 2003

Why is this automatically assumed that an OS will be outdated in 3 to 4 years? It's almost as if you buy into the planned obsolecense that Microsoft itself puports. Why couldn't an OS go on for ten years? If Microsoft needs to generate revenue, create another profit centre or revenue generator. Foucs on Office 365 or apps development. Perhaps they will pay for the updates on traditional Windows as it becomes less of a profit centre.

What makes you say that ? There are so many Vista haters out there who would say different. I liked the OS sure enough, but what makes it the Best Windows Yet?

Hi Vince4Amy: I did run a test install last year for a couple weeks. I admit that it ran REALLY well. Vista x64 with SP2 bundled in was nowhere near as bad as Vista x86 when it first came out. It was horrible.

I run some on DOS games and Jezzball (my only 16-bit Windows app) in DOSBox. It works quite well. I was already using DOSBox in XP's x86 build so it's no worse running DOS games on x64. I'm cannot agree that you have double the files in \Program Files and \Program Files (x86). The inital folder holds 64 bit app folders whereas 32-bit app folders are kept in the latter one. There is indeed a duplication of the %BootDir%\system32 folder and the \HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\Software Key (I think it's Wow6432Node or something like that; I can't remember). But that is necessary for 32-bit apps to run in a WOW64 session. Besides, that structure remains in Vista and 7 x64 builds too.

Thanks for letting me know about VLC. I'll check the x64 build out. I am familiar with VLC already (I didn't "love" it, but I'll try it with an open mind)

I mentioned on the Vista forum that soon, I'll be ready "upgrade" to Vista x64 Ultimate in January. For some reason, the bios and SCSI subsystem on my HP XW8200 Workstation doesn't fully support Windows 7, so I'll move to Vista x64 instead (I ran a test installation back last year for a couple weeks and Vista ran REALLY well on my system). So that means I am on my last two months of Windows XP x64 Edition. As I mentioned in the other post, it's almost bittersweet, since I'm looking forward to using something more updated and supported, but my XP x64 installation runs so smoothly. I guess my concerns are two-fold. One is that support for current software will be increasingly dropped week by week, and month by month. Gradually, I won't be able to browse a modern web, and that concerns me. Also, I am concerned about the lack of support when it comes to Windows Updates after April. Now I know there are convoluted workarounds to allowing Windows Server 2003 updates to install on Windows XP x64 Edition, but even then; that's only fixes me until July 2015. So I figure I may as well jump to Vista now and enjoy three years of having a supported OS. That should last the life of the machine. I would love to stay on XP x64. I loved using three specific operating systems in my computing life: OS/2 Warp v3.0, Windows 2000 Professional and now Windows XP x64 Edition. They have been absolutely trouble free (acutally OS/2 had that single input queue freeze up issue but oh well...lol). But I wish there was a direct replacement for XP. I wish there was a newer version of Microsoft Windows that had a low memory footprint, and worked well with a wide variety of apps. XP was also easier to streamline thanks to nLite...lol. Oh well, thanks for the memories Windows XP.

Well, I'm on schedule for a New Year's "upgrade" to Vista x64 Ultimate in January. So I am on my last two months of Windows XP x64 Edition. Almost bittersweet, since I'm looking forward to using something more updated, but my XP x64 installation runs with aplomb!

I guess what REALLY bothers me is that Vista should architecturally be able to run at least IE 10. I believe that as long as an OS receives extended phase support, then it shoould be provided an updated browser by it's own vendor. At the time that IE 10 was released, Microsoft responded to questions about its "no-Vista" policy, They said, "Windows Vista users have a rich user experience in IE 9, so we're not focusing on upgrading the browser for Vista (paraphrased)", but that's no longer true, so they should at least provide something that's usable until 2017.

Well, I was specifically saying that I like the IE9+ UI and look. So I wondered how deficient the browser was. I always love when people answer the question I have asked by saying, "Run Google Chrome" or "Why run IE at all?" LOL!

This is what prompted my post. I had a heck of a time navigating Gmail after I upgraded my girlfriend's Windows 7 notebook to IE 11. Way too slow on Gmail. So I downgraded her machine back to IE 10. But in trying to fix this issue, I came across a similar article to what you've shown us. So you mean to say, Google will actually block you out? I thought it would just "persuade" you to upgrade to a newer browser or use HTML mail. That's too bad if it forces you to upgrade IE 9.

OK so my comments are based on anecdotal experiences. It simply runs smoother on my machine than a comparable x86 install does. Applications don't stall oddly or seem to become overwhelmed every so often. I admit that this problem doesn't happen often on x86 builds but it never does at all on x64 in my experience. The boot time, desktop load and window drawing seems more brisk and instantaneous.

I currently use SeaMonkey, but I am migrating to Vista Ultimate x64 in a month or so. I really like the newer IE interface, and IE9 seems like a speedy browser. Now since I cannot upgrade to IE 10 on Vista, just how outmoded is IE9? Is it still usable?

It's still my daily driver. If you have drivers for all of your hardware, you'll be quite happy with it. It's definitely more stable than XP x86.

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-vista-service-pack-2-service-configurations/