My Vista Upgrade - Progress Report

[AlanHo]

I returned from holiday last Tuesday and collected my PC which had been seriously upgraded whilst I had been away as follows

Processor Intel Core™2 6600 @ 2.40 GHz

BIOS Pheonix 6.00 PG, 18/08/2006

Motherboard MSI MS-7235

Memory 4 Gb (4 x 1Gb modules)

Graphics ATI Radeon X1550 with 512 MB DDR2 ram

Hard drives - SATA Internal C: and D: 250 Gb in two equal partitions

E: and F: 250 Gb in two equal partitions

Hard Drives - USB External G: 320 Gb Seagate

H: 250 Gb

Operating system Windows Vista Ultimate. Clean instal not upgrade.

All that there was left for me to do was to connect my peripherals, instal my favourite software and import my data.

This is the story.

Started to set up computer

Checked Floppy – worked OK

Checked internal card readers – not functioning – installed Samcheer driver – still no luck. No Vista drivers on Samcheer website.

Connected USB hub and external hard drives. All OK. Connected printers – Vista installed drivers automatically.

Plugged in HP scanner - but Vista lacks a driver. Unplugged it and left the problem until later.

Re-set drive letters for all drives.

Plugged in cable router – Vista set up network automatically and connected to the web.

Installed AVG Anti Virus Free and set it up

Installed Office 2003 and updates

Imported from External drive Outlook files and IE7 favourites

Imported all Doc files from External Drive to D: Moved all Vista Doc, video, music etc files to D: and transferred the old files into their respective folder.

Set up Outlook to store .pst files in Documents on D:

Installed Acronis 10, made emergency disc and took duplicate backups of the C: and D: drives onto the E: and G: drives

Installed and ran Crap Cleaner - it removed nearly 1 Gb of redundant files and half a page of registry entries.

Opened Outlook - twiddled the settings and file locations then downloaded two weeks of Emails

Opened IE7, set up options etc then browsed a number of sites before noticing that I was unable to save new URL's into favorites or take prints. Error messages did not explain why. Fiddled with IE for a while, had a good look around Vista and eventually decided to try a Windows restore to fix it - it didn't.

After a few hours mucking about decided to do a repair of Vista (which includes IE7) - but this didn't fix the problem either.

I then decided to cut my losses, reformat C: and do a new clean install of Vista. I was amazed to find it so easy and it took only 32 minutes. During this time it automatically installed drivers for my Epson C1100 colour laser and Epson Photo 750 inkjet. I then followed the above steps all over again - but this time looked carefully at the Crap Cleaner actions to see if that had caused my woes. I was not able to see any problems and with great trepidation - let it do its stuff.

This time there were no problems with IE7.

I then downloaded and installed a driver from the HP site but it is rubbish and provides only basic support for simple scanning - I really miss the former OCR feature with XP.

I then checked the wireless network - but had problems communicating with my laptop even though I had file sharing properly configured and the Vista firewall settings correct. The problem was that the desktop computer was not able to access the Dell laptop – but the laptop could access the desktop, go on the internet and share the printers no problem. From a networking forum I found the answer – download a file from MS http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=922120 which installs the LLTD Responder component on Windows XP computers. Having done that the network operates fine.

I then decided to check whether the Acronis boot disc worked OK - it booted up the computer fine but failed to find the external USB drives. There have been a number of Emails between Acronis and myself about this problem and they asked me to do a number of things over the Easter holiday (even on Sunday!), including taking and sending them sysinfo records, changing USB legacy support in the BIOS, entering some script during the Acronis boot sequence and all sorts of other things - but to no avail. I will report further on this when it is sorted. Meanwhile I am protected by the fact that I take an Acronis back up onto a second internal hard drive (which Acronis can access) as well as an external one (which Acronis cannot see).

I have carried on installing other software without any problems - this includes Diskeeper, Second Copy data backup, Nero7, Paint Shop Pro 9, PixResizer, Adobe Reader 8, Real Player, my Garmin Sat-Nav software etc.

One notable failure is that my Motorola PC connect software does not now find my phone through the USB cable - Googling demonstrates I am far from alone with this problem.

I currently have the following issues outstanding :-

Acronis not finding the external USB hard drives - but I must say that I take my hat off to Acronis support - they have worked non-stop on the problem.

My 12 month old HP scanner no longer works satisfactorily and a note on the HP site rather suggests they may not produce drivers for such old equipment. This is a disgrace and if proved correct will cause me to replace the scanner with an Epson.

I cannot connect my mobile phone to the PC - but I guess Motorola will get round to updating the software sometime soon.

I have a combined floppy drive and memory card reader. The floppy works fine but the card reader is not found by Vista and the makers (Samcheer) do not have a Vista driver for my 2 year old obsolete model (current models lack a floppy drive).

So what's the verdict...

I am delighted with both the computer upgrade and Vista. The computer is lightning fast and the Vista interface is very impressive and user friendly. The screen layout differs and some of the settings are to be found in different places from XP - but I am sure you soon get used to that.

Watch this space for any stop press news....... :D

[Alan2273]

Well done Alan, but I will stick with my Linux/XP dual boot.

[nellie2]

Well done indeed... I look forward to an update

[catgate]

You're a very patient man, Alan.

Well done.

[andsome]

I think that this demonstrates the fact well, that a fresh install on the correct equipment is FAR better than messing about with updating. Well done that man. :D

[Thos]

First of all, you seem to have a very powerful computer there. If NASA want any help, you have plenty to spare. :D . It all made very interesting reading and catgate's comments about patience are very apt. It is a niggle when programs don't work with Vista, but the work-around offered has usually proved satisfactory. Like you, I found it pleasing that Vista recognised my HP printer because I had mislaid the software disc and I thought that I would be searching the HP sit for a driver. It surprises me that the HP scanner is causing problems.

I like Vista and as I bought a new 20" widescreen moniter, I can enjoy the gadget bar, especially the notepad.

But I am taking it slowly and it is good to hear that you are overcoming the initial difficulties with patience.

Thos.

[Chris]

Can you show us a screenshot, as I would be interested in seeing if Vista sees all of the 4GB of RAM. It should but I want to satisfy my curiosity...

Futher more is your Vista 32 or 64bit?

[AlanHo]

Chris - 32 bit - didn't see any point in 64 bit at this stage. Maybe in a few years time when software vendors join the party - by which time I will be well past my sell by date.

I have 4 1Gb sticks of memory - I believe it is the maximum the motherboard supports. Didn't know what you wanted a screen shot of - so used MS Word - Help - About - System Info.

I also ran Belarc Advisor - this listed memory as 3326 MB comprised of 1024 MB in each of the 4 slots. Hence Vista seems to have lost some somewhere. I have software that produces a full system info file - it is nearly 1 MB in size. You are welcome to it if you PM me how to get it to you.

[Chris]

I don't know how to say this...but you have a problem.

Vista 32bit cannot see 4GB of RAM [4096MB]....and in that screenshot you have issued it does not show 4GB it shows [Total Physical Memory] 3,325.68MB.

So you're missing 771MB of RAM. The only way around this [for Vista to see all of your 4GB] is to go for 64bit Vista. Even so 3.325GB of RAM is still good.

If you go into the BIOS you will see that there is indeed 4096MB of RAM installed. This is not a hardware issue it's a 32bit Vista one!

[AlanHo]

I don't see it as a problem - but simply that I have finished up with the maximum amount of RAM possible with Vista 32 bit. I was under the impression that memory sticks work better in pairs - if so - taking out a stick is likely to reduce performance.

I did look at a MB that would take 8 GB of memory - I'm now glad it was too expensive and I chose a more modest item.

The reason I didn't go for 64 bit Vista was my understanding that there is hardly any software around that will run properly on it. Perhaps this assumption is wrong - but the computer is so much better than my old one - I'm a happy bunny as things are.

So what is this suggestion all about....answers on a postcard in plain English please.

As far as 32-bit versions of the operating system are concerned, all you have to do is access cmd via Start, then enter cmd in the search bar and make sure you run it with administrative privileges. Next simply type “BCDEdit /set PAE forceenable” and hit enter. This command will enable Physical Address Extension (PAE) in 32-bit Windows Vista, and the operating system will be able to address memory larger than 4 GB. Via BCDEdit, you will be able to configure the boot configuration data store via the command line.

[Chris]

Yes 64bit does come with drawbacks!

p.s. if you google 32bit vista with 4GB of ram, then you'll seee what I mean. But if you're happy then I'll zip it :D

[AlanHo]

I edited my reply without knowing you had posted again. See the blue bit.

[Chris]

If you keep googling you will further find that one application will only have access to 2GB [or 3GB as there is a switch that can be enabled] so one application will only have access to 2GB all on it's own. :o

I doubt you would ever need one application to have 2GB, right AlanHo?