I am about to take the plunge and install Vista beta 2 64 bit from the DVD kit provided by Microsoft. I have a secondary drive on which it will be installed.

Now I am rather ancient (age 72) and need some of your wonderful expert knowledge - I suspect quite trivial, so sorry in advance.

Here goes.

1. Can I install over an existing 32 bit XPpro/SP2 installation or is it necessary to go throuch a re-format/install process?

2. I have an Asus A8N-SLI motherboard with 64 bit AMD 4200 CPU and an Audigy 2ZS Audio card. Does the Creative software work in Vista?

3. Currently use Norton System Works 2006 for a/v control.
Does ths work or is there another a/v program that is known to work.

4. Is there a site which can tell me what programs will work in this environment and those which will not?

5. I know there are some broswers which don't like IE7.0 which is bundled with Vista. I need some feebcack, please

Anser to question 1. No. For a 64 bit it must be a clean install as the undelying architecture of the OS changes a great deal with the transition from 32 bit to 64 bit.

Answer to question 2. I have no idea but I doubt it

Answer to question 3. No. Norton does not work. i use Avast and thats a great AV system and its Vista compatible

Answer to Question 4. I dont know of one

Answer to Question 5. I personally like netscape 8.1 but I suppose Firefox, Maxthon and others will work as well.

Play safe, unplug your master XP Pro drive just in case.

Make your "Spare" drive the master and format it using a DOS disc, or run FDISK or any of the Wipe Drive utils on the web. Make SURE you wipe the spare drive ?????

Install Vista

I did an install over XP and expected Vista to format and install, instead it left both XP and Vista, I had problems.

Leave the screws out of the case side so you can change cables easily or go buy a Slide In Tray from Comp-USA, Best Buy or Frye's etc.

I am not that impressed with Vista at this point, seems slow and harder to navigate. I suppose I am used to XP.

No. Like rjdohnert said, 64-bit Vista and 32-bit XP are completely different.

I've heard of people getting Creative's drivers to work under 32-bit Vista, but I don't know about 64-bit. You'll either have to try or dig around some more to find out.

Avast and Symantec (not Norton) are the only two that I've heard of that work well under Vista. There could be more, but these are the ones that I know of. I'd highly recommend not purchasing Norton again when your subscription runs out - it's a horrible product that's driven purely by publicity (and coming pre-installed on computers).

I don't think that there's a site that has a list of working programs, but most programs that you use in XP should be able to run in Vista. There are some that might be XP specific, but I haven't come across any that I know of.

Firefox and Opera both work well in Vista. On the other hand, have you tried the Vista version of IE7? It's a bit different than the IE7 that you install on XP, and it might "fit" better with Vista than it does with XP.


Also - make an image of your current XP installation and then do a clean install of Vista. Upgrades are probably the #1 cause of headaches when setting up a system. Clean installs just work well. Another advantage - if you want to go back, just re-image the XP onto your drive and you're back in business.

Also - this topic is more about Vista than XP.

Topic moved. Please post in the correct forum next time.

If you have a vista beta 2 dvd from microsoft, then you can boot to it and do a format/fresh install from there. If you run the installation routine from your current windows installation, the option to format the disk will not be there, and you will have to install over your current OS.

1. Answered
2. Creative Does have vista 64x drivers, though if they don't work you can download the Windows XP equivelent and it will work
3. CA has a antivirus software that you can try for a year for vista, it is quite good
http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/
if nothing else you get a really good AV free for a year
4. the is a Application compatiablility ToolKit used by IT departments that you might be able to get ahold of on Microsofts webpage, if not, trail and error would be the way to go

Agreed, i have tested and the xp drivers will work for Vista 64. The big thing you have to do to avoid issues with booting into Vista is turn off the Driver signature enforcement. This checks to make sure that you are only using digitally signed 64 bit drivers (i think) with Vista, and will halt the boot process if it sees non signed drivers. There is a way to do it during every boot sequence, F8 i believe brings up the option.

Another more effective way to do it is by doing the following:

Setting the boot configuration. A boot configuration setting is available for prerelease builds that allows the suppression of the enforcement module in Windows to be persisted across boot sessions. Windows Vista includes a command-line tool, BCDedit, which can be used to set this option. To use BCDedit, the user must have Elevated User or Administrator privileges on the system. The most straightforward approach is to create a desktop shortcut to cmd.exe, and then right-click -> Run Elevated. The following shows an example of running BDCedit at the command prompt:

// Disable enforcement - no signing checks
Bcdedit.exe -set nointegritychecks ON

// Enable enforcement - signing checks apply
Bcdedit.exe -set nointegritychecks OFF


// Disabling integrity check on an alternate OS
// specified by a GUID for the system ID
Bcdedit.exe -set {4518fd64-05f1-11da-b13e-00306e386aee} nointegritychecks ON