Vista RTM - Nero and other problems

[wolluf]

Has anybody successfully installed Nero 7 Ultra (7.7.5.1 or 7.5.9.0A) on 64-bit version of Vista RTM? I'm getting the 7.7.5.1 version install showing as Essentials rather than Ultra, then when complete, the startsmart app shows only favourites - no other options (though they are installed, and you can run the individual apps). 7.5.9.0A looks better - (ie, its ultra and has all expected options) until near the end of the install process, when there are errors registering xml files, so install fails. As both versions install ok on RC2, I'm a bit confused! Wondering if other problems I've had may be cause - eg, installing Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1 not only errors, but causes boot failure if not uninstalled before reboot. The repair function (which just seems to do a system restore) has 'fixed' this - but just wondering if anything left over (I'll probably flatten machine - which I was intending using as my main machine, but may now wait a month or 3! - and reinstall. Bit perturbed by these problems with 2 of my main apps - I know True Image 10 Home works, but don't really want to buy another version).

Also - has anybody noticed the rate that system restore eats space. I've only had this installation up a few days, and System Volume Information is already 15GB - the whole installation is over 30, and there's not a lot on yet. I've given it a 100GB partition, which I thought generous (haven't looked at/tried PM8 yet, but quick Google says its not compatible... oh well, at least Office 2003 is!)

And finally for now - its not quick (even with most of twiddly bits turned off). I've built a reasonable spec new machine (AMD 4600+ dual core, 4GB RAM, 2x400GB SATA drives, mid-range 256MB PCI-E graphics card) to accommodate the monster, and its similar response to my current 3 year old XP machine (just opening apps and using normal apps, nothing extreme).

When I said finally, I'll save the rest for other threads.

 

[linney]

Sounds a bit like Vista is running amok on your setup, perhaps you are trying to do too much too soon?

I can't help much with your Nero problems only other than to say that during the Beta testing there were problems with it.

Like everybody else I am in the queue waiting for Vista drivers for various applications and hardware. I don't have much third party programs (especially the security type software) running on Vista apart from AVG free and even that is not perfect.

I think things will start to improve (slowly) once Vista is officially released. I mean they can only get better.

As for System Restore, how many drives is that monitoring? My basic setup is only using about 11GB of a 24GB partition for Vista and all the installed applications etc.

As I dual boot, System Restore is next to useless and does not keep restore points, because just booting into XP wipes out Vista restore points. At least I don't have the problem of ever increasing amounts of restore points.

Was your install a clean install or an upgrade from some other version?

I don't have anything to do with Vista's repair or backup programs, I just run Terabyte's "Image for Windows", from XP over the Vista partition and use that for backup and repair of Vista, if ever needed.

It sounds like you are going to be a busy poster in this forum, but I do envy your setup and would love to run my XP on it, giving Vista a simpler machine to run on until things settle down.

 

[wolluf]

I think I may go the 'simpler' machine route too! Just trying to get ahead of my potential customers, some of who in the next few months will be needing vista support - so I thought I'd bite the bullet and start using it on a daily basis (running a test machine is just not the same, as have to make time to use it - I don't really start picking up things properly like that). But i think I may hang fire now - perhaps run a copy on a virtual machine on my XP machine (as you can run 30 days at a time without a key). I intended the reverse (running XP in virtual machine on Vista - along with other legacy windows - as I have figured out how to transfer my current 'real' XP installation into a vmware virtual machine). I didn't really want to dual boot with XP - but that may be better option - certainly in terms of running backs.

My install was clean - virgin machine that I've just put together. System restore is only monitoring the 100GB system drive. When True Image caused crash, I just followed the instructions to run the boot time repair (which looks like an automated up market XP repair reinstall, utilising system restore data after its decided what caused the problem)

 

[Nelviticus]

I have heard several stories of Vista problems with Nero. Apparently this is the case with most software that involves burning discs or encoding sound/video - see this article on Tom's Hardware:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/01/23/countdown_to_windows_vista_uk/

It will take a while before all companies update their drivers and apps to be stable and perform well under Vista. For instance you can still only get beta drivers for the Creative Audigy 2 sound card, which is an extremely popular and common card from the biggest vendor.

Graphics card drivers will also take a while to catch up to XP-like levels of performance and stability. According to Tom's Hardware games under Vista perform 10-15% worse than under XP on the same machine, mainly due to driver performance.

Your day-to-day desktop experience is more demanding of your gfx card under Vista than under XP, but even so any modern card should be able to handle it easily. I suspect your machine's sluggishness in that area is down to drivers too.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I've had no problems with Nero on Vista Ultimate Edition and have not tried Acronis, I have it just haven't installed it. Vista (at least some versions) has a built in imaging system that seems to work pretty good. I haven't had to restore from it thankfully but I guess we'll see when the time comes.

I am on my second install of Vista since its MSDN release and once I've figured out all the quirks with Vista I've been pretty happy. There are a few things I don't like but overall I am impressed and so far my system screams. I am running a 32bit OS with a Abit AB9Pro mb, Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz with 2 gigs of ram and a 512mb PCIe ATI video card 5 SATA hard drives (one 200 gig for OS, two 250s RAID 1, and three 400 gig drives RAID 5) and it is SUPER fast with everything I have needed to do.

I attended the Vista launch party with Microsoft a week ago and got to learn quite a bit about Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007 and Longhorn server and was quite impressed with some of the changes.

My OS drive has used about 50 gigs and I'd say a good part of that is crap I've installed and things like pictures (I am starting to get into photography) so I'd wager to say I have about 15+ gigs of pictures as a conservative estimate.

Probably not a lot of help but figured I'd share some experience with Vista. Albeit 32bit, 99% of the software I use at home isn't 64bit. But I am using a software package from 1997 and haven't had one problem yet. I said in a previous post that I had to pieces of software I couldn't get to work and found out both of those wont work with Vista and that they are working on new versions to include support for it. So until then I've found work arounds.

Good luck!

Cheers
Rob