Vista - Smooth installation of x64

I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my primary
computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy (for all
you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne). I kept
thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with Vista
installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I remembered, we
reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!

I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.

I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott to
its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive throughout.

Bring on Vienna!

Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine

LOL--

In what pure fantasy world Colin do you believe this:

"Then I remembered, we
reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!"


The driven snow may be pure but bug reporting to the tin ears at Vista
Redmond was anything but.

I'm glad the 64 bit is going well on that hot duo core I think you set up.

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne). I
>kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>
> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>
> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
> things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott
> to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive
> throughout.
>
> Bring on Vienna!
>
> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>
>
>
>

Yes, its the Core 2 Duo I was talking about a couple of months ago. Some
of those beta installations on boards with these nVidia chipsets got pretty
discouraging. And when things had to be backed out sometimes the BCD edit
thing got horrible. Glad to see how much better that has all become.

"MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
<mvpendorsementsforswag.net> wrote in message
news:uGJ97F0FHHA.1912@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> LOL--
>
> In what pure fantasy world Colin do you believe this:
>
> "Then I remembered, we
> reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!"
>
>
> The driven snow may be pure but bug reporting to the tin ears at Vista
> Redmond was anything but.
>

If I'm not mistaken, you have had or may still have a 32 bit Vista RTM or
close running on that nice core duo. What has been your experience in
running both of them on it, or if not can you talk a little about your
experiences and impressions of running Vista Office and popular 3rd party
programs on a duo core 64 bit machine and what has pleased you the most.


"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
news:uy7H8L0FHHA.4116@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Yes, its the Core 2 Duo I was talking about a couple of months ago. Some
> of those beta installations on boards with these nVidia chipsets got
> pretty discouraging. And when things had to be backed out sometimes the
> BCD edit thing got horrible. Glad to see how much better that has all
> become.
>
> "MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
> <mvpendorsementsforswag.net> wrote in message
> news:uGJ97F0FHHA.1912@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> LOL--
>>
>> In what pure fantasy world Colin do you believe this:
>>
>> "Then I remembered, we
>> reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!"
>>
>>
>> The driven snow may be pure but bug reporting to the tin ears at Vista
>> Redmond was anything but.
>>
>

One has to ask if you are actually going to do anything useful around here
or continue to be a child with an attitude problem?

For someone that seemingly hates Microsoft so much, you still have no issues
with using Windows XP though. One would think that makes you a bit of a
hypocrite.

Bill F.

"MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
<mvpendorsementsforswag.net> wrote in message
news:uGJ97F0FHHA.1912@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> LOL--
>
> In what pure fantasy world Colin do you believe this:
>
> "Then I remembered, we
> reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!"
>
>
> The driven snow may be pure but bug reporting to the tin ears at Vista
> Redmond was anything but.
>
> I'm glad the 64 bit is going well on that hot duo core I think you set up.
>
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne).
>>I kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>>
>> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
>> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>>
>> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
>> things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott
>> to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive
>> throughout.
>>
>> Bring on Vienna!
>>
>> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Colin,

Yeah I was a bit shocked by the ease of my x64 copy on my Dell D620 laptop.
The overal install took about 20 minutes, which was great.

All my hardware was detected, although I did go get the latest ATI drivers
for the video.

Other than that all works fine.

Cisco VPN client is still giving issues though.

The whole thing just shows Microsoft really does listen to us.

Bill F.

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne). I
>kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>
> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>
> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
> things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott
> to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive
> throughout.
>
> Bring on Vienna!
>
> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>
>
>
>

No, I have never run Vista on the Core 2 Duo box. The only other Vista rtm
I am running is x64 on the test box (AMD64 x2). That has been the Vista
test box for both x86 and x64 for 18 months. Now that beta is over I am
afraid I don't have any interest in x86.

The thing that impresses me the most is the responsiveness under load (lots
of programs running in the foreground and background) and the fast load
times. I haven't installed enough third party programs yet to comment
except that a couple of my favorite games (Civ III Complete and Anno 1701)
don't run. Civ III gives a font missing error and 1701 has an unsigned
64bit driver. Office 2007 apps start a little faster, but the AMD64 x2
machine keeps up surprisingly well. One group of programs that do much
better on the C2D than on the AMD is the MS games. I have been spending the
day catching up on setup (WM newsgroups, MSN9.5, etc). It is fun so far.
Tomorrow a few apps. Nothing goes on the C2D that I haven't first tried on
the rtm on the test box. Nada.


"MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
<mvpendorsementsforswag.net> wrote in message
news:uQc9yZ0FHHA.4464@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> If I'm not mistaken, you have had or may still have a 32 bit Vista RTM or
> close running on that nice core duo. What has been your experience in
> running both of them on it, or if not can you talk a little about your
> experiences and impressions of running Vista Office and popular 3rd party
> programs on a duo core 64 bit machine and what has pleased you the most.
>
>

I have a Dell D620 laptop I've been borrowing from work, but it's a 32 bit core duo. It works really well, even though it says Vista Capable, and I'm running Ultimate. I have had almost no issues at all with it. There have been a few issues, but those are probably already fixed in hotfixes that are being tested before January... explorer has crashed a couple of times, and there are a couple of other things... (I guess that's -5 demerits for me, to be subtracted from my swag cache)

Rich
MVP Directory Services
Swag-less, Unknowing Sycophant
"Bill Frisbee" <wfrisbee@comcastx.net> wrote in message news:enY98g0FHHA.924@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
Colin,

Yeah I was a bit shocked by the ease of my x64 copy on my Dell D620 laptop.
The overal install took about 20 minutes, which was great.

All my hardware was detected, although I did go get the latest ATI drivers
for the video.

Other than that all works fine.

Cisco VPN client is still giving issues though.

The whole thing just shows Microsoft really does listen to us.

Bill F.

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne). I
>kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>
> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>
> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
> things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott
> to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive
> throughout.
>
> Bring on Vienna!
>
> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>
>
>
>

Looking back there were times when some of the bug reporting on the
installation failures was boring and lengthy work. There were times I just
wanted to skip some of it and assume that somebody else was going to report
it anyway. Since the mobos in the two machines are close, I'm glad now I
plugged away at digging out all those log files the devs at MS kept asking
for.

Another thing that surprised me with the rtm on the test box was a Solutions
Center pop up giving me a fix for a problem I didn't even know I had with a
third party app. It all but ran the solution for me.

"Bill Frisbee" <wfrisbee@comcastx.net> wrote in message
news:enY98g0FHHA.924@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Colin,
>
> Yeah I was a bit shocked by the ease of my x64 copy on my Dell D620
> laptop. The overal install took about 20 minutes, which was great.
>
> All my hardware was detected, although I did go get the latest ATI drivers
> for the video.
>
> Other than that all works fine.
>
> Cisco VPN client is still giving issues though.
>
> The whole thing just shows Microsoft really does listen to us.
>
> Bill F.
>
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne).
>>I kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>>
>> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
>> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>>
>> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds of
>> things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4 Prescott
>> to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very responsive
>> throughout.
>>
>> Bring on Vienna!
>>
>> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Bill--

For the 1500th time it ought to be literally obvious that ***I don't hate
MSFT.*** Far from it. It's like the Jack Bauer line--"if I had wanted to
kill you you'd be dead now." If I hated MSFT I would have stopped using a
PC for Windows long ago, and taken up the MAC and gotten deep into Linux and
Open Source and nothing wrong with doing all of that if you have the time
and organizational skills.

Why would I ask Colin how his test box and C2D were working out, if I didn't
have a lot of Windows interest and want to hear from a terrifically talented
user how he finds some of the newest hardware and software working?

Some of the better Windows users and enthusiasts I know have brought Linux
into the running of banks, and major workplace and company systems as you
know because they believe it is cheaper and more efficient for their company
and the IT domain they administrate. That will be one of the big challenges
of Longhorn Server which doesn't get a lot of attention here, but I know may
be even a bigger deal than Vista or a concommitant big movement.

Unless I were completely stupid, if I hated MSFT and I feel this way about
anyone who does, I suppose spend your time with Linux and many other
operating systems and become a heavy MAC user although many of them still
depend on MSFT for Office or other apps but don't have to.

I am constructively critical of MSFT and I adopted the MVP shill name to
make a point. You can't expect me to support though

1) Ignoring bugs--they did in droves in Vista
2) They kept a lot of useful info from the public that they disseminated to
the Beta. I know I saw all of it.
3) They have underperformed at getting info on major vista features onto
MSDN and Technet. Vista has been RTM'd and all the parties have happened in
Seattle, Redmond, Queen Anne, the campus. It's time to get that material
out.
4) MSKBs are meagre.
5) Ralph Reed is one of the most hypocritical and destructive monsters along
with Jack Abramoff to hit the US and Microsoft made him their employee. You
bet I'm going to criticize it. It was the direct responsibilty of Brad
Smith their multimillionaire VP and General Counsel and Nancy Anderson
Deputy General Counsel. They have teams of investigators, some who
formerly work for DOJ who could have vetted Ralph Reed prior to hiring him
and paying him millions to work for MSFT at $27,000 per month while Anderson
piously appears with the Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna
prancing about touting how they hate piracy.

How about people hate Microsoft's hiring of individuals like Reed who were
directly involved in stopping Congressional oversight on the Mariannas
islands of slave labor camps and forced prostitution and cruelty towards
women. It puts Anderson in a damn hypocritical light when she hires someone
for a lavish amount of money who was involved in imprisoning and kidnapping
women on the Mariannnas islands and she and Brad Smith fein ignorance.
Sorry--some of us are not that frigging stupid Bill.

And some of us are readers Bill. Maybe some fomrer MVPs don't want to read
the news because it's so frigging awful most of the time. But it's awful
because of the mass of apathetic Americans who basically want to shop, eat,
buy toys, and drive their SUVs.

I have used Vista and XP on a dual boot since Vista became available and I
had the alpha PDC Vista builds which I collected mostly because I like to
collect MSFT memorabelia the way I collected about 500 Sports Illustrated
covers that I got signed myself growing up. I also have all the balls
signed by the starters on a team that won the World Series once.

Bill are you on SI? If you are I'd lke to get the cover and get you to
sign. Frissbee championships? Dog frissbee championships?

I'm not a hypocrite. It ought to be somewhat obvious (I hope) that I use
Windows and have tried to in depth. I continue to try to explore Vista. If
you look on the setup group you'll see a lot of posts trying to get it up
and running for people over the past months and helping with features and
builds along with many others trying to do the same thing.

Unlike many here, I couldn't offer the same help on a Mac or a Linux group
but I wish I could.



"Bill Frisbee" <wfrisbee@comcastx.net> wrote in message
news:eCtj3f0FHHA.2464@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> One has to ask if you are actually going to do anything useful around here
> or continue to be a child with an attitude problem?
>
> For someone that seemingly hates Microsoft so much, you still have no
> issues with using Windows XP though. One would think that makes you a bit
> of a hypocrite.
>
> Bill F.
>
> "MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
> <mvpendorsementsforswag.net> wrote in message
> news:uGJ97F0FHHA.1912@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> LOL--
>>
>> In what pure fantasy world Colin do you believe this:
>>
>> "Then I remembered, we
>> reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!"
>>
>>
>> The driven snow may be pure but bug reporting to the tin ears at Vista
>> Redmond was anything but.
>>
>> I'm glad the 64 bit is going well on that hot duo core I think you set
>> up.
>>
>> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarhars@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:EDAC6914-AABA-491F-A02D-B2545D4BBE20@microsoft.com...
>>>I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Gold on my
>>>primary computer. The TechBeta freebie, of course, and not an MSDN copy
>>>(for all you purists who wouldn't want me writing this on that licesne).
>>>I kept thinking about all the issues during the past year and a half with
>>>Vista installations and dreading the outcome. No problems. Then I
>>>remembered, we reported all those problems and they got fixed. Doh!
>>>
>>> I did a custom installion, but not a reformat, over a dead XP Pro SP2
>>> partition. It took far longer to download these stupid newsgroups.
>>>
>>> I got a 5.2 perf rating out of the deal so I'm happy. I had all kinds
>>> of things going on simultaneously that would have brought my old P4
>>> Prescott to its knees, but this Core 2 Duo system remained very
>>> responsive throughout.
>>>
>>> Bring on Vienna!
>>>
>>> Colin Barnhorst - MVP Virtual Machine
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>