VISTA and a new set of problems

[Scorpius]

I have recently bought a new laptop to replace my snail driven Toshiba 1900 and it has come with Vista Basic installed.
Apparently Registax and RTGUI is working OK on it but NexImage and DSLR focuser flatly refuses to interface with the scope/camera/Etc. The problem is the drivers.
From what I can gather Celestron will not be bringing out new drivers until July (maybe) And there no mention of DSLRF thinking about the subject yet.

Vista also flatly refuses to acknowledge the existance of the NexImage camera when plugged in the USB nor will device manager find it.

Was wondering if running a dual operating system would work? I have external Notebook HDD on USB and even thinking of running Linux on it.

Anyone else entering the new hate world of MS Vista??? and have any solutions?

Cheers. :hi:

[Ric]

Hi Dave, I have Vista on my new laptop as well.
So far I can run Meade's Envisage and Image Processing, Registax V4, MaximDL and PixInsightLE.
Also Star Atlas Pro and the ASCOM drivers all run fine and the scope and DSI II Pro run without a hitch.
The only one that got upset was IRIS.
So at the moment it hasn't annoyed me too much.

Cheers

[Scorpius]

Hi Ric
Out of interest I just plugged in a Logitec QC Express I modified and Vista found that and downloaded drivers. Also the NexImage software can look thru the camera. I modified the webcam ages ago but have never used it. This could be a stop gap until drivers appear

TC

[33South]

Solved all my problems, uninstalled Vista.:thumbsup:

But couldnt resist the call of new technology so decided to create 2 partitions on the drive reinstalled XP and then Vista as a dual boot. Should have done that in the first place.

Might even use it one day.....

[rogerg]

If I were buying a new laptop I think I'd have to get it with XP installed, and possibly upgrade to Vista in a year or something. I don't like the idea because it's only postponing the inevitable, but at least it'd be usable for that year.

I hope you manage to get it all running soon Dave, must be a real pain.

[Gama]

Have you tried to run the software in compatability mode ?.

[Scorpius]

Not yet Gama .. Its not so much a software problem, but a driver issue.

Story of my life Roger !! Its a Compaq F503AU 2G/512. No bells and whistles but meets my needs (hopefully).

The problem now is that There are no drivers for the installed hardware available to run under XP, which has "officially" died. I was thinking of doing an install of XP or 2000 on a separate drive and running Virtual Network. Luckily the USB supports external drives for HDD and DVD. Looks like MS has coerced all the hardware people not to issue XP drivers for the new hardware new laptops are using... Anyway Paul my son is going to see what can be done

Talking with a sales guy and he was saying that only old stock laptops will carry XP. All new ones from 2007 will be Vista only, so its a case of lump it or leave it. Also to prevent unauthorised use of software all new equipment are now having a recovery system installed on a separate partition, altho you can make a recovery disk it will only work on the computer it came from. No more CD/DVD's and serial numbers.
Apparently the Vista DVD install packs are all identical. Its only the registration key that unlocks it to basic or premium or whatever..

Bit of a false advertising when they say, all these wonderful programs installed free. Yeh... But its all shareware with a life expectancy of 30 or 60 days. I have dumped all that rubbish and freed up 50% of the used space Dont need it anyway, cannot see myself playing "cubes" or "waterworld" And the Roxio CD software is not my first choice. .

Vista is extremely paranoid. But once you find the switches to turn off all the nag panels it becomes a reasonably tamed beast.

Not only does it ask "Do you really want to stop?", it follows it up with another panel saying "You have started an operation if you wish to continue etc..."
Got rid of that quick smart !!

Anyway have got the scope running on EQ using RTGUI and drove it around the kitchen and my modified Logitec webcam works with NexImage, but the Neximage camera is not supported...Yet.
Haven't got round to trying out the Canon EOS software yet But Registax 4 appears to like Vista as mention above.

I think I will give my mate Percy Vearance a call :rolleyes:

The latest technology is often not the best:shrug:

[bojan]

I will never understand you guys... Why go and change to something new just because it is new?
I run W'2000 on all my machines and have no intention to change unless I am forced to (by lack of applications, for example).
BTW, the company I work for (NEC Australia) always waits couple of years for OS change. Very reasonable policy, saves a lot of trouble.

[ving]

what? you upgraded from '98se? '98se was tops! ;)

[rmcpb]

98se was great Dave, if you did not want to be able to shut down :)

I agree with the lag in upgrading a system, wait till the bugs are removed by some other poor sucker.

[DobDobDob]

Like I have said on numerous other threads, wait until the 2nd Service Pack, it's the golden rule :whistle:

[bojan]

Yes, I did and it was because of applications I wanted to run did not work on '98SE :shrug:
BTW, even US government decided to stay away from Vista, at least for a while.. ;) (until Bil pulls some new trick and force them to use it).

[davidpretorius]

vista = new set of problems

[bird]

vista = install linux

[Scorpius]

Its not a case of "updating because its new" If I took that attitude I would still be using my TRS80, when I used to write programs in edit assembly back in the 80's Its a case of buying equipment that meets today's standards of efficiency and speed.
If you are not into Astro Photography then your old NEC 286 is still good (for some things). I still run a Commodore 64 for ham radio programs. Because they run better than PC offerings.

A lot of today's software is CPU and Ram intensive hence the need for faster equipment. ...But.... The Vista OS is the main issue here. Trying running Registax 4 on a 486 with windows 3.1 ....

Vista has been out some time now and a lot of software manufacturers just have not got round to writing up drivers to make their programs compatible. Celestron will have nothing available until at least July this year.

I dont like Vista because it is too paranoid, buggy and graphic intensive. On my main computer I will be running XP for a long time yet. Once MS have got their act together with Vista in about 2 years time, then might be the time to change.

But as pointed out above New laptops now come only with Vista OS. (Except old stock) Its not a case of removing Vista and replacing it with XP or what have you, because a many of the Audio/Video/Etc drivers available for XP are not compatible with the new hardware. Its like trying to fit an Austin 7 engine to run a Holden HSV.

Computers are breaking new ground every day, with dual core CPUs and new technology architecture. Eventually plug in modules will be a thing of the past with everything on one board. Maybe one day we may even see that 256K memory base that Bill Gates claimed would never be exceeded go! :scared:

OK Dave off your soapbox....

[DobDobDob]

Hmmmmmnnnn showing your age a tad there mate :P I had the Commodore Vic 20, so I guess I predate you by a whisker :whistle:

[AstroJunk]

Acer/dell etc will happilly sell you an XP machine.

And yeah, it's microsofts fault that those companies didn't bother to write drivers for Vista - I mean, it was a TOTAL suprise that it was coming out wasn't it!!!!!

[snowyskiesau]

The first model TRS-80 came out before the Vic 20, by a couple of years.
Ah the good old days - well old days anyway.

[Scorpius]

I reckon they were good days, but thats a different thread as is the old TRS80, which you are right about it came B4 the Commodores. For what it is worth (very little) prior to the TRS80 I played around with an old WANG mainframe office computer with 10 inch floppy disks No HDD
My very first "PC" was the bottom of the heap Olivetti 8080 with a 50M hdd Wow .....:scared:

BTW. I checked the HDD in the Compaq and note that its a Serial AT drive (SATA) worth noting when buying additional or alternative drives.
my external USB caddy and drive is IDE version.

[DobDobDob]

Then I stand corrected with my chronology, all I can remember is pushing a forward or backward button of a tape cassette device to find where the file I had just written was stored :P

[snowyskiesau]

I remember the chronology well because when the TRS-80 was released in Oz in early 1978, I was the support
department. :lol:
Later on, one of my jobs was to go and buy the latest device from the opposition to see how the sales person
handled the sale and how the computer compared to the TRS-80.

[bird]

Those were the days when you could switch a computer on and be using it 10 seconds later. Now, thanks to progress, you switch a computer on, and can be using it about 2 minutes later if you're lucky...

ps worth remembering that USB cameras will always become quickly unsupported under Windows, and there is no plan to support the ToUCam or similar anymore with Vista. These cameras require ongoing support from their vendors to work, and the vendors are more interested in selling you their new cameras :-(

Once again (broken record mode) a firewire camera will always be supported as long as there is generic firewire support in the O/S. If you're interested in longevity in your camera, go firewire not usb.

Case in point - I've owned 4 different firewire cameras, they all work under Linux using a generic firewire-video application called Coriander. No vendor-specific stuff installed at all.

regards, Bird

[JohnH]

I had a VIC20 - and I had the 16k RAM pack - luxury! :D

I think there were no drivers for the Canon DSLRs with Vista when it fisrt came out...might be wrong by now - I hope so. I also know there are issues with the updates if you are tempted be careful to make sure the version of winodws you have can be updated to the version of Vista your harware can run. EG You can't go from XP Pro to Vista Home Premium for example which is odd.

[DobDobDob]

Every time the word 'Commodore' is displayed on a monitor, it conjures up memories from the old days and all the old blokes come to the fore, ignore their age and jump right it, yes they were wild and frantic times, and it is fair to say we were all pretty much trailblazers back then, just for being users :P

[Scorpius]

I bit the bullet over the weekend and threw Vista out and reformatted the drive, but kept the recovery partition and backed up the bios which I flashed for XP.
Everything is running well...... Apart from the NVidia 6150 Video Driver and the Co-processor driver which I hope to get resolved when the "shops" open again. I did a full on line analyses using the HP support system and apart from those two issues It found a couple of updates needed one for the Hotkey drivers and MS file. Otherwise all tests were OK
I have a complete backup of the original installation file system so if the worst comes to the worst I can recover it back to factory default...Maybe. I dont thing I will return to Vista if I can help it. Not for a while anyway.

Hope you guys had a nice Easter, blinking lousy here with cloud, rain, cold (4C this morning) and would you know... fog!
Normally Easter is the last "hot" weekend after summer.
:hi:

[centauri]

An idea for you, dual 4gb usb flash drives with XP and Vista and boot from either one!

[centauri]

Oh and tune up xp properly and you can get from power on to ready to use in 20 seconds flat.(my pc achieves this)

[Scorpius]

A final comment. The past week has been quite interesting, discussing the so called "new" technology with HP and a computer vendor. Apparently HP will not be producing any further laptops with nor compatible with Win XP. Most local retailers Perth, Have returned all Laptops with XP to distributers. JB HiFi told me they had to return all XP notebooks last month.

The only way to get a notebook with XP is from old stock or EBay, which interesting the prices for such items are exceeding original RRP by quite a large amount. If you have a notebook of recent ilk, its now a collector's item hang on to it

Apparently the official noose goes round XP's neck in 2008 so I gather from a reasonable source.

There are programs, esp from the US which have been released Vista compatible, however they also require peripheral programs and total bill can set you back several hundred dollars ($500+AU)

I think I will stick to RTGUI and Cartes du Ciel (Sky charts) and Ascom drivers which apparently work well in Vista, with minor glitches if you press the wrong buttons... Most of all they are free. And of course the programs mentioned further back in this thread.

Probably be an idea to draw up a list of programs that will or will not work in Vista because some of the newbies joining this wonderful hobby are going to be really confused........
Cheers and clear skies and no blue screens

[Omaroo]

When are people going to stop universally blaming Microsoft (I never though I'd say that, being a Unix user) for the problems Vista is "introducing" and, instead, properly point their fingers at the hardware/software vendors for failing in their duty to update their drivers? Nearly all vendors have known about Vista coming for a very long time - and for them not to recognise their userbase and provide updated drivers by now (well past release date) is inexcusable. I can understand freeware/GPL software lagging behind (and not usuallu GPL) because of the lack of financial incentive - but professional vendors...come on!

[DobDobDob]

Couldn't agree more, I had my first Beta copy of vista over two years ago, and it was already available for quite awhile before I tried it then. :P