[Dx4win] DX4WIN 7.03 is running on Windows Vista

[Alan Zack]

Thanks for the info, Jim.  I am about to purchase a new PC and 
they all come with Vista pre-installed nowadays.  I was wondering 
if DX4WIN would work on the Vista OS or if I would only be able 
to use it on my present WINXP based PC I am now using (and will 
keep using for ham applications only)
_______________________________________________________
Alan Zack
Amateur Radio Station K7ACZ
Official USCG Auxiliary Comm Station
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Delta Rocket Quality Engineer, The Boeing Company, Retired
Aviation Chief Warrant Officer,  U.S. Coast Guard, Retired


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Reisert AD1C" <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>
To: <dx4win at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 3:35 PM
Subject: [Dx4win] DX4WIN 7.03 is running on Windows Vista


Hi Folks,

Late last week, I received my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 
64-bit and I
installed it this weekend.  I purchased the OEM version (for 
installation on a
new machine) instead of trying to upgrade my existing Windows XP 
installation.
I was curious how my existing programs would work with it.  Note 
that while
Windows XP came on a CD (~ 650 MB), Vista comes on a DVD (~ 4.7 
GB).  But I
digress...

I have a homebrew computer with an Intel Core 2 Quad processor 
(Q6600), 4GB of
RAM, an NVIDIA 8600 GTS video card and a Creative Audigy 4 sound 
card.  Another
reason for wanting to try Vista was that 32-bit operating systems 
can't see all
of that 4GB of memory.  Even though they support a 32-bit (4GB) 
address space,
some of that address space is taken up by hardware.  The 
motherboard/BIOS has
the capability to remap that 4th GB of memory above the 32-bit 
address space,
but older operating systems still can't see/use it.

Anyway, the installation of Vista went fine, and I was fortunate 
that my
wireless networking device, video and sound cards all had 
downloadable 64-bit
Vista drivers.  I was especially worried about the wireless 
networking, since
everything else kind of depended on my having a network!  I still 
have a few
driver issues but no show-stoppers.

As far as software, my main applications like Eudora Mail and 
Quicken are OK.
I can no longer install my Microsoft Visual .NET software, it's 
too old (2002).
 I downloaded a free "express" version of Visual C++ from 
Microsoft, but I am
having some trouble converting my existing projects (file 
permission problems
mostly).  Also, my Unix-like Cygwin environment is a little 
unstable, this is
the environment I use to maintain the country files, etc.

Having said all this, I was able to get DX4WIN 7.03 installed and 
running.  I
installed the program as a user (myself).  Every time I started 
the program, I
got a warning about the "vichw11" driver.  So I ran DX4WIN as an 
Administrator
instead (right-click on the program icon and choose "Run as 
Administrator") and
it was able to copy that driver into the Vista driver directory. 
Now the
program starts without errors (even as a user).

I can manipulate my log and connect to packet (Telnet).  I can't 
test radios or
other interfaces because I am currently off-the-air.  Also, I 
don't have any
real COM ports, just a microHAM (USB) interface, which does not 
have Vista
driver support (yet).

Vista does not seem any slower or faster than Windows XP, even 
though I'm
running the fancy "Aero" graphics desktop.  Some things are in a 
different
place, "Add/Remove Programs" is now just "Programs <something>". 
User Account
Control (which warns you when installing/running/uninstalling 
programs) is a
little annoying, but no so much that I need to turn it off.  I'd 
say the
biggest problems are driver and application support.  Some 
program icons just
disappear out of the system notification area on the taskbar. 
It's not always
obvious whether the program is still running or not.  I hope most 
of these
issues are resolved in the coming year.  Intel is slowly killing 
off their
32-bit processors, so software developers will have to move into 
the 21st
century sooner or later.

I hope this report helps someone.  I'm happy to try to answer
(non-hardware-specific) Vista questions off-reflector.

73 - Jim AD1C


--
Jim Reisert AD1C, <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.us
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