[FARC] Digital Problems

[Bob Moroney]

Kirk,

You could get a legal OEM copy of Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 
for about $90 at newegg.com, then just install it over Vista and be done 
with it.   This approach would avoid a dual-boot system.

We have Vista on an HP laptop, and it works fine.  It works fine, that 
is, for what we do with it, which is mainly email, web browsing 
(non-Microsoft Thunderbird and Firefox), MS Office stuff and the like.  
It does not include running any Ham Radio support software.

Lots of folks have run into what you're experiencing (driver and device 
incompatibilities with Vista), and gotten little or no satisfaction from 
Microsoft support.  For this reason, Vista seems to have earned the 
"junkware" designation from some authoritative folks in the industry. 

I'd dearly like to replace my old 6-year old Pentium desktop system with 
a dual-core, quad processor 64-bit behemoth with 8GB of RAM, but the 
64-bit version of Vista just isn't ready for prime time.  From what I've 
been able to glean from various sources, the 64-bit version of Vista is 
basically double the problems of 32-bit Vista.  (I knew there had to be 
a reason for it costing more...)

It seems to be an OS jungle out there right now.  Good luck ...

73, Bob K9CMR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kirk Talbott wrote:
> Is anyone out there doing Packet, RTTY, or PSK31 with Windows Vista 
> Home Premium?  If you are I would like to know what digital interface 
> you are using, what USB/Serial adapter you are using, and what 
> soundcard applications you are using.
>  
> I recently got a new Dell computer with Windows Vista Home Premium as 
> the operating system and the following problems occurred which 
> rendered all my digital Ham applications inoperable:
>  
> My Belkin USB/Serial adapter cable driver does not work on Windows 
> Vista Home Premium.  This prevents me from using my Kantronics KPC-3 
> Plus TNC or the internal TNC included with my Kenwood TS-2000 radio.  
> The KPC-3 Plus TNC is no longer in the product line of Kantronics and 
> is no longer supported by Kantronics.
>  
> The driver for my West Mountain Rigblaster Plus digital interface does 
> not work on Windows Vista Home Premium.
>  
> Windows Vista Home Premium will not install correctly any of the Ham 
> application soundcard programs, MMTTY, WinPSK, MixW, Digipan, et. al., 
> which were included with the Rigblaster Plus digital interface.  The 
> error I receive on installation is "Cannot locate a soundcard."  The 
> brand new Dell computer I have came with Realtek High Definition Audio 
> so I assume this is the soundcard.  In any event, the programs that 
> came on the Rigblaster Plus software library CD won't work with or 
> can't recognize the Realtek soundcard. 
>  
> Windows Vista Home Premium does not have a terminal emulator program, 
> like Windows Hyperterminal on Windows XP, so I cannot run Packet on 
> Windows Vista.  I thought maybe I could use AIRMAIL to run Packet in 
> "Dumb Terminal" mode which I had done on Windows XP but AIRMAIL is not 
> compatible with Windows Vista. 
>  
> So again, if anyone out there is running Ham digital soundcard 
> applications on Windows Vista Home Premium I'd like to know what 
> you're running and how you're doing it.  And right off the get go, no, 
> I do not want to run a dual-boot, multi-operating system configuration 
> on my computer just to run old Ham digital soundcard apps. 
>  
> 73
> KB3ONM
> Kirk