[Lowfer] Re: Soundcard question and Vista - P.S.

[Ed Tanton]

Besides the book on Vista I went through, I spent a couple of hours on one
of our Q-A PCs looking at the areas pertaining to what we do. I saw not ONE
thing that made a difference to look and feel. There were some things that
were different, but not necessarily better. I do not expect any of you will
have a problem using it-hardware requirements notwithstanding.

My company sells Dental Practice Management Systems, and other Dental
Office-related Imaging Software and Hardware. There ARE some things about
the way Vista handles drivers (even our proprietary xray sensor drivers)
that are an improvement. You fully install the drivers for one USB 2 port,
and they are (effectively) installed everywhere in the office-as opposed to
WIN XP Pro, where they must be (once) installed for every port in every
room.

As of this minute, the only part of our software that is fully Vista
compatible, is our Imaging software (and hence hardware.) Our two Practice
Management Systems will not be ready until (at the earliest) 1st Quarter of
2008-and you know how such schedules are for major software releases.

I test the functionality of our installations (via telephone) after their
Install, but before they are allowed to Train. I have had exactly one Vista
test. Why only one? 99+ % of such installations involve SOME Practice
Management System-whether it's one of our two, or someone else's (75-85% of
the ones I test are ours-and we have over 50% of the installed Practice
Management Systems in the USA.) With the PMSs not ready yet (I cannot speak
for the competition) any such user offices have likely held-off on Vista.
The office I DID test was using our Imaging program as their database.
Unfortunately, the technician of ours who-also on the phone-helped them
install their (2 Operatories / 0 Administrative PCs) Vista system was
unaware that we absolutely, positively do NOT support using Vista as the
Server. Vista is NOT a Server, and right this minute there is NO Vista
Server software. You MUST use WIN XP Pro, or one of the MS Server programs,
but not Vista as the Server.

He had set up the 1st Operatory as the Server PC (something else we do not
like to do-you can do it, we just would rather you didn't) and had then
setup the 2nd OP as a workstation-mapping a drive to the folder on the
'Server' where Imaging was storing their images.

So, I went all the way through the testing, and it DID work. However, we
were having to either reconnect the 'other' PC (from the one we were on)
after using its counterpart for something, virtually EVERY time something
was done on the other PC. That PC simply could no longer 'see' the other
(and for you network-types, yes "Reconnect at Logon" was checked. It was
just losing that other PC.) Not good. Or worse, we sometimes (maybe 50% of
the time) had to reboot that PC to obtain/regain functionality. All the
office has to do is buy some PC with WIN XP Pro on it, and use it in a
peer-to-peer/whatever network. But they are (obviously) a really small
office, and this is a burden for them. Yet there's nothing we can do: it
clearly states on the Hardware Specification Sheet that Vista is not
approved for any type of Server application, and it's intrinsic to Vista-all
current versions.

And the reason for all this: I wanted to make sure you all understand that,
for the time being, you must have one 'XP Pro or WIN 2K Server PC (or I
suppose NT4) if you have a home (or office) network, and plan to convert to
Vista. But don't worry about 'look and feel' - if you have WIN XP
familiarity, you CAN handle THAT part just fine.


73  Ed Tanton N4XY <n4xy at earthlink.net> 
 
Ed Tanton N4XY 
189 Pioneer Trail 
Marietta, GA 30068-3466 
 
website: http://www.n4xy.com 
 
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