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Hewie's Views and Reviews Welcome to this issue of Hewie's Views & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/ . ++++ Part 2 of my Vista Experience ++++ Setting up my new desktop PC with Vista part 2 One program that I wanted to install, my OCR program, ScanSoft's Omnipage, stated that the version 14 that I owned, was not supported on Vista, and in my searches found that it could scramble Vista beyond repair and require a fresh install and starting all over again. I needed to update to version 16. I wanted to move my HP scanner from my old system, only to find that HP has decided that it was too old, and would not be supported in Vista. I installed my Acrobat Standard version 7 and find that it has a lot of problems and only version 8.1 is supported by Vista. I do want to say that many of the programs that I use either work as is, or there were free updates. If you have an old printer, an old scanner or other USB peripheral, you may have to purchase a new one. When looking for that new scanner, I find that one of my favorite brands is working on a new Vista driver. Some of the other brands mention Vista for some models and not others. Whichever one that I choose, will have to be Vista ready. I chose a Canon and it works fine. Just prior to getting my new Vista computer, I had purchased a new video card so that I could have 2 monitors. Once I had Vista running smoothly, I installed that same card and disabled the video on board the motherboard. It was a simple procedure to set up and it worked. When I opened some videos I occasionally experienced a lock-up, the screen would go black and within-in a few seconds, would reappear with a message at the bottom saying, "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered - Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." It didn't happen often and I thought Vista was really cool, being able to sense the problem, recover, and tell me what happened. It even suggested going to either the Microsoft or nVidia website, with proper links, and download an updated driver, which I did. However, it didn't solve the problem. I use Google Earth, the program. I find that when I try to load it, the system locks up and I get that same error message, but it continues to do that until I can either get to the red x and close out the program, or shut off the computer and cold boot. I expected to now have to replace the video card that was just a few months old with a newer one. I did some Googling and found that this is a common problem with all of the nVidia cards, even the most expensive, high powered ones! I even saw that ATI, another video card manufacturer is also experiencing driver problems. I waited a month and tried a new driver from nVidia. That required me backing up my hard drive (just in case I had a serious problem), unplugging everything from the box, installing the video card, changing the BIOS, plugging everything back in and testing the system. Once again I had the lockups in Google Earth, so I knew it was not fixed. I took it all apart and removed the video card, and once again relied on the internal video chips. The following month, I tried again with a newer driver with the same results. I happened to be in one of the big computer stores and browsed the video card section. I found an ATI video card that was marked as being "Certified for Windows Vista." I bought the card. After going though the same exercise to install, I installed the ATI drivers and broght up Google Earth with no problem. I connected my second monitor and did the setup. It worked! I now have the setup the way that I want. I will keep you updated on my Vista experiences. ++++ New additions to Hewie's Favorites Into iPhone Notebook and Laptop Reviews iShip jiwire Zonbu reason.tv Eyejot VectorMagic Museum of Broadcast Communications |
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