Windows Vista Update

64bit Vista extremely frustrating

by Steve
(Portland, OR)

Bought a new Dell XPS 1530 with Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit. I thought how bad could 64bit be versus 32bit. Well most of my applications loaded, but some key ones did not.

1) My Palm Tungsten C no longer supported. PalmDesktop and Chapura do not support Vista or Vista 64bit for Tungsten C.
2) TurboTax Deluxe 2008 installs and seems to run fine in 64bit, but Intuit only guarantees it runs in Vista 32bit (they won't get to 64bit validation until 2009!).
3) HP 7410xi all-in-one printer driver for 64bit has problems with enabling auto two-sided print accessory with small paper tray. HP had me use HP Deskjet 6500 driver instead, two-sided accessory now works but still can't get rear paper tray working.
4) Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional installs and seems to work fine, however install asks for a adobePDF.dll at the end of the install you have to search your system for or have on original Windows Vista install disks. The Dell came with Windows Vista preinstalled, so had to search the entire hard disk. Fortunately found the file and install finished.
5) Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 loads in Vista 64bit and runs for the most part, but has trouble with certain picture printing with various paper sizes and orientations. Like the software does not communicate with the printer driver quite right. Had the most success using the multiple picture print option ratherthan single print.
6) HP Scanjet 4570c - HP only provides a basic generic 64bit driver, not the full featured XP has.
7) Home Premium 64bit does not provide the full feature Windows backup fundtionality, only provides persoanl file backup, not full hard disk image backup. That is enabled in Business & ultimate. That was a VERY LAME decision to not provide all Windows versions full backup capability!
8) Webroot Window Washer's individual Shred function in Windows Explorer no longer available. I use a different file shredder now called FileShedder (www.fileshredder.com).
9) Linksys printserver not supported.
10) Lost all Nikon camera software functionality, only supported in Vista 32bit.
11) National Geographic TOPO software works but required a bit of extra confiuration.