Vista and old software

Is it true that it won't be possible to run a lot of old softward on Vista? Sort of an argument for buying a computer with XP, especially given the lag before they have the bugs out of Vista.

 

The only stuff that might not work are apps from the Windows 95/98 days. Vista has a major compatibility scheme figured out that will allow XP programs to work.

What software do you have that you are concerned about?

 

alot of xp drivers wont work tho i ran a beta copy of vista in beta the xp drivers for my sound blaster and ultra 133 card didnt work at all.

 

sound blaster won't work because creative hasn't made driver yet.

However, I experimented with RC2 and 3 and to be honest, the only things affected were my cd/dvd burning capabilities.

However, don't run anything that is open gl like let's say the game Defcon. It ran at 3 frames a second. Company of Heroes didn't work so hot either.

Duke Nukem 3d ran fine. Command and Conquer Generals ran fine. Ghost Recon, Steam, Photoshop, AIM 6.0, Trillian, iTunes, Acrobat, Winamp, Firefox, Thunderbird, ran fine.

Until recently I couldn't get my wireless card to work (on Vista), but apparent in the retail version has driver support for my card, so I'm content to upgrade.

My mouse, and usb peripherals all work except for maybe my printer, though I do recall I was able to print when running rc2, and there is not driver support on the retail version or RC2. So i dunno.

Download the official windows vista upgrade advsior, it'll help out.

 

Alot of Old Software (ie: MGI Video wave 3) did not work with Aero. Aero would disable itself until I exited program.

Some games just don't work at all. Like NFS Carbon. Most games work tho.

And ofcourse some drivers don't work with Vista yet.

I haven't had that many compatible problems with Vista.

 

My needs are not as great. I would like things like Photoshop Elements and Word 2003 to work. Sounds like I will be okay for those, right?

 

Not quite that simple. Microsoft's own Visual Studio has quite a few issues under Vista.

However, in general, yes software works fine under Vista, if it worked under XP. But there are exceptions.

 

you have to understand that all the versions of Vista that anyone on this forum has used is a Beta, even RTM doesn't have all the latest updates etc.

It is mainly all the other hardware manufacturers that haven't got their drivers together, they will when it is released i am sure.