Do I Need Windows Vista?

Just over a year ago, I wrote a post entitled: Why Do I Need Windows Vista? In it, I predicted that when Windows Vista was released, I would find that some of my PC hardware would not be supported, because the manufacturers would not be releasing Vista drivers. I reported problems with my soundcard, webcam, and video capture device, as well as with application software such as Steinberg’s Cubase SX2.

So, now that Vista is released, what’s the current state of play?

Well, the soundcard still doesn’t work. Actually, I have two soundcards on my machine – and neither of them work. One is the E-MU 1820M, which together with the E-MU Emulator X software, forms a major component of my music workstation. The other is a Creative Technology Audigy 2 soundcard. And, what a surprise (he said ironically), neither card has a set of working drivers for Vista. The E-MU card has neither a Vista driver, nor a Vista version of the Emulator X software as yet. The company is supposedly working on them, but, come on guys, Vista’s here, and you’ve yet to release even beta versions of your software… Creative Technology has at least got beta drivers out for Vista. The trouble is, they are very poor quality. The customer discussion forum for Windows Vista of Creative Technology is currently glowing white-hot with angry reactions from CT’s customers, and I can understand why. CT has long had a certain reputation for having good hardware with terrible software. For myself, I can certainly say that I never intend to purchase another CT product if I can possibly avoid it.

The webcam is a Logitech product, and good news on that front, Logitech have released drivers for Vista, and the webcam works.

The video capture device is an Adaptec VideOh! DVD Media Center USB 2.0 Edition (who dreams up these terrible names?), and guess what? Adaptec won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product.

And what about Steinberg? Ah, Steinberg, another company that customers love to hate, and not without good reason. As predicted, Steinberg is not going to support Cubase SX2 on Vista – or SX3, for that matter, apparently. Nope, only their newest product, Cubase 4, will be supported on Vista. Oh, and Cubase 4 users seem to be up to their necks wrestling with bugs. As well as software from Steinberg, I also have a Steinberg Midex 8 MIDI interface as part of my music workstation. Another bad move on my part – Steinberg won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product. They can’t even release the hardware specs for Open Source folks to take a crack at developing drivers, because of contractual reasons.

Oh, and I also have a Wacom ArtPad pen tablet. Guess what? Yup, Wacom won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product.

So, out of five pieces of hardware, only one is currently supported under Vista, and a further two might be, if I’m lucky. And for the two major pieces of music software that I own (neither of which were what I would call cheap), one of them (Cubase SX2) is not going to be supported (and an upgrade to the supported Cubase 4 is €220), while the other one (Emulator X) may be supported in the future. More likely, though, is that I will need to upgrade to the latest version, Emulator X2, at a cost of €80.

As I said a year ago, I suspect I’m going to be soldiering on with Windows XP for quite some time.