Vista Downgrade

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a computer with Microsoft Vista. Had. After several months of trying to live with it, I decided to downgrade to XP Pro. I want the OS to stay out of the way and just work and perform reasonably. Is that really so much to ask?

Getting all the drivers straight was a bit of a pain, but the machine is back up and running now. All I have to say is ... ahhhhhhh.

Running Apps with Vista

I bought a new machine with Vista but, of course, I have a fair number of apps that I want to install on it. Here's a log.

• ActivePerl seems to run fine
• Eclipse ...
• Java 5 EE displayed a compatibility error before the installer really even began it's work, so I stuck with the Java 6 SE SDK
• IIS seems fine after I followed the instructions in this IIS.net article.
• MarkLogic Server ...
• Office 2003 seems to run fine, though I don't use Outlook
• Sam Spade ...
• Subversion and TortiseSVN seem to run fine
• Visual Studio.NET 2005 needs to run in compatibility mode and as an administrator
• UltraEdit 8.10 needs to run in compatibility mode and as an administrator
• Windows Updates
  • After running a truck-load of updates and restarting, a driver compatibility warning comes up and even throws a blue screen of death for the Sonic Solutions DLA. Roxio says it's Dell's problem because it's a Dell machine with an OEM version. Dell says it's Roxio's problem. In any case, Roxio has a solution for it which seems to work.
• XMLSpy 2006 Home Edition seems to run fine, although it did try to call home after registering and while I started it up the first time

To switch to a compatibility mode and/or run as an administrator, do the following.

• After install, right-click on the app icon, switch to the Compatibility tab
• Check the compat. mode checkbox and switch the drop-down to Windows 2000 (or whatever is appropriate for you)
• Check the run as admin checkbox
• After this, you should be able to enter your authorization info.