Question for vista users

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TheAPGuy
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Question for vista users

Post by TheAPGuy »

Does anyone still use vista when there is windows 7? It may be a waste of WAC's time if no one uses it. I give it a month for someone to post in here before we drop vista from the support list.
older-than-dirt
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by older-than-dirt »

Yes, I do use AP for Vista. I have a Panasonic Toughbook CF19 that runs it and, to date, I haven't been able to get Windows 7 running on it. (Actually I can get the OS on, but getting all of the Vista-drivers on it is challenging due to Panasonic will never release official Win7 support for my particular model) So Vista is still it for this unit right now.

Thanks for asking.
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Whatacrock
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Re: Question for vista users

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@ older-than-dirt--- I have successfully upgraded a Panasonic Toughbook to Windows 7. Went searching through a heap of documents to find a link for you to check out ---- found it, this applies to the CF-19K/L, CF-30K/L Series. Link is http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/itn/suppor ... _1930.html

From what I remember is that I started with a clean install of Windows Seven Home Premium 32 bit. That's about all I can recollect from the process.

@ TheAPGuy -- this release is time consuming as it is virtually 2 Operating Systems in one
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by older-than-dirt »

Thanks for the link, but I have a CF-19CXXXXXXX (mk1) model... So, I've tried several different approaches. I can get the OS on a new drive, but even some of the basic drivers don't install (I have to use vista drivers from panasonic).

Someone asked the question about support, I responded. If it's not worth someone's effort, I understand. If AP support goes away, I'll make do, somehow. I'm down to one XP box and one Vista box, everything else is WIn 7, so I would just lump the Vista in with the XP box as no longer having any updates.

I'm debating on whether to get an 8.1 box before it goes away since it looks like it might be the end of the line for AP/Windows 10 given the latest WIn 10 EULA states that updates can only come from MS or MS authorized sources.. And given that there's no such thing as patch Tuesday for Win 10, Consumers will be beta testers of all patches/updates/new features for the Current Business Branch and only Win 10 Enterprise SKUs will be able to disable updates (unless the machine is offline). I'm thinking I'll never be supporting very many Win 10 machines, unless MS changes their mind.. which I think is very unlikely at this point.
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TheAPGuy
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by TheAPGuy »

wait... I thought it was possible to force load many vista drivers on win7 as long as the driver was 32bit and the win7 was 32bit.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/98 ... s-7-a.html <-- this just describes installing vista drivers. I know there was a way to tell windows 7 to shut up and force load the driver anyways.

edit again:
Slip the Driver in the Back Door

Even the "call it Vista SP1" thing doesn't work for some drivers, and when that happens, I skip the setup programs and all of the other GUI nonsense and talk directly to the operating system using the pnputil command. Pnputil.exe is a command that first appeared in Vista. It's a command-line tool (which means it's also useful in Server Core) that lets you install a driver on a system before you ever physically install the hardware that the driver's associated with, as pnputil has the power to pre-populate the "driver store" with a driver. To use it, you
  1. Get the driver for the hardware that you want to install. Different companies package their drivers in different ways, but most either offer a zip file or an EXE that's basically just a self-extracting zip file.
  2. Run the EXE or extract the zip's contents and you'll usually have a folder full of of files with extensions like DLL, CAT, SYS, and at least one with the extension ".INF."
  3. Open an elevated command prompt and type pnputil -i -a name-of-folder\*.inf, like "pnputil -i -a c:\newdriver\*.inf." The system will think about it for a moment or two and report that you've properly installed the driver.
Now, understand that this won't fix all problems, as some drivers were written sort of lamely in the first place back in the Vista days (like the ones for my Tascam US-144), but these should help in many cases.
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Whatacrock
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by Whatacrock »

Spent some time looking over the Vista release and tested a viable solution to cut down on update time, unfortunately don't have Server 2008 to test it with. Did something similar with Windows XP x64/Server 2003 which works fine. This reduces the number of module files by half, creating replica files is time consuming. Will continue testing and post any problems this creates.
Even if support was removed from AP would still need to keep it updated for all those at my end that require their machines reinstalled etc
Most are not financial enough to purchase later model machines, preferring to hold on what they have. Waste more time reinstalling and updating them than updating a Operating System release.
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by older-than-dirt »

TheAPGuy wrote:wait... I thought it was possible to force load many vista drivers on win7 as long as the driver was 32bit and the win7 was 32bit.
The problem isn't that I can't get them to install under win7/32, the problem is that they don't work after they're installed. In particular the internal speakers don't work (headphone works fine). Something to do with Panasonic's external button controls.. Some machines it works, other's (same mark model) don't. I happen to have one that doesn't and end up going back to Vista. Sound output is critical for the app that runs on it. (SDR)
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by TheAPGuy »

My apologies, I didn't know you tried and a successful driver load still did not work for you.

edit:
WAC if you want to keep supporting Vista, that is fine. I just made this sub thread to see if its worth your time. I know it takes a lot of your time to make sure the stuff is correct.
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Whatacrock
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by Whatacrock »

@ TheAPGuy, I had considered doing a similar post as it felt that this release was falling on deaf ears, also had thoughts of trimming down the number of modules as they are duplicates for one Operating System or the other. Made a lot of progress with the testing and happy with the results. I will upload in the morning (my time) for an online test and if successful then will release it into the wild. As a matter of interest the total number of modules after the cull is now about half.
With the time that will be gained can learn more about the .NET Framework releases, even looking at these earlier I am a little daunted of the workings. Time will tell.


UPDATE: Online test successfully completed, uploaded to server and available to download
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Re: Question for vista users

Post by TheAPGuy »

a half reduction in modules? Impressive.
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