@ Ikaros and Love32 – XP IS and WILL be around for a long time. Microsoft WILL support it, mainly because business customers will demand it. Vista is not the horrible OS that some make it out to be, but it certainly isn’t the “golden OS” that you two claim it to be.

@ Jordan – Vista and Windows 7 do not have an upgrade path from XP. There have been fundamental changes in the OS that essentially make it a clean install. While you can buy an upgrade license, you really are doing a clean install. As for a downgrade, Microsoft (at least as long as I can recall) always reports downgrade attempts with a message that you are trying to install an older version. You can’t downgrade by simply running the installer from the newer OS version. You will need to either run a virtual version (an OS in an OS) or you will need to do either a multi-boot option or a clean install of the older operating system. In whatever path you choose, there are plenty of online resources to help you walk through the process.

If you all need XP or Vista for one program, a simpler solution may be to “dual boot” the computer. This involves creating a new partition on your current hard drive or adding a second hard drive. Then installing XP or Vista and the Pro Tools on that second partition. Every time you start the PC will have an option to run either Windows 7 or the earlier OS.

Step 2 – Click Install Now

Step 3 – Leave and come back 30 minutes later

Step 4 – log in and your good to go.

Seriously, Windows 7 install process is incredibly simple and you will not loose any of your old data so no need to backup.

You could try installing the program and then going to where your program is installed to (C:\Program Files\ProTools…for example) then right clicking on the protools exe and selecting properties.Then select the compatibility tab and check the box “Run in compatibility mode for” then select XP

Hope that helps

Windows 7 is a “fixed” version of Vista, which in the eyes of many IT engineers was a bit of a disaster ….. so now Microsoft have repaired most of the bugs in the OS and re named it Windows 7.

If you are installing from scratch,
then by all means try out Windows 7,
but be warned …. anything out of the ordinary in your PC and Windows 7 will not detect it, for instance ……
I have an M AUDIO 1010LT studio audio PCI card in mine, and I could not get it to work at all with Windows 7, My Pinnacle DC10 video analogue recording card had the same fate, so good old XP saved the day …..

Basically, if your PC is working OK and has no problems, then wait a while until all the update packs and re – released versions of windows 7 is complete, at the moment Microsoft are still “playing” with the windows 7, and fixing all the bugs as they are discovered ….

Hope this has been of some use to you …..

Jim Maxwell

If your PC used to have Vista on it, and your program ran with Vista, then it should run with Win 7. But there is probably some sort of driver incompatibility nuance that screwed up when you loaded the beta version. My suggestion is to just reload your Vista (using the same steps in para 1). Then later you can get the actual upgrade version back to Win 7 and try again. But don’t, don’t, don’t go back to the dark ages to XP.

Make sure you back up all of your files before you do any of this. Copy them to an external HD, another PC, a CD, memory stick, DVD, etc (not your system files, I’m referring to your files like pictures, music files, word files, excel files, etc etc)

Many people had lots of problems installing Vista over XP back when even with a Vista-ready computer. I got a free copy of Vista but never installed it due to that fact. If it “ain’t broke don’t fix it” is my motto. My XP worked fine, so I just purchased a lap top with Vista already imbedded and have the best of both worlds.

Would like to purchase Windows 7 on a 3G netbook. Hopefully, it will be suited to that application as 3G seems to be seems to be the wave of the future.