[m-Que]

We got a new workstation here recently and it had Vista pre-installed on it. And so I experienced all the "beauty" of Vista straight away: AutoCAD refuses the activation key no matter what we do, the plotter is gone, a big-format printer is simply not supported by Vista, and the the small one spends all the time 'hangin' without response, and when it does work once in a while, it prints in a beautiful abstract colors (now just imagine those blueprints) and so on, and so on... and I haven't even tried installing all the work stuff yet.
And so we started thinking of downgrading back to XP. And I was curious, if someone of you guys here ever done it - need to know how much time does it take, what should be done...

[ivox3]

There isn't a simple, ..'Click here to downgrade back to XP option. '

The option is to have the XP disk and start from scratch.

[RonB]

M-Que...in your case switching to XP seems more of an upgrade!

[yolk]

that seams strange...i have vista 64 ultimate and a fairly old large format printer..and it works without a problem. also my xerox laser works on it. i have installed dozens of 2d and 3d programs on the machine..all run without any hiccups.

thought of installing windows 7 instead xp? although any problem you have with vista you'll also have with 7 (driver compatibility)

best of luck!

[Bubbaloo]

I have 5 computers running Vista 64 in our firm. Everything works! Get a new I.T. guy... (If you are the I.T. guy, sorry, just kidding).

[m-Que]

No, we don't have someone like "The I.T. Guy" here - we're not such a HUGE firm; so it makes us 'all-in-one' I guess we'll just leave the whole thing to HP-guys - that's where the machine came from. The problem is that it will take some time, so I would rather do it myself within few hours. But I don't fill like doing so, since that would make me responsible for the PC if it gets broken - in other words I'll become the I.T. guy.

Anyway, thanks for help everyone.

[lebbeus]

i'm the "IT guy" at the office and I'm currently running Vista Business x64 (on a bootcamped macpro nonetheless). . .Vista does not like to use network shared printers, or at least the shared path--you need to create a "direct" connection to the printer via a new printer using the IP address of the plotter (go through the wizard and click "create new port" and use the IP address). Once done you should have no issues (if you have up-to-date drivers that is; we've got an HP1055 that I found XP64/Server 2003x64 drivers for that work fine.

One note though: If you are running a print-tracking software make sure that it supports the flavor of Vista that you're running--we have a Technesis product that, when installed on my system, makes all the printers and ports "disappear". Since Technesis isn't actually supporting Vista (even though their literature says it does) I can't track prints made from that machine since I can't run their software and Vista doesn't like using shared network printers (which would enable me to track them from the server instead of the workstation).

It's not really a big deal, since I've kept my old XP machine up (and next to me) so I can create a PDF and plot/print from there when I need to track the print (the need for a x64 OS outweighs the hassle)

good luck