Vista x64 Hall of Fame

There has been much bad-mouthing of Vista in the press… A continuous low hum in the blogs and podcasts that Vista is terrible. With no data and no references. Well here is some data. A list of products that work just fine on Vista.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Microsoft or any of these other companies. I have been a software engineer for 35 years in many areas and have used PCs, Macs and Linux. I may not be an expert in everything, but as you can see from the list of products below, my experience is broad.

Here is the system that I have: Alienware Area-51 7500.

In alphabetical order (x86) programs first:

  • Absolute FTP – an old GUI FTP program. Works just fine after all these years.
  • Acclaim 2Moons RPG – needs a compatibility setting.
  • Adobe Audition 1.0
  • adobe Photoshop 6.0
  • Adobe Lightroom 1.3
  • Adobe Reader 8.1.x – except that document is not resized if the window is resized.
  • Alias Motion Builder PLE7
  • APC Powerchute Business Edition – to support my Smart UPS 1500 – power can be flakey in Coos Bay, OR.
  • Apple Quicktime.
  • Autodesk 3ds max 9 – 32bit version. 64bit version must run in admin or with account control turned off which I’m not willing to do. Max reverts to basic behaviour of the Vista GUI.
  • AVS Media Video Tools
  • Deneba Canvas 9 drawing tool
  • DocuDesk DeskPDF converter
  • eFrontier Poser 7
  • Electronic Arts Crysis SP Demo
  • Goldwave Sound Editor V 5.14
  • Grisoft AVG Virus Free Edition
  • Irfan View image editor
  • KeePass Password Safe – Opensource and free
  • Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
  • Mozilla Firefox – my preferred browser of course.
  • MySQL database and tools 5.0
  • Nero 8 Ultra – 7 is just fine too. Including Nero burner and movie editing.
  • Open Office 2.2
  • Pamela Skype plugin for recording
  • PTGui panorama stitcher 5.8.4
  • RipCast 1.9 – audio stream ripper
  • Second Life and Second Life Windlight – These programs are the only programs that crash the system frequently. A Second Life issue and not NVidia or Vista issue I’m sure.
  • Skype
  • SQLyog Community version
  • Virtual CD V9
  • WinAmp with Shoutcast plugin
  • XenoDream 16 Fractal generator

And now for the 64 bit native programs:

  • Autodesk Max 9 – but only in admin mode or with Account Control disabled. This is because the license control code requires it, not because Max requires it. They need a new x64 license control manager.
  • Casper 4.0 drive backup
  • MySQL Server 5.0

It may be too strong to say I’m a big Vista ultimate x64 Fan – is there anything but Ultimate with x64? – but almost all the things I need work fine and the system is very stable.

– windy