timOleary said:
many thanks for the thoughtful responses.
one question was regarding whether the XP backup could be restored
using Vista
the other question was a general question regarding compatibility
RAM and trade-offs.
(I got the answer to the restoral question in an email which din't
show up on tis thread.)
I figured posting to the VISTA group would have resulted in a bunch
of biased VISTA fans praising it regardless.
My wife told me the stuff about the Vista support cutoff, and
perhaps she misunderstood it, but based on my own experiences with
vendors abandoning their technologies whenever it is convenient for
them, it sounded about right, and was indeed something to consider,
since everyone I know is fine with XP, and now since it has been
demoted the price has gone down (if for some reason a new license
would be required.)
I'm no expert, but based on comments and reports in NetworkWorld and
ComputerWorld, I get a strong impression that switching over to
VISTA is more trouble than it is worth for many users. (I'm sure
posting that on the VISTA group would provoke a lot of putdowns.
My daughter's camcorder is a DCRTRV18.
The fact that VISTA doesn't support it is an indication to me that
VISTA was just a way for MS to have something new rather than
better, to sell us.
I told her to get the refurb; it had the VISTA pre-installed.
She's asking me why there are problems, and as I said at the top of
the post, I need to get another PC right a way, and wanted feedback.
And I got some.
Your second to last paragraph says a lot. You are blaming Microsoft for not
supporting a camcorder in Windows Vista. Microsoft is *not* (never has
been) responsible for a product they did *not* produce. They did not
manufacturer it, they do not create the drivers for it, they do not support
it in any way - those who created it in the first place do. It is those
people who decide whether or not to support it in Macintosh OS X 10.x, *nix,
Windows 9x, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, etc and so on.
The Sony DCR-TRV18's non-support in Windows Vista does *not* surprise me.
If I was Sony - I probably wouldn't bother with it anymore either. A quick
search came up with this hit:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/sony_dcrtrv18_camcorder_review.htm
Published almost 7 years ago (lacking 3 days), it really shows the age of
the camera. The review also starts out with this paragraph:
"The Sony DCR-TRV18 is Sony's low end MiniDV camcorder with a street price
around $799. The camcorder offers
many manual features but the picture quality is disappointing with this
replacement for the DCR-TRV17 and the still quality is poor."
So - yeah - I imagine true support from the manufacturer (Sony) died out
several years back. Sorry - it happens. It is not the manufacturer of the
operating systems that decide the obsolescence of a product such as this -
but (not surprisingly) the manufacturer of said product. In this case - it
is so obsolete that many of the 'less-than-$100' cheapo digital camcorders
you can get at places like Walgreens and CVS pharmacies actually have better
specs.
It is now difficult to find a new car with a cassette player installed by
the manufacturer (how about that 8-track?) It is not as easy as it used to
be to go down and buy 3.5" floppy diskettes. Where do you go these days to
buy regular CRT-based computer monitors? Is your television digital or do
you have one of the adapters/cable TV? M&Ms with black a "M" and are the
red ones still a danger?!
Things advance - and everyone else advances with it or someone else will do
it for them and they will likely go out of business. In this case - it was
not Microsoft who pushed your camcorder out of support - it likely went
out-of-favor with Sony many years before Windows Vista even existed. Given
it's age - I would venture to say that you might have been lucky it worked
with Windows XP SP2 and beyond. Seven models (at least) behind. ;-)
However - even after saying all that - I decided to do a simple web
search...
http://www.google.com/search?q=DCR-TRV18+downloads
The first *Sony* hit I found was:
http://esupport.sony.com/CA/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=DCRTRV18
Where it - interestingly enough - has a list of compatible operating
systems:
- Macintosh OS 9.1
- Macintosh OS 9.2
- Macintosh OS X v10.0
- Macintosh OS X v10.1
- Macintosh OSX
- Microsoft Windows Vista Business
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
- Microsoft Windows 2000
- Microsoft Windows 98SE
- Microsoft Windows Me
- Microsoft Windows XP
Then they detail out their FAQs about Windows XP and Windows Vista and how
the drivers are included and what things cannot be done in a given operating
system. For the camcorder you mentioned, you should be able to connect your
camcorder and transfer files to a computer running the Windows Vista
operating system (
http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=C213096&fes=true )
.. However, the USB streaming feature is not supported with the Windows Vista
operating system.
So, the camera still works in Windows Vista, despite its age - it just
doesn't come with all the software you may be used to. Undoubtedly because
the software writers of said software moved on many years ago and do not
want to fix the code so it will work with another OS - looks like it never
worked with *nix at all.
It's not that the pric of Windows XP has lowered - it's that there is a
limited supply everyone is trying to get rid of. Soon it will be two
releases behind. It is an OS released almost eight years ago - and in the
technology world - that is fairly well beyond obsolete. It is still going
strong because so many people have it and either cannot afford to change or
are just unwilling/afraid because of the FUD spread by many people.
I'm using several versions of Windows Vista (including x86 and x64 versions)
and I am not having any trouble. Sure - I have some hardware (mostly that I
had put in boxes and wasn't using anymore anyway) that won't work in one or
the other (x86 vs x64 mostly) - but I expected that (see my car example.)
My software still works and if I just could not pull myself away from
something - I run a virtual machine with an older OS installed on it and use
it when I need to - while trying to ween myself off the obsolete product
making me do that.
Change is inevitable. You might get yourself a Dell with Windows XP and a 5
year NBD warranty - but soon even that availability will go away - so by
2014 - your ability to run Windows XP will have faded to nothing if you want
to use other modern devices (right now - there are things out there *only*
supported in Macintosh OS X 10.4-5 and Windows Vista /Vista SP1.) You can
stretch it a little longer if you like/need to - or you can cheaply replace
the components you will have problems with (with their modern and probably
fuller featured versions) and keep up with the changing times.
The Model T was cool - but it just doesn't do those highway speeds anymore.
;-)
