Microsoft is currently launching the largest campaign focused on the marketing of a new operating system, in which Microsoft is trying to convince us that NOW is the right time to switch to Vista. But is Vista really suitable for today's audio applications? Vista, as with any operating system, is not perfect. Stability and support is an issue but will improve over time when hardware and software vendors introduce better drivers and compatibility patches. New software applications will be written with Vista support in mind and several months down the road we'll have access to new versions of crucial software, such as audio interface drivers, MIDI controllers, recording software and even antivirus applications.

This is the same story that we are all used to since the release of Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. Microsoft seems to be notorious for trying to sell us half baked products and convince us and that a new standard is approaching so fast we'll be left behind if we don't upgrade soon.

For those of us who are using audio optimized operating systems to run recording software, there are several reasons why we should stick with a well optimized and stable XP for a while. Our systems are often designed to fit the requirements of our recording environment where we might rely on full compatibility with older gear in combination with the newest hardware, software and plug-ins. It took a while for manufacturers to catch up with all drivers and optimizations for Windows XP. Now we have a stable platform which can truly compete with the stability of a Mac and often even outperform it. Why should we consider to sacrifice the stability of our studio for flashy looking interface and new instruction support that our software cannot take advantage of yet anyway?

Vista's Requirements and Performance Microsoft released the resources and requirements needed to run Vista optimally on your PC, and this time they are fairly accurate. In the past we've experienced that minimal requirements stated for some Microsoft products were really too minimal and user were sentenced to wait almost an eternity for their system to be fully loaded and functional. Vistas minimal system requirements are:

• 1Ghz or faster CPU

• 1GB Ram

• 128 MB Pixel Shader 2.0 Graphic card

These minimum requirements are stated for running the operating system alone so when you start opening applications the performance and response time will decrease rapidly. These requirements should not be a problem to reach on most audio systems, but when it comes to a performance ratings, why should we sacrifice over 700MB of RAM + some CPU processing power just to run the OS that our recording software is based on? Instead, we could put those resources to a good use such as additional plug-ins or tracks. When we open our recording software it will always look the same, the fact that it runs on Vista versus XP is not going to matter a bit. And don't even think of running the fancy looking Aero Glass interface.

If you expect the same performance from your Vista machine as you do with the same machine running XP, consider the requirements with at least double the amount of system RAM and CPU power. I've installed Vista on several machines and my recommendation is to not bother installing it on anything that has less than 2GB of DDRII and a minimum of 2.8Ghz CPU. This is the only way you will achieve fair performance in your audio applications.

Vista suposedly changed the way software interfaces the underlying hardware which should make it easier for developers to write new programs. Also revised driver structure and enhanced application isolation. Windows Vista uses 32 bit floating point calculations by default in the core of the audio system to provide high-quality digital signal processing, bit-for-bit sample level processing and up to 144 dB of dynamic range. Vista introduces new audio and communication features include Per App Volume control feature which provides separate volume slider controls for each application that plays audio, Room correction, bass management, speaker phantoming, loudness equalization, accoustic cancellation and virtual surround 5.1 or 7.1. Which are more relevant to home theatre users than the pro audio world.

The new WaveRT (Wave Real Time ) architecture should also allow to work with lower hardware latency in audio applications. The MIDI engine was also rebuilt to minimize system wide impact, but we won't see any new MIDI features just yet. However, we will not be able to say how well the new system works untill software developers write new applications and drivers that will take advantage of new instructions and architecture which usually takes 6 -18 months for update of an existing product.

Also, during the development of Vista, Microsoft removed a couple of audio features, including, DirectSound 3D which delivers positional 5.1 hardware accelerated 3D sound. This was replaced by an alternative technology called OpenAL. OpenAL causes a problem for some legacy software based on DS3D and EAX technology. M-Audio will release it's Alchemy application that wraps and intercepts DirectSound 3D functions and converts them to OpenAL using a custom DLL. It works well as a workaround to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

I hope that Microsoft will offer their own more sophisticated solution included in Vista's first service pack.

Vista's Compatibility with hardware and software applications Windows Vista is currently available on the shelves of retail stores. There are dozens of mainstream applications and high profile programs that don't work properly with Vista, such as iTunes, disc burning applications, almost any DVD ripping or viewing software and Java based applications that bundles the Java runtime. This might be very important to those of us who work not just in Audio applications but also video editing software and web development.

The situation is even worse with hardware and their proprietary drivers, like audio interfaces and USB microphones. It has always taken hardware manufacturers a while to catch up with new operating systems and release a set of optimized and bug-free drivers. The situation with Vista is even more complicated since Microsoft decided that Vista no longer supports the installation of unsigned 64-bit drivers. Remember the window that interrupted the installation of new hardware with a message about installing a Microsoft unsigned driver? That message is gone and so is your chance to install drivers from manufacturers that didn't send their set of drivers to Microsoft for verification. Running 64-bit Vista requires having 64-bit drivers regardless of whether the applications that use them are native 64-bit, and all 64-bit drivers and kernel mode code must be signed! 32-bit version of Vista so far does not require signing to load a driver, but there are certain features that may not work ( such as playing protected content) if unsigned drivers are running. That brings us to Digital Rights Management on Windows Vista. There is a protection at the OS and driver level, and the ability to disable output depending on DRM incorporated in the media.

There are millions of small and large companies that develop hardware for PC's and all of them would have to send every new version of their driver to Microsoft for verification and pay for it! Large manufacturers of PC peripherals like motherboards, graphic cards and sound controllers introduce a new driver version every few months so that their customers have quality drivers that meet the newest standards. This system is based on the release of beta drivers in which customers receive the newest version of drivers and report potential problems back to the company. This gives the company a chance to fix problems before the official release. If there are not going to be any pre released beta drivers, due to validation cost and time delays, then the developers will not receive feedback from users. Therefore, this mandatory verification will cost companies around the world time and money, and many of them will not even bother with getting their hardware drivers verified, especially their older versions and discontinued models.

Microsoft's new feature called Account Control is also included as a fix to prevent malware application from being executed and taking advantage of administrator privileges on infected PC. Every time any installer runs on your Vista PC, a prompt message appears asking you for permission to install the software. The problem is in the frequency of the pop up prompts. They come up so often that they are extremely annoying and people will quickly learn to auto-click them, which defeats the purpose of awareness.

Price of Microsoft Windows Vista Vista the most expensive consumer operating system ever developed. Let's take a look at the pricing.

• Home Basic: This version of Vista doesn't include the Aero Glass Interface and Supports only single processors, cost $200.

• Home Premium: This version costs $40 more than basic and includes everything that the majority of users would need. Most of the flashy features and services would be disabled for DAW applications anyway.

• Home Ultimate: This version of Vista costs a whopping $400 and fortunately includes just a collection of features that the majority of users will never need like managing domains and administering group policies.

Conclusion I do not think we will see Microsoft Windows Vista on majority of Digital Audio Workstations for a while because the right set of drivers for our older gear wont be available. Right now, recording software cannot take full advantage of anything that Vista has to offer versus a stable XP setup. Furthermore, there are only handfull of applications that can even put 64 bit processing to use and 64 bit Processors have been on the market for more than 2 years. That's how slowly software developers are catching up with new instruction support embedded in bleeding edge hardware. Using Vista also means that you will sacrifice performance and stability of audio applications to run exactly the same software as we'd run on XP just because there is no recording software written with Vista in mind yet.

But 64-bit computing is the future and eventually replace 32-bit computing and offer some significant advantages in audio production. Windows Vista offers 32 and 64-bit installations, so in the future we'll be able to run more memory and CPU depending applications under 64-bit OS which is able to alocate upto 128 GB of memory versus 4 GB in 32-bit version. But for now, the only benefit in the professional field I can see is a DirectX 10 support for certain applications and graphic hardware that can take advantage of it in the video and computer rendering environment.

For those who are excited to try new things and believe that the "newer the better" and the "newest the greatest," I would still recommend that you wait a few months for a service pack to be released which will fix a lot of bugs. Drivers still need to be written for the majority of audio hardware and upgrades need to be done to the systems to handle the Vista OS with all the bells and whistles.

Article by Ladia Svajcik