Program Compatability

[Tom M.]

We just purchased a Gateway laptop with Windows Vista.
My wife will be using it for medical transcription. Her tech support told
her that many of the programs will not work with W. Vista. Could I use an
external hard drive to run these programs, or should I install a different
operating system on the same hard drive? If so how do you install a second
operating system. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

 

[Guest]

You've got a few options:

- Try the software out on Vista yourself; if it works then use it.
- Installing another OS on a seperate partition of the same hard drive
would work as well.
- Reinstall a different OS and completely remove Vista from the machine.

Hope this helps.

 

[gls858]

We just purchased a Gateway laptop with Windows Vista.
My wife will be using it for medical transcription. Her tech support told
her that many of the programs will not work with W. Vista. Could I use an
external hard drive to run these programs, or should I install a different
operating system on the same hard drive? If so how do you install a second
operating system. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

running a virtual machine might be another option.check the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

gls858

 

[Mike Brannigan]

You've got a few options:

- Try the software out on Vista yourself; if it works then use it.
- Installing another OS on a seperate partition of the same hard drive
would work as well.
- Reinstall a different OS and completely remove Vista from the machine.

Hope this helps.

Also worth remembering and so many seem to miss this - but Windows Vista has
the ability to run an application as if it was running on an earlier
operating system
So as long as you can get the app installed you can then try and use the
compatibility modes on the Compatibility tab of the properties of the icon
that you use to start the app.

Compatibility modes are:

Widnows XP SP2
Windows Server 2003 SP1
Windows 2000
Windows NT 4.0 SP5
Windows 98/Me
Windows 95

so lots of scope of things to try

 

[Guest]

Mike -- Great option! I didn't even know that was available.

 

[Kevin Young]

running a virtual machine might be another option.check the link below:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

gls858

Running a virtual machine (VM) as gls858 suggests may be the simplest
solution to your problem. You simply download MS Virtual PC 2007 which
is free and then create a new VM in which you install Windows 2000 or
XP, followed by the software you wish to run within that operating system.

To use the VM you boot in to Vista, open Virtual PC 2007 then the VM and
you then have access to Vista and a 2000\XP machine all at the same
time. You can avoid the need to boot the VM operating system simply by
saving the image in a booted state - similar to hibernating. The VM
image is all contained within a few files on disk so the VM image is
easy to back up or move to another computer. Performance is very
acceptable if running on current hardware. You will need a Win 2000 or
XP license to install the operating system in a VM but you would need
that for a dual boot scenario also. The nice thing about a virtual
machine is you no longer need to choose whether to boot in to Vista or
boot in to XP because using a VM you can be running both at the same time.