Okay, who's the Windows expert around here?

[Philip OKeefe]

I'm trying to decide on exactly which OS to use on my DAW. I now own the following: Win 98 SE, Win ME and (as of yesterday) Win XP. I'd also be willing to buy Win 2K if that will be the best. I'm wondering which one I should use on my system. Here's my issues: My computer's a Compaq 5005 SR 933 MHz PIII w/ 512 MB RAM, two HDD's (one just for audio), a Frontier Designs Dakota and Montana card, a Tascam US-428 USB audio / midi interface, a MOTU Micro Express (parallel port model 4X6 MIDI interface) running Logic Platinum 4.7, Vegas Audio 2.0, Sonar 1.3 and Sound Forge 4.5 / 5.0. All of these programs are important to me. Logic doesn't work in Win XP, but should when 5.0 ships in January. The MOTU doesn't have XP drivers, but their site says that there's Win 2K drivers. Are Win 2K drivers compatable with Win XP? Frontier doesn't have the WDM drivers with the hardware chaselock feature enabled for the Dakota / Montana out yet, but it should be along in the next month or so. Tascam has the WDM drivers out for the US-428 and it should be okay on Win 2K or XP. Sonar and the Sonic Foundry stuff should be compatable with all the OS versions - Win 98 SE/ ME / 2K / XP. Why not stay with 98 or ME? Because I'd like to go to all WDM drivers (which are faster in Sonar) and because I'm sick and tired of the BSOD and the general unreliability of the older versions of Windos (NOT a typo!). Any and all comments, suggestions and input appreciated. Thanks! Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html email: pokeefe777@msn.com

[dinopop]

Please note heavy use of the word [b]should[/b]. [QUOTE]Originally posted by pokeefe777@msn.com: [b] Logic doesn't work in Win XP, but should when 5.0 ships in January. The MOTU doesn't have XP drivers, but their site says that there's Win 2K drivers. Are Win 2K drivers compatable with Win XP? [/b] Same core OS so they [b]should[/b] be in most cases. Your mileage may vary. [b] Why not stay with 98 or ME? Because I'd like to go to all WDM drivers (which are faster in Sonar) and because I'm sick and tired of the BSOD and the general unreliability of the older versions of Windos (NOT a typo!). [/b] The WDM drivers [b]should[/b] work on ME (and 98SE). Again mileage may vary. I'm running Sonar with the WDM drivers for the Frontier Wavecenter PCI on an ME box with nary a hiccup. (OK maybe an occasional dropout if I set the latency too low with a gazillion plugins running. ;) ) I'll probably move to XP at some point (at some point there won't be a choice.) But I personally will want to wait for a few service packs to go by before I make the leap. Don't know if this helped, since you're working with a bigger variety of HW/SW than I am, your odds of hitting an incompatibility are probably higher. One suggestion (since you already own the OSs) would be to set your machine up to dual-boot ME and XP. That way you can quickly check compatibilities on both. If you can get everything working with XP then stick with it. (I think that's going to be your long-term goal.) It's just that we're in this transition period of waiting for all the vendors to catch up with drivers, etc. Good luck, Layne

[GY]

Phil: If you stick with Win98SE, there is a Microsoft WDM patch. It fixed poor latency and "blue screens" with Sonar. I'm as happy as a clam. XP has it's own can of worms. Read about the "hot fix" here: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q242/9/37.ASP Download it here: http://www1.rm.com/docs/PC/00/1257.asp GY

[steven dunston]

I find Win2K to be much more stable than Win98SE or WinME. I run SONAR, Wavelab and other apps with a Frontier Dakota/Sierra. Unfortunately, non-WDM apps don't work well with WDM drivers in Win2K. The MME emulation is broken. That problem is reportedly fixed in WinXP, but I have yet to try it. Logic 4.x is not supported in Win2K/XP, but some people have reportedly gotten it to work. I am not one of those people. There are some tweaks posted on some of the Logic user forums. MOTU hardware should work in WinXP with Win2K drivers. If SONAR is your primary app, go WinXP. If Logic is your primary app, go Win98SE. Both programs should work in either OS, but one of them will be compromised. Whatever you do, WinXP is a better choice than Win2K, since you'll be running non-WDM apps with WDM drivers.