We all fell in the W7 pitfall

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Better burn the ISO on dvd if possible,

Should give less problems, its (probably) not about a "wrong" vlite created vista, its about the way you install it........so burn it, then install.

Roy

PS: I wish i had the time, grrr 

[Josef]

"Windows cannot copy files required for installation. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code 0x80070070."

Tried full Vista SP1 and SP2 as well as vlited, all the same. At some 3% pops up error and finita la comedia.

Ah, that's something else - I had the same problem and it drove me nuts: I guess you had Win7 installed before?
Turns out Win7 will create a 200MB partition for BitLocker before 'real' Win7 partition.
Unfortunately, Vista just assumes that first partition should be used to copy installation files so it will use that small partition
You'll have to delete BitLocker partition (if you are not using it) or move it after your Win7 (or Vista) partition. Think this one will work: http://www.extend-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html

Note that moving partitions around is not recommended if you have important files on HD without making  a backup first.

[ivo]

Josef,

Thanks. Yes, I have Win7 and I want a dual-boot system with Vista. Actually, I looked and there is 100 MB "System Reserved" volume. I guess you talk about this, but it is not 200 MB. Anyway, I have a tool and will try to move it after Win7, e.g., the C: drive. Let's see how it goes.

Ivo

[PeterSt]

Just a general remark :

This kind of stuff is "able" to turn your OS into quite some different from what, well, another receives from the same install set. Think in areas like "when you upgrade from XP to Vista, it will always stay XP under the hood (and for some things) while a clean install will just be Vista.".
But ...

Whether you upgrade or not is not 100% under your control, exactly for the reason of the lasts few posts here.
Somewhat longer ago (maybe 12 years) when not that many tools were available, I once ended up in a situation that only a new disk would solve the install problem (which just was not clean enough). A year or so later I found out that a low level format of the disk would at last solve all (this can't work per partition, so it is not a solution to the problem of the last posts).

Peter

[ivo]

OK, I got the Vista finally. I tried various approaches and ended up with installation on another SATA drive.
So, it seems I vlited too much as was not able to run XX:

1) it did startup with message that startup failed.
2) I was not able to activate it: Peter: do you need network for activation? I took out network completely from Vista install.
3) XX needs .net I guess, so probably my Vista did not have it.
4) What about Vista's activation: there was not the usual remind about activation after 30 days in the taskbar right corner? Does it mean if there is no network support, Vista can be left forever unpaid?

Ivo

[Josef]

Ivo,

You do not need network - in fact, you want to get rid of it for best SQ!
You do need .NET as XX is written in it.
You will need to activate Vista with a legal key - not doing it is illegal, so don't even think about it even if you find a workaround, it's just wrong!

As for 'cutting out too much' I will refer you to my post once again.
Please read & try once more - as Marcin reported he got vLite to work with Server 2008 SP2 it _should_ work with Vista SP2 as well!

[PeterSt]

Ivo - why not show me this message ? maybe I can see what's lacking. Also I sent you a PM about a new Activation Code you may need.


Btw, I am not 100% sure what happens if *all* of the network stuff isn't there. I mean, I look at it via normal commands, and don't anticipate on the commands not working. And I don't know whether they are or not. But I didn't hear about problems in this area so far (but not 100s of people are doing this of course).  But you will only know after getting an Activation Code for *that* system.

Peter

[ivo]

Peter,

1) When I launch XX, I get this in a regular small XX window: "Proper initialization FAILED, so further errors WILL occur".

2) Today I tried to configure XX, but discovered that I cannot select engine4, but instead receive the error: "The Core Audio Engine cannot be explicitly chosen" and some more text there... So I was able only to select engine3.

I guess that I have vlited out the Vista's core audio components, that is why I get the error #2. I also was not able to get any sound out of XMPlay player.
I think I will rebuild the Vista once again and be more humane, so I think everything will work then.

Ivo

[PeterSt]

"Proper initialization FAILED, so further errors WILL occur".

Yes, but this is after the "real" message ...

[Telstar]

You will need to activate Vista with a legal key - not doing it is illegal, so don't even think about it even if you find a workaround, it's just wrong!

You should be able to put your key in the install iso, but that requires an OEM version not retail I think.
I for sure do NOT want to go online to activate the OS.

[PeterSt]

I for sure do NOT want to go online to activate the OS.

My experience : Once yoyuhave (!) to do that because it doesn't go automatically (which is on-line also of course), it won't work anyway. So, it goes automatically, or it doesn't work at all.
What I'm actually saying is : when it works it works, and when you -then- explicitly want to activate, be careful not running into dead ends. Normal (automated) telephone procedures won't work either, and you will need a new key from a human at the other end of the line.

Btw, I would say that if the thing isn't asking for activation it's bad luck, never mind it's not legal. But, it's still not legal anyway. That is, if you don't own the license. If you do, what's the problem ?

But there's another pitfall I experienced once :
As far as I (properly) recall, it can happen that no activation is required because the thing is so smart to see that you're not on-line, so it just can't succeed. This is an indirect thing, and maybe it is preceeded by a question somewhere in an early stage "do you want to activate on-line ?". No, I don't see this message ever (today), but you can manouvre the OS in not asking for it. Next, when the "trial period" has expired *and* you have to set your IP settings because you didn't do it before (may be related to the intelligence of not attempting), you won't be able to do it, because you are cut off before you can enter those things needed to get internet access. Something like : "Expired, do you want to Activate now ?" and you can only say Yes or No, Yes implying to go to the Internet without IP settings which won't work, No implying system shutdown. You won't be able to get out of this.

Moral :
Don't be too happy the OS is not asking anything, because it still may happen later. *If* that happens, you should be able to go to the Internet, or otherwise you're up to a new install.
I think this implies that you should have internet access all the time, because if not, you can't reach the settings which will allow you to (could even be Enable Network Interface Card).
One possible option is the BIOS; If you can shut off Ethernet in there, it will be a matter of settings that On, and then all will be fine for that one moment it's needed. But better test this in advance.

Peter

[Marcin_gps]

Hi guys,

I spent few days on XP configuration - nLite (few attempts to achieve the smallest possible size), many many tweaks (minlogon, regedit tweaks, ramdisk etc). In the end XP reserved ~40MB of RAM, 2 services (4 needed for XXHE) and was lightning fast. I had quite high expectations, but unfortunately I was disappointed with SQ. Everything seems to sound flat and lifeless, regardless of player settings. I think that XP has it's own sound character which is on top of everything, because I tried other players and sound signature was very much the same. But I discovered one thing, that may be interesting - SQ remains virtually identical regardless of CPU speed/vcore. Is it a good thing? I don't think so -my previous W2008 installation was so transparent, I could easily hear even smallest changes in the player, regedit, not to mention CPU undervolting/underclocking. Was it worth the effort? I guess, now I'm sure that W2008/Vista is the best choice. Oh, and XP has one other disadvantage - I couldn't get IRQ affinity tool working, and therefore couldn't get maximum performance out of it. Now I have to install W2008 again, brrrrr

Cheers,
Marcin

[PeterSt]

Hey Marcin - thank you for sharing all this (and your attempts by itself).

I wanted to ask ... couldn't you approach this somewhat differently ? ... What I mean is this :

To me (software or DAC) such a thing happened quite some occasions. Thus, theory good, sound lousy. Now what ? back to bad theory ?
... I have NEVER done that ... and always ended up with better sound. Could take a year, but still ...

So let me tru to put it upside down :
What if all the sh*t which is added to it all by the less lean installation is something you perceive as lively ? This is not so difficult, you know. But let's say you can recognize that indeed adding sh*t is making the sound better, for a next thing you wouldn't want that. Right ?

Back to normal again, what if you now have something with the least sh*t possible, but it only doesn't sound well. Who says it is your OS doing that to you (remember, by means of adding the least sh*t possible) ?
What about all of the other maybe dozen things which influence ? maybe exchange some soundcards again which shouldn't be good in the first place (just making up things, but I know you tweak in that area with unexpected results). So :

If I were you (and I really would do it), if I'd notice that it should be good but it isn't, I'd seek until I drop dead what the real cause is (rather than changing my own good theories). I'd especially do that, because I have learned it works (but then of course I always have good theories, hahaha).

In order to even more motivate you for this (but hopefully not in the wrong directiion), hear this little story :
You will remember from a week back or so how I said I heard never such an analogue sound from my system - after some new tweak in the software. Well, up till today this still is so, although now at last I'm almost done with getting rid of "it". What ?
Well, as I told in that other topic, I heard some strange ticking noise through the right channel, on track 2 of that particular album. Well, first it was the left channel because I exchanged cables by accident (this is not important, but tells how easy it is to make mistakes), but secondly I found that the particular ticking and noise came from a general bug in the software - only unveiled by that new tweak.
Yeah yeah, Peter heard some unbelieveable analogue sound, even including (45RPM vinyl) ticking which just is in everything, and not only in more silent tracks. Good !

Not.

So, what's in my mind obviously is that I was fooled by some vinyl noise, and there is no super analogue sound at all. Ha. No ?
Well, you can bet I will keep on thinking that, but the noise WILL go away, because it doesn't belong there. Next I WILL keep on challenging that analogue sound, because under the hood it is still there.
What a normal human being will have done, is untweak that tweak and go on. But I refuse(d), and so far it's taking me a week to get things right.

You should take that week too. Or 4, or 5.
Please try to think in areas like "how can it be so that my only modest system sounds so good". I know, this is very strange thinking, but in the end it should not sound very good. But ... it can, if only some sauce is over it. A bad sauce.

Ah, I'm twisting my brains to explain to you that good theories must sound good, and when it does not, it's something else to blame. I say it again : in 100% of cases it worked out for me, but (e.g.) don't look at the throughput time (DAC example). But I gained and I gained and I gained.

If things start to sound consistent (like a "character" of an OS), this is a GOOD thing. It means (to me) that frequency response is more normally (flat) behaving. When this is not the case, it takes virtually nothing to shift the misbehaviour, and while in one setup the sax sounds like a trumpet, in the other London Beat singing sounds like a cat. If all is right, nothing shifts, only the volume level, but equally.

Ok. Although I can't put it into the right words, I think this is one of the very most important lessons in audio.
Peter


PS: I hope I can say it ...
Roy came to a similar conclusion. But Roy knows his system can take a 20K upgrade before "it" is allowed to judge these things to their real merits. I mean, how can you think there's too much bass from vLite while your speakers are not "authorized" to produce good bass to begin with ?
Things are  99% of cases not what they seem; I had an engineer over the other day, and he brought his own speakers. There was bass all over the place until his speakers were replaced with mine. His official report said "the bass disappeared with Peter's speakers". The poor man forgot that the bass coming from his (own design) speakers was not able to tell whether we heard a double bass, synthesizer or ship horn. Reference reference reference.

[Marcin_gps]

Peter, I agree that's why I'm gonna keep XP installation along with new W2008 installation and make some more comparisons. Maybe I have a 'bad' day or maybe not? My opinion is a subjective one, which is the same for everybody, but if I like the sound better or worse, I can put a 'quality tag' on it, even if it's an OS garbage or sth else.

Looking forward to hearing your tweak :D

Cheers,
Marcin

[Josef]

In the end XP reserved ~40MB of RAM, 2 services (4 needed for XXHE) and was lightning fast. I had quite high expectations, but unfortunately I was disappointed with SQ

In reality, apart from obvious suspects like 'Indexing/SuperFetch' etc (i.e. high I/O usage services) most other services just sit idle and have zero net effect on SQ.

I'm afraid Vista simply has too many architectural changes which are beneficial to SQ (in theory). For example, thread scheduling is drastically improved and let's not forget that whole audio stack has been completely re-written from XP (just look at addition of MMCS service as an example what kind of attention MS has given to audio playback).
Likewise, I'm also afraid that Win7 has introduced several more kernel changes which might make for a better 'general-purpose' OS but result in worse 'audio playback' OS and, sadly, it seems those changes aren't reversible...

I doubt you will get better sound from XP but do keep us posted - it makes for an interesting read!