Right now I'm happy as long as it will actually render from start to finish. As long as it does it OK I'm happy with 1 minut rendering time or 8 minutes... There simply are too many instances where rendering stops, crashes Vegas and *THAT* is time consuming....

I'm still not using Vegas 64. Although I do run Vista 64 and windows 7 (64),I believe the 64 bit technology OVERALL is still not quite there yet. There is still the odd bit of trouble getting some plugins/drivers to work and vast majority of programs are still 32 bit. When you can run 64 bit systems with the same ease that you can 32 bit systems, without having 90% of it being run through WOW64 because it's all 32 bit..... THEN.... it will be ready.

My own experiences are also that there indeed are problems with some 64 drivers and that fully using it for music/audio production isn't so easy. Many plugins simply don't exist in 64 bit versions (yet).

However, Vista 64 runs cleaner, crisper and more responsive than my Windows XP (sam machine - same hard ware).

For video, espceially working with 1920x1080 files etc, my feeling is still that Vista 64 *performs* much better and is better suited for Vegas Pro 9 (had Pro 9-64 not had the performance bugs...).

Vista 64 runs cleaner, crisper and more responsive than my Windows XP (sam machine - same hard ware).

As would a reinstall of Windows XP.

I'm getting really fed up with the Windows rot on my PCs, this doesn't happen with the other workstations I'm using.

If anyone has an effective cure for Windows rot other than spending four days reinstalling OS, apps, and updates; I'm all ears.

Well, both the XP and Vista 64 are clean installs I'm comparing. I have clean installs on Ghost images so neither the XP nor the Vista 64 are cluttered or "degraded" installs... ;)

"If anyone has an effective cure for Windows rot other than spending four days reinstalling OS, apps, and updates; I'm all ears."

Don't have a cure for it because I've never had your problem. The only time I've had to reinstall an OS is when a HDD crashed and that's..(thinking hard)...twice in 10 years. That applies to Win2K that I still run on 2 PCs and WinXP that I run on 4, the oldset has been running Win2K day in and day out for 5 years now. Only recently moved it's role running email and as a print server to one of the XP boxes.
Same goes for the 4 PCs that run Vegas, in fact I'd say they run faster as they do more work if anything.

Oops, I tell a bit of fib, years ago I did upgrade one of my Vegas machines from Win98 to Win2K.

Bob.

Vista Ultimate 64Bit, i7Core 920 setup....
Recent 1:43 minute choir concert rendered to Blu-ray with Vegas 9 64bit.....Muticam footage from 2 HG10 HD camcorders...transitions, cuts, fades, credits....Render time 1Hr 18 Minutes.....Vegas 9 has been very stable in Vista 64 bit for me.....

If anyone has an effective cure for Windows rot other than spending four days reinstalling OS, apps, and updates; I'm all ears.Like Bob, I've never had to re-install the OS, even once, since Windows 3.0 first came out in May 1990. I have six computers running here right now.

I have, however, had to significantly modify client computers that had slowed to a crawl. I never re-installed the O/S in their machines either, however, because I always found the problem. It is NOT the registry, because the crud that builds up there doesn't impact performance, and it is not disk defragmentation which also has no measurable impact on anything. The biggest culprit is the anti-virus software. If you have it, uninstall it. Don't use it.

The second thing are all the other background processes that are "phoning home" and doing other ridiculous things. When I get on a client computer, I am appalled at all the things that are popping up all the time, telling me that this or that has just been installed or updated. Adobe products are the worst, but all the other big companies do it as well.

Go to MSCONFIG, and get rid of ALL the startup programs. If something doesn't work right after you re-boot, just re-enable the stuff and reboot. You can also go to the Process tab in MSCONFIG, and get rid of many of the non-Microsoft processes as well. In the past four months, I have made a 100:1 (that is not a misprint) improvement in three different client computers. Things that took almost two minutes, now happened in one second. None of these had viruses, but did have a combination of Norton anti-virus (the most incompetent piece of software ever created), AOL software (evil stuff), DOZENS of background processes all trying to phone home and update, report, track, sniff, etc. (but all "legitimate").

Now, if you still want to re-install, at the very least, partition your hard drive and put your programs and O/S on the C: drive, and all you data on some other partition or drive. Then, once you get everything working the way you want, make in image backup of the C: drive. Then, when you "feel the need for speed," just pop that image backup in the DVD drive (you should be able to fit it onto a single DVD, using Acronis Trueimage), and recover that original disk image. This takes under ten minutes, and you won't have to spend time reinstalling ANYTHING.

OK John there should be a flood of response to your statements. I can tell you that I have never, never, ever seen anything improve from doing a defrag. I agree 100%. In fact I tried defrag just because so many people claim it works. It doesn't!!! Looking at the registry programs again I cannot say that I have ever seen anything come from it other than a screwed up registry. I tried defrag and registry stuff on my old XP machine after I built my Vista machine. Nothing ran any better. When I shut down the antivirus software the frame rate jumps. That is a fact. Period. AND I wouldn't run Norton on my PC ever. It is a giant hog. Adobe...yep I agree. Nero and Roxio get in the way as well. You cannot just load the things and start them up when you need them. They infest your machine like a cancer.

hi John
I planned to make a disc image with Acronis, purchased the software, ran it but then it gave me an error message indicating that it could not work on "dynamic disks". I contacted their techs and they referred me to some article which made no sense to me. The sense I did make out of it was that I needed to setup my computer differently? and somehow establish basic disks? Your thoughts would be appreciated. I have a Macbook pro running Bootcamp with Vista 64 bit. I was planning to save the disk image to a lacie 4tb Raid 5 drive.
Cheers Michael

I could not get it to work on my Mac book pro boot camp setup either..

Like Bob, I've never had to re-install the OS, even once, since Windows 3.0 first came out in May 1990. I have six computers running here right now.

I have managed a lot of machines continuously since Windows 2.0 came out.

Windows 1.0 was a complete joke, Windows 2.0 was usable, Windows 3.1 was a lean and mean workhorse with no unnecessary fat to slow it down.

Win 98/ME/SE was the beginning of bloat.

Windows NT was the beginning of a new era with a big step forward in stability thanks to a complete rewrite that resulted in years of waiting for drivers that in many cases never came.

Windows 2000 approached XP in functionality (user wise), and was and is so solid that many professionals still prefer it to this day (if they have the drivers to do their work).

Windows XP brought uncontrollable feature diarrhea with everything turned on by default, resulting in tens of millions of man-hours wasted on security patches, troubleshooting and a lot of bare metal restores for consumers without in-house IT.

I'm hoping that Windows 7 will bring an end to Windows rot, thanks to its much sleeker kernel and the decision not to turn on EVERYTHING, no matter how obscure, by default.

I agree from my experience with a lot of machines that the registry does not seem to be responsible for any significant amount of slowdown problems. Ditto for defrag on properly configured and managed machines.

I use WD three-platter 640GB drives for all my system drives now, both Windows and other machines. This leaves enough room and speed margin that fragmentation is a non-issue.

Cleaning up processes isn't too much of an issue on my workstations, as I turn off the worst junk immediately on setup, I really think three times before installing any additional software, and I try to stay away from consumer/prosumer apps.

And keeping all frequently accessed data on a separate drive is a must-do of course.

I haven't used Norton since Peter Norton sold his company (he's local in Santa Monica), feel sorry for him having his name dragged in the mud by the horrible trash Symantec is now having problems giving away for free.

No antivirus on a Windows machine is gutsy. It is impossible on a machine to be used by mortals, and not wise for use by immortals either, even if you practice safe surfing. Many famous and legit web sites have featured infected Flash ads for example.

I use only Firefox for surfing, with a Flash blocker that allows selective download and execution when you really feel lucky. And Java is turned off of course (not JavaScript).

Nero is another hornet's nest I've stayed away from, and although I've sometimes been tempted to set up an AOL account for e-mail compatibility testing, I decided that my sanity was more important than that of the AOL users.

(They should have merged with Google and called it GAOL...)

I also have disk imaging set up on my workstations, with the system drive copied over every now and then. This allows me to go back to a previous image and only spend at worst 4-5 hours on downloading, installing, and repeatedly restarting to collect all the security and functionality patches released since the latest image backup and update Windows to a safe and current state.

But for some reason I only have to do this on my Windows machines. It doesn't happen on my other workstations. Useless to speculate why, let's just hope Windows 7 takes care of it.

After un-installing Nero 8 and rebooting I consumed an hour of time deleting all Nero files out of the registry. This does make noises like what good is an un-install?
JJK

I am always a bit surprised at how reluctant some are to just re-install the OS and any MS products, and then chill out and let Microsoft Update do its thing. Our company's experience (the one that deals with PCs and servers) is that a clean install is the only sure way, and in the end the fastest way, to speed up Vista and XP. It avoids time-consuming fiddling with the registry and MSCONFIG, running deep virus and malware scans and finding out what unnecessary services and apps are being started at startup. As a matter of policy, we do a clean install yearly on all PCs at the same time we complete an inventory of apps and hardware. It also ensures each PC is current with all updated drives and that no malware is present. Yes, it's somewhat tedious to install apps again and restore data files (as necessary) to the boot drive -- although if it taking four days something is wrong or you don't have a broadband connection ;-)! We specifically don't use Nero or Norton as it seems to slow down the system. We find it very helpful to turn off all app updaters (esp. Adobe) and other app options that 'phone home' or sit resident in memory waiting for a memory card to be inserted (for example). Somewhat like Coursedesign, I go back a long, long way. Worked on mainframe programming at University of Waterloo in the '70s. In 1981 I had an Osborne 1 PC with 64k of RAM, and shortly thereafter was the proud owner of the first IBM Portable, weighing in at 78 pounds with a record breaking "huge" 10 megabyte hard drive, loaded with MS Word 1.0 and Lotus 1-2-3. Oh, those weren't the days.

"I am always a bit surprised at how reluctant some are to just re-install the OS and any MS products, and then chill out and let Microsoft Update do its thing."

Maybe I'm speaking for others when I shouldn't but it's not really the OS install that's the issue. It's the various licenses on some of the more expensive software that's the issue. There are many products that have a limit on the number of installs you can do and that always plays on the back of the mind on a re-install. The real biggie though is ALLLLLLLLLLL the personal settings that have to be redone.

I choose not to reinstall anyway. I do disk imaging which saves a lot of headaches. If you're careful with the disk imaging you can have a "fresh install" at any time without re installing at all.