Well, I may yet give that a try; thanks for clairfying that issue. The critical ap is 3DS Max. If I can get that to run under Vista, I'll be inclined to stay with it. This morning, I was encouraged to learn that Vista has a compatibility mode and wizard. I haven't put that aplet through its paces yet, but it does provide a check box to "run as administrator," so apparently the issue I experienced with Magix MIDI Studio is not an isolated one. Again, right-click on an ap's shortcut, select Properties and then the Compatibility tab to access these features manually, or run the Wizard.

That good news was offset by the discovery that the Help files "used on previous versions of Windows" no longer function under Vista, so unless you've got a fairly recent ap using comressed HTML for Help, you're SOL when seeking Help under Vista. I can only assume that the old Help format must have presented a security vulnerability; surely MS wouldn't have changed it for any other reason.

Another bothersome discovery this morning: after all the security alerts about moving files and this and that, and after confirming that I was logged on to a public network yesterday, Vista blithely carried on without warning me that my firewall was down. Apparently, that's the default configuration.

A new security aplet on Vista is Windows Defender, with a CP icon looking like a crenelated brick wall. Sitting next to it is another brick wall icon representing Windows Firewall. Only because I inadvertantly clicked on the wrong brick wall did I discover my vulnerability. The good news is that Windows Defender should discover any malware, viruses, worms, spyware or other malicious software that the evil SHs known as hackers occupy themselves creating, and came up empty after my firewall misadventure. Since Vista has Defender, I can't understand why Gateway installed a trial subscription to McAfee that has been pestering the devil out of me, but they put Google desktop on here too, and I'm planning on chucking both of them sooner rather than later.

Audio is another issue with Vista. Cakewalk no longer recognizes the really sweet VSTs I had installed on XP, and I've read that Vista handles sound differently than those "previous versions of Windows." Some modest progress to report here, as the ap is no longer completely mute. I got the MS wavetable synth up and running again by changing the sound drivers to MME from the defaults. Pending further testing, the sound I'm getting now does not appear to match what I got with XP. I can't chorus instruments in CW, for ex.

A few weeks ago, I was reading on another forum some comments relating to Cakewalk and Garageband. Typically, the Mac users were deliriously derisive of all things MS, saying that the Windows world didn't have anything to match Garageband. A pro sound engineer chimed in at that juncture, pointing out that Cakewalk Music Creator 3, which ships with a USB MIDI adaptor for just $50, is the functional equivalent of GarageBand. He went on to note the cozy relationship between Cakewalk and MS, and expressed some surprise that MS had not included CW with Vista to offset the marketing buzz about GarageBand. Now we know.

More later; comments welcome.
S