So today was the day that RC1 of Vista officially came out; though it was a different build than I had anticipated. I had reason to believe the build would be 5584 after a certain birdie let it loose on Messenger. But for some reason, Mr. Thurrot was right; though that doesn’t say much because I could have guessed the build as the increments were going up by 16.
I have been very excited for this build because this marks where the OS is past beta, and almost final, except for some bugs, and possibly performance enhancements. I have been jones’in for 64-bit since it was first in beta from MS. I had been using x64 for awhile, but found two bugs that just pissed me off too much to use. So I promised myself that I would start using the x64 build once Vista hit RC1 (because the previous builds have been crap and I refused to use them). I downloaded the x64 build while I was at work, and it was ready for me when I got home. I promptly burned it, and went to install. For some odd reason, this build decided to take a bit longer to install than previous builds. Once I was up and running, I found that all my devices were installed except for one; my sound card.
I currently had the Auzentech HDA Digital X-Plosion DTS Encoding sound card. This card works flawlessly in 32bit, so I’d expect the same out of the 64bit version. Once I went to install the drivers, I got a crappy message about how this driver isn’t signed, and setup cannot continue. I had TOTALLY forgotten that x64 required drivers to be signed in order to install. DOH, so I was pretty SOL in terms of sound. So I decided to scrap the idea, and report the issue to Auzentech (who had a guide to install these drivers under Beta2, but that no longer works) who said that the driver would be released as soon as RC1 was out; when I informed him that RC1 IS out, he said that it would be within the next week. Understandable since Monday is Labor Day. But not understandable when I have a broken build that I can’t use.
I then waited for Paul Donnelly to sign back into Messenger. I asked him if there was a way to disable the signed driver check. He told me that you can with F8, but you would have to do that EACH boot. So I figured I’d try it and see if it worked. It actually worked! The driver installed with no problems or errors. However, when trying to load the sound app so I can choose DTS instead of stereo, it froze Vista! Luckily during my down time I had downloaded the 32bit version, so I went to install that instead.
So here I am, in RC1 32bit, writing this message. It’s about 1:30am, so I’m not going to make this any longer. I will write a review tomorrow once I do some more testing; but everything seems to be going fine actually; we’ll see how long that last.
