Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management

**John Hennessy** · 15-May-2009, 19:05

This is a question about Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management. I scan 4x5 film and sometimes end up with up to, or even bigger than, 1 GB files. Obviously that needs as much memory as possible. Windows XP is limited in this regard and I am in the market for a new speedy computer which won't force me to stay at a snail's pace. In this month's Shutterbug, David Brooks in his Q&A column says to avoid Vista for color management reasons, but offers no explanation or support for his opinion. He implies one should wait for Windows 7 for some unstated reason. With a calibrated monitor and printer and Photoshop controlling color files sent to the printer, why would Vista be any different or worse than XP? Is he on to something or just pontificating? Does anyone know any reliable info about Windows 7 that would make it worth waiting for?

Thanks

**Kerik Kouklis** · 15-May-2009, 22:26

I'm running Vista64 and CS4 on a Quad core machine with 8 gb of RAM. It's a great setup for large files. He statement about color management makes no sense to me. That said, I'm hearing very good things about Windows 7. Stable and much "lighter weight" than Vista (although my experience with Vista64 is very good - no stability issues) and therefore faster.

**Bill L.** · 16-May-2009, 05:15

I hate Vista, but I love the opportunity to run a 64 bit machine with cs4. I've had no color management issues, once I managed to find the hidden drivers for my pantone i1 spyder. I will probably be an early adopter of Windows 7, though, because Vista has not been a particularly stable platform for me. That being said, the upgrade in speed in working on my 4x5 scans was worth it - I just mumble a lot under my breath about what I'd do to the Vista designers. . .

Cheers!
Bill

**Brian Ellis** · 16-May-2009, 07:41

I switched to Vista 64 bit (new Dell computer) from XP a couple months ago and am very happy so far. I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap, maybe it was from earlier versions or maybe it's like a friend who's much more of a computer geek than I am says - that Vista often gets blamed for problems that are actually problems with something else. But in any event, I've had no problems with Vista - color management or otherwise, and Photoshop just flies with 8 gigs of RAM and a quad core processor. I debated about waiting for Windows 7 but I figured that between the time before it hits the market and the time it will take to get the bugs worked out I'd be looking at at least another year, perhaps two.

**Ken Lee** · 16-May-2009, 08:06

"I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap"

One of the reasons that Vista was poorly received, was that while it often required time and expense to upgrade, many people concluded that it offered inadequate improvements in return. In other words, not enough bang for the buck, or Return on Investment. Many companies with large installed user bases, saw big savings, simply by ignoring a "Vista rollout" entirely. Mine did, and it's in the business of software engineering. Many others did too, across a wide spectrum of business sectors.

As far as I know, neither Vista nor Windows 7 offer any improvements in support for color management. (But please correct me if I am wrong). While Windows has supported the ability to use more than one monitor for a long time, it does not allow them to be profiled separately. The last time I checked, there was a "plugin" application for XP, but I could never get it to work on my PC.

Macs, on the other hand, ship with dual-headed graphics cards, and OS X provides native support for profiling an unlimited number of external monitors. In this context, you might say that they are designed by Design professionals, for Design professionals.

**Brian Ellis** · 16-May-2009, 12:02

Originally Posted by Ken Lee

"I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap"

One of the reasons that Vista was poorly received, was that while it often required time and expense to upgrade, many people concluded that it offered inadequate improvements in return. In other words, not enough bang for the buck, or Return on Investment. Many companies with large installed user bases, saw big savings, simply by ignoring a "Vista rollout" entirely. Mine did, and it's in the business of software engineering. Many others did too, across a wide spectrum of business sectors.

As far as I know, neither Vista nor Windows 7 offer any improvements in support for color management. (But please correct me if I am wrong). While Windows has supported the ability to use more than one monitor for a long time, it does not allow them to be profiled separately. The last time I checked, there was a "plugin" application for XP, but I could never get it to work on my PC.

Macs, on the other hand, ship with dual-headed graphics cards, and OS X provides native support for profiling an unlimited number of external monitors. In this context, you might say that they are designed by Design professionals, for Design professionals.

Thanks Ken, that's interesting. I made a bunch of upgrades at the same time - Vista, 64 bit, 8 gigs of RAM, quad core, etc. so it's hard to say what benefits relate to Vista and what to other things. I had no color management problems with XP and haven't had any with Vista so I don't know whether any improvements in color management have been made with Vista or not. I used two monitors in school but haven't felt the need for two since then so that aspect of Vista hasn't concerned me. I'm definitely not a design professional.

**PenGun** · 16-May-2009, 12:31

Windows 7 works well. It has not seriously upset me yet. The last windose that did that was NT 3.51. Vista ... oh lord.

I'm a Linux user. A pox on both Steve and Bill. Steve actually took a nice *nix (FreeBSD from the Berkeley Software Distribution where the amazing BSD network stack was born on computer systems with thousands of computer science students trying to own the box. Bill stole it about NT 4.) and got it half way to windows.

You can download Win 7 RC from M$ or torrent it. All you need is a key M$ will give you and the RC is good till June 2010. It will upgrade Vista but you need a real install for XP. Recommended if you need windows.

**Dave Jeffery** · 20-May-2009, 01:49

I've heard that people with quad core CPU's and lots of RAM are OK with Vista and that older hardware did not run Vista well which caused a lot of frustration. If you are buying the latest hardware Vista is great, otherwise just use XP if you don't want to upgrade just yet.

A lot of compatability problems were a result of quirky drivers for programs running with Vista as well, and it not the OS's fault. I also read that the MS developers are writing new drivers for Windows 7 that will run older legacy programs that Vista will not run, and that the newest drivers that work for Vista will run on Windows 7. I'm running the first beta release of Windows 7 and it seems cleaner but one of the first programs I tried to install wouldn't run due to the drivers not being updated yet so the OS is still just a toy. Windows 7 beta is lean but it's not bloated with every driver under the sun yet and there are still a few too many nag screens for my liking.

I recently looked at some benchmark tests where Photoshop CS3 was still shown to be a little faster with XP than Vista with the latest harware.

As for color management I have no specific information.

**Ken Lee** · 20-May-2009, 10:49

"I recently looked at some benchmark tests where Photoshop CS3 was still shown to be a little faster with XP than Vista with the latest harware."

That's another reason why Vista had such a cool reception among so many. I have seen graphs which show that with each new release of Windows, performance has decreased at the same time that hardware requirements have increased. Time to market has also increased with each new release.

**Wallace_Billingham** · 20-May-2009, 11:59

I have run Vista since it first came out but used it with a brand new machine I built just for it.

The problems with Vista is that it really is not a good OS for older or slower computers. Right or wrong the team at Microsoft built it for the hardware that was high end when it first came out, and the hardware that they figured would be lowend by the time its product cycle was over. So when Harry and Sally tried to run it on their cheapo system they got at Kmart in 2002 it gave them issues.

As such it was not really an "upgrade" but a new OS for new hardware.

As far as color management goes, as long as you have a good monitor, a good video card, and someway to calibrate the two it works great