OK everyone, get up off the floor. Yes, it is really me. I have been waiting to return from sabbatical and this thread may be the best reason to return. Now hang on to your seats. I finally entered the 21st century by replacing my old 400mhz HP Win98 OE with a new dual core HP with Vista Home Premium. My experince is almost identical to Bob's. Updated favorite applications and replaced some very outdated hardware. Didn't skimp on the memory as I went two gigs. In two months I have only had two concerns. One was with the trial version of Symantec Internet Security System following a lengthy update. I ended up deleting the application, another saga for another time, and installing AVG. The other was when I broke my own rule, "never install more than two O/S updates at once" as I downloaded six at once. System restore came to the rescue and after following my rule all is well. It amazes me how many diagnostic utilities that are available. Having much experience with Win2000 and XP at work, I still find Vista an improvement and give it a thumbs up. As far as any sound concern, there are many places to control sound in Vista, particularly if you have Real Tek Audio Manager. Perhaps some users have adjusted what they thought were independent settings when in reality they are not independent Hello to everyone. DA

After much debate, I decided on XP because of software compatibility issues and information sharing between the new computer and the older XP. Both computers are used for work and must work together. I purchased the new computer to upgrade, down-the-line, to Vista. One problem I didn't consider was MS Office. The new machine was only sold with Office 07. The older machine has Office 03. All Word docs have to be saved at 03 docs on the new machine in order to be opened on the older machine. I guess it depends on what you use it for. I didn't have time to fool with getting Vista to work with what I need for work.

My knowledge is limited so take the following with a grain of salt. I'm going to throw out some thoughts based on a hunch that could be wrong. Hopefully others will help direct the conversation. I think your issue is a router issue and not a Windows one. It's software question not a hardware one. Not all routers have the firmware to host a printer. Maybe the printer has it? I don't know for sure. If your router can handle the job, and if so it would need some installation steps and be unlikely to be plug and play, the printer becomes visible as a Network Printer to other PCs on the network. Just the same as if the printer were connected to a PC and you designate it as a Network Printer and not a Local Printer through the Printer Setup Wizard. The PC stations on a physical network need not be "networked" in a MS sharing system or group sense to use a Network Printer. If your connection (software setting wise) is effective, using the "Connect to Network Printer" option in the Printer Wizard on each PC will show this new printer as an option. Each PC may need to have printer drivers for it to work. A printer connected to a PC can always be shared, and the mix of Windows versions is a non-issue in my experience with the same setup. But, the PC the printer is connected to needs to be on for the printing to work. If it's off, the queue is held until it's turned on. Thoughts from others?

You could go back to XP by saving all you data files on external media. And then, the fast way to wipe your disk is to reformat it and that probably is a good move to start over with a clean hard drive. But before you wipe everything, check to see what copy of XP you have. If it is the upgrade version, it will not install on a clean machine. It looks for an earlier version of Windows before it will install. Maybe, as in earlier versions, you can get it to go by inserting a CD that has an earlier version of Windows. After XP has been installed, you will have to install all your software and get updates. XP itself will need at least 30 to 60 MB of updates. You will need to load in your data files as needed. There is an issue you should consider. In the not too distant future, you may wish to upgrade to Windows 7 bypassing Vista. (I plan to do this.) An upgrade from XP to Win7 can not be done directly. A clean, freshly formatted disk is required. As I understand it, you can perform a direct upgrade from Vista to Win7. A cautionary note about memory sticks (thumb drives). These may not be dependable as permanent storage devices. I wathced the development of these devices and noted that they contained a lithuim cell to hold the states of the storage cells also known as a "keep alive" cell. At that time, those cells were rated for a 10 yr life. After that, the stick may go bad. I do not know the construction and limitation of newer memory sticks. That limitation could have been extended. Research your memory stick before you depend on it for long term storage. For my use, I transfer all my camera pictures to other media and I advise to use new sticks for new data. I consider thumb drives as a temporary storage. Sticks older than 4 to 5 years old should be tossed and replaced with new ones. The price of these devices have reduced enough to make replacement practical.