Vista 64-bit: Apple 1, Microsoft 0

I am sitting here with an incredulous look on my face because that's the way I feel.  Today I have been working on the evaluation of the HP tx2000 notebook which is running 64-bit Vista Ultimate due to the AMD processors.  Everything has worked fine so far with the exception of two niggling things that have driven me crazy.  I now know the two problems have the same root cause and it is the 64-bit version of Vista.

First up, I installed OneNote 2007, my main Tablet PC application and since the tx2000 is a Tablet I had to get it working.  It installed fine but I noticed after that there was no Send to OneNote virtual printer installed like there should be.  I've seen that before so I uninstalled OneNote 2007, rebooted and reinstalled it.  Nope.  No virtual printer again.  Now I use this virtual printer so much on my Tablets that is is always set as my default printer so I can easily print things right into OneNote so not having this is a big deal to me.  I did some minor investigation but didn't turn up anything so I moved on to my second issue of the day.

My Canon printer is plugged directly into my Airport Extreme router so that everyone on my home network can print to it.  The only caveat is that Windows-based PCs on the network have to have the Apple utility Bonjour installed which handles the network printer.  I have used this for months and it works great on every PC in the home but it didn't work with the tx2000.  Bonjour installed fine and once running it saw the Canon printer but couldn't actually talk to it.  I did a bunch of different things but nothing worked so I couldn't print from the HP.  It turns out it's related to the OneNote problem above.

I turned back to finding a solution to the Send to OneNote missing printer and another Google search turned up something very surprising.  First of all the answer to my problem was found, you'll laugh about this, right here on jkOnTheRun.  It seems that Kevin posted a few months back that the Send to OneNote printer will not install on 64-bit Windows, neither XP nor Vista.  What?  It's a Microsoft operating system and OneNote is a Microsoft application so that can't be right!  Au contraire!  According to this MS employee the problem is that the Microsoft Office Document Imaging tools don't work on 64-bit Windows so the Send to OneNote printer won't work (nor install) either.  You've got to be kidding me!  According to Microsoft, better sit down before you read this:

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the Microsoft Office Document   Image Writer printer driver is not installed on a computer that is running a   64-bit operating system.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

So I'm not only screwed but this was Microsoft's intent according to that statement!  The saddest part is the recommendation by the above employee:

In the meantime if you really need this feature it is recommended that you run x86 and sorry for the inconvenience.

So forego our latest and greatest OS and go back to 32-bit because our own software doesn't work with it by design.

This 64-bit failure got me to thinking about the Apple Bonjour problem so I went back to the Apple site where I downloaded the free utility and found that lo and behold there is a 64-bit Windows version of Bonjour produced by Apple.  I installed it and immediately was able to print to my Canon printer!  So Apple 1, Microsoft 0 with 64-bit Windows support!  Actually I think Microsoft's score should be a negative value.  I'm going to go punch a wall, back later.

Comments

[Mank Polino]

James,

There are a lot of these things with 64 bit windows. For example, the Analysis Cubes for Ms Dynamics GP run fine on 64 bit machines but the have a 32 bit installer so they won't install. Go figure.

Mark

[jaytv111]

well Vista is all about wow, as in wow, why does their 64 bit support stink so much. lol

[Zoe Summers]

Hi, first time poster, but I couldn't resist after reading this blog entry.

I totally understand, I've been running Vista Ultimate 64-bit on my main development rig for about a year now, the 32bit version has been running on my X60 Tablet since beta with NO problems (granted my X60 has 2GB but still)

Anyway, I run into 64-bit Vista issues ALL THE TIME. It's NOT just drivers, but 64-bit is just 'unsupportable'. Most apps I want won't work with it, and yes, I've had MSDN posts replied by MS staff with the whole "by design..." cr*pola...

You know, I bought the iPhone 6 months ago - it was my first EVER Apple product (hated Macintoshs and G4 / G5's etc...) but I'm REALLY turned onto Apple stuff - my next rig WILL be the Mac Pro, and in the interim I'm looking for an iMac for my main desktop.

If they'd make a tablet with decent handwriting recog (InkWell SUCKS bigtime compared to Vista's handwriting recog / TIP) then I'd switch there too..

MS have got TOO big, and TOO many departments not talking to each other - or one person overviewing everything. And as a developer, the fudges that each dept make to their .Net framework is unreal! It's like NO-ONE looks at this stuff before release other than the guy that wrote it.

Sure people rant about Steve Jobs being a tyrant and weird etc... (and I agree, he creeps me out abit) but damn, this sorta industry NEEDS to have someone with a vision in charge making these decisions.

MS have got too carried away with $$$ and really need to pull their finger out and buy a clue...

'cause until Surface comes along (with the exception of my tablets) - MS have lost me.

Great article, your site carries alot of 'weight' out here in TCP/IP land, so maybe someone from the MS beast will take note?

Yeah, right.

[Warner Crockre]

Oh, my. Guess I'll know what to look for when the review unit I'm testing arrives tomorrow.

[ChangBM]

Seriously?! You can't print to one note with 64bit vista. Wow I dodged a bullet there, I bought a 32 bit version of vista the other day by accident and was going to return it. But now I'll keep it, I really really need that print to onenote function.

That sucks, Sorry to hear about that, but atleast you just saved me there.

[sbtablet]

I agree that it's ridiculous that Microsoft 64 bit Vista has so many Microsoft things that won't work with it. What I don't understand is the statement about your unit running 64 bit Vista due to the AMD processor. Could you unpack that a bit.

I have the TX1000 with the same AMD processor family, the 32 bit version and Print to ONeNOte, which is my default printer, as you describe. Who needs the stupid 64 bit hassle?

[B]

A year and a half later Vista is still having problems.... pathetic. Anyone else think Vista is the successor to Windows ME? O' Windows 7, please save us.

[Arif R]

To be fair, the only tangible reason why anyone would want to run 64bit Windows, XP or Vista, is for better handling of beautifully insane amounts of RAM. I'm talking about anything over 4GB.

I'm all for maxing out at 8GB and above but I don't think I've seen any tablet PCs, or any portable that you'd want to run OneNote on, support that much RAM.

I may sound like a Windows apologist but I'm not. I've a cousin who couldn't get iTunes to see any of the movies on his computer to sync with his iPhone. He was running Vista 64 Ultimate on a HP portable with an AMD processor and 2.5GB of RAM. A switch back to Vista 32 fixed the problem, and more importantly, he didn't lose anything by way of performance with Vista 32.

I like Vista, especially the Aero interface, though the UAC can get annoying, and I have never faced any problems with XP or Vista that I couldn't figure out a solution for but the two computers I use the most are a Mac mini and a PowerBook G4. We have two other Windows XP portables, as well as two Vista portables, a Vista desktop and a XP desktop in this household.

As a side note, I've even got Vista to run on a 800MHz Via C3 with 1GB of RAM. It wasn't pretty, but it worked fine for an email machine. :)

[PR.]

This is hardly Vistas fault as everyone seems to be pointing at. It has to have 64bit drivers, it always has and always will because... it's a 64bit OS!

The people to blame here aren't the developers of Vista but the developers of OneNote and Canon, they have had a 64bit platform to develop for since XP x64 and they have done nothing I'm sure they would say the 'market for x64 drivers isn't economical' or something.

I've been running Vista x64 Ultimate since the beginning of February and it has been very good, much snappier on some tasks compared to x86 and those x64 drivers seem to be more reliable, probably because they weren't recoded XP drivers with little effort put in to improve them. I've been lucky as HP are pretty good at releasing updated printer drivers and there was x64 drivers for my HP LaserJet 1022n.

I don't use OneNote on my x64 Desktop but to on my x86 Vista Ultimate Toshiba M400 TabletPC

[Des]

Bonjour is one sweet utility which just works.

My Canon is shared out on an airport express and all my windows devices can happily print away.

[Gavin Miller]

Guys, let's keep it in perspective. The Onenote driver issue for me is a killer (although there are workarounds) and so for my work PCs I stick to Vista 32.

As for comments regarding Vista still having issues after 1 1/2 years so does any other OS you might like to look at - all OS's have 'issues'. There have been thousands of driver updates since launch and Vista on My M700 (32 bit) and Desktop (64 bit) run quick and reliably.

PR is correct - should Microsoft be expected to provide drivers for every single bit of kit out there? No, manufacturers are well aware of the 64 bit OS and it is up to them to support their equipment (I'm looking at YOU Creative Labs)!

However(!), Onenote is the orphan child of the Office Suite and I really don't understand why there is such an issue with their team to produce a print driver, and James, I feel your pain when stuff just doesn't work!

[L. M. Lloyd]

I use Vista64 and XP64 daily, and I can't think of a single more annoying issue with both of them than the spotty support from everyone, including Microsoft. I have never understood why they even made the things if they aren't going to make sure they are supported. I am constantly amazed by all the things that still aren't supported in any of Microsoft's 64-bit OSs, like my camera, my scanner, my printer, or several software programs. It pretty much is like using Linux on the support front.

What I don't understand is why you would even want to try and run 64-bit on a tablet you use primarily for note taking? I use it, because I am a computer graphics artist and animator, and regularly work with files that eat up gigs of RAM, but I can't figure out why anyone would want to use it on a portable with fewer than 4GB of RAM. I certainly don't use it on any of my portable machines.

[Gavin Miller]

But L.M, Microsoft can't 'make sure' they are supported, they can only engage with manufacturers and give them access to necessary development kits for them to develop drivers. If your scanner does not work then that was a choice of your manufacturer, not MS!

Also, on memory, 2gb is 100% fine with Vista. people still labour under the misconception that Vista is a 'memory hog' because they are always showing 50% or more memory usage but this is Vista caching files into Ram for instant access - which is why when I open Firefox or Word on my PC it's almost instantaneous. Better the Ram you paid for is actually fully utilised rather than sitting empty!

Saying all that, I'm hoping Microsoft REALLY get a handle on a modular and scaleable OS for Windows 7 which will adapt to a range of devices.

[B]

Arif, you know you can turn the UAC off, right?

http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/09/20/763275.aspx

[James Kendrick]

This Tablet came with Vista64 preinstalled and has 4 GB of RAM. This is a major failure by Microsoft and no one else. Even the Fax driver that is installed by default won't work in V64.

[GoodThings2Life]

64-bit Windows is the bastard child of Microsoft. At this point, they do it because it's expected, not because they want to (for the consumer world, at least).

I ran XP x64 for two months on a desktop until the lack of support from Zune, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, and Office pushed me over the edge. Now I'm back to good old x86.

How can Microsoft expect other vendors to produce for x64 when they won't do it either?

[Kevin C. Tofel]

PR said: "The people to blame here aren't the developers of Vista but the developers of OneNote and Canon."

OneNote is a Microsoft product, just like Vista. ;)

[Gavin Miller]

I think this, if anything, is a good example of the lack of integration and planning that seems to plague Microsoft. Kevin is correct that of course they are both Microsoft products but they are from different sections of their business who appear to have differing priorities.

You have to wonder if at this stage the best route now for Microsoft is to split up the business, and move from being a massive juggernaut to four or five speedy sportscars.

[Arif R]

@B: Yes and no. I did know you could turn off UAC in the Security Center but a lot of things didn't work right so I didn't use that. What I did was just disable the switching to secure desktop in the Local Security Policy.

But now, through your link I saw that you could set UAC to "always approve" which is something I did not know about, and that is just awesome, thanks!

[Gavin Miller]

Arif

Just a wee point to make that remember UAC is there for a reason. As soon as something wants to install it can't do it by stealth, and access to all running processes is frozen (hence the dramatic screen freeze) to ensure you are kept safe, making you agree that this is a process you started.

If you are constantly installing and uninstalling software then I could see it being a pain, (and I think they could have made it less 'jarring'), but then that would make me want to keep it on more due to all the software being installed and the associated risks of something unwanted getting onto my PC!

As soon as you disable it you are turning off a significant improvement in Security that Vista has over XP, and once you have installed your core suite of progs that you use, you should hardly ever see it. :-)

[Arif R]

That is a fair point. It does make sense (to turn it off) if you know what you're doing, like setting up the computer with applications and settings and then turning it back on for regular day to day use.

I'll need to ask around the house what they encounter while using Vista, for the most part they don't really complain much but I usually have to work with/against UAC because whenever I'm at a Vista computer, I'm usually fixing something for someone else.

Back on topic (sorry!), I can't say I understand HP's decision to bundle Vista 64 with this tablet. Maybe they thought it'd handle 4GB of RAM better - James, how much of the 4GB is available to you?

[Scotty]

HP obviously shipped the tablet PC with Vista 64 bit to have it use every byte of the 4GB installed.

With Vista 32 bit you are limited to 3GB/3.5GB of memory (depending on chipset/GPU).

The "by design" is part of the sea change that has occurred inside Microsoft. It used to be Microsoft bent over backwards to preserve software compatibility. Microsoft is no longer doing this.

The reason for these printer issues is simple to understand.

32 bit software under Vista 64 bit runs in something akin to VMware. This emulator is not designed to support kernel code, it can only handle application layer code.

Why doesn't Onenote 2007 come with a 64 bit printer driver? Simple: Vista 64 isn't for desktop's, its for workstations. Workstation users don't need Onenote.

So congratulations on having the world's first workstation class tablet PC! :-)

[drz]

Kevin said:"OneNote is a Microsoft product, just like Vista. ;)"
Yes, but the developers who wrote Vista are not the developers who wrote OneNote.

There are different application and OS divisions within Microsoft. Just as there is no explicit x64 versions of Office yet, one cannot expect all 32bit features of Office to work 100%. The article title may be accurate, but I do not think it is tactful.

I think the title of the article is inflamatory and designed to evoke emotion and rally support to the author, rather than requesting help and assistance in troubleshooting and finding a solution. It implies Microsoft as a whole failed with Vista 64bit, rather than the truth that it is up to the software manufacturers (including Microsoft) who develop device drivers are the ones who bear responsibility for developing 64bit drivers, not the OS developers.

I write this as a software developer who is tired at all the finger-pointing by users who are quick to blame issues that are out of our control. I am always happy to help users out who are patient to work with me to help diagnose and resolve problems, but sometimes the complaints are just overwhelming. Can't we all just get along?

[Sam]

When I saw the score in the headline I had a completely different expectation about where this article would go.

You see, Apple also ships a 64-bit OS: MacOS 10.5 "Leopard". It is fully, 100% backwards compatible with the 32-bit software, and there is in fact only one flavor of Leopard. If something says Mac Compatible, you don't have to worry about whether it's supported in the 64-bit or 32-bit versions.

I hear the current rumor is that Microsoft isn't even planning on getting things THAT right for Windows 7.

[GearsofWar]

"Kevin said:"OneNote is a Microsoft product, just like Vista. ;)"
Yes, but the developers who wrote Vista are not the developers who wrote OneNote."

Oh come on. That is by far the lamest defense of Vista I've ever read not written by Paul Thurrott or Ed Bott :p Unless that is Paul :p

[GearsofWar]

And as a regular reader of jkOnTheRun, I can tell you these guys aren't Windows bashers or sensationalistic at all in their coverage. They seem to love all things mobile, including Microsoft products. More importantly, they are just users like the rest of us, who run into everyday issues, and post about them. Its not "finger pointing", its just what they ran into.

[ChangBM]

"PR said: "The people to blame here aren't the developers of Vista but the developers of OneNote and Canon."

OneNote is a Microsoft product, just like Vista. ;)
" Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel

I have one question. Did the PR guy ever end up go "wait a second...." I've got to say thats pretty funny. I know that the development teams are probably different but that shows a pretty large lack of communication between the teams.

[ignar]

That's the MS way of making their product better. Remember when Vista came out, everyone suddenly became a fan of XP? Now people start to appreciate how much Vista 32 is reliable and stable compared to 64. By introducing a lamer product, MS makes the older one better. Genius.

[roz]

Not to rub salt into the wound but it should be noted that Leopard supports 64bit with no problems. There is one disc, one installer and 32 or 64 bit runs seemlessly depending on the processor. Anyone using 10.5 with a Core2Duo cpu gets 64bit automatically - most don't even know they have it. All apps and drivers are compatible. OSX support for 64 bit has been a complete non-issue.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/64bit.html

Maybe Apple deserves more than one point.

[PR.]

ChangBM: "I know that the development teams are probably different but that shows a pretty large lack of communication between the teams."

I'm sure the issue isn't that the OneNote team didn't realise that the 32bit OneNote printer driver wouldn't work, simply that they spent their finite time and money developing the features the majority of the user base had requested from OneNote 2003 rather than spend it on a feature a minority of people will use. I expect that OneNote is the plucky kid in the Office family and it doesn't get the allocation of resources like Word or Excel does.

That said I do think MS fail in continued development of their products, a OneNote 2007 printer driver should have been an add on or included in the Office SP1 the products been out a long time and the driver itself is not complicated to make it just needs the time from a developer who can do it.

[ChangBM]

You are probably right. But I really think that they should invest more time into that product, it doesnt deserve to be "the plucky kid". There is a pretty large user group for tablet and non-tableters alike, since it comes with so many computers without the full office package.

[drz]

"Oh come on. That is by far the lamest defense of Vista I've ever read not written by Paul Thurrott or Ed Bott :p Unless that is Paul :p"
Your ignorance shows through your comment. My point is valid and true. Vista x64 doesn't need defending; it works the way it was designed to work. The problem is the OneNote 32-bit driver. You'd have the same issues on XP x64 or Windows 2003 x64. Do you blame the government every time the coke machine doesn't take your dollar bill, since the Treasury makes dollar bills? The only product that is guaranteed to work with all third party products is probably made by Fischer-Price and intended for use for age 3 and under.

[James Kendrick]

There is no defense of MS for this ridiculous issue no matter how many teams are involved. They are all MS and it's their products that don't work together. Both Vista 64 and Office/OneNote are up to SP1 and have been out for over a year so there is no excuse for this mess to still exist.

[drz]

Well, if you purchased a product that clearly stated that certain features weren't compatible, and you didn't pay the manufacturer to make them compatible, I think that's a pretty good excuse. It's not like it's a bug that causes data corruption or system crashes. You don't have a feature, and it was advertised as such. (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101668651033.aspx) I'd bet if you showed up at Microsoft's door with a big bag of cash, they'd be happy to resolve your problem for you. If that didn't work, you could always try making a FUD web post to give them some bad publicity; it's not like being nice ever got anyone anything before.

[Gavin Miller]

Hey James.

I don't think many of us are defending the situation, just stating why it has happened. FWIW I agree and really miss the feature and have to print to Windows Journal instead and then import it into Onenote.

[L. M. Lloyd]

I'm not defending Microsoft by any stretch of the imagination. I am just baffled why anyone would ship a tablet with any Microsoft 64-bit OS? There aren't even any 64-bit programs out that are particularly suited for a tablet. If Adobe CS3 were 64-bit, then I could maybe see it as an art tablet, but it won't be until CS4 that they start making the transition to 64-bit. I can't imagine there would be much need or use for running 3D animation, compositing, simulation or engineering software on a tablet, and at present that is pretty much all the 64-bit software on the market.

I am a big supporter of moving to 64-bit, but it really doesn't make any sense unless you are running a 64-bit program.

[James Kendrick]

FUD? A lot of people are interested in this PC and now they know about the problem so mission accomplished. Convertible Tablets are full-blown PCs like any other so a 64 bit Tablet gets all the benefits of same like any other PC. It makes no less sense to put a 64-bit OS on a Tablet PC than on any other PC if you want it.

[Steve Lidie]

Yo, Win 32/64 folks: as has been noted Apple ships one version of 64-bit Intel Leopard that runs 32 code perfectly at native speed: Apple 1 , MS 0.

What you haven't heard is that Leopard is universal, and also runs on 64/32 PPC machines as well. Apple 2, MS ZERO.

And what *we* haven't heard is what other processors Leopard runs on. We presume ARM, and probably SPARC as well.

MS 0 all the way around.

[Steve Lidie]

Yo, Win 32/64 folks: as has been noted Apple ships one version of 64-bit Intel Leopard that runs 32 code perfectly at native speed: Apple 1 , MS 0.

What you haven't heard is that Leopard is universal, and also runs on 64/32 PPC machines as well. Apple 2, MS ZERO.

And what *we* haven't heard is what other processors Leopard runs on. We presume ARM, and probably SPARC as well.

MS 0 all the way around.

[Gavin Miller]

Steve, Vista 64 also runs 32 code perfectly at native speed, it's specific hardware drivers that are an issue. Windows has a huge variety of hardware to deal with compared to Apple.

The issue being discussed is the lack of Onenote driver for Vista 64 and James quite rightly slams Microsoft for not releasing one. This is not a fault with Vista.

Unfortunately these discussions always seem to descend into a 'Vista Sux MacOS Roolz' affair.