If you happened to have read my long post on the problem I had after installing SP1, entitled, SP1 horror story, then you ought to be commended. I know it was really long.
And so if you did read it, or even if you didn't, I wanted to update you on what's going on, It's very interesting, to say the least.

To review quickly

I have an MSI K8MM3-V motherboard that is Vista Basic compatable. It runs an AMD Athlon x64 processor at 3200 Mhz, 2 GB's of Kingston RAM, an NVidia GeForce 7600 256MB graphics card, a Creative Audigy SE sound card and a Coolmax 550 watt power supply. I run Vista Basic x64 on my machine.

This is the third motherboard from MSI that I am running. The first one was DOA, the second one, the PCI slots didn't work, and the one I currently have installed, is a different board, same model, but refurbished.

By the way, while were on the subject, the MSI technical department is a zoo and filled with some guys that I really think do not have a clue! SO I hope you never have to deal with them.

I just recently received this third board from MSI and quickly got to work installing Vista Home Basic x64 on it. I'd had some previous problems with SP1 when I was running a different motherboard, but those problems were easily fixed. By the way, I am not running that motherboard (an ABIT) anymore because it spazzed out on me. I was getting Windows lockups, BSOD's and all kinds of things.

I'm still not sure whether that board was Vista compatable or not. I was initially told that it was by ABIT, but if it wasn't, I think that may have had something to do with all of the problems I was having, though I am not sure. I am still trying to get a hold of ABIT to confirm whether indeed the board is Vista compatable or not and to find out out if it's Vista x64 compatible or not. I never thought to ask that when I first contacted them.

Anyway back to my MSI board. Right after SP1 was finished installing, it rebooted and showed a screen that said installation was successful. Also, everything seemed to working fine. Then by chance I right-clicked My Computer and clicked Properties to view basic information about my computer. Then I saw it! My memory was listed as being 16.0 GB's, when in reality I only run 2 GB's!!!

I immediately called Microsoft but they have been unable to fix the problem. They are supposed to be contacting me on Monday. Also, since this is like the third time I have installed Vista Basic x64 and SP1 on a board, I decided to do things differently right after I installed Vista.

Instead of blindly just installing it right away after installing Vista (I had previously downloaded it manually, so I had the application on hand) I started checking into why SP1 was not available for me on Windows Update. Turns out it's because WU can detect when there may be incompatibilities with one of your drivers. So it's not offered for you as a download until you solve those driver issues, though it will not tell exactly which driver is causing a problem.

Microsoft does have a list of known driver incompatibility issues and my Creative Labs Audigy SE is on there, but I have been unable to find an updated driver for that, or at least one that works. I did find a site with some supposedly Vista SP1 drivers for Creative designed by some guy in Brazil, but they did not fix the problem. They were also not signed. Here's that site:

http://www.vista4beginners.com/Windo...ve-sound-cards

But the big blow to all of this happened yesterday, when I called MSI again and told my problem to one of their techs. This time I asked him if it was not just Vista compatible, but Vista x64 compatible. He said no it wasn't, just Vista Basic x32 compatible. I wish I would have known that when all of this started a month ago!

So there's another possible issue right there. The other fun little tidbit I found out about my system came from a post where the moderator suggested I download and run this AMD diagnostic tool. It apparently will tell you, right away, whether your processor supports Hyper-V technology, which from what little I can understand of it, is a hypervisor based virtualization system for x64 systems.

I'm still not sure what that all means , but apparently it may not be helping my SP1 situation, let alone even running Vista x64. So at this point your saying "wow, Vista Basic x64 shouldn't even be running with all of those knocks you have against it". But you what's just simply amazing? It actually does run pretty darn good, with hardly a glitch, except of course for that misreading of the RAM thing.

It's still not as fast as XP, but it's not bad. So now I'm asking myself, what's going on? Am I defying the laws of computing here. According to the facts, Vista shouldn't be running at all, but it does, so, right now, I'm not complaining. I am still debating what to do next though and I'm still trying to make it run as fast as possible while I am running it on my machine. In fact I spent all day yesterday disabling unwanted services and scheduled tasks, tweaking this and that etc. And I'm not through yet.

Also, I had mentioned in my first post about running one of those DriverAgent type of programs, to see if that might also boost my chances of fixing the SP1 problem or and speeding up Vista. One person responded that he didn't trust many of them, some of which apparently are made by the same company. He did recommend Radarsync Free. But I tried that and couldn't get it to work right.

So, my next plan is to run DriverUpdater Pro by XPC Tools, which I had bought awhile back but have never run it. I did run a trial of their latest version the other day, just out of curiosity. Amazingly it showed all kinds of outdated drivers and even one for my Creative sound card. Though where they find these drivers is unknown to me. I found nothing on the Creative web site.

I also forgot to mention that one of the interesting things about that driver scan was that it found many of my VIA system devices out of date. And I wasn't even aware that you needed drivers for those. Besides, when I looked in Device Manager everything seemed fine. I'm still a little leary of this program, but I'm going to set a restore point before I do anything.

So that's it. My update to my SP1 Mind Boggler story. For what it's worth, I am really taking all of this in stride and if things suddenly get worse or I decide that I just don't want to spend the rest of my life worrying whether Vista x64 will keep running on my rig, I can always go back to XP x64, which I've been told by the MSI brainiacs, that it will work. At least I think that's what they mumbled to me on the phone.

I am also more curious than ever now about running Linux. I know very little about it and doubt that I am going to experiment with it right now, but it is an option. First I want to do some homework on it. And of course I have to call back MSI, again, to see if Linux x64 will run on my system. Many people have also suggested that I dual boot, with a Windows flavor of my choice and Linux. But for some reason, I've never been really into dual-booting.

Now your up to date on the wonderful world of Microsoft and Vista and x64 and the term of the decade, "compatability".

Comments are definitely welcome

If you decide to experiment with Linux later here is a good tutorial on installing a dual boot operating system with Vista already installed. Imbedding a Linux 0/S instead of running the live cd or running it in Virtual mode makes the distro run way faster. Another way is to get Ubuntu as a exe. file and run it inside Windows.
How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

How to Run Ubuntu from Windows as an Executable - wikiHow

Between these 2 links I supplied you should have a good idea of which way you might want to run linux if you decide you want to, while keeping Vista intact. If you read my threads in the linux forum you may get a idea of quirks and pitfalls. YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK A OPERATING SYSTEM WORKS AND FORGET EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT OPERATING A SYSTEM BECAUSE EVERY THING YOU KNOW ABOUT WINDOWS IS NOT GOING TO BE ANY AND I MEAN ANY HELP BECAUSE '' LINUX IS NOT WINDOWS''!

Hope this gives you some insight and help. I am no geek but a biker that runs linux full time. I don't use all the bells and whistles linux provides but it suits my needs very well.

rokytnji...Thanks for the website links. They look like invaluable resources on Linux. One comment though on something you said" YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK A OPERATING SYSTEM WORKS AND FORGET EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT OPERATING A SYSTEM BECAUSE EVERY THING YOU KNOW ABOUT WINDOWS IS NOT GOING TO BE ANY AND I MEAN ANY HELP BECAUSE '' LINUX IS NOT WINDOWS''!

This makes me a little nervous... Or maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to put that much effort into this. I can never tell! But I will definitely look it over.

If staying in a Comfort Zone is the way life works for you then I recommend to stay away from Linux. I had to learn to think differently when switching from XP to Ubuntu. Double clicking or right click and selecting open for a driver or exe. file gets you nowhere in Linux. Thats why I gave the warning. Wireless and Printing sometimes takes some work if you read my threads. Some hardware ergo sound cards,video cards, wireless cards are linux friendly some not. The some nots are the ones that take work. Be prepared to do alot of googling and reading threads from other linux users that have encountered similar problems. More often than not their problem is solved. I know mine were. Didn't mean to scare y. Just figured I would give you the facts to make an informed decision before jumping in the pool. After saying all that I am happy with the knowledge I have gained installing and now permanently running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron 2.6.24 kernel and Mepis 7.0 2.6.24 kernel. Only time I turn on Windows anymore is to update Antivirus programs so they stay current. I only run Clamav and AVG for linux to scan anything I download into linux to put on cd or usb so when I run it in Windows it doesn't infect the Windows partition. Linux is pretty much immune to Windows Viruses. Thats why now its my prefered O/S.