What a Vista!

This article is not supposed to be another bashing ofand otherwise, on you compy. For CreaToons, I added
the latest Microsoft OS product. I just want to mentiona program profile and disabled hardware acceleration.
a few specifics here to help out my friends in theThis made a smile appear as my preview window
animation world.showed the little man waving instead of a black void.
Like a number of folks I have been disappointed and,Another program that has been around a while is Stop
at times, even frustrated by Windows Vista.Motion Animator. Obviously this program is used for
Compatibility issues, hardware and software anomaliescapturing frames of stop motion animation. It's superb
and the never ending struggle between good and evil Ifor onion skinning the frames as you capture them
have termed THE CODEC WARS have cost mefrom you camera. The problem here was again not
hours of productivity that could have spent actuallybeing able to see the preview in SMA of what was
creating the things that fulfilled the purpose of my mostappearing on the camera LCD. After a number of
recent technology purchase. That said, being a personfailed attempts, the solution, believe or not, actually
who has worked with, trained others on and repairedcame from a Windows, um, feature? In Vista you can
reclaimed technology for the past 13 years, Iright click on a program and select the
understand that the more and better the technology,"Properties" option. This gives you a tabbed
the more and more complex the problems that comedialogue. One of the tabs in Vista is
with it. So, whatever."Compatibility". Checking the "Run this
I use a program named CreaToon, version 3.0 , toprogram in compatibility mode for:" box gives you
create simple Flash type animations. It is a veryaccess to a list of OS options you can select. I
compact and intuitive program. I am thinking of teachingselected XP Service Pack 2 and, just for good
my 4 year old to use it. It's that simple. Bringing thatmeasure, chose to run the program as adminstrator.
program to Vista was problematic for one majorAnd, voila!! It worked. No hunt for a mystery codec
reason that I recall-the preview window was alwaysneeded. Incidently, running programs as administrator
black. I am not sure if it was a Microsofthas resolved a number of issues, with Motorola Phone
mismanagement of resources or an actual videoTools for example. May not be the best way, but it
problem, but after a series of codec updates thathas worked for me.
accomplished nothing but wasting bandwidth, I solvedSo there is a sample of my personal, problem-solving
this problem through the video control panel itself.experiences with Vista. There are others. Adobe
I have an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE adapter on boardPremiere and After Effects, for example. I do not
an HP Pavilion Slimline, dual Athlon 64. When you rightguarantee that these suggestions will work for you on
click on the desktop, you can select the NVIDIAyour particular computer, but who knows? Certainly
Control Panel option. This brings up numerous optionsnot tech support. Give it a try. Don't be afraid of Vista.
to control how video elements are represented, 3dIt's just and operating system, after all.