VAZ 2001

There are now so many versions of Windows that choosing the best one for your needs can be difficult. This overview places them all in context.

As this month's PC Musician is devoted to Microsoft's latest (and, many say, greatest) operating system — Windows XP — I felt that it was about time I discussed the whole Windows family and placed them into a historical context. At no time in PC computing history have so many different Windows platforms been used simultaneously, and with musicians now variously running Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP, it's hardly surprising that there's so much confusion and misinformation about which one is the best choice.

Essentially, two completely different platforms have evolved — one originally intended for the home consumer or small business, and the other for the somewhat different requirements of the larger business that networks multiple PCs so that information can be shared between them. The prices of the Windows versions, along with their range of features, type of hardware and software support, and even robustness and stability, are largely dependent on which of these two platforms they support.

If you've bought a new PC for home use in the last 18 months or so, the chances are that it arrived with Windows ME (Millennium Edition) pre-installed. This is the final release in a long line of operating systems primarily intended for home use. Microsoft first announced their Windows operating system way back in 1983, but the first time it offered multimedia features was with the release of Windows 3.0 in October 1991, followed in April 1992 by Windows 3.1. This was the first serious platform for the PC musician, although with most of us running processors like Intel's 386DX, with a 25MHz clock speed, it was largely a MIDI-only world.

As its name implies, Windows 95 came three years later and, like most upgrades, was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. A few musicians with older PCs still run Windows 95, as its hardware requirements are fairly modest by today's standards, but few developers are even bothering to check nowadays whether or not it's compatible with their software. I still have a Pentium 166MHz PC running Windows 95 and a word processor, so there's life in the old dog yet. However, this OS is of little use to the modern musician, especially as it has a major flaw — an upper limit of 11 MIDI devices. That figure may sound huge to the beginner, but can soon be exceeded after installing one of the popular eight-in/eight-out MIDI interfaces alongside a soundcard.

The 11-device limitation was removed in Windows 98, and its successor, Windows 98SE (Second Edition) the following year. This pair also introduced us to Internet Explorer 4; the dubious delights of the Active Desktop; multiple monitor support to spread the information we wanted to see across several screens; a quick and easy way to add peripherals 'on the fly' without having to switch off the PC and find a screwdriver, in the form of USB (Universal Serial Buss); and FAT32 — which removed the previous 2Gb size limitation and offered a more efficient way to organise data on the hard drive.

With hard disk sizes increasing in leaps and bounds, doing away with this limit finally removed the need for them to be split into multiple partitions — although, as many of us have subsequently discovered, using multiple partitions still provides several advantages, not least the ability to run several instances of Windows on a single drive. Many musicians still use Windows 98, and the SE version seems to be preferred, particularly by those who wish to take advantage of USB peripherals.

The final evolutionary stage in this product line is Windows ME (Millennium Edition) which, as its name suggests, appeared in 2000 (September, to be exact). ME included Internet Explorer 5.5, the skinnable Media Player 7, Windows Movie Maker, and System Restore, and for the first time it dispensed with DOS during its boot procedure. Although Windows ME is generally acknowledged to be the most stable version on the consumer/small business platform, by many musicians who've tried it, none of its features are indispensable for the musician, and the majority (including me) seemed to stick with Windows 98SE.

PC Snippets     • Software Technology have released the long-awaited newcomer to their VAZ (Vurtual (sic) Analogue Synthesiser) family of software synths. Like VAZ+ and VAZ Modular (reviewed in SOS March 2000), VAZ 2001 can be run in stand-alone mode. However, it also ships with VSTi and DXi versions that run inside a growing number of compatible host applications, such as Cubase VST, Logic Audio and Sonar. Up to 16 synths can be run simultaneously, for multitimbral use, each with a choice of analogue, sample, or live-audio input sources, with up to 16-note polyphony and their own dedicated polyphonic sequencer. A 16:2 mixer with channel inserts and two aux sends lets you combine their sounds and add DX and VST plug-in effects. At £129, VAZ 2001 should certainly be popular, if it builds on the family tradition of rich and squelchy analogue sounds. The latest member of the VAZ family provides up to 16 polyphonic synths simultaneously, with a choice of squelchy analogue or sampled sounds, and runs in stand-alone, VSTi and DXi modes. www.software-technology.com • Yamaha have released stand-alone versions of three PLG editors previously only available when running their XGworks sequencer. For those of us using Cubase, Logic or Sonar, this is good news, since it means we can run them neatly alongside our choice of sequencer, to edit sounds while they are playing back in context. The three cards now being supported in this way are the analogue-modelling PLG150AN, the FM synthesis PLG150DX, and the harmony/vocoding PLG100VH board. The editors all run on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP, are between 6Mb and 7Mb in size, and support the aforementioned PLG cards when installed in the SW1000XG soundcard, Motif keyboards, MU-series sound modules, or Kenton's Plugstation. (The stand-alone 'VL' editor suitable for the PLG150VL is still available on the web site below.) Sadly, they all load and save sounds in proprietary formats, rather than accepting standard SysEx files, but it's still an excellent start. www.yamahasynth.com/down/plg150/s_utils.htm • The handy Cacheman utility that I first discussed in SOS July 2000 is now up to version 5.0 and benefits from a graphic makeover and a set of informative Wizards to guide users through the various system parameter optimisations, including the most suitable sizes for the Disk Cache (vcache), Name, Path, CDROM, and Icon caches. It also features a Memory Recovery facility that can reclaim RAM by swapping unused parts of inactive software to the hard disk. You can either have this done automatically every few minutes (not wise during hard disk recording) or on demand. There are also yet more miscellaneous settings, including some specifics for Windows NT4/2000/XP, and others for Win 9x/ME. This complete rewrite of Cacheman has changed it from freeware to shareware, but it's only a modest $10 to register. Author Thomas Reimann hasn't disabled any features, so it's up to you to fork out, although only registered users will get email support and advice. www.outertech.com • The first release from new developers Taudinvar will be of interest to anyone struggling to trigger multiple synths from a single MIDI keyboard. MIDIAngelo is a simple-to-use graphical MIDI mapper that runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP, and lets you define any number of note regions and transposition values, each one pointing to a different MIDI Instrument, channel, or even interface. It's ideal for triggering multiple synths via different regions on a single keyboard, or for setting up complex layering effects. A free demo version is available for download, while the full version costs just $36. www.taudinvar.com

Business As Usual?

Meanwhile, Microsoft had designed a completely different platform for business users. Windows NT (New Technology) 3.1 was introduced way back in July 1993, after Windows 3.1 was introduced for home use, and was the first version to support the less restricted 32-bit programming model. It was also designed from the ground up to be as stable and security-conscious as possible, to make it more tempting to businesses who needed to run it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was followed by NT 3.5 and NT 3.51 in 1994 and 1995 respectively, and then NT 4.0 in 1996.

With more informative Wizard-based advice on the best way to optimise various aspects of your PC system, Cacheman 5.0 is hard to beat (see 'PC Snippets' box on previous page).

Windows NT 5 was so long in preparation that by the time it was released Microsoft had renamed it Windows 2000. However, it was still an operating system primarily designed for business use, sold at business prices (the cheapest Professional version was launched at £250, and it cost £170 as an upgrade from Win 95/98). However, it did have more multimedia support (a more recent version of DirectX 7.0), and supported multiple CPUs, for those who needed more processing power. It also sported a different 'look' — one that was subsequently used for Windows ME on the 'consumer' platform, which further confused everybody.

Many musicians have been tempted to move from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, largely by the twin promises of greater stability and dual processing. However, it's not the easiest jump to make, as Windows 2000 really needs its drivers in WDM (Win32 Driver Model) format and, until recently, WDM soundcard drivers have been in somewhat short supply. Some music software applications, particularly the Tascam Giga range, were not compatible without a major rewrite.

Which brings us bang up to date, with the launch of Windows XP. This is the long-awaited consumer version of the NT family, created with more attention to the needs of the home user — such as increased built-in support for soundcards and other multimedia products and a reduction in security features — but still promising the much-vaunted stability of the NT range. For the musician, the major difference between the Home and Professional Editions is that only the latter supports dual processing.

You can read all about XP's new features in this month's PC Musician feature, but one fact is probably more important than any other: Microsoft are very keen that we all eventually migrate to either Windows XP or Windows 2000, so that eventually they only have to support a single slab of code, rather than two complete families as in the past. Given this, and the fact the Windows 95/98/ME range will slowly be allowed to die out, all music developers will finally be forced to release suitable soundcard drivers and software updates. It's no longer a question of either/or, but when!

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