www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum

Hi
I've recently built a new Vista (Ultimate) PC and yesterday I installed VRPC-AdjustSA.
I read the 'Using VirtualAcorn on Windows Vista' page and switched off User Account Control. I was able to unlock VRPC-AdjustSA with no problem but any attempt to run it resulted only in an error box 'Acorn RiscPC Emulator with RISC OS Adjust has stopped working'.
The new PC is an AMD64, so I thought it probably fell into the 'Vista and AMD processors' section at the bottom of the page and started re-booting over and over (and over!) again - to no avail. I gave up and concentrated on getting a virtual PC program to run (and if you think there are complications with VRPC, you want to try VMware virtual PC software on a dual-core AMD machine!)
Today I re-read the 'Using VirtualAcorn on Windows Vista' page and noted the section about the 'Missing' sound hardware. My Vista happily tells me that I have no audio output device installed even though there's one integrated in the main-board... but I thought I'd try plugging in a set of headphones. Vista immediately 'discovered' the audio hardware and, on clicking the VRPC icon, instant success (almost literally - the speed of booting to the RISCOS desktop is frightening!)
I only have to unplug the headphones and the problem is back again, (and if I unplug them when VRPC is running, it freezes irretrievably) so this isn't a one-off in respect of my machine... hope this may be of help if anyone else hits the same problem.
Looking forward to getting my 'real' RPC stuff moved over now that I have a host PC which can run VRPC so effectively!
Richard

Thanks for this, as it confirms the problem with Vista and sound devices. The article in the support section was based on the experience of a couple of users - but it does appear to be a more wide spread problem.
I am wondering how Vista "detects" an audio device. What happens if a jack plug with no wires connected to it) is plugged into the sound output. I suspect that Vista will still see no sound device - but it would be interesting to see what happens.
This "feature" on Vista is really monumentally dumb and is going to cause problems with all sorts of things (not just VirtualAcorn). Anything that must have a sound device will fail. You won't be able to upgrade the drivers for the device without headhones plugged in, apps that query the sound system for supported audio formats will fall over - the list goes on.
Microsoft really need to get Vista sorted out as soon as possible. Roll on Service Pack 1.