Official PlayOnline Download for VistaFollow

http://www.playonline.com/homeus/headline/news01.html

Compatibility for English-language PlayOnline-compatible software for Microsoft Corporation’s Microsoft® Windows Vista™ is listed below (accurate as of March 22, 2007).

* FINAL FANTASY XI


Bugs Confirmed with Windows Vista

Common to all PlayOnline-compatible software
Programs cannot be launched from the Media Center menu.
Because PlayOnline software is not compatible with the Media Center menu, please launch programs the regular way.
PlayOnline Viewer
The PlayOnline icon created with the "Create Shortcut" command in PlayOnline Config may not be displayed correctly.
*There are no problems in the program associated with the icon.

FINAL FANTASY XI

Compatible, after installation of the Windows Vista-compatible version of the PlayOnline Viewer.

The following are required to play FINAL FANTASY XI on Microsoft® Windows Vista™.

* Microsoft® Windows Vista™-compatible version of the PlayOnline Viewer (downloadable)
* The discs for the Windows version of FINAL FANTASY XI

*If you are using expanded services, the corresponding data will also need to be installed.

Edited, Mar 22nd 2007 2:13pm by Pikko

Edited, Jul 3rd 2007 12:48am by Pikko

You have do a complete reinstall of FFXI, from the Disks, then from a 12 hour update. It's not a pretty picture.



-Avo

Yeah I'm not too keen on having to reinstall/repatch everything if it doesn't do anything differently than what I'm running now (which was an updated playonline folder copied over)

Um, no it most certainly isn't.

WOW! I have to press a confirmation box to scratch my ***.

WOW! Internet Explorer has magically decided not to work.

WOW! My computer needs a heap more RAM to perform anywhere near the same level as it did under XP.

...

This can be disabled.

It's IE7, which has been out for Windows XP for some time. Also, Firefox and Opera still work. For the record, on my Vista x64 box IE runs fine.

The jury is still out as to how much more RAM Vista "actually" uses. The task manager shows a grim story, but in reality it does offload alot of this when other apps need it. Task manager has also never been the best tool to use for determining how much memory is actually in use.

I'm not happy about the sheer amount of disk space Vista takes (Ultimate x64 takes about 14GB total just to install) and some drivers aren't matured yet (nVidia GRRR SMASH) but before long everyone will be using it. My main gaming rig is running XP64 currently and I will hold off as long as I can on re-doing that one since I spend most of my time in FFXI and running Vista won't improve that experience.

Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Turn User Account Control on and off

Eh, all I know is that Vista sometimes runs slow on a computer that has twice the specs as my XP laptop. I'd still suggest waiting for the first service pack before upgrading.

I might try the "official" fix soon. I sometimes have problems getting FFXI to log in after choosing my character and my XP machine has yet to give me this problem. I'll keep you guys updated if I see any difference.

All true.

But there are still plenty of reasons not to use Vista. I hate to admit it, but XP is superior in so many ways.

FYI: I recently bought a new computer about a month ago from www.ibuypower.com that came with vista. They still offered XP with the computer but I have a SP1 full XP install CD from my old computer, so if things went bad I could always just format and put XP on.

About a week and a half after getting the computer, putting on all of my old pictures/videos/files, installing FFXI and getting it working with windower sans Vista patch, installing other games like Oblivion... I couldn't take Vista any more. I now run XP on my new computer and things have never been better. My framerate using Fraps is much more consistently at 30 fps, Oblivion is running at a higher framerate and isn't graphically buggy fullscreen like it is in Vista, my computer idles and plays media files using far less of the CPU (yes, even non-premium content)...

Though there were a few things I actually did like about Vista, it is overall a step back rather than a step forward.

Side note (Though this is all somewhat OOT):

1) Go to www.google.com
2) Type in "XP sucks" (with or without quotes if you choose)
3) Type in "Vista sucks" (correspondingly with or without quotes)
4) Compare number of pages found for each search.
5) ???
6) Profit!

And Vista has only been out to the public since the end of January.

-------------------------------------

I'm a bit shocked SE is even trying to reach out to the PC market. First an official windower discussion, and now this? Hopefully this is a permanent trend. Seems like only yesterday, POL articles were saying that SE has no intention of making FFXI compatable with Vista.

Though I gotta admit, this sounds exactly like the fix I used from www.windower.net. pol.exe has been (somewhat) compatable with Vista for a while now, but up until this point, you had to use pol.exe to download the updated pol.exe because the files from the installation CDs were out of date. Someone had installed Vista on an already fine XP computer with the fully updated pol.exe, and was able to get FFXI to run by installing Vista over it and saving the POL install. So the working pol.exe was posted online, and I had no trouble getting it to run after that.

Found it! Sorry for the trouble.

Edited, Mar 28th 2007 7:28pm by unadjustedgirl

Having same problem myself. Im gonna spend some time trying to work it out this weekend.
Help would be great from anyone thats managed to do it!!

Vista = Mac OS X 10.3

Which was like 2 years ago. Good going Microsoft :P

From the looks of it, reinstalling just for the benefits of Vista, especially this early in Vista's life is pretty...pointless. Vista is buggy, too secure, and sucks up RAM and VRAM like its nothing (Ok, so Mac OS X does that too, but Vista takes it to a new extreme..).... I'd definately wait for SP1 or somethign close to that..

Besides, isn't there an unofficial POL Patch that makes it work...without re-installlation? Granted its..unofficial.

To the poster above me:
You are going to need to install FFXI via the VISTA PlayOnline for it to recognize it, it seems.

Edited, Mar 31st 2007 9:50am by plutoknight

10.4. Mac OS 10.3 didn't have Widgets (unless you used konfabulator) or spotlight.

And supposedly Linux with Beryl can do the same effects as Aero. I just can't figure out how to get Beryl working on my Linux Ubuntu box >.<

I just hate how Vista removed the Start Menu we're used to and replaced it with a cluttered mess of a small box.

Edited, Mar 31st 2007 2:47pm by Mikhalia