Get Better Sound With Vista

摘要

When it first launched, many people complained that audio support under Windows Vista was worse than under XP; audio glitches were common, especially when switching between applications or moving open windows around the desktop, and Vista even struggled to play an MP3 file. The source of the audio woes was the total redesign of the way Vista handled audio. Microsoft had been dismayed by the number of crashes caused on its previous operating systems due to problems with audio drivers. It took the issue so seriously that by default it turned off the audio stack in Windows Server 2003. Its plan for Vista was to avoid these issues by removing much of the audio functionality from the operating system's kernel. The advantage of this is that if the audio system collapses it doesn't drag the whole OS down with it. The disadvantage was that existing drivers needed to be rejigged to work. The new audio system is quite complex because it involves a new driver format called WaveRT (see box), three hew APIs, plus the use of Vista's Multimedia Class Scheduler Service(MMCSS).