Audacity 1.3.13 OK with Windows XP?

[royceballew]

I'm happy with 1.3.10 beta running on my WindowsXP home version. Any advantage or problem if I install 1.3.13 over it?

[kozikowski]

Unless you can point to firm, unquestioned benefits from the upgrade, stay where you are. 1.3.13 is still moving and support may be a little interesting. The shift between 1.3.12 and 1.3.13 is very serious, and there's talk about making 1.3.13 vanish.

Oddly, I might upgrade to 1.3.12. Versions before that had problems that could affect production.

Koz

[steve]

Bug fixes in 1.3.13 from 1.3.10 include:
* Cutting or copying from a track at a given sample rate into a track at another rate resulted in speed-changed audio.
* Generating inside a clip could modify the clip length or create spurious clips.
* Recorded stereo tracks were only half the height of imported or generated stereo tracks. Imported stereo files had a "1" appended to the track name.
* Edit > Region Save did not save the cursor position.
* (Windows) Projects crashed when clicking rapidly inside the interface or when applying repeated effects towards the end of audio tracks.
* (Windows) Some Unicode characters could not be typed into labels,or caused a freeze using some input methods.
* (OS X) Crash when quitting an empty project window, or when closing the main project window while a progress dialog was on screen.
* Numerous other interface fixes including Dependencies dialog, Keyboard Preferences and spurious lines drawn on waveform.
* Bug when exporting partial selections caused too much audio to be exported is fixed
* Fix corrupt files exported through FFmpeg when metadata included (metadata is now exported correctly in M4A files)
* Prevent saving a new Audacity Project over an existing one as this could corrupt both projects
* Improved help for files that cannot be imported because the relevant optional library is missing
* AAC files could not be exported at 48000 Hz
* When importing multiple native file formats using FFmpeg, all files after the first reverted to using the native importer
* FFmpeg custom export window too large on 800 x 600 resolution monitors
* Projects froze if files imported via On-Demand were no longer available
* (Linux) WAV/AIFF exports were corrupted if overwriting an aliased file which had been imported using the command line
* Support added for later versions of the optional FFmpeg library up to current FFmpeg HEAD. This should significantly improve FFmpeg support on Linux. FFmpeg downloads for Windows and Mac updated to v0.6. This fixes mono AAC files importing as stereo, though current 0.5 versions of FFmpeg will still work.
* Both FFmpeg and LAME should now be properly detected even when other versions of those libraries exist on the system.
* New warning (on by default) for importing uncompressed audio files. Better error messages when read-directly uncompressed files are missing.
* Imported ID3v2 metadata tags were removed when exporting without the Metadata Editor appearing (for example, when using an export command in Chains). Note: As a result of this fix, ID3v1 tags must now be written by exporting using (external program) and an installed LAME.
* U-Law/A-Law files with WAV headers now use the standard 18 byte fmt chunk, so should now be recognised by most telephony applications.
* Variable bit rate MP3s exported using "MP3 Files" were larger than necessary because using the bit reservoir was disabled.
* (OS X) Files imported from iTunes could create invalid characters in the .aup project file, causing an error when re-opening the project. Note: An error "reference to invalid character number" will still occur if re-opening a project created in previous Betas that contains such characters. To fix the issue, open a back-up copy of the .aup file in a text editor, turn off word wrap, then in the line indicated in the error message, remove the string of characters that starts with &# and ends with a semi-colon (;).
* Allow effects which change the length of the audio they work on to also be applied to selected label tracks, thus keeping them synchronized
* Fixed inability in Nyquist plug-ins to add labels to an existing label track
* (Mac) Equalization window was corrupted after Preview
* (Linux 64-bit) Fixed crash Generating Click Track
* Fixed bug causing recording to stop short when the recording sample rate is not supported by the sound device and libsamplerate is used for resampling
* Fix crash when opening Preferences on a machine where there are no available audio devices
* Fixes for bugs using Timer Record and Sound Activated Recording
* Sizes of some dialogs adjusted to ensure they fit on the screen
* Fix for supposedly "hidden" items appearing on screen with large monitors
* Various keyboard shortcut and translation fixes
* Several timing-dependent crashes and minor incorrect behaviours have been fixed
* Windows installer now installs correctly over previous versions of Audacity
* Cutting or deleting a region in the waveform and label track did not move the labels in advance of the cut
* Incorrect behavior snapping to labels and boundaries with Snap To enabled
* Labels can now be reversed if included with the audio selection using the command line
* Nyquist effects: fixes for crashes, incorrect slider behaviour and better support for backslashes, double quotes and Unicode characters.
* (Windows and OS X) Processing of VST effects was substantially slower than in previous versions of Audacity.
* (OS X 10.5 PPC) A first-time installation of Audacity Beta would hang on launch if VST effects were detected.
* (Linux) Recordings made with the pulse device crashed or stalled when using overdub and/or software playthrough.
* (Linux) Play-at-Speed crashed at 0.08 speed or lower if Audacity was configured with libsamplerate.
* When using non-English languages, Generate effects truncated the selected region
* Mice with high-precision scroll-wheels could cause a crash
* Changing recording preferences using the Transport menu did not update the menu in other open projects
* (Windows 7) Clicking in a file open or save dialog caused files or folders to disappear from the list, and file filtering was broken

Other improvements include:
* (Windows) Better icon file with higher resolution and transparency
* New SoundFinder plug-in to label regions of audio between silences, so allowing silences between tracks to be excluded when exporting multiple
* A hover tooltip is now provided if the Mixer Toolbar input selector cannot control the system slider for the selected input.
* More intuitive behavior when moving and resizing labels by dragging
* Support added for importing lists of files (LOF) containing relative paths
* Export Multiple: new option to use a numerical prefix before existing label or track names; "Success" dialog now resizable
* New Equalization preset "Inverse RIAA", with new button to invert other curves
* Timer Record now remembers last scheduled duration
* Meter Toolbar can now be made much narrower, and so more suitable for vertical orientation
* New Preferences choice for "System" language which is used on first run instead of asking user to choose language
* Warning now provided if WAV/AIFF exports are not successfully completed
* (Linux) Improved icon set in compliance with freedesktop.org Icon Theme Specification 0.6
* Control Toolbar renamed to Transport Toolbar.
* Device Toolbar (on by default) now contains all input and output device choices, including host and recording channels. Input/output choices are no longer in Mixer Toolbar on Windows XP or some older operating systems. New Transport > Rescan Audio Devices menu item to refresh the device list.
* New "Sync-Lock Tracks" feature (turned on in the Tracks menu) to allow groups of audio and/or label tracks to retain synchronisation when the track length changes.
* Equalization: New "Manage Curves" dialog for importing and exporting curves.
* Noise Removal: New "Sensitivity" slider to adjust the noise threshold, and new option to isolate noise.
* New "Extended Import" Preferences for specifying different importers to open specific file extensions.
* Improved Automatic Crash Recovery with all project changes autosaved.
* MIDI tracks can be vertically zoomed, time shifted and display bar lines. Note: the channel selection buttons are not available in 1.3.13.
* (Windows and Linux) The window Close button and other system close or shutdown commands now quit on closing the last window. File > Close now always clears to a new, empty project.
* (OS X) Simpler installer with top-level "Audacity" folder.

The full change log is here: http://audacityteam.org/download/features-1.3-a

I would recommend upgrading to 1.3.13