It is only the high tech software that causes these problems.  Basically,
all the card manufacturers have not written drivers which are compatible
with every other card manufacturer's drivers.  The PMS engineers write a
product that will work with 3-4 different card combinations.  But, they
typically do not have the budget to test for every possible combination of
drivers.  Especially since the drivers change every few months.  I have
found a few different sound card drivers which simply will NOT work with
specific video cards.  That is before you add the PMS.  Now try to use voice
recognition at the same time as you are capturing video images, while
displaying previous images on another screen, plus a patient facial photo,
the daily schedule, and your progress notes all on minimized windows at the
same time.  You are asking a lot of code instructions to interact with each
other.

For all your basic consumer level peripherals, it does not matter.  Once you
try to stand on the top floor of the building, what is underneath you
matters a lot more than when you are on the ground floor.

Your PMS software is not going to offer support for Vista OS, until they
have had Vista in their own laboratory long enough to thoroughly test it.
It may work fine, but they need to know what to tell you when you call in
for support over some issue which does not seem to work right.

I chose NOT to pay extra for the Schick software.

Sensors all come with software, but you save money if you elect not to use
their software.  You simply tell the salesman.  The software which comes
with the sensor (or the phosphor plate system) works good, but it forces you
to store data in two separate databases, and some sensor software will not
import patient data from your PMS, so you have to enter patient data by
hand.  You are much better off using a PMS which can handle imaging.  You
want your data all in the same folder, and you want the imaging software to
be part of your PMS, not a third party software which someone was written a
bridge to interface with.  Also, different software packages will store the
image in different formats.  Some create huge image file sizes, while other
make much smaller ones.  Every program I have looked at will allow you
export the image as a gif, tif, jpg, pdf, etc.  So,,,,,,,,, sharing images
with other offices who have different software (or no image viewing software
at all), is no problem.

Dental x-ray sensors all come with higher resolution than you need.  The
software scales down the resolution to the smallest file size which will
still magnify and show you everything you want.  If you use the full
resolution, the image will take a long time to acquire and a long time each
time you try to access the stored image.  Think of setting the resolution on
the TWAIN software for your flat-bed scanner.  I suppose it may be possible
that one of the cheap sensors out there cannot capture a high resolution
image, but I doubt it.  But, I have not looked into the cheap brands which
seem to only be on the market for 2-3 years before disappearing.  If you
want to compare this to Megapixels in a digital camera, you have to limit
yourself to only comparing profession devices designed for professional use.
There are *NO* digital x-ray scanners designed for entry level home
enthusiasts.

My Nikon CoolPx is only 5.0 megapixels,,,,,,,,,,, But, I have had it for a
number of years now.  I had it when we went for the sail-boat ride.

Which PMS did you get?  Dentrix I imagine.  I don't know which toolbar
buttons they use to launch electronic claims, but imagine it has to be easy.
In ES, it is one click to pre-view a list of claims ready to send, open
selected claims only if you need to double check them, two more clicks to
send the claims, then close the window.  Takes all of 15 seconds usually.
Much faster since they went to internet submissions rather than modem
transmissions.