Upgrading drivers?

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Guest

Hello,
I've been trying to upgrade my notebook so it will be compatible with
Vista (running XP now) and have only been halfway successful. Then, on the
Microsoft site, I read that when installing Vista, Vista will automatically
search for program upgrades and updates. Does that mean that I won't have to
worry much about updating my drivers , etc. because Vista will automatically
update my system before it installs? Sounds too good to be true. Anyone
have any info on this? Or if I have done most of the updating already, should
I still allow Vista to try to upgrade my drivers? Thank you for any
information.
Jerry
 
It really depends. most of the drivers Vista is going to pull will be from
the Windowsupdate site. Which doesn't mean, it's the best drivers to have
(i.e. vide cards) or the preferred video cad by your vendor. It also doesn't
mean the drivers will be there at all.

The answer is more along the lines of don;t worry about updating XP's
drivers, but finding Vista drivers. Vista may have the drivers you need or
at least drivers that work, but you normally want the drivers from the
device makers site. I have an HP 7210 printer\scanner\copier. Vista has the
drivers so I can print, but I don't have the software to where I can scan in
documents and printers. It's something like that is critical to your day to
day life, then you will want to wait

If you have a fairly generic setup, then it may not matter. But if you have
items like SATA\IDE RAID cards, certain style Wireless cards. TV tuner
cards, SmartCard by companies like Activindenty, VPN software, printers.
Also some programs aren't Vista compat. I use PCanywhere for work, but even
their latest version 12 doesn't work with Vista.

So look at everything you have and use and look to see if there are any Visa
updates for it. If there is something critical that doesn't have anything
listed for Vista, then you'll want to hold off on the upgrade, or take and
chance and hope it works with Vista. Just know your risks, before the
upgrade
 
Hi Dale,

Thanks for answering my post. Okay, most of the drivers that Vista will
upgrade will be drivers used for running XP or Vista then and not so much
third party software, such as H.P. printers, etc. It's those third party
vendors that I am worried about. I've gone to some of their sites and tried
to figure out what the latest upgrade was but can't tell by the numbers or
letters describing the software. In my device manager, I'm not finding,
let's say, driver "B5323" on the vendor's site so I can update it, etc. Kind
of frustrating. I would have thought that I could have gone to a vendor's
site and found the exact description that is listed in my device manager but
not so. Ugh.

I had two "critical" upgrades I had to make----one for Sonic (to
uninstall) and another for Norton Anti-virus, which I did upgrade. The
others on the list aren't called "critical upgrades" but there are about
eight others listed that are described as needing attention, etc. Easier
said than done.

Then I went to Dell's site for their list of needed upgrades before
installing Vista and did download most of what was listed there. That was
helpful but I still didn't download all of those. I'm getting to the point
of just installing Vista and then worrying about it later. Hopefully, nearly
all the software I have will work and the ones that won't----maybe I won't
really need them. Ha.

Anyway, thanks again for posting. Your information was helpful. Have
a great one.

Jerry
 
Jerry Hughes said:
Hi Dale,

Thanks for answering my post. Okay, most of the drivers that Vista
will
upgrade will be drivers used for running XP or Vista then and not so much
third party software, such as H.P. printers, etc. It's those third party
vendors that I am worried about. I've gone to some of their sites and
tried
to figure out what the latest upgrade was but can't tell by the numbers or
letters describing the software. In my device manager, I'm not finding,
let's say, driver "B5323" on the vendor's site so I can update it, etc.
Kind
of frustrating. I would have thought that I could have gone to a vendor's
site and found the exact description that is listed in my device manager
but
not so. Ugh.

I had two "critical" upgrades I had to make----one for Sonic (to
uninstall) and another for Norton Anti-virus, which I did upgrade. The
others on the list aren't called "critical upgrades" but there are about
eight others listed that are described as needing attention, etc. Easier
said than done.

Then I went to Dell's site for their list of needed upgrades before
installing Vista and did download most of what was listed there. That was
helpful but I still didn't download all of those. I'm getting to the
point
of just installing Vista and then worrying about it later. Hopefully,
nearly
all the software I have will work and the ones that won't----maybe I won't
really need them. Ha.

Anyway, thanks again for posting. Your information was helpful. Have
a great one.

Jerry
Click to expand...


When I installed Vista on my Toshiba, it installed it's own drivers. I
noticed I couldn't change my video settings and it was stuck on 1024x768.
Couldn't go lower or higher and I know my screen can go one level higher.
So, I took the restore CD that came with my notebook and 'updated' the video
driver and pointed to the directory on the CD that had the video driver.
Presto. It worked.
Therefore, the driver Microsoft has for your system are basically only to
allow it to function. If you need more flexibility, you will need the proper
driver from the restore CD or manufacturer. Keep in mind however, that
there are just some machines that Vista will not work well on or even
install on due to them being too old. I think it's fair to say that any
system less than 4 years old is safe, although you may need to upgrade
memory or some other device like Video card. That's why it's a good thing
to run the Vista Upgrade Advisor first and take note of what it found.
 
Hi Fedwayguy,

Thank you for the information. The only thing that I am concerned about
when updating drivers from a C.D. is that the drivers on that C.D. may not be
the latest available. So I guess the best thing to do would be to go
directly to the manufacturer's website for the latest driver. Find and dandy
if I can find the driver that I need, just from the list the manufacturer has
listed. I hope so. I think I'll take some more time and look for the
lastest drivers off the update list from Microsoft and Dell. Thanks again,
Jerry
 
That's a good concern Jerry. I have a custom built system, with a Abit A8N
board.To my surprise vista did not have the Audio drivers. So I used the XP
drivers that I had downloaded before. Funny enough the drivers worked and I
had sound, but when I rebooted. It was causing Vista to BSOD on boot (which
I didn't think was suppose to happen anymore ha-ha) I went and downloaded a
newer version of the XP drivers, and they worked and no more BSODs on boot.
On my laptop, it didn't discover the Wireless card I had, and I had to
manually assign the closest drives I could find (which worked), funny enough
after doing that, I went to windowsupdate.com and it downloaded the official
drivers. The wireless card was an HP W400, which is actually made my Atheos.
I loaded the generic Athehos 802.11G drivers and then it loaded the HP W400
drivers.

So you can get lucky or help Vista along however you view it. My person
advice, is if this is a desktop system is to go ahead and incest $50 or so
into a hard drive and give yourself the option of dual booting or if nothing
else, preserving your XP config in case you have to go back. don't be like
one poster in this group who jumped head long into Vista with no way easy
way of going back to XP. If everything works great, then you have extra
storage available.
 
Hi Dale, thanks for your info. Actually, the notebook is a month old Dell
Inspiron E1705 and I was really surprised that I could buy this notebook so
close to the release of Vista and still have all this work to do, as far as
updating drivers! What's more, a friend of mine bought a new Dell and will
have to go through the same thing but instead of doing the work, is going to
drop it off to have Vista installed. Man, can't imagine that service is
going to do all the updating, uninstalling, etc., that should be done,
properly.

I will have to look into how to preserve my XP config before installing
Vista. Haven't the foggiest but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.
I'm hoping the Vista DVD will mention that option before installing Vista and
if so, I will certainly choose that option. Thanks for that advice!

Jerry
 
Jerry Hughes said:
Hi Dale, thanks for your info. Actually, the notebook is a month old Dell
Inspiron E1705 and I was really surprised that I could buy this notebook
so
close to the release of Vista and still have all this work to do, as far
as
updating drivers! What's more, a friend of mine bought a new Dell and
will
have to go through the same thing but instead of doing the work, is going
to
drop it off to have Vista installed. Man, can't imagine that service is
going to do all the updating, uninstalling, etc., that should be done,
properly.

I will have to look into how to preserve my XP config before installing
Vista. Haven't the foggiest but I guess it's better to be safe than
sorry.
I'm hoping the Vista DVD will mention that option before installing Vista
and
if so, I will certainly choose that option. Thanks for that advice!
Click to expand...

Easy / best way is to get drive imaging software like Acronis True Image,
and image the XP installation to an external hard drive, USB or Sata. ATI
works in Vista too, so you have both bases covered.
 
I agree, though I'm partial to Symantec's Norton Ghost. which at their
current rate, will probably buy Acronis in the next year or so
 
Dale "Mad_Murdock" White said:
I agree, though I'm partial to Symantec's Norton Ghost. which at their
current rate, will probably buy Acronis in the next year or so
Click to expand...

Bite your tongue. They gobbled up Powerquest and Drive Image some time ago.
Still use that on XP. Just moved to ATI for Vista. Symantec tends to ruin
everything they buy, though they did take the good features of DI and moved
them into Ghost. I haven't worked with any of the Ghost versions.
 
Rock said:
Bite your tongue. They gobbled up Powerquest and Drive Image some time
ago. Still use that on XP. Just moved to ATI for Vista. Symantec tends
to ruin everything they buy, though they did take the good features of DI
and moved them into Ghost. I haven't worked with any of the Ghost
versions.
Click to expand...

Well, they just bought Altris, which we used at work for ghosting images via
the network PXE options
http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid1_gci1241137,00.html

I don't know who's left, but Acronis

I started playing with Norton Ghost 9.0, after they put in DI's feature to
do a live image. Prior to that little feature, I was doing the old boot from
floppy approach. So 9.0 and above are much better than the other versions I
had played with.
 
Well, they just bought Altris, which we used at work for ghosting images
via the network PXE options
http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid1_gci1241137,00.html

I don't know who's left, but Acronis

I started playing with Norton Ghost 9.0, after they put in DI's feature to
do a live image. Prior to that little feature, I was doing the old boot
from floppy approach. So 9.0 and above are much better than the other
versions I had played with.
Click to expand...

Yes it is a nice feature in DI to do an image from inside XP. Acronis
manages that as well in XP and Vista. I sure hope Symantec doesn't gobble
them up to.
 
Rock said:
Yes it is a nice feature in DI to do an image from inside XP. Acronis
manages that as well in XP and Vista. I sure hope Symantec doesn't
gobble them up to.
Click to expand...
Acronis has so many troubles of their own that I don't know that
transferring development to Symantec could be any worse. I don't recall
an upgrade in the entire industry in the last 20 years, Vista included,
that had as many bugs as TI9. I skipped it entirely. Because of some
functionality problems, I was "forced" to get the TI10 upgrade, and it's
been problem-free, so far. Also, Acronis Tech Support is very involved
with the user forums on their site, and that's something you certainly
don't see with other companies (Corsair being the exception that comes
to mind).

Ron
 
Because this is arguable a installation type question ? Though in this case,
Pre-installtion.
 
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