"Jerry Hughes" wrote in message
...
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
"Dale "Mad_Murdock" White" wrote:
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
"Jerry Hughes" wrote in message
news
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
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.