Listing of Vista Drivers

RadarSync writes to plug their page of links to Vista drivers. Listed are many drivers that Microsoft doesn't have and that aren't easily found on the manufacturer's sites. For Intel alone, 364 drivers are currently linked.

Drivers, Vista, Just Works (tm)

[Hucko]

This was just one of my gripes with Vista (the pre-release) was it would not recognise either of my network cards! The XP drivers didn't work with it either.

The site may work better with a search function and/or a listing by hardware. Windows people without the necessary drivers may be confused by the text names.

Beta and XP drivers in many entries

[origamy]

Some of the entries point to Beta drivers. They should at least make a note on the website that the drivers are not final. Many of the drivers are XP drivers (the ZIP file contains WinXP in its name).

Users are better off just going directly to the manufacturer's websites. If drivers are Beta they may not find them easily, but at least they'll be warned. And if there's no Vista driver they won't download an XP driver and try to use it without warning.

Google Cache

[Reo Strong]

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:YltYVhNTm0gJ:w ww.radarsync.com/vista/+http://www.radarsync.com/v ista/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&lr=lang_en&client=f irefox-a [72.14.203.104]

Google Cache: you know, since I can't see the page anymore, maybe some of you can't either.

//no html skilz

Re:Never mind Vista Drivers

[Osty]

Hunted around and managed to get drivers for most things, but the nvidia driver refuses to work...

Don't blame HP for that one. Blame nVidia's insistence that OEMs support mobile chipsets with their own "official" drivers (which the likes of HP/Compaq and Dell never keep up to date, of course). The thing is, mobile chipsets are generally no different from their desktop counterparts when it comes to drivers. For nVidia drivers, check out LaptopVideo2Go.com [laptopvideo2go.com]. For ATi, try DH Mod tool [driverheaven.net]. In either case, the "problem" is that the inf for the drivers don't contain the right information to detect mobile chipsets, even though the drivers will work just fine on them. The "fix" is to hack the inf so that the installers will allow you to apply the drivers to your mobile card.

Re:MIcrosoft not involved?

[Hucko]

You can hold your breath now, I believe someone had already done it. Will I be sued if I google hacking Vista?
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/01/HNvistas peechbug_1.html [infoworld.com]
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128115-c,hackers /article.html [pcworld.com] (okay so this isn't hacking per se, but a crack to make your system more vulnerable. Vista 'prevents' this with it's 'impressive' security)

Not that I love MS or anything...

[Twisted64]

Can I downgrade my OEM version of Windows Vista Business to Windows XP Professional?
Yes. OEM downgrade rights for desktop PC operating systems apply to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate as stated in the License Terms. Please note, OEM downgrade versions of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate are limited to Windows XP Professional (including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP x64 Edition). End users can use the following media for their downgrade: Volume Licensing media (provided the end user has a Volume Licensing agreement), retail (FPP), or system builder hologram CD (provided the software is acquired in accordance with the Microsoft OEM System Builder License). Use of the downgraded operating system is governed by the Windows Vista Business License Terms, and the end user cannot use both the downgrade operating system and Windows Vista Business. There are no downgrade rights granted for Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium.

Here. [msn.com]

Manufacture specific

[sieb]

Be careful, alot of these are manufacture specific, example: the Atheros drivers. I've been hoping to find some Atheros drivers that work in Vista on the Macbook that include a newer version of their Client software (old versions have all options greyed out), but the drivers on this site are for either IBM or Fujitsu laptops. Also keep in mind that many companies, like Atheros, don't release their own drivers publicly and instead rely on the hardware manufacture to maintain them.

Re:MIcrosoft not involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Microsoft cannot legally just download software from any arbitrary vendor and put it on microsoft.com.

2. Putting a driver on Microsoft's website is an endorsement of quality, which MS may not be able to make for any arbitrary driver.

3. The most recent driver is on the vendor's web site. The driver you find on microsoft.com may be days or weeks old.

In other words, MS does host drivers on their web site, but only those that vendors supply and pass certain QA tests. Since MS relies on vendors to submit the drivers and QA testing takes time, it is unlikely that MS will have the latest drivers. Thus, MS is not the best source of drivers.

dom

Re:Good news for competition

[flimflammer]

I don't know about you, but every machine I have ever installed XP has had USB, some decent amount of sound (it really varies on your sound card, but it's been my experience that it'll usually work), and networking out of the box. "Bad video" as it may, is not necessarily less present in Linux. I've installed a few distros only to have pretty crappy desktop performance out of the box.

Re:Can become outdated fast

[empaler]

I'm sorry to say that yesterday I had to resort to such a site to get my Lexmark x1130 drivers. I just couldn't get to them on Lexmark's site, and I didn't have time to horse around.
In Lexmark's defence, I'd just like to say that the site seemed slowed, possibly by DOS attacks. Either that or they suck.
At any rate, I ain't getting me another Lexmark any time soon - too bad for them, as I'm in the market for a fast document scanner... (Any good ideas? :-P )

Re:Never mind Vista Drivers

[ettlz]

In either case, the "problem" is that the inf for the drivers don't contain the right information to detect mobile chipsets, even though the drivers will work just fine on them. The "fix" is to hack the inf so that the installers will allow you to apply the drivers to your mobile card.

That's right. Just to add a bit on: I get the latest nVidia drivers working on my notebook by unpacking both the recent executable and the one on the CD-ROM supplied with the notebook with 7-zip, copying the .inf file across, and then running the setup utility.

Re:Can become outdated fast

[jackharrer]

I updated my friends desktop (HP Pavillion) with Vista. There were no drivers for AC'97! They got to be joking!
At least HP has shown they care and I was able to download them from their site. Plus ATI drivers that hardly worked, and some minor problems with WIFI (detected as something totally different, but worked!).
I had less problems with Mandriva on my new laptop. Everything worked out of the box. Including Compiz and Xgl.

Re:Good news for competition

[ElleyKitten]

Yes, because no one ever has trouble getting a wifi card to work under Linux. Or printer drivers working under OSX. In fact, surprising though it may be to you, getting drivers to work is often one of the biggest difficulties of installing Linux.

Linux doesn't have drivers for everything, but it's on the right track. I've had over the years an IBM laptop, Compaq laptop, and two Dell desktops (not counting ones I've built myself), all came with Windows of course, and all of their default hardware works 100% with Linux, even the wireless cards that came with the laptops. I had to install 3d drivers for the video cards on the desktops, but that was as simple as running EasyUbuntu and checking if I had nvidia or ati. Fresh installs of Linux on all my machines are completely usable instantly, despite being made for Windows, while fresh Windows installs don't even recognize the ethernet ports, let alone a display above 800x600, wireless, sound, printers, AAAHHHH!

Not that all is happy in the Linux world. Finding a wireless card for my desktop has been a nightmare. My USB wireless didn't work, ok, I'll find one that's compatible. Bought it. Didn't work. Oh, I have to buy the right version because some have different chipsets? Ok. Went to the Free Software Foundation's website, bought the card they recommended, double and triple checked the exact model number and everything was what they recommended, AND IT DOESN'T WORK! Went to Ubuntu Forums. Oh, here's the driver source you can recompile it. OMG, if the driver's open source why isn't it included!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!

But, in general, I like the Linux concept of including drivers so you don't have to spend your time tracking them down. Now if they just had more drivers so that everything was up and running hassle-free it would be perfect.