You upgrades your operating system, and you takes your chances. After migrating two Windows XP machines to Vista, I'm ready to join the growing chorus of analysts and organizations recommending that you keep Vista on the shelf.
For instance, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one organization that flunked Vista and recommended to its students and faculty that they wait to install the new Microsoft operating system.
That's not how I felt initially. The Aero interface is a big step up from XP (even though many XP dialog boxes lurk a couple of clicks beneath the eye candy). And the application incompatibilities I experienced at first were mere nuisances, such as the Trillian universal IM client causing the interface to shift out of Aero mode.
My first hint of real problems was Vista's lack of support for the 3Com network card in one of the upgraded systems. It turns out that there will be no Vista driver for that card, even though the adapter is less than two years old. The replacement network card was part of the hidden cost of my Vista upgrade.
A more serious problem arose when I upgraded my home PC to Vista. At first that upgrade seemed to go more smoothly than the previous one because Vista recognized that machine's network card automatically. It wasn't until I tried to use Cisco's virtual private network (VPN) Client application to connect via SSL to our company network that things went seriously wrong.
Despite hours spent troubleshooting the problem, our crackerjack IT staff was unable to get either beta version of Cisco's VPN Client for Vista to work on my PC.
Which begs the question, "Since Vista release candidates have been available since the middle of last year, and the Enterprise version of Vista has been shipping since November, why is the Vista VPN Client program still a beta?" A Cisco spokesperson says the company believed it would be best to wait until the final version of Vista was available to start working on the VPN Client upgrade to avoid having to rewrite code due to late Vista changes.
How does Cisco feel about leaving its paying customers in the lurch? I'm still waiting for the company's formal response to my questions about its lack of support for Vista. A spokesperson, who wished not to be quoted directly, indicated that Cisco will release the Vista version of its VPN Client in March. I'm curious to hear what they suggest their paying customers running Vista do until then.
And I'm not just picking on Cisco. Hewlett Packard's site says the Vista version of the driver for my laser printer (bought not six months ago) will not be available until June. At least I can print with the old XP driver, though I get fewer print options.
Now Microsoft just released a list of 800 apps that it has officially verified to run bug-free. I don't see Cisco's VPN product there.
Microsoft did release the Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update the same day Vista shipped. If you have your system set to update automatically, you probably already have the update installed. Microsoft provides more information on the update.
Are you having Vista driver issues?
While there have been wild rumours - and it is an interesting concept - 3Com has not been acquired by Cisco!!
The original post stated that 3Com had been acquired by Cisco. Despite the rumors, no such acquisition occurred. I apologize for the error.
I have no issues with Vista for I have choosen to wait about a year or so and then get Vista. This is why a wait and see approach should be taken, but Microsoft should have made all device drivers available with Vista so that people will not have any problems with their devices regardless of how old it is.
So much for compatiblity..
Had some issues at the beginning but now everything seems to working okay. For the Cisco issue you are having there is a version that works with Vista. We've downloaded it from Cisco and works great had no problems using with Vista. Use it everyday. The version is 4.8.01.0590. Of course there are drivers that still updating like my printer but i can still print but not scan because there is no scanner program out from HP yet. If you run Windows Update it will find the latest drivers.
Vista problems:
-the modem is not recognized and I won't get a driver update for it. Need to buy another one.
-two drivers related to the motherboard (ASUS A8N-SLI Premium) do not work, and there is no driver for them. It looks like NVidia did not include them in the Vista driver
-Vista keeps asking me to install the Nokia phone driver. I install it but it's broken and Nokia has no word on Vista
-The BitDefender antivirus is reported as not compliant by Vista even if they say the 10.2 version is on their site. If I happen to reboot the PC, Vista blocks 2 BitDefender startups and I have to repair the installation which involves 2 system restarts. Ugly :(. I am happy I can put the PC to sleep over night and I don't have to restart it from zero every morning.
-If I open a VPN connection and put Vista to sleep, a svchost.exe (Remote Access service) will get crazy when coming back from sleep and eat all the processor. The respective service can't be restarted so I restart the system
...
I am totally frustrated with ?hp?. Every time a new operating system is released, which doesn?t happen that often, hp is never prepared. I recently purchased (in January) a $900.00 multi-function color laser jet printer that came with software not compatible with Windows Vista. When I contacted hp I was told that they might have software available by the end of July this year. All other companies I contacted had Vista software available now. For example; Logitech, CyberLink, Executive Software, and several other popular companies. Why isn?t hp prepared?
I can not get a Vista driver for the RipFlash MP3 player. Since it is a few years old, there may never be a driver available. Has anyone tried running Microsoft Virtual PC with XP installed? This could be an answer for less used devices and incompatible software.
"You upgrades your operating system, and you takes your chances."
Yo! who dat is dat chek you grammer be? I'z expect mo from PCWorld dan dat leval of an articlez.
Despite the inferences made by the author, missing drivers are absolutely not Microsoft's fault. OEMs are completely responsible for the drivers required to make their hardware compatible with a given system. Microsoft made OEMs very aware from very early on what it would take to be Vista-compatible, but even with the delays of the OS, many OEMS still didn't "find the time" to release compatible drivers.
Apple fanboys have long since figured out that it's up to the device manufacturers to create drivers. Every time you read comments to a posting about some new device, there will be a question as to "is it Mac compatible"? They hold the OEM responsible, not their precious Apple. Why is there a double standard here with Microsoft and Vista? In the same situation, why is it Vista's fault and not that of the OEM's?
Stop bashing MS for things that are out of their control.
I have upgraded to Vista, and the following devices and programs do not work yet or do not have Vista-compatible drivers yet: Cisco VPN Client, HP ScanJet 4670, Brother P-Touch label printer, C-Channel MyPenPro handheld pen scanner, UBS e-Banking software, Adobe Acrobat, various Linksys SRX400 network adapters, Apple QuickTime and iTunes, Mozilla Thunderbird eMail and Real Player. In addition, the Inbox driver for my Lexmark E240 laser printer sucks compared to the Lexmark XP driver, and there is some sort of problem between Logitech and Skype which can result in a Blue Screen crash when the latest, greatest Logitech Ultra Visioni camera is used with Skype.
I don't think there's any need to worry about whether to bash Microsoft or the OEMs about all this lack of compatibility and drivers, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Cisco have released version 5.0.00.0090 of the VPN Client for Windows. I am running this on Vista Ultimate 32-Bit and it works great. However, the client firewall is not included in the software so you need to make sure the firewall is not enforced by the VPN Concentrator. This is a real security concern for my company so we are advising against Vista.
Also, ever since installing the current Nvidia GeForce drivers for my 7950GT, the computer randomly bluescreens while in games. I've actually gone back to the Microsoft drivers that shipped with Vista. Weird, but it works.
Also, I have a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS and simply the install of the BETA drivers from Creative bluescreens my computer. I've tried with both the 32 and 64-Bit versions of Vista Ultimate and the same deal.
But, I always want the latest and greatest and have no patience so I need to assume there will be some problems.
Everything will be sorted out in time...I give it 4-6 months :)
. About vista drivers, I just saw this from the PC Mag reporter Bryan Gardiner : "it might be worth mentioning that the site will be a sort of repository of Vista drivers. Although Vista is shipping with thousands of driver updates, those who are upgrading a self-built machine from XP to Vista might find they are missing at least a few component drivers not included with the new OS. So the site should be useful for at least a little while..." The site is at http://www.radarsync.com/vista
I read about Radarsync on this site, actually. There's a pretty detailed review at http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,71196-order,1-page,1-c,allutilitiesdownloads/description.html