Vista + Drivers and Software Tricks and Tips

Ive been a computer technician for a while now and have had alot of experience with people complaining about vista, here are some things ive found so far.

1. Vista and software.

It appears that some business applications do not like to readily install on vista usually prompting a message saying its "not compatible with this version of windows". This one is funny, install the software 3 times seeing the message, on the third time a new window will pop up asking, (what version should this program install as) one of the options is windows xp, choose that and the software will install just fine.

2. Vista and Unsupported Hardware.

I have personally found that when installing devices onto a vista machine that alot of manufacturers have still not posted vista drivers on their sites. this is what we do, down load the newest xp drivers for your hardware, making sure not to get .exe files but ones that either unzip the .inf files or and actual folder with the .inf's that you need. Now all you need to do is use device manager and manually point it to the XP .inf file.

It will install with no problems at all everytime. the only thing that doesnt work are the .exe installers.

3. Defender

To make Vista much more enjoyable disable that damn defender! either by taking it out of the start up or manually disabling it. Also killing the (UAC) use account control works great. with those 2 disabled there wont be any hitches when installing software.