I'm using Vista all the time now, and have most of the hardware updated with new drivers. Alas, I lost my surround sound, and although I've installed new drivers from the manufacturer, only 4 of the 6 speakers are working. This seems like a downgrade from XP, because they all worked beautifully on that version. But it's better than the single speaker that was working on the initial Vista install. Perhaps in time the driver will catch up with XP and it will sound the same. Still no printer or scanner, but for the moment I can live with that.
The best way to enjoy Vista would be to buy it with a new system, that way everything would work and you wouldn't go through the frustration of looking for updated drivers. I came across one site that suggested it had updated drivers for lots of the hardware, but I had to pay to download them, and decided against that. Forums have been the best resource for problem solving, and in the case of the sound driver, there was links to an update (unfortunately not compatible with mine).
I haven't noticed any performance improvement at all. The cosmetics are nicer in Vista, and plenty of help is available online for tweaking and customisation. Once you know where to look for the settings, it's not so different to XP.
Leave a comment