Vista failed to recognize any hardware

[ohIsee]

After intalling Vista through the DVD by booting the PC, Vista failed to recognize any of my hardware such as, NIC, SoundBlaster sound card, video card, monitor, RAID drive, and so on. Is this typical of Vista? How do I resolve this problem? I tried to install the driver and Vista kept saying there is no hardware on my computer that matches the driver.

[Tech_Dude_5000]

I'm taking your using the RTM bulid. Drivers will come out with in the next few months.It just hit RTM and this is the time when they start making and shipping out drivers. Did you use Windows update or go to the hardwares manufactor? It seems prety bad when that amny drivers faild to pop up? whats your system specs?

[EduardValencia]

You will have to be way more specific than that,don't jump to conclusions yet

[ohIsee]

My PC is an old Dell 4500 Demension. It has the hardware specs for Vista. I have another PC that I used to go to the manufacture's site and download all the drivers and try to update the hardware in the dell PC but Vista kept saying there is no such hardware. It's not that Vista don't have the driver, I got the driver but Vista just not recognize the hardware that associated with the driver.

[wase4711]

then get new hardware!

[Tom B]

I had a painful time getting my Soundblaster Live! 5.1 working with Vista. I eventually found some 3rd party drivers here: http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=118620

[AltecXP]

reinstall vista

[Lasker]

rarely that Vista does not recognize anything considering that the OS itself weight over 2GB and the majority of this big jump are drivers

[Churma]

Buy a new computer and buy Vista Legally. Pls don't buy Dell and you might accually have a decent computer.

PS: Please stop whining, Vista isn't even released to the public.

[ohIsee]

Many thanks for the responses. This is only for testing that's why I use an old Dell PC. And yes, I'm pretty sure that once it is released I hope it will not have these kind of problems.

Now, back to the issue. I re-install Vista and load the RAID drivers in fine. I now see my other RAID drives. As for my other hardware, well, I found out that, at least in my case, supporting for old hardware is much worst than Windows XP. Vista will not allow me to install any driver that is not Vista compatible or signed. I finally downloaded a beta driver from SoundBlaster and now my sound card does work. Here is the error mesage when I tried to install an old driver that works perfectly fine under Windows XP Pro.

Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster Audigy 2 on your system.

However, as I mentioned above when I install the new Vista comptible driver from Sound Blaster it works fine. Vista's error message makes it sounds like there is not such hardware in my computer. So in my case, the conclusion is that unless you're planning to buy all new hardware, Vista RTM is pretty much useless with old hardware that works very well under Windows XP Pro. Unless other people in here find a tweak somewhere that I'm not aware of.

[P.M.K]

Buy a new computer and buy Vista Legally. Pls don't buy Dell and you might actually have a decent computer.

PS: Please stop whining, Vista isn't even released to the public.

Gee that was a lot of help Mike!

How do you know his Vista isn't legal?? Why aren't Dell machines decent??

[ohIsee]

From another forum, I found that if I right click on the .exe file and choose the compatibility tab and choose Windows XP (SP2) on the drop down list, apparently this should work since the drivers installed fine under Windows XP Pro...but this option doesn't work either. Vista comes back saying "The best driver software for the device is already installed" and wouldn't go any further. It seemed, again, that Vista is having issues working with older drivers. It just won't accept old drivers. I'll try to find an answer this since I don't believe that Vista will do worst than XP when it comes to compatibility issues.

[Express]

Drivers for old computer were in the older builds but were removed in the later builds to reduce size to fit 1 dvd and accomdate more common newer hardware drivers.

As long as you have a internet connection (with the netword driver installed) Vista will download the drivers for old hardware from Microsoft Update.

I have a Dell Dimension 4600. All drivers including sound were downloaded automatically.

[ohIsee]

Drivers for old computer were in the older builds but were removed in the later builds to reduce size to fit 1 dvd and accomdate more common newer hardware drivers.

As long as you have a internet connection (with the netword driver installed) Vista will download the drivers for old hardware from Microsoft Update.

I have a Dell Dimension 4600. All drivers including sound were downloaded automatically.

That is a bit of good news. The problem right now is my NIC doesn't work. Vista won't recognize the driver I downloaded from Dell nor from the original CD.

[Express]

If your NIC is from Intel (most Dell computer use Intel) then get the drivers from Intel site.

[ohIsee]

Thanks! I'll give Intel a try. My PC's specs are as followed:

System Type: Dimension 4500

Ship Date: 9/24/2002

Dell IBU: Americas

Quantity Parts # Part Description

1 4P615 ASSEMBLY, CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), DIM4500, AUDIO

1 9K792 PROCESSOR, 80532, 2.4G, 512K, 533FSB, SOCKET N

1 7N242 KEYBOARD, 104, UNITED STATES, SILITEK, LOW COST, MIDNIGHT GRAY

1 6U220 KIT, MOUSE, PERSONAL SYSTEM 2, S69, LOGITECH

1 8N275 COMPACT DISK DRIVE, 128K, I, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, 48X, LENGTH/LONG, 8481B, CHASSIS 2001

1 9K099 CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 32MB, ATI TECHNOLOGIES INC, FULL HEIGHT, SECOND

1 7T281 FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 3MD, NO BEZEL, TEAC, V4, CHASSIS 2001

1 1T320 HARD DRIVE, 20G, I, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 1N, 7.2K, WD-XL40S

1 6K223 KIT, SOFTWARE, WKS-STE2K2, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MFGR., ENGLAND/ENGLISH

1 3U669 KIT, SOFTWARE, OVERPACK, WINDOWS XP HOME, COMPACT DISKETTE W/DOCUMENTATION, ENGLAND/ENGLISH, A03

1 7C712 CARD (CIRCUIT), NETWORK, ETHERNET, 10/100, CNET TECHNOLOGY INC, REVISION

1 1K696 DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 512, 266M, 64X64, 8K, 184

[ohIsee]

Okay, I finally managed to get all my hardware recognized with drivers that worked on XP. The problem now is everytime when I reboot the PC, the refresh rate will default back to Vista's default refresh rate and not the refresh rate that I specified in the video card's driver. Any idea how the resolution and refresh rate to stay in Vista?

[ohIsee]

Okay, I finallly got the refrest reate settings to stay...the problem now is that some of my applications are not runnning uncder Vista. Two example are Symantec Antivirus and Livestate Recovery are two so far that are havin problem with Vista. So my suggestion is that if you're not planning to upgrade most of your hardware and software, don't plan on installing Vista.