Vista Arrives Tonight: Find Drivers, Upgrade Warnings

Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:59PM EST

See Comments (15)

In a matter of hours, Vista will officially be upon us, after a six-year wait. Those of you planning to upgrade an existing PC have my best wishes for a positive experience, but if you're planning on running the upgrade, keep a couple of issues in mind before you put that DVD in the drive.

First, and most importantly, make your backups. Create multiple backups if you can, because you never know what could happen.

Second, get your drivers ready before you install. Burn them all to a disc for future use. If searching the web manually or digging around in those awful vendor websites doesn't really float your boat, check out RadarSync, which is offering a free, easy-to-browse clearinghouse for Vista drivers.

Also on the upgrade front, news has just arrived that Microsoft has changed the way that upgrade DVDs (available at a significant discount to standard versions) can be used. Namely, you have to have an older version of Windows (XP or 2000) already on the machine before installing. This is a change from the prior policy which let you install on an OS-free system with an upgrade disc if you still had your old Windows disc for Vista to check during a verification process. In other words: You can't wipe your drive clean (which most people, including myself) recommend you do when you install Vista from an upgrade disc.

Finally, want to know if your software will work on Vista? Microsoft hasn't announced a compatibility list, but the Vista Compatibility Wiki (also covered here) probably has you covered. Check it out, and good luck everyone.

Comments on Next to go dark: Analog radio

Post a Comment

Join in the discussion. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.

  • 2 Posted by rogueist on Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    I refuse to pay for digital radio. When they have a universally available digital radio format in the US that is free of charge to use, then I will switch.

  • 3 Posted by highvoltage23 on Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:59PM EDT Report Abuse

    You claim 20% of radio listeners are digital. You cannot count XM/Sirius in that percentage. You can only include an over the air listener in this figure (HD Radio). I highly doubt that that percentage is above 5%. Your percentage needs to include free radio only. Pay radio is a luxury. Using my correct percentages, we are realistically looking at 50% digital to 50% analog around 2030. Yup, 21 years away. Look at all the clock radios, car radios, boom boxes, etc that are not HD radio. I don't see an alarm clock radio with an HD radio from Wal-mart around the $10 price for a few years.

  • 4 Posted by cnull on Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    highvoltage23 - 20% in the UK, not the US.

  • 5 Posted by nighteye19 on Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:28PM EDT Report Abuse

    HD radio sucks bad! It's over compressed and doesn't compare to FM.

More Posts: First Prev 1 2 Next Last

Post a Comment

Sign In to Post a Comment

My Tech

Please enable your browser's cookies to activate the My Tech column.

Also on Yahoo! Tech

Computers Home Office Wi-Fi & Networking Phones & PDAs Cameras & Camcorders TV & Home Theater Portable Audio
 

Site Map | Tour | Subscribe to Yahoo! Tech

Question and Answer content at Yahoo! Tech is written by Yahoo! users at Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any Yahoo! Answers content. For more information, read the Full Disclaimer.

Opinions expressed by the Advisors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo! receives no compensation from any manufacturer or distributor nor does it compensate any Advisor for the coverage of any product or service in any Advisor's content.