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Vista Driver Compatibility

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Lots of people are asking me about driver support with Windows Vista.  It's hard to answer questions on specific devices and their compatibility with Vista, but just to give you a scale of the situation and what we've done to make as many devices compatible with Vista as possible here are some interesting facts:

 

  • Drivers shipped on the DVD:
    • Vista: 19,500 drivers
    • XP: 10,000 drivers
  • Number of additional drivers Windows Update on the day of release:
    • Vista: 11,700 drivers
    • XP: 2,000 drivers
  • Continuous Improvement:
    • Vista drivers - 1,600 are being certified every month

 

It makes sense for us to remove the barriers people face when they want to upgrade and device & application compatibility are some of the hurdles typically encountered with upgrading an operating system.  That's why we've worked hard to lock down a stable version of Vista well in advance of launch date so that device manufacturers had plenty of time to develop stable versions of their drivers for their customers.  We are also continuing to work very hard with these manufacturers to get drivers out the door ASAP if they haven't already done so.

 

To see the definitive list of compatible devices and systems, be sure to check out the official Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List at: https://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/

 

We want our customers to have a great experience whether they are using our products or those of our partners which is why we demand a high level of testing before drivers and indeed software can be certified for use with Windows Vista.  For devices to get this certification, they need to provide an experience beyond basic compatibility taking advantage of the native features within Vista like DVD burning, the network and sharing center and the Aero experience.

 

For software there's a list of vendors who have compatible applications here: https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/933305 and this list is growing every day as we work with software houses all over the world to get their applications Vista compatible.  Again their are two classes of applications, ones who are "Certified for Windows Vista" and leverage the new features within the OS and those which "Work with Windows Vista" and pass the mandatory compatibility testing.

 

There are of course free tools we have provided to help you carry out hardware and device compatibility and also application compatibility testing.  For more information check out the following pages:

 

 

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    So you're a partner or customer wanting to deploy Vista, but you've got a few questions? Let me guess,