Be VERY Careful!

[Tekboy]

I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 Yesterday, and it does look nice. On the other hand, it seems to have tried to update the Firmware on my SoundBlaster Live 24 Bit sound card, and now it is undetectable by my machine.

It is definitely not ready for public consumption! :)

Just for clarification, I unplugged my XP Drive, and installed on a raw 160gb drive. And now that I have unplugged the Vista drive and plugged my XP drive back in, after carefully checking that everything is tight and cozy, there is no device detected. Vista killed it!

[Ferrit]

Vista downloaded and installed a firmware that killed a physical device like a sound card?
Is that what you are saying?

[street1]

Vista killed a XP Drive?Looks like Uncle Billy got that one fine tuned.

So Vista installs it's spirit into the BIOS and..............Bella Vista and
Microsoft plays 'Viva Pinata'

Just joking of course.Something must have went wrong in the BIOS settings

or your hard drive with XP picked a fine time.

[Tekboy]

Vista downloaded and installed a firmware that killed a physical device like a sound card?
Is that what you are saying?

I suppose there is room for another explanation, but it is the only one I can come up with to satifactorily explain what happened. Sound card is toast, and my computer stopped detecting it after Vista tried to install the software.

It worked fine until then, and the only thing different is that I unhooked the XP drive before installing Vista, and I unhooked the Vista drive to get back to XP, since I only have one SATA cable. This drive doesn't know anything about the Vista drive. :)

[gemstone]

If that is the case, about firmware updating then you have a claim against MS since they have modified hardware without consent which despite anyone's misgivings about them is a highly unlikely thing for them to do.
Have you tried removing the card, rebooting and remove all vestiges of drivers, files and reg entries then reboot again after turning off and reseating the card letting it be discovered again by the system?

[sentry]

Im sure MS could have destroyed all of his hardware and gotten away with it simply because of the word "beta". Not to mention theres no telling what we agree to when we accept the license. Who reads that stuff anyways!

[3fingersalute]

If that is the case, about firmware updating then you have a claim against MS since they have modified hardware without consent which despite anyone's misgivings about them is a highly unlikely thing for them to do.
Have you tried removing the card, rebooting and remove all vestiges of drivers, files and reg entries then reboot again after turning off and reseating the card letting it be discovered again by the system?
But regardless, if it was working on the XP drive when he unhooked it, it should work again when he reconnects it, as long as no other hardware changes had been made other than simply running an alternative OS on a different hard drive.

[Ferrit]

I would try it in another system before doing anything at all.
I frankly find it highly unlikely that vista would do a firmware update and kill the card.
Possible YES likely NO
Imagine the sendoff for Vista if that were true

[Tekboy]

I would try it in another system before doing anything at all.
I frankly find it highly unlikely that vista would do a firmware update and kill the card.
Possible YES likely NO
Imagine the sendoff for Vista if that were true

You guys can believe what you want, and BETA means I agreed to let M$ trash my hardware with no liability.

Three Finger is right. That is my experience as a technician.

Fortunately, the card was relatively inexpensive. But if you guys believe in the awesome benevolence of The Microsoft Corporation, we have nothing further to discuss.

[BOB IROC]

Vista will not upgrade firmware on any device. It may have its own built in drivers for devices, but it DID not upgrade the firmware on your soundcard. Firmware is gotten from the device manufacturer.

I have installed Vista on 5 different computers using both the 32bit and 64bit versions and it all installed and ran fine. I had to get some vista beta drivers from the device manufacturers, but it found most of them by itself.

I love your comment: "It is definitely not ready for public consumption!"

Yeah, that's why they call it beta.

There is no reason to bash or blame microsoft for a problem that is obviously not theirs. Did you even install the Vista drivers from Creative? I think they have some. And if Creative's drivers are crap it is not MS's fault.

If you are not willing to deal with a few bumps in the road then you should not download or use beta software. The fact that you blame Microsoft for purposely destroying your hardware makes me question your credibility as a tech.

[Ferrit]

You guys can believe what you want, and BETA means I agreed to let M$ trash my hardware with no liability.

Three Finger is right. That is my experience as a technician.

Fortunately, the card was relatively inexpensive. But if you guys believe in the awesome benevolence of The Microsoft Corporation, we have nothing further to discuss.

Ok fine then I will tell it like it is
Saying vista downloaded a firmware and trashed yer sound card is total bs.
You may believe thats true but i dont think so,and it has nothing to do with believing in MS's benevolence.
I would be more highly inclined to think yer crappy POS creative product chose that time to die.
If you want to talk about jack *** companies start with the king of kings in that dept.
CREATIVE

[street1]

Tekboy is a nice fella.Aren't we all getting a little too brassy?

Sorry if my comment was too brassy Tekboy.

I see the point you were trying to make.I too am weary of new
Operating Systems.

I do believe your sound card going bad at the same time was a fluke
or you have a bad PCI slot or BIOS issue.Don't really know for sure.






I just think the hardware issue is a fluke.

[BOB IROC]

Sorry if my comments sounded "Brassy" Too, but it gets very frustrating when people take a piece of beta software and install it and then whine and complain when everything is not perfect. Then on top of it they make up things that are not true like Windows automatically updated the firmware on my soundcard.

I mean c'mon this was just released as a public beta last week and people expect it to run like it was the final product. Vista is not going to be released for 6 - 8 months which is plenty of time to take feeback from beta users and make changes. If this was RC1 of Vista then it may be a little more understandable, but it is not. Like I said before, if are not willing to take a few bumps in the road the DO NOT download, install or use beta software. But by all means do not pull things out of thin air just to point the finger at someone else. I am sure it is purely coincidence that the soundcard failed at this point or it could just be some settings or a driver issue.

[dglienna]

I installed it on a new 20g drive. I have yet to find sound drivers (soundcard or modem) or network device (other than the WIFI). Kind of odd.

When I used it the first time, I signed into MSN (instead of using Trillian under XP) Everything worked, but when I swapped drives, I had to add all contacts to trillian again. Also, the clock jumped an hour somehow in the mix.

I joined this site in hopes of finding drivers, but so far, nothing has worked.
I've even seen links posted elsewhere to the files that I tried.. Zilch!

[houseisland]

So far I like Vista. It looks nice. It has a lot of very nice features. Too much in the way of security features to go into here -- if MS pull this one off, it will be a great OS.

I am not too crazy about its user surveillance capabilities. Big Brother is watching you.

It runs a little slowly on my Athlon XP 2500+ with 1 Gb RAM.

Best on 3GHz+ multicore processor with 2+ Gbs of RAM and a fast SATA hard drive.

As for drivers, I have no sound card, scanner, inkjet printer, or TV/Vid capture card. Spotty driver support was entirely expected, though.

[dglienna]

Network driver installed from W2k3 Server, so that isn't a problem. It seems pretty nice on a 2.66ghz P-4. At least my comments may lead them to get sound out of your computer using the new OS.
It's silly to have to do without sound. I depend on it when I work.

[Tekboy]

If you are not willing to deal with a few bumps in the road then you should not download or use beta software. The fact that you blame Microsoft for purposely destroying your hardware makes me question your credibility as a tech.

In which case I question your reading comprehension skills. :)

I said nothing about purposely. What happened is what happened. I really don't care about the sound card, since I did this on my office machine.

My point is simply that this OS has a long way to go before it is ready for the public.

I suspect that we will all make considerable money because Microsoft has a proven track record of not getting it right the first time. :)

[Tekboy]

Ok fine then I will tell it like it is
Saying vista downloaded a firmware and trashed yer sound card is total bs.

You need to get a life, man. I think you take yourself a bit too seriously.

[davepoet]

Ok fine then I will tell it like it is
Saying vista downloaded a firmware and trashed yer sound card is total bs.

You need to get a life, man. I think you take yourself a bit too seriously.

Beta.

Regardless, it didnt do anything to your soundcard. I have likewise installed Vista 32 bit & 64 bit on several machines now... a few with Creative sound cards. No problem.

In fact, as long as it is a decent system, Vista Beta 2 runs a hell of a lot better then XP's various Betas did.

[Ferrit]

I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 Yesterday, and it does look nice. On the other hand, it seems to have tried to update the Firmware on my SoundBlaster Live 24 Bit sound card, and now it is undetectable by my machine.

Get a life?
Wasnt me that made that ridiculous statement

[BOB IROC]

In which case I question your reading comprehension skills. :)

I said nothing about purposely. What happened is what happened. I really don't care about the sound card, since I did this on my office machine.

My point is simply that this OS has a long way to go before it is ready for the public.

I suspect that we will all make considerable money because Microsoft has a proven track record of not getting it right the first time. :)


My reading comprehension skills are just fine. You made an assumption that MS upgraded the firmware on a sound card, which is just plain ridiculous I might add and I took that as you were blaming your problem on microsoft.

I have now installed this beta 2 on 7 total computers. Did two more yesterday. Some of them are OEM Dell computers and a few are custom built ones. I have been able to find drivers for every piece of hardware contained in the computer and the operating system seems to run fine. I am testing this on a large network of 3000+ computers and so far have not run into any problems with the 64bit or 32bit versions. I have a some more applications and scenerios to test out with this, but so far so good.

I think you need to know the difference between beta and release candidate (RC). When this OS reaches RC1 (probably late summer) then you will see a closer look to what the final product will be like, but until then it is just a beta.

And just for reference Microsoft does not upgrade BIOS's or Firmware. That can only be done from the hardware manufacturer. The only thing Microsoft will supply is basic driver support for devices. As a tech you should know that.

[dglienna]

That's the ticket - The Vista drivers are fine for my soundcard. Vista just upgraded the firmware on it, which trashed it. But it's fine when I swap disks and run XP again.

Sure it is! :grin:

[format c:]

I use a USB keyboard and mouse connected through the powered hub on my gateway monitor
I installed Vista beta 2 and was enjoying it, Well except for all the security stuff getting in my face, I just turned it all off , Then I went to windows update and updated a driver, the system promptly crashed to a black screen with a blinking curser, Yip good ole beta software
I hit the reset button understanding this is a beta version, and I got the error " Keyboard not detected "
I went to bed and slept through the thunderstorm going on outside , next morning I tried to boot up and got the same error
My solution was to unplug the PC from the power cord and hit the power button to drain the caps on the board
I plugged her back in and away she went, No errors , It seems that Vista sets some registers in the chipset "funny" and a completer power loss to the mother board clears things up, I have had this issue using SUSE Linux
I think Tek should give that a try on his system
Another thing I get in Vista is a performance warning on Creative's XFI driver, And it is a beta driver as well, Yip beta is fun :mult:

[gazzak]

Personally I think that someone posting this thread to give advanced warning of a "possible" problem should be applauded, not sh4t on.

Tekboy was right, some of you really are taking yourselves too seriously, and remember, the first people who talked about spyware were laughed at too.

[Platypus]

Play nicely please guys. Tekboy did say:
I suppose there is room for another explanation
We're a help site not a fight site after all...

[street1]

Play nicely please guys. Tekboy did say:

We're a help site not a fight site after all...

Very good point Platypus.Probably the best one in this post/string. :wave: