More Vista driver woes

Vista is now only 4 short days away from being released to the general public On January 30, 2007.

Based on my experience running Vista Ultimate x64 (RTM Build 6000) on Blackhawk since November 17, 2006 and on Nighthawk since January 20, 2007, I have very little confidence that computer component manufacturers will have non-Beta device drivers ready for the Vista launch.

In this post, I will focus on add-on TV Tuner cards.

Shortly after I installed Vista on Blackhawk in November last year, I went out to purchase the ATI TV Wonder 650 since it was advertised as "Certified for Windows Vista." I don't know how ATI can claim that this hardware is "Certified for Windows Vista" since there was, and there is still no driver to make this device work in Vista x64. I should have read the fine print - fool, me.

So I went out and purchased the Hauppauge PVR-150 since it is also "Certified for Windows Vista" and a Beta driver was available for download. It did not and it still does not work in Vista x64. Fool, me - twice!

As previously noted in a prior post, the Hauppauge PVR-150 TV Tuner card was recognized when I installed Vista Ultimate x64 (RTM Build 6000) on Nighthawk and it loaded the Hauppauge driver. Windows Media Center allowed me to configure the TV tuner. Unfortunately, the Hauppauge PVR-150 TV Tuner card still does not work in Vista x64. The frame rate for the TV signal is about 1 frame a minute, at best. Maybe I should have bought a quad core processor so I can watch TV on my Vista computer.

Today, Vista detected an updated driver for the Hauppauge PVR-150. Hooray! I'm finally going to be able to watch TV on my Vista computer. I installed the driver and restarted Nighthawk with anticipation.

The Hauppauge PVR-150 TV Tuner card still does not work in Vista x64. The frame rate of the TV signal has improved to 2 frames per minute. I guess doubling the frame rate is good progress. At least Nighthawk is not crashing with the "Blue Screen of Death."

The latest non-working version of the Hauppauge driver is Version 6.0.6000.16488 dated January 8, 2007. Hey, at least Hauppauge has a device driver while ATI has yet to release one.

Do you still want to be on the bleeding edge? Do you believe that a deluge of non-Beta device drivers will be delivered on January 30th when Vista is launched?