For those who want to upgrade a Windows XP machine to Vista, starting with the Vista Upgrade Advisor is a good first step.

Getting Ready for the Upgrade Advisor

When you start the Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft’s site, a small application is downloaded to your PC. The advisor is designed to test two different kinds of hardware compatibility: Whether your hardware is fast enough and modern enough to run Vista satisfactorily _ Whether your device drivers are compatible with Windows The advisor’s initial dialog box suggests that you plug in any devices you may want to use with Vista. It’s easy to forget some, but this is absolutely the time you want them to be checked out. So here’s a short list to jog your memory about gizmos you’ll want to make sure are plugged in to your PC and powered on before you start the advisor’s system scan:

Printers and scanners (make sure they’re powered on, not just plugged in) . External hard disk drives, backup devices, and USB drives of all kinds.

An extra USB hub that you seldom use plug it in anyway to check it. Spare USB keyboards and mice that you may have forgotten.

iPod or other MP3 player, even if you seldom synchronize it to your PC.

Headphones and ear buds (they may require audio drivers that won’t be tested unless the devices are jacked in to an audio port) When you’ve checked for all of the preceding and you feel that you’ve plugged in and turned on everything you might want to test, click the Start System Scan button in the advisor.

Can Your PC Run the Core Experiences of Windows Vista?

The Upgrade Advisor first tests a PC’s hardware, looking for signs that the system has all the chops it needs to handle essential disk, memory, and CPU functions. As you can see in, the Advisor will tell you whether these hardware features are up to the task of running Vista’s core experiences, which are basic features. If the Upgrade Advisor reports “No action required” for your hardware, you can breathe a sigh of relief. This all-clear doesn’t necessarily mean that Vista will run acceptably fast on that particular machine, but it does mean that the advisor found no show-stoppers that would necessitate expenditures on your part for new PC components. If you decide at this point to install Vista on this particular PC, and it proves to be too slow for you, you can still upgrade your RAM, video board, disk drive—possibly even swap out your motherboard for a new model—to improve the situation. You may not have that luxury if you install Vista on a PC that the Upgrade Advisor reports isn’t capable of handling it.

Are Your Drivers Capable of Vista?

After the core experiences test of your hardware, the Upgrade Advisor moves on to test the software drivers that are crucial for the various components of your system and peripherals that may be attached. Assuming that the PC you’re testing has passed the basic compatibility test, you may find that the driver test poses challenging obstacles for you. There are three possible situations that the advisor will report to you about your drivers. _ You may need to manually update certain drivers after Vista is installed. _ Certain devices may simply not be supported by Vista at all. _ Vista may simply support your devices with native Windows Vista drivers. In that case, you obviously won’t need to do anything to make those drivers work with Vista. We look at the other two cases in the sections that follow.

Drivers That Need Manual Updating

Drivers that need manual updating are updated versions of drivers that are compatible with Vista, but for some reason, Microsoft hasn’t included them in the shipping version of Vista. That means Vista can’t install the newer drivers. You’ll have to find them and install them yourself before you try to install Vista over XP.

Drivers That May Not Have a Vista - Compatible Version

Drivers on your system that are incompatible with Vista, and Microsoft doesn’t know of Vista-compatible versions, show up second in the Upgrade Advisor’s software report. You can see that the advisor calls for new drivers for the HP LaserJet 1320 printer and the Agfa ePhoto 1280 camera. The printer, in particular, is a fairly odd omission in Vista’s stable of drivers, since the LaserJet 1320 is one of HP’s most popular smalloffice peripherals. If the advisor says that a particular driver you need may not exist, the first place to start your search—as with the drivers Microsoft says you must manually install—is the site of the hardware vendor.

New drivers are released every day, so the one you need may have just come out. If your search doesn’t reveal an updated driver that specifically says it’s Vista-compatible, your next step is to enter the world of tech-support hell. That’s right, you’ll need to find someone in the company who’ll pay attention to your e-mail, phone call, or letter and tell you when a Vista-specific driver will be released. Good luck on making that happen. Fortunately, major manufacturers tend to quickly release drivers that work with new Windows versions. That may mean drivers that come out at almost the same time as Vista or only two or three months later. Smaller companies and those who no longer support a particular model of hardware, however, may never spend the time to develop a Vista-ready driver. In that case, you may have no choice but to purchase newer hardware that does have a driver you can use in Vista. In such a case, there’s always the question about what to do with the hardware that won’t work with Vista—eBay, anyone?

Microsoft’s Obscure Stash of Legacy Drivers

Even if the Vista Upgrade Advisor tells you that you need new drivers, and that they aren’t known to be available, you still may have something that will work. That something is called an XP driver. Yep, a driver that works fine under Windows XP may also work fine under Vista, even though the Upgrade Advisor doesn’t say so. These drivers, however, won’t be included with Vista and the Upgrade Advisor may or may not say that they’re compatible, in case your system already has one or more of them. Sources within Microsoft report that, “For various reasons, these drivers will not be ‘in the box’ for the final version of Vista.” If you’re having trouble getting Vista to work well with a particular piece of hardware, and you can’t find a Vista-specific driver for it, you could try locating and installing an XP driver as a last resort.

To install an XP driver, you’ll need to download it from a manufacturer’s site or have a copy of the driver on a CD, a USB drive, or some other medium. You can then use Vista’s Add Hardware control panel to try to write the new driver to your hard disk. Be sure to copy the old driver to a safe location, such as a USB drive, in case the new driver works worse than the old one did and you need to switch back. If your PC can’t connect to a wired network or can’t see your wireless router after installing Vista, this list of XP drivers that Microsoft developers believe will work under Vista could help you find software to correct the situation. Our thanks to Wendy Stidmon of Microsoft for assembling the list of XP drivers that work in Vista.