Hi William,
After reading your message it is unclear whether you are adding new hardware
items and Vista doesn't find drivers for them or whether you are saying that
drivers for previously installed items have become inacessible. If you are
trying to install something new like an external hard drive and the drivers
aren't found it probably is because you don't have the drivers on the
computer.

Frankly you are the only person I have heard say they were impressed with
driver support. Like you, I tested the Beta versions and I had the same
problems I now have with the retail version of Ultimate. I don't have
drivers for my HP printer, my Western Digital Dual Option external drive, my
Canon Scanner, my Asus A8N-SLI-Deluxe motherboard and its Nvidia chipset or
my Olympus digital camera.

If you are saying that hardware that previously operated correctly has
stopped because of a driver problem then my suggestion would be to boot from
the Vista DVD and restore the drivers from the DVD. That should fix the
problems.

If the problem hardware is something new that has never worked with Vista
then the only solution is to keep looking for the drivers at the
manufacturer's website. This has become a daily routine for me as I keep
hoping for them to issue new drivers.

Good luck!

"William Dowell" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Firstly, i apologise if this is the "wrong" news thread - i have tried a
> few, but to no avail. If this is the incorrect one, please please don't just
> say it is the wrong one, but point me to the right one!
>
> Now, my problem:
> (I'm using RTM version of Windows Vista - business).
>
> It all worked fine for about a week or so, detecting all devices plugged in
> (and i have to say, was mightily impressed with driver support..)
>
> Until.. these last few days...
>
> Whenever I add a hardware device - from basic things of External HDD, camera
> or USB keys etc, the driver search fails, and asks for a manual location..
> Same goes for hubs. All items. Now, I KNOW Vista has all of this
> built in - because you just tell it, each time, to go to System 32 folder,
> and it
> finds the mass-storage / or other driver, no problem.
>
> However EVERYTIME i add something new it does this. This didn't happen when
> i
> first installed Vista, and its a horrible experience. I want it back
> automatically installing!
>
> I was a tester for Windows Vista for I can't even remember how long - and
> never seen this before..
>
> Is there a fix for this / Re-set something in the registry? It's driving me
> insane! And, everyone who sees my lovely Vista laptop goes "wow" and then
> plugs in their USB Key, and goes "ohhh... oh yes, they said on the news it
> was full of problems"!!! - I don't like that, as its not fair to Microsoft,
> so... any solution, please... and I can assure you it will get my friends /
> colleagues in the shops for a start!
>
> Kind regards, and thanks in advance to the genius who can sort this out for
> me :-)
>
> William
>