Warner,


Just to back up what you say I can confirm further to my discussion yesterday that I am running vista without crashes (touch wood) and have had at least 13-14 reboots now with no crashes. So really I got there before you, I just didn’t get it posted and wanted to make extra sure :-P

As I mentioned the installation order does seem to have an impact, I'm not sure of my order but I do know that the important things would be the AKT_Drv is installed first, and the Hotkey utility is installed last (of the ATK bunch). I think it’s important to reboot to when it says and not install several items before rebooting.

For me the bottom left button irritatingly launches the windows touch pack program launcher - I'd much prefer it launch the origami experience (As you know Warner I was hoping to hook this up with to a task switching app, but there’s been some technical problems and I'm not sure if I can get it to do this). As I have upgraded from XP Tablet Edition and am now running Vista it won’t let me uninstall the Microsoft Touch Pack! Perhaps if it was not installed my button would map to something else - I'm not sure if I have heard reports from others that they had there’s launching windows media player.

If only Asus made a simple utility where you could make this launch anything you wished i.e. a word document, outlook etc.

Anybody any ides on how best to remove XP install pre-upgrade that vista won’t let me remove post upgrade?

I did have a few crashes on boot last night but I am pretty sure this is because the Ethernet/device USB was malfunctioning/not responding - I removed and reinstalled drivers for this and have been crash free again since.

I still don’t have the hold key working, do you? Nor do I have Lifeframe working (hangs on splash screen) though I am not sure what lifeframe is/does, perhaps the Camera needs to be working for it to run! Likewise I am having problems with the camera; I was trying this last night. I seem to have two downloads for the Bison Camera, I think one is off the Asus website and the other is from following the instructions on the following post http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070225151815865&board_id=3&model=R2H&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

The camera is not working with the Asus drivers, although I did have it working (thought not tested) last week, and I assume this is by following the above link to Asus forums only to the install the new drivers from Asus which probably broke it.

Still have the refresh problem with the Intel Graphics Utility interface when changing the resolution via a dropdown-think I will try to revert back to an older version until Intel fix.

I still haven’t had the touchscreen drop out yet-I will let you know if it does.

if time allows it I may do a clean install sometimes as it is frustrating not being able to uninstall some of the XP Tablet Edition apps + I have an issue with Vista which Microsoft are yet to fix (you have to point to c:/windows/system32 to install device drivers-it does not find them automatically ever for USB mass storage devices etc.)

Why don’t you want to use Power4gear extreme – I’ve found that it’s nice and easy to customise the 4 power options and after all these are mapped and easily selected via the settings page.

Hello Warner, Dave

My name is David and I just want to share my experience with you.
I am still waiting for my official vista upgrade from Asus, since I found out that vista will let me play with it for 30 days before activation, I borrowed a copy from a friend and hopefully my license key will arrive before the deadline so I don't have to wipe it out and reinstall again, anyway I already reinstalled vista 3 times :). But I realized I can't just enter the license key when it arrives, I will explain in a while.

Dave:
Even with an upgrade version of Vista disc you can do a clean install. Boot up with the Vista disc and when prompted to enter the license key choose not to enter one and manually select the version you bought. This way when you are asked where to install vista you can format the partition and do a clean install wiping out all the old files. *VERY IMPORTANT* Since the upgrade license key is for upgrade only, vista knew you did a clean install and will say it is useless! So now what? Insert again your Vista disc and do ANOTHER installation/upgrade! But this time run the setup.exe from the windows explorer and this time when prompted for the key enter it and go through all the process again! Now vista is upgraded from...vista! Yeah it sucks to watch it all over again but you get a clean install without all the xp trash!

The first time I used only the Vista disc and you already know the functionality were pretty limited, then I searched the web for solutions and I found this site which prompted me to wipe it out as I learned that the XP drivers that came with the Asus installation discs worked. Anyway I kept it for a few days just to check out the new UI.

The second time I installed the xp drivers and it pretty worked for most of the time and I encountered very few crashes. I installed the usual stuff I use, like Firefox, Openoffice and they all worked fine and I didn't use any particular order to install the drivers. The only damn thing didn't worked was changing resolution and I didn't test the camera because the stupid live messenger won't run. It shows up in the taskmanager as a running process no window where you can click. But if I hibernate by pressing the power button then come out hibernation the damn messenger will appear! but then it will freeze so I can't test the camera.

Now finally the 3rd time, I installed the drivers in their alphabetical order except wlan driver/util which asus warned and the bluetooth I installed last. I experienced a few system lockup during the various reboots sometimes as early as before the loggin screen and sometimes when the wallpaper loads. Anyway after a hard reboot vista seems to be happy to proceeds and I eventually installed all the drivers. And since then I hadn't experienced any lockup yet I hope it remains this way.

One annoying quirk I am experiencing now is R2H won't always shut down!! Sometimes it will remain forever at the part "logging off". But by chance I discovered a workaround: I was trying to power off by holding down the power switch but my finger slipped and vista entered sleep mode with the power led blinking, then I wondered what would happen if I turn it on again? Well when r2h powered up instead of the same "loggin off" now it displays "shutting down" and guess what? vista proceeds to shut down properly!

Experiencing the same Intel Graphics problem, its util won't let me change the resolution, but I tried furiously leftclicking over the "OK" button after changing resolution and it allowed me to change 2 times! I think it took me 2 tries to go higher but to roll back it took me like forever to succeed!! So I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and I hadn't tried again....

And I think ASUS_Setting_Center_vista_070315 is the actual wonder that enable us to change the resolution and have the pixel doubling, the settings page bring up by the lower right button. My lower right button did nothing utill I installed this thing, and it was actually the last thing I installed.

The camera won't show up in the control panel cameras/scanner section. This time tried the capture util that comes whith the driver but it worked literally upside down: the image is upside down and there is no menu to access the settings to change this "mirror setting". So again I think of messenger but have to do the hibernate/dehibernate for it to show up. But when I tried the audio/video wizard messenger simply crashes. So I donwloaded skype and finally changed the settings and now the camera works fine at least in skype.

My lock button is also working but didn't test it untill this 3rd try. Never experienced the touchpanel dropout yet.

Btw, I am using the Business edition since this is the one I am getting from Asus. The lower left button brings up Media Player.

Hello other Dave

in case you did not know you can extend the vista grace/trial thus delaying the date required for activation and removing the need to clean install again.

See http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000778.html - this is an official thing from Microsoft and not a hack.

I am also aware that you can clean install with only an upgrade disk, with my R2H I had already tried a clean install of Vista on my D Drive to experiment and see what I could get working before committing myself to Vista as the main OS. I recall that I could not get the setting page, or wireless console to launch, I think this was because the ATK01000 utility would not install on Vista. Indicator lights for WLAN/Bluetooth also did not function.

With the signs that vista drivers were soon to be released by Asus I upgraded from my XP OS on the C Drive to Vista. I did and upgrade as the Vista installation over Xp is considerably cleaner than the XP upgrade process used to be, its not squeaky clean though – I also hoped that as my XP install had the wireless console, settings page, indicator lights etc working that they would still work after the upgrade – indeed they did with a bit of tweaking to make the resolution switching work.

Why can’t you just enter the licence key when it arrives? That is my plan and don’t see any issues with it.

I also had problems with Windows live messenger. I suspect this to be fixed soon. After installing live messenger it defaults to booting on start-up- you will notice it in your running processes but it is not actually running in the taskbar. It is this running live messenger process which delays shutdown as Vista struggles to end the running process. I found like you that if I hibernated, and then brought the system back up live messenger would pop up. Then while it’s available go into the settings and disable the launch on start-up of windows, and save the settings (a little difficult if you can’t use the resolution switcher to get to the ‘OK’ or ‘Apply’ buttons! This should remove the delayed shutdown/log off times, but you will have to run live messenger manually until this issue has fixed (no idea what causes it-its’ not an issue on non-tablet PC’s). Running it manually after boot does not cause any problems, it comes up fine.

I also discovered your hibernate-hangs-sleep-wake-hibernate fix – as I mentioned it is live messenger causing this issue and you need to disable it from booting at start-up

The only damn thing didn't worked was changing resolution and I didn't test the camera because the stupid live messenger won't run. It shows up in the task manager as a running process no window where you can click. But if I hibernate by pressing the power button then come out hibernation the damn messenger will appear! But then it will freeze so I can't test the camera.


The ASUS_Setting_Center_vista_070315 alone is not all that’s needed to perform the resolution switching, without the ATK01000 drivers installed, the buttons do nothing, also the Intel graphics chipset drivers need to be installed and configured like the fix that was posted here http://www.gottabemobile.com/AVictoryOfSortsInTheAsusR2HVistaDriverStruggle.aspx

I also don’t have the camera showing up in My Computer – however I don’t know if it should, or if Vista does not display Cameras here unlike how XP did.

I don’t have a working lock/hold button, and my bottom left hardware button will load the old XP program launcher to which vista won’t allow me to uninstall! I would much prefer it loaded Media Player, origami Experience or a task switching utility.

I now have my webcam back and working see (http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070225151815865&board_id=3&model=R2H&page=1&SLanguage=en-us)

I have not yet tested this in live messenger though – should be doing so tonight

Dave Maiden

Yeah its working. But it want with my old clean install of Vista on D: drive. Working fine on my upgrade vista on C:

I wrote a post and it detailed how to fix the messenger issue- it said it needs to be moderated and has not yet appeared?!?

Hi all,

Well I followed the same install order as in this post but as soon as I install the Hotkey driver i start getting the boot crashes again. The only thing that I can see that is different is that I am using ATKDrv_vista32_070117.zip but the post refers to this version ATKDrv_vista32_070315 so this may be the issue. Problem is I cant find ATKDrv_vista32_070315 any where. anyone know if this would make a difference and where I can get it from?

Thanks all.
Damian

Hi Warner,

I have it all working! I used a work around for the hotkey driver. The driver starts a service called ASLDRService. It is this that causes the issue, it must conflict with something else that is starting at the same time is my guess. Anyway, my fix was to set this service to manual startup and create a command file in the startup folder that runs a net start command to start this service. This means that the service starts after everything else is running and I have no issues with crashing.

PS: I tried to set the service to automatic(delayed) but Vista wouldnt allow this.

By the way thanks for all the great coverage on the R2H and Vista.