Vista Driver Issues Not Only An Issue With Asus

I’m sure coverage here recently at GottaBeMobile.com has made the home page look like GottaBeAsus.com for some. Sorry if anybody feels like we are slighting other coverage. But there’s certainly plenty to talk about on the Vista Driver and UMPC front and not just with Asus. I’ve also been following the coverage of issues that Samsung Q1 and Q1P owners are having trying to use “ye old brute force” method to get their UMPCs up and running with Vista. They’ve been running into similar yet different obstacles along the way.

Frank Garcia(CTitanic) and Kevin Tofel have been leading the charge on this in numerous posts on their respective sites and in forums. Both have recently posted some interesting new thought on their struggles.

Kevin is speculating that there won’t be HID drivers for the older Samsung Q1 and his logic is similar to mine in earlier posts. With OEMs working on newer devices a lot of this might come down to an allocation of resources in tech support and development staff and it is reasonable to speculate that the push is on what’s coming next. Kevin also points out that Samsung’s marketing was for an XP device. Someone correct me if I’m wrong on the facts here, but that makes Samsung’s approach quite different that Asus’ Vista Capable approach and certainly gives them an easier out.

Frank, who is on this issue like a hungry dog on the last bone on the planet, isn’t ready to give up yet. He’s been posting registry tweaks, workarounds, and just about any driver that might have some positive impact on the situation. He’s convinced that they will find a way, with or without Samsung.

Wrap it all up and it points to a tremendous community effort to try and get Vista up and running on these devices, and that’s a good thing. The advocacy and evangelism is pretty incredible. The other side of that coin is that Asus and Samsung both could have been, and still could be, a little more transparent about their plans and obstacles. In my opinion they would have gained a lot more mileage out of the entire situation than they have at present.