ITS OFFICIAL - HP dont support Vista Ultimate on Pavillion

I purchased a HP Pavillion DV2000 series laptop ( DV2175EA ) just before the Vista launch with a promise (on the advertising) that it is VISTA COMPATIBLE.
However, rather than wait 8 weeks for my free upgrade to Vista Home Premium, I upgraded by buying a copy of Vista Ultimate.

Most things worked OK, but the Ricoh 5in1 card reader, bluetooth hardware and other 'unknown devices' wouldnt configure correctly in device manager.
After loading all new versions of device drivers from HP website, and entering into a long and painfull email swapping epic with HP support, the 'official' final response from HP was:

"HP does not support Windows Ultimate on HP Pavillion DV2000 series Laptops - please contact Microsoft for support".

I NEED Ultimate, because I need some of the business features.

As a compuiter professional, I find the concept of hardware drivers varying in compatibility between versions of Vista quite hard to believe.

Now I am forced to turn this piece of rubbish into an expensive present for the kids, and go and buy myself a Dell - which is what was recommended to me in the first place.

Dean

 

have it slapped with xp...

 

i would go back and "reason" with hp that the ultimate version of vista is being needed. U never know, a bit of diplomacy might get hp to "upgrade" the hardware for you to a model that would support ultimate, instead of losing u to a competitor that u might end up paying more. btw Dell is having just as much issue regarding vista as anyone else. Some of their models will not be delivering with vista until they can get their "driver" issues together.

computer hardware sellers r catching up with car manufacturers/dealers, offering many model versions with "subtle" variations to satisfy all customers depending on their $$$ (i meant "needs")

cheers ...

 

scary about the latest models, i m sticking with my old reliable m6805 which currently running ultimate happily - and it was not even claiming to be vista compatible (lucky dog)

cheers ...

 

There is no upgrade available. You simply 'cant' run ultimate on these laptops. What I dont understand is how something like a bluetooth driver work on one version of Vista, and not on another ??
On HP's support site, they just state 'Vista drivers' for download - but dont suggest that particular versions of vista arent supported

 

Hmmm. The Ricoh based memory card reader in my Dell Inspiron E1705 with Vista Ultimate got it's driver from Windows Update first time I connected.

 

It only fails when I put in a 4GB MMC card. However, my colleague has the same laptop with Vist Home Premium, and it works OK

 

See if this driver helps out any.

 

what i meant was a "hardware" upgrade - trading ur dv2000 in for some other model that runs ultimate

haven't got into this problem yet, since i still wait for the correct bluetooth app to run under vista

like u mentioned above, it should not be working for one version vista and not to the other

cheers ...

 

Thanks for that, if I still had Vista on the laptop I would have definately given it a try - however I restored it to XP and then gave it to the kids.
The Ricoh issue was just one of many, and I guess the point Im making is that HP should make it clear that they will only support their hardware and drivers on certain versions of Vista, before people shell out their hard-earned cash.
Thanks for the link anyway - much appreciated

 

Dean, did you update the BIOS of the laptop? That might help you with the driver issues you are having. Also, HP isn't going to support the Vista Ultimate software you purchased, because you didnt buy it from them. You are asking them to spend resources on software they didn't make any money off of. As to Ultimate running on a laptop. I have a C509NR that came with Home Basic, and I promptly removed it and installed XPSP2 and Vista Ultimate on it and I have had no issues with Ultimate, besides having an Intel 950 graphics unit in the lappy.

You need to update the BIOS first, that will add SLIC capabilities to your computer and then install the drivers they have for your PC.

I had to hunt down the XP drivers for my laptop because it shipped with Vista only.

 

I have a dv2000z model. If you go the HP site and choose the Vista OS and it will show all the latest drivers. Vista on first install will not recognize the card reader and the video card. You must expand the downloaded programs and will show up under "swsetup" directory. On the Control Panel "system, hardware" directory you'll see hardwares that has an ! mark. Right click on the hardware and select update driver and point it towards the appropriate "swsetup" directory where the appropriate driver is located (card reader, bluetooth, video). Good luck, it does work.