Realtek & SmartLink on Vista Beta 2?

I just got Vista Beta 2 and was able to install it on my 9860 after loading the XP Promise controller driver from Sager... YAY!

When I tried installing the XP Realtek audio driver from Sager, it failed on reboot saying "Cannt find matching inf..." (including spelling error!). For those of you (especially 9860 owners) that got sound working, can you tell me what driver version you used?

Now for the modem, again I tried the Sager provided driver (or maybe it was from the manufacturer, I can't remember) but it installed like 30 some copies of itself and still didn't work. I noticed that Vista Beta 1 apparently had a driver for "Smart Link 56K Voice Modem", but Beta 2 doesn't recognize my SmartLink modem. I've heard that there have been people who have gotten the modem to work (using a driver d/l'ed from MS?). I went to microsoft.com but couldn't find a SmartLink driver anywhere for any OS, even though I know I can get an XP driver for my modem through windows update. Again, can anyone recommend where to find one that works with Vista Beta 2?

Thanks.

Thanks for the reply. Actually, Windows Update does offer me drivers for both my sound card and modem when I'm trying to update XP. Not sure if it will offer them for Vista, but I suspect they do since other have gotten the devices to work. The problem is that I can't get access to Windows Update through Vista without getting my modem to work first -- catch 22. I'm hoping someone who has the drivers, or know how to get them, can help out by posting the info here.

Well, my first MB failed about 8 months after I got my 9860, so I'm guessing I have a later rev. However, SiSoft Sandra reports my MB version as 1.4 rev A which might be the same as yours...

I have 2 wireless PCMCIA cards, both atheros based, maybe I'll give those a try for wireless. However, my internal wireless card is also atheros based, so don't know if those will work either... will see I guess. Is you buffalo card using a generic wireless driver, or one specific to your card?

Fortunately Vista did recognize my internal wireless card, unfortunately I had to find a hotspot to use it, but at least I could get connected to the internet with it. Also, I do have a PCMCIA modem that was recognized by Vista (which is how I'm submitting this post). Windows Update offered drivers for the built in camera, the video card, and the modem. The video card and camera drivers installed fine, but modem driver installation caused a BSOD after about the 10th driver installation (remember I said there were 30some instances). Had to boot into a system restore point and re-run the update process deselecting the modem driver.

Surprisingly, Vista doesn't even notice that there is an audio device on my motherboard (no devices listed in the device manager for it), so no wonder the update service didn't offer any drivers for it. I did find the Vista beta driver for the realtek online (thanks) and installed the software, but again, didn't matter because Vista doesn't even show a device for it. So everything but the built in modem, sound, and TV tuner work right now.

Vista does list a multimedia device for the TV tuner, but I haven't tried installing the Sager XP software for it yet, so I still might be able to get it working. Vista looks great even without aero glass, but it doesn't give me the option to turn on aero glass so the drivers provided by MS Update aren't optimal I think... will look for better ones now as well.

Yes glass does look very good. I really like the mouseover images displayed for tasks in the taskbar. Wish you could set transparency levels for the entire window though (and the taskbar too). Linux is still better in that regard.

Well I got the Avermedia TV tuner program installed, but first I had to manually assign the drivers to the multimedia device (one for video capture and then another was created for the TV tuner). The AVerTV program gives me a warning about not having sound and then starts up ok but without the TV window, just the control panel. Unfortunately, even though the TV tuner device is installed with a working driver, the TV tuner option is not presented by the AVerTV program. I can only select the video capture device, or the USB camera.

Vista is still pretty buggy I think, MS still has a lot of work to do between now and release...

I have tried to install RC1 on my 9860 and attempted to load the Promise XP drivers via floppy just as I did with beta 2. Vista RC1 found the drivers and seemed to load them in and then popped up a window saying "installation failed". Is there still a need to install drivers from floppy, or are they included on the dvd now? If we need to load external drivers, what drivers did you use and where can they be found?