I read Mark’s dilemma about to install or not Vista in his Q1 and I was about to reply in his post when I thought that probably would be more convenient if I write a few words about what I know and what I do not know of installing Vista in a Q1 UMPC.

Lets start with What I do know:

1. I do know that sometimes Vista just refused to upgrade some devices. No matter what you do the installation ends with an error message. Even when it’s always recommended a clean install there are cases where the amount of work reinstalling programs is so time consuming task that many would probably go with an upgrade instead of clean install. But like I just said, do not count with upgrading because Vista no always like that option.
2. UAC (Users Access Control) is the best example of a good idea bad implemented. Beside the “bodyguard” feeling that you have seen already in Apple’s adds on TV, UAC stops some processes even when you approved them. And this have fatal consequences when you are installing old XP Drivers trying to work with devices that do not have yet drivers for Vista. In the specific case of installing Vista in a Q1, you wont be able if you do not stop UAC. Plain and simple.
3. And talking about drivers, what is current status on Vista Drivers for Q1? Samsung has not released yet officially any Vista drivers for old Q1s. But we have found the BIOS upgrade with Vista Support at this site and the drivers used in the Q1p with Vista pre-installed by Samsung at this other site. These drivers have been tested in the old Q1p and in the Q1 with Celeron and they work. But as you can read in the second site that I just linked here, we still have problems with the touch screen so you will need to install the Touchkit driver that came in your installation CD and you will have to run this script file and follow the instructions from this other page. Once you do all this you will get Vista installed in our Q1 and running at 98%
4. Why running at 98%? Well because with all these hacks we are not really getting HID Driver support. Without that some of the Tablet PC Features included in Vista do not work. But at least you are getting the learning from your handwriting process working, a feature that is for me the main reason why everybody with a Tablet PC or UMPC should install Vista.
5. What is going on with the HID Driver? Most of the UMPCs in the market have the touch screen using a Serial Interface according to an email I received from eGalax. The screen on those UMPCs are recognized by Vista as a Touch Screen while the screen of the UMPC where the Touch Screens use a USB Inteface are recognized as a Mouse. In this last group we have our Q1s. And for this group the only solution is to wait for a new driver released by eGalax, that explains why Samsung has not released yet any Vista drivers for our old Q1s. In the latest Q1p with Vista pre-installed Samsung (I think) just changed the screen Interface to Serial and that’s why they do not need the Touchkit to work properly and they finally got HID Driver support.

Now, What I do not know?

1. I do not know if we ever will see Vista Drivers officially released by Samsung. If you want to know the reasons just check this article by Kevin C Tofel. But at this moment I really do not care, I know where is the problem and I know who is the one that can really fix it: eGalax.
2. I do not know when eGalax will release the Touchkit pack with Vista support. Without this driver we will only be able to use Vista at 98%.

Now you know why I did not want to post just a simple reply to Mark’s article. It’s just too much information to be posted in a simple reply.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

Comments »