Vista Home Premium/SP1 stand alone clean install procedure

[xiowan]

Hello all:
I recently updated my main Vista Ultimate PC with SP1 without problems
but have 2 more PC's with Vista Home Premium full retail O.S. I would like
to format the hard drives in each while installing Vista and wondered if I
needed to install the latest Intel motherboard drivers/software before
installing SP1 from a purchased stand alone disk or if I would be better off
to just install Vista and then SP1 with it's built-in Intel drivers, then
update them later if needed? I am on a dial-up internet connection and don't
want to download SP1 twice more! Both of these PC's have the same Intel
DG965WH m-board, same DVD multi-drives, same Core2 Duo processors, same 3
GB's of DDR2 800 Mhz RAM, same nVidia 7600 GT GPU's, same IDT onboard audio.
All of the above are listed on Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility site as
Vista Certified. Any suggestions as to which method to use?

xiowan..........in tucson

 

[Dustin Harper]

I'd go ahead and update all the drivers first. Also, there is a standalone
installer for SP1 you can download and burn to a CD so you only need to
download it once:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en

 

[xiowan]

Hello Dustin Harper:
Thanks for the advice! I was leaning that direction since I thot that
maybe SP1 wouldn't install with the built-in drivers that come with
Vista.....they are older than the drivers that they list on the "must be
updated list before installing Vista SP1". You'd think that SP1 would be
designed to automatically update any drivers they sent out with the original
O.S. installation disk .....but I guess that would be a silly idea. I have
already ordered an SP1 cd from NewEgg for $5.00 with free shipping so I
wouldn't have to download SP1 on dial-up again!
I am puzzled why Windows Update would offer SP1 automatically for my
Vista Ultimate PC but not for my 2 Vista Home Premium pcs......all with the
same equipment and all updated with the same driver updates for the hardware.
Could it be that they are offering it to owners of Ultimate before they
offer it to those with "lower" versions as some sort of reward for buying
their "best" version?

xiowan..........in tucson

 

[Trevor]

So how does one get the updated drivers?
Shouldn't the windows update do that?
what drivers need to be updated.
My Vista Ultimate doesn't get offered an update
for SP1. I even have the free tech support looking
into this and they didn't mention needing updated drivers
first.

Go figure !

Regards,

Trev

 

[xiowan]

Hello "Trevor":
Microsoft has provided a list of drivers that need updated before
Automatic Updates will download SP1. My PC's happened to need an update to
the audio driver to be compatible with SP1. After installing it on 1
Ultimate and 2 Home Premium PCs, Windows Update offered me SP1 only for the
Ultimate Pc and it installed fine. There may be other driver
incompatiblility problems that Microsoft hasn't announced yet but if you'd
like to see their list of drivers definitely needing updates prior to
Automatic Update installation here is the url for that:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/
Help/133c8953-c9cd-4fa5-8883-03e91bb6f2021033.mspx

Here is more information on how to install SP1:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/Help/
133c8953-c9cd-4fa5-8883-03e91bb6f2021033.mspx

Good luck with your SP1 update!

xiowan..........in tucson

 

[xiowan]

Correction for my post. You'll probably have to copy and paste the urls I
listed since the second line of each url doesn't seem to show up as part of
the url! My bad.