I've been delaying installing Vista until HP provided the drivers for the Z3100. The drivers are still not posted on the web site. Not only that, the chart showing when Vista drivers will be released has completely disappeared for the Z3100 and for similar printers. HP previously provided a projected date of July for the release of the Vista drivers, and now even that is gone.

In a posting on June 4, jpmulligan reported that the Vista 64 driver appeared during the normal windows update. That would only work for those who have already installed that operating system, however. So if you haven't already installed Vista, you wouldn't know that the drivers are available.

If the drivers are available, why hasn't HP posted them? Mulligan posted his report on June 4. Two months later, the drivers still don't show up on HP web site.

There is also a separate negative report about Vista 64 and problems with the Eye One and the APS. The suggestion was made that installing Vista 64 might be a mistake.

Has anyone had specific experience comparing Vista 32 and 64? I have an AMD Athlon 64 FX-55, so I could utilize vista 64. But I'm wondering if Vista 32 will work better overall, not only with the Z3100, but generally with other hardware and software. Any advice in that regard?

Thanks in advance for any guidance on the above.

In the case of a standalone Eye One, GMB was too lazy to sign the x64 driver, so Vista x64 refuses to load it unless you reboot and hit F8 to allow loading unsigned drivers (which only lasts until the next time your reboot). Not really the end of the world since it just means the occasional reboot, but annoying nonetheless.

I agree that the situation you describe is not the end of the world.

But since you are running Vista 64, I assume you were able to download the drivers from Windows Update?

Why has HP supplied the drivers to Microsoft and included them in the Windows update, but not posted them on the HP web site? It is utterly illogical.

And does anyone know if the drivers are available for the 32 bit version of Vista also through the Windows Update? I've only seen reports on Vista 64.

(And I know this question is off-topic, but are there any views about which is more stable for a general user, Vista 32 or 64? Which has greater acceptance by device drivers and software?)

why do people mess with a good thing. your printer works fine with xp
and everyone is jumping on the vista band wagon. i dont get it.

i just recently upgraded to xp pro. wont be touching vista for at least 1 to 2 years.

i dont need more head aches in my life. i hear the same bad new about the new version of photo shop

i'm still using cs when i can get a copy for under $150 i'll get cs2

I have been using Vista x64 since March of this year and have found it to be very reliable and very compatible. It runs basically everything that I care to run on it, and in fact cannot tell you of any application that I have tried that didn't work.

When I first received my Z3100, there was no driver available for it, however the Windows XP64 driver model is essentially that used by Vista 64, so I installed the XP64 driver from the HP web site (it was a signed driver) and it worked pretty much without problem. It was in June I believe (see my first posting) that I noticed that a new release of the driver was available in Windows Update and I of course installed it. For the most part, it worked fine, however I was never really able to see the custom paper types like Fine Art Pearl so that was a little bit of a frustration.

Well, tonight I decided to check Windows Update again and lo-and-behold, a new version of the driver was available. I installed it, and now I see the complete list of paper types available that I have been interested in, such as Fine Art Pearl (Less Ink) and Fine Art Pearl (More Ink), etc. I haven't done any printing yet with the new driver release, but I will over the weekend and will report back.

Based on my personal experience, I wouldn't let the scare mongers whip you too much into a frenzy over migrating to Vista. I think it is a safe upgrade at this point, and the manufacturer support for drivers is becoming more complete. I believe that the reason the statement from HP regarding Vista support has disappeared is because the issue is now moot. They provide driver updates using the normal Windows Vista Update mechanism and there really is no need to download a driver off of a website as a standalone item. If you are installing a printer on Vista, you should be able to let the printer definition wizard search the internet (i.e., Microsoft) for a suitable driver and have it download it automatically. At least that is how I would expect it to work.

Running the x64 version, I enjoy having as much memory as I can throw at applications, and I find it very responsive. For me it has been a good experience, but as they say, YMMV.

I'd feel a lot better about moving to Vista after the first service pack and when MS has addressed the issues raised in this thread.

I don't know what the situation is now, but when I purchased a new laptop I had to touch Vista because new computers would only ship with Vista. I'm still running Vista on this laptop. I don't recommend it. It's slow and clunky; I think the graphics card is probably the bottleneck.

If anything, the Vista on my laptop makes me appreciate XP Pro ( and Ubuntu ) on my desktop.

As of midnight August 12 the situation is still the same:

* The Vista drivers still aren't available on the HP web site.

* The date for any potential release has been removed from the web site -- it used to say July but that was removed.

* The chart showing the release date for the Vista drivers, that included the Z300, has been removed from the HP web site.

The only chart on the web site now is for Laser JETS. There was a chart that included the design or ink jets -- it has been removed and is GONE

* The logo to click on for information related to Vista that used to appear next to the Z3100 drivers is gone.

This isn't just a situation where HP has been slow to release the drivers. This is a situation where all references to any future release have been removed from the HP web site, which should be a cause for concern for any users of Vista 32. In lght of the fact that almost all new PCs that are sold are loaded with Vista, this is not a small issue.

If anyone who is in contact with HP can ask, I'm sure that many of us would appreciate it.

Specifically what the situation is with regard to Vista 32 rather than the 64 version.

The only report that we have is that you can download the driver for Vista 64 through Windows Update --

Even though HP does not provide it on their web site.

JP -- in my first response I forgot to ask you, and others, as to whether you recommend Vista 32 or 64 for the average user.

The reason that I'm asking is that I'm building a new PC and will install Vista on it. It would be irrational IMHO to not install the latest and greatest Microsoft operating system on a new PC. (I also don't want to install both XP and Vista, as it is a little beyond my abilities to deal the complexity and hassle of a dual booting system.)

I am cannibalizing my existing PC with XP for parts, so it will no longer be functioning by the end of next week.

Do you have any views on whether I should install Vista 32 or 64? I am installing a new Intel Quad core and it can run the 64 bit version of Vista.

But I am assume that 32 bit version of Vista is a better choice for many types of software, including computer games (that I play on occasion). Do you agree?

What I'd urgently like to know is whether the drivers and software for XP will work on Vista 32 or not. Will I be dead with regards to the Z3100 until the drivers that were supposed to be released in July magically appear ????

Well, the statement is there this morning: HP Vista Support
I would say if you are intent on moving to Vista, go with the 32 bit version as that would reduce the pain of moving from XP

If/When I jump to Vista it will be when I can get 64-bit fully supported. I have 4GB of ram installed in my computer and only ~3.5gb is being used. So I will just hang out with my current config until then

If you're talking about UAC clobbering LUT curves, you can always disable UAC (which I would have done regardless of the LUT issue, as it's way too intrusive and annoying).

If you're talking about shortcomings in WCS, nobody says you have to use WCS just because you're running Vista.

I'm running Vista 64 now and it has definitely been a worthwhile upgrade. My Asus mobo has so many onboard devices (SLI, dual NIC, firwire, etc), that the OS was only seeing 2GB of system memory under XP SP2 thanks to lack of PAE support. Having access to the full 4GB in Vista 64 has made a huge different in performance especially for Photoshop and AutoPano Pro.

Thanks very much!

It might have been there all along. The HP web site is a complete mess. You can find some docs in some sections of the web site, but not others. Drivers show up in one section, but not others.

My guess is that the chart was there all along, contrary to my above statement.

But I looked long and hard for it to no avail!

(My other statements are definitely accurate though. As of last night, all references to a future release of Vista were removed from the section of the web site with Z3100 drivers -- and those statements were there one or two months ago. And when you go support and click on vista, it takes you to a page for drivers. For the Z3100 that takes you to a choice of drivers for XP and 2000 -- and no mention of vista at all. Vista was previously listed as a future release. At least, that was the situation when I checked last night before I posted.)

I don't understand why PAE didn't work with XP SP2. MS PAE page. Is it your Asus mobo and all those onboard devices?

I'm running XP Pro SP2 with 4GB RAM and Windoze sees it.

The Vista statement does indicate however, that if your printer supports PCL5 or 6 or Postscript, that the Windows XP driver can normally be used until the full Vista driver is provided.

I called HP this morning and was told that this is indeed the case with the Z3100 and that they are currently telling customers to install the XP driver until the Vista drivers are fully validated. I do have to admit that I was a bit taken back, because the support rep had no idea that the driver was showing up in Windows Update.

I also found that the driver that showed up in Windows Update on Friday evening seems to have a problem so I backed it out to the previous version.

As I said before, generally my experience with Vista so far has been pretty good, but I do have to admit that it isn't all quite there yet with HP and the Z3100.

You are seeing the entire 4GB? This is a pretty rare occurance as the 4GB address space of Win32 has large chunks of it re-mapped to support IO ports, etc. In most cases, even with PAE support, it is rare to get more than 3GB of usable memory

You're right. With Windoze it depends on where you look to see if you've got 4 GB RAM. Different OS tools return different answers.

The memory that shows in "System Properties" is what's available to the OS and applications. I don't know where else you're looking but if you're seeing full 4GB with SP2 in System Properties you are part of a very small minority. Note the article you linked to is dated Feb 2005, isn't that before SP2? MS broke PAE in XP SP2, had something to do with DEP. My previous 4GB machine showed the full 4GB pre-SP2 (with memory remap feature enabled in BIOS), but after SP2 it only showed 3GB. Now that the same machine is running Win2k3 Server (not x64), it shows 4GB again. So to me the issue is XP SP2, not the motherboard.

My new ASUS board is a more extreme case, showing only 2GB under XP SP2 and Vista x86. As I said though, this motherboard is fully loaded: dual x16 slots, dual NIC's, multiple firewire and USB controllers, etc.

In XP Pro SP2:

- Start
- Help & Support
- Performance and Maintenance
- Maintaining your Computer
- Get Information about your Computer
- View General System Information
- Memory (RAM) - capacity:

This shows you have 4GB installed on your machine. It doesn't show how much Windoze has available to use for applications but it should verify that Windoze knows its a 4GB machine.