Installing Windows Vista Beta 2

All too often I hear or read about different testers having good or bad experience with the software they are testing. I thought for my install of Windows Vista Beta 2 I would document the events of the install as they occurred

I started with a basic machine. 1.8 GHz P4 processor, 512 MB or RAM, 80 Gig hard drive. This is not the fastest machine around, yet it is not the slowest. I want to see how Vista with work on a low end computer.

Below is my log of the install.

7:04 Put the DVD in DVD drive. Left clicked on My Computer, and then double clicked on the DVD drive.
7:16 Entered the activation code. A pop up window came up and told me that I needed to uninstall AVG antivirus program.
7:20 Uninstall AVG from the Add/Remove Programs and restarted the computer.
7:23 Windows is now checking hardware compatibility.
7:24 A window popped up telling me that Standard Game port, Netgrear FA311 will not work in Vista. I clicked okay. Files started to be copied from the DVD to the hard drive.
8:09 Windows finished copying files from the DVD and started gathering the needed files.
8:27 The expanding of gathered files start.
8:29 Windows reboots and expanding gathered files continue.
9:02 Installing features and upgrades starts.
9:05 Windows reboots the computer
9:16 Configuration has started
10:13 Success the logon screen appears.
10:20 Finished some personal setting. Then shut off the computer to replace network card, with a 3Com.

After a three hour search of the internet I could not find Vista drivers for either one of the Ethernet cards. The only drivers I could really find were for video. Microsoft provides a kit for building my own driver.

In my opinion Vista is not ready for prime time. It needs a lot more driver support. I will spend the couple more days looking for Ethernet card drivers. If I don’t find what I need, I will uninstall and wait for better driver support.