The Perfect Vista Laptop... and Simplifying Device Installation

The Perfect Vista Laptop… and SimplifyingFireWire jack, or the like? Well, simplified, there's a
Device Installationbit of hardware in the system that asks the new
This month, I can thankfully report that myhardware, "What's your Plug and Play ID (PnPID)?"
search for a great, 64-bit Windows Vista laptop isPnPIDs look like long text strings, such as
over; that apparently the entire world found it at"USBSTOR\DiskUDMA-CF_ExpressCard_Rdr.2.23,"
the same time that I did; and that it's possible towhich is the PnPID for the doodad that sucks
configure such a system. The system is thepictures off my Compact Flash (CF) cards into
Lenovo T61P. I gave it a try after hearing goodmy computer at amazing speeds. (It's a CF
things about it from several clients. What clinchedreader that's an ExpressCard/54 reader, which is
it was a bit of advice from a member ofamazingly fast. There are several on the market
Microsoft's Hyper-V team that, if I intended to doand, if you're a photographer who uses CF cards
Hyper-V, then the Lenovo was the way to go.and who has a system with an ExpressCard slot,
(Readers and members of my online forum havejust buy one - trust me.) Once my CF card
also told me that Dell and HP's 64-bit "mobilereader has responded
workstation" systems - XPS for Dell, the 8000"USBSTOR\DiskUDMA-CF_ExpressCard_Rdr.2.23"
series for HP - work well with 64-bit Vista andto my laptop, the laptop then looks at all of the
can accommodate 4GBs of RAM. Plus, Vista candrivers that it knows about to see whether any
use all of that 4GBs, and I mean actually use it,of those drivers know how to handle a
rather than simply reporting 4GBs and using"USBSTOR\DiskUDMA-CF_ExpressCard_Rdr.2.23"
fewer (as I reported last month that Vistadevice and, assuming that it has such a driver, it
currently does under SP1). In short: The T61Pthen uses that driver to communicate with the
runs Hyper-V like a charm, gives me access to allCF reader. What I've just described has been true
of the 8GBs of RAM that I've installed in it, andsince Windows 95. What's different about Vista
runs quickly enough that it'd be hard to complainand Server 2008 is that you can tell a system,
that "Vista is too slow." When I purchased the"You've never heard about such-and-such PnPID
T61P, I wiped its disk clean and installed the retailand its corresponding device, but let me give you
version of Vista Ultimate 64, which got mea driver now and on the off-chance that you
thinking about how to install Vista so that it couldever run into this PnPID, here's a driver." The
support the T61P's specific hardware withoutgeeky phrase in Vista/Server 2008-ese for this is
bringing along all of the largely superfluouscalled pre-populating the Driver Store. So here's
applications that come with hardware. Forthe neat part: Vista/Server 2008 has a new
example, I have a Dell 1320 color laser printerprogram called Pnputil that lets you create a
that is fast, reliable, and reasonablydownright population explosion in your Driver
priced… but I hate installing drivers for it.Store. In brief, here's how it works. First, collect
Pop the driver CD-ROM that comes with it intothe drivers that you'll need for some device.
your computer, and you don't just get a driver.Drivers (when not accompanied by friendly but
Oh no - you get a utility that simplifies buyingunnecessary add-on applications) consist of just
supplies for the printer, other utilities to show youtwo files: an INF file, which is a text file that says,
toner levels, and so forth. I mean, it's a good"When you see such-and-such PnPID, go over
printer, but heck, I'm not looking for a relationship,here and run this program called something.sys,"
just a driver. Furthermore, I knew I'd beand the something.sys, which is the actual device
configuring a few other T61Ps - some friendsdriver. So I took a guinea pig system and installed
were looking for The Perfect Laptop, and Iall of the vendor clutter - drivers, applications, and
agreed to help put their systems together - so Iall. Then I removed any folders that didn't have
thought I'd use this opportunity to try out VistaINFs and SYS files in it. With that done, I collected
and Server 2008's notion of a "driver store."all of the INF/SYS pairs and put them on a
Device Installation Made Simple Now, if you're notstorage device. (They don't take up much space
an IT pro, then just stop reading -- this will borewithout the other stuff.). Next, all I've got to do is
you to death. But for those of us who makepop the CD/DVD/USB stick into my
computers work, this is really neat. What happensvanilla-built-Ultimate system, and figure out which
when you pop some new hardware into a PCIdrive that represents. (Let's call it F: for this
slot (Express or otherwise), a USB connector, aexample.