Do Windows 7-64 drivers work on Vista-64? \ VOGONS

Do Windows 7-64 drivers work on Vista-64?

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First post, by ratfink

Posted on 2014-08-25, 19:30

ratfink Offline

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Looking at buying a new motherboard but I see that many of the various drivers are only listed for Windows 7 and not for Vista. I saw somewhere that Vista drivers were supposed to work in 7 [by design] so would the reverse be true?

Or is it going to be something that was maybe true when 7 first came out? Or is it more realistic to expect it to be a matter of suck it and see on a case by case basis?

Reason for asking: I have a Vista 64 Ultimate licence available. Improvements in 7 compared to Vista won't matter for this machine.

Reply 1 of 1, by obobskivich

Posted on 2014-08-25, 20:46

obobskivich Offline

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It may work, it may not. I think it's a similar situation to 2k/XP drivers - in theory it can work, but you may run into some problems if the installer doesn't like what you're doing, if there's some dependency that Vista can't install (Microsoft has started to deprecate Vista in some areas), etc. I only base this on Vista drivers not always being perfect in 7.

My advice would be to try searching for whatever model board you have along with something like "Windows Vista compatibility" or similar, and see if you can find people reporting it works or not.

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