Well, Palm have proved themselves utterly uninterested in providing me with decent customer support. The CSR with whom I've been communicating could neither confirm nor deny forthcoming support for older devices like my Visor under Windows Vista. In desparation, I even called their corporate offices in Australia, & received the same pathetic response: they simply didn't know whether my PDA will, or will not, be supported come the release of Vista.
To quote an email I received from their CSR:
As we have indicated in our last email, our development team has not provided any updates or feedback regarding the development and release of drivers for Palm handhelds to support Windows® Vista OS synchronization.
Rest assured that any updates and developments would be posted on our website or indicated on our newsletter.
We do understand your frustration and need to verify the availability of these drivers and we would like to provide a more accurate answer to your enquiry, however, no news has been forwarded. Should there be any developments and official releases, they are all posted on our website.
Now, those who know me, know I'm a wee bit prone to tilting at windmills. So, after much reading, struggling & cursing, I can suggest the following steps for those of us wanting to HotSync older Palm devices under Vista:
1. Install the Palm software and drivers under Windows XP SP2, and perform at least one hotsync.
2. Export the registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\U.S. Robotics] from Windows XP SP2.
3. Boot into Windows Vista Beta 2.
4. Press the HotSync button on the Visor cradle, & use the Device Manager to update the drivers. When prompted, don't have Vista search online for drivers, but instruct it to search in the USB_Driver directory on your Windows XP SP2 partition (in my case, this was D:\Program Files\Palm\USB_Driver).
5. Then, ensure the HotSync Manager is not running (right-click on the systray icon, and choose exit).
6. Import the registry key you exported in step 2.
7. Set the HotSync Manager (HOTSYNC.EXE) to run as Administrator, and run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode.
8. Restart the machine and boot into Vista.
Sadly, you'll have to dismiss a UAC dialog each time you boot, as HotSync Manager will now need Administrator privileges to run. However, you should find that when you next press the HotSync button on the Palm (or the cradle, if you're using a Visor), the HotSync will run properly.
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