Windows 7 Beta has been downloaded by thousands of enthusiastic users since its launch and has received great reviews from users from around the world. Windows 7 adds many new features and fixes over the current Windows Vista. One thing which many people will have trouble with, is finding Windows 7 compatible drivers for their devices. Although not many people know that Windows 7 structure is very similar to that of Windows Vista so in essence, drivers for most devices for Windows Vista should work in Windows 7.

So if you just installed Windows 7 or just installed a new device, head on over to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers for Windows Vista. In most cases, your drivers should install no problem and you shouldn’t have any problems with your device. If however, you are displayed an error regarding compatibility, then you will need to force the installer to work with Windows 7. I have mentioned the steps to do this below:

1. Right click on the driver .exe file and click “Troubleshoot Compatibility”.
2. A program compatibility windows will open and ask you a questioned related to your problem. You have to choose “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now”.
3. You will then see a list of operating systems. Choose Windows Vista and click next.
4. Windows 7 will associate the program compatibility with Windows 7 and you will be able to open the installer now.

The drivers should now install flawlessly.

Even though Windows Vista drivers will work in most cases, there may be a device which will refuse to work. This means that the device requires Windows 7 specific drivers to work. Head on over to the manufacturer site to see if they have released drivers for Windows 7. NVIDIA has a page about Windows 7 here. ATI also has beta drivers for some of its graphics cards. Installing drivers for Intel hardware(including Realtek audio drivers) should work if you apply the compatibility trick mentioned above. You may also look at drivers for Windows 7 at Microsoft Hardware Support site. You can expect companies to release drivers for Windows 7 as it inches closer to its release.