So I happen to have an HP 2120us Windows XP Media Center Edition Laptop that is Vista Compatible. I also happen to be a Microsoft Partner, so with the release of Windows Vista, I got a copy of Windows Vista Business to try out and play with before I start advising my clients on it. Now I have used Windows Vista Ultimate before in another Microsoft Partner pack, and I was pretty happy with that version despite the fact that it was beta. Windows Business doesn’t fall much short; it covers all the features except for some media add-ons here and there, which would useful primarily for a technology enhanced Western household. Anything east of the UK, and people wouldn’t really understand the benefits of some of the features offered by Windows Vista Ultimate.

For all people who are considering upgrading their HP Laptops to Vista though, there may be several minor issues. HP provides drivers for all the hardware, but most of the not-so-useful software that HP bundled with their Media Center Edition pre-Install can also be found on the web. But one of their most useful inventions, HP Quickplay, is not available once you upgrade from Windows XP to Windowss Vista. Now the Pavillion dv Edition laptops are configured for HP Quickplay, and they have a Quickplay button on them; it’s just really weird having the button on there but no Quickplay itself.

I’ve gotten a hold of HP Customer support, I’ve searched all over the web, and HP Quickplay is hard to come by. HP Customer service flat out said that Quickplay is not available UNLESS you simply recover yur original OS and it’s complied into that installation. If you upgrade, you will be unable to take advantage of HP Quickplay, and apparently, HP has no intention of offering the software standalone in the future. Now, I’m an HP laptop kind of a guy, but this move on HP’s part is absolutely ridiculous.

This further complicates things for people with HP Laptops and Windows Vista, because unless you’re upgrading to Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, you’re not going to have any DVD reading or writing codecs, and who wants to pay for those, again, when you already paid for them as part of your original laptop purchase.

How to go by this issue; you can try and put your recovery hard drive partition on your laptop onto CDs, because once you’ve installed Vista, you can see the recovery partition, but you can’t access it (I haven’t tried figuring this one out yet, it probably has something to do with NTFS and FAT32). Then you can try installing some of the software from your recovery drive. It may or may not work. The point is that HP’s service in the matter is currently poor, and I’m not sure they plan on changing that unless you buy a laptop which comes pre-installed with Vista.

7 Responses to “HP’s Windows Vista Compatible Laptops”

1. Asif Says:
   February 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

   Turns out there is a soluton to the problem. You can order recovery disks, but you’ve got to incur the cost of shipping and handling. Fine by me. It turns out that the monkeys @ HP Customer Service just didn’t know about that.

2. Asif Says:
   February 25th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

   Oh and if you use the HP Upgrade Utility available in HP.com, it’s going to wipe out all the partitions; the main one, the Quickplay linux Partition, and the recovery drive. Make sure you’ve put the recovery drive on CDs so you can then have access to all your licensed software that came with the laptop.

3. george Says:
   February 25th, 2009 at 12:57 am

   hey ya,i guess i got the same problem as everyone in here who has an hp laptop well my ?? is if i want my Quickplay back i must load my recovery disc back to my laptop,even if my hard drive was replace to new one cuz my old one burned out,any body got any tips or idea?on how i can get my quickplay back???pleas any one reply back asap…

4. george Says:
   February 25th, 2009 at 1:01 am

   my laptop is already a windows vista i did not upgrade just
   change the hard drive,and before i did that i put in the recovery disc,but i didn’t know what really was wrong with it till later,need quickplay back,any help anyone???????

5. Commie B Says:
   February 26th, 2009 at 8:35 am

   See the instructions here to get QuickPlay: http://www.asifism.com/hp-quickplay-windows-vista/hp-quickplay-on-windows-vista/

6. Dimitris Says:
   June 25th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

   is anybody knows how to store my snapshots in a jpeg file?
   thank you

7. Commie B Says:
   June 27th, 2009 at 8:02 am

   What software are you using to save them. Usually you can go under file save as and choose the jpeg option.

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