A non black Vista keyboard

[Fiery_WA]

I hate with a passion the black keyboards. I prefer the beige ones, however soon I will be upgrading my OS to Vista, and my 12 year old now letterless keyboard will not work with Vista, I need to buy a new one.

I have googled my *** off, trying to find a beige coloured keyboard that will work with Vista.

And have found some interesting facts along the way.

1. True or false - Pretty much any standard USB keyboard is Vista ready, as long as it doesnt require some specialised software for it to work

So does this mean a standard PS2 connection will not work unless it's a black keyboard? and has both PS2 and USB

I do not want a wireless keyboard.

If anyone knows of an Australian site that would carry this rare species please respond.

I have one question with the USB keyboards, when you are installing a new OS such as vista, how will vista pick up the fact it's a USB connection if the USB drivers haven't been installed yet? You know like when you have a USB mouse the OS will not pick up the mouse.

 

[snowchick7669]

1. True or false - Pretty much any standard USB keyboard is Vista ready, as long as it doesnt require some specialised software for it to work

Generally true (can't say 100%), but most keyboards that we order in are Vista ready.

Actually lucky for you, my flatemate is the same way and he wants the same type of keyboard. So I managed to hunt one down the other day, its not beige but its Aluminum colour (whatever that is), but it ends up looking like an off white.

I have one question with the USB keyboards, when you are installing a new OS such as vista, how will vista pick up the fact it's a USB connection if the USB drivers haven't been installed yet? You know like when you have a USB mouse the OS will not pick up the mouse

Not 100% sure as to what you are asking here, but most keyboards that work with vista will install themselves as soon as you plug them in, sometimes you just have to wait for a bit at the log in screen and it will be installing in the backround (not always clear, but it pays to be patient).

The link underneath is to a New Zealand site, but least you can see that they do exist!
http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/Saitek-Aluminium-Keyboard/1522434/

 

[Fiery_WA]

Okay I have a currently installed microflacid OS Win2k Pro, as you may or not be aware winblows will no longer be supporting Win2k, either mid this year or late this year.

So therefore I am going to have upgrade my OS, as XP only has another four years shelf life on it. I am going to make a gigantic leap straight onto Vista.

My laptop came preinstalled with Vista, however I am talking about my desktop. And I know with Win2k, that a PS2 connection is needed for the OS to pick up both the keyboard and the mouse.

I was wondering how Vista does it. Or does it just know?

 

[gguerra]

I think you are misinformed. The OS has nothing to do with what kind of keyboard connection is used, USB or PS2 it all depends on the hardware (motherboard). Vista and any other Windows OS will support both USB and PS2 as long as you hardware supports it. Since you are using a desktop that has Win2K on it I assume it is an older computer. You need to make sure it is even capable of running vista. You need a pretty decent CPU and plenty of RAM (1GB at least, 2 or 4 GB recommended). Pentium 4 3.0 at the minimum I would say for the CPU. The OS will automatically load drivers for whatever kind of keyboard/mouse is installed. As for finding a beige keyboard check out newegg.com I'm sure they have plenty of beige keyboards and other colors as well in both PS2 and USB .

 

[Fiery_WA]

I think you are misinformed. The OS has nothing to do with what kind of keyboard connection is used, USB or PS2 it all depends on the hardware (motherboard). Vista and any other Windows OS will support both USB and PS2 as long as you hardware supports it. Since you are using a desktop that has Win2K on it I assume it is an older computer. You need to make sure it is even capable of running vista. You need a pretty decent CPU and plenty of RAM (1GB at least, 2 or 4 GB recommended). Pentium 4 3.0 at the minimum I would say for the CPU. The OS will automatically load drivers for whatever kind of keyboard/mouse is installed. As for finding a beige keyboard check out newegg.com I'm sure they have plenty of beige keyboards and other colors as well in both PS2 and USB .

Actually no I am not runnin and "old" computer, just a reliable version of microflacid.
AMD Dual Core 5200+
2GB RAM (soon to be 4GB)

And newegg is in the States, I live in Australia

 

[Fiery_WA]

I have found on ebay this :-

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220422010392&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:AU:1123

I asked the question was this keyboard vista compitable and received this response

As you know Vista has all the drivers and yes it will work on a vista machine

However because I could not find any information on this keyboard I this question

Model of the keyboard ........ received this response KB-0168 1.0a.

However on doing a windows vista compatility search it is not listed.

The price is cheap enough, although this does not concern me, IT'S BEIGE!

 

[mrturtle]

You say that you're about to upgrade your ram, is the version of Vista you're getting 64 bit? Because it will have to be 64 bit to support the extra ram.

 

[Fiery_WA]

No only 32 bit at this stage, my Gigabyte Motherboard will take 4 sticks of RAM, so I figured why not

 

[mrturtle]

Then you may have trouble getting it to recognise the extra 1GB as 32bit cannot address the extra memory.
Dont take my anser on this for certain because it was awhile ago that I looked into it, but it will either go one of two ways. Vista will only recognise up to 3GB (and the rest will be used for system memory) or it will refuse to boot (again not certain on this and it may depend on the specifics of your system).

 

[Fiery_WA]

OoOoOo didn't realise vista would do that too me. However you are sidetracking my question .......


I have found on ebay this :-

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....:X:RTQ:AU:1123

I asked the question was this keyboard vista compitable and received this response

As you know Vista has all the drivers and yes it will work on a vista machine

However because I could not find any information on this keyboard I this question

Model of the keyboard ........ received this response KB-0168 1.0a.

However on doing a windows vista compatility search it is not listed.

The price is cheap enough, although this does not concern me, IT'S BEIGE!

 

[mrturtle]

I imagine that it like other basic peripherals is plug and play?

 

[Fiery_WA]

My current compaq 12 yo keyboard is plug and play, but I know damn well it won't work with vista.

 

[seanc]

I'm using a god knows how old PS/2 Compaq keyboard - I don't understand the problem... it's a keyboard - they're all the same and will work as long as you can still physically plug them into the PC!

Are you referring to specific media buttons?

 

[Fiery_WA]

No I haven't used the media buttons in years. I was however under the impression vista would not like my keyboard.

To date my only experience with vista is with my laptop which had vista pre loaded on it.

 

[gguerra]

Fiery_WA, I dont know how clear I can be. As I stated in a previous post if the keyboard plugs into the PC and is recognized by the PC, IT WILL WORK WITH VISTA!!! and any other OS you can load on THAT PC. Sorry for the yelling but I cannot be any clearer than that.