14 DAY TRIAL // In case some of you think of installing Vista when using an Nforce2 platform, think again. Due to some peculiarities regarding the SMBus controller, Nvidia decided to drop Vista support for Nforce 2 based motherboards. I know that this may not be good news for all of you Nforce 2 owners, but it seems that Nvidia leaves no choice since the board may actually function under Vista but it will be crippled on the performance side due to the lack of drivers. You may try to run Xp drivers and use compatibility mode but I don't think the resulting operating system will be a stable one.
Yes, as it turns out, it's a driver related problem since Nvidia could just as well release a driver compatible to the Vista HAL. The fact that they don't do that seems quite odd when you think that it's a software compatibility issue rather than a hardware one. I guess that Nvidia has finally learnt the lesson on how to drop perfectly good products in order to force people to buy new ones from them. It's an idea that many manufacturers have used over the year but it's quite unpleasant the fact that it comes from Nvidia. Bottom line is: if you want Vista, then your motherboard's life is over. And in case you have decided to change it with another Nvidia motherboard, you'll also have to replace your CPU. Oh, joy!