Good morning Will; this forum is for helping customers interoperating with Windows via our open protocol documentation. Your issue does not appear to be related to our protocol documentation.
It doesn't make sense to me that a new PC would have trouble reading USB hardware. These are well-known devices. However, there is always the possibility that the USB port you have plugged the cable modem into is not working properly (e.g., a hardware problem that is not detectable by the USB driver stack).
Unless you have already done so, I suggest trying a different USB port. But first, you might be best served by using Device Manager to Uninstall the USB Cable modem. Then scan for hardware changes (on the Action menu) - first making sure that your driver disk is ready to go - or, if the driver disk has a manual install option, I would perform that first - Vista should then be able to find the modem drivers automatically.
After that, I recommend you check the device properties in Device Manager, and compare the installed drivers with those on your working Vista system.
The USB modem hardware manufacturer is in the best position to have data or incident reports about troubles with the particular model of cable modem that you are using.
Finally - if you have more than one USB cable modem, I would swap to a different one and see if that cures the problem. If so, the troubled cable modem might have a hardware problem.
Just in case, here are several links that should be of help to you, in case you need to contact our technical support staff:
o Help & Support Home' at http://support.microsoft.com/ (there are 'Self Support Options' available on this page).
o 'Select a Product for Assistance' at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/assistsupport
o The Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/search/
Regards,
Bill Wesse
MCSE, MCTS / Senior Escalation Engineer, US-CSS DSC PROTOCOL TEAM
Escalation Engineer
