Tag: driver
With the next iteration of the Windows client having hit the Release Candidate stage, Microsoft has introduced an update to the resources designed to streamline development and testing of drivers for the successor of Windows Vista. Developers will be able to take advantage of refreshed documentation for the Windows Driver Kit via MSDN. The update to the Windows Driver Kit was introduced to keep up the pace with the evolution of Windows 7, which is available for public download as Release Candidate Build 7100 since May 5th, 2009.
“The WDKUA team is pleased to announce that we have refreshed the WDK documentation for Windows 7 RC on MSDN,” revealed Kevin Shirley, WDK programming writer. “We have also provided an improved feedback mechanism with this documentation refresh. Near the bottom of each WDK documentation topic is a “Send feedback on this topic” link. You can use the link to provide targeted topic feedback to the WDK documentation team. Please note that while we attempt to address relevant submissions in a timely manner, it may take awhile for us to update any given topic.” Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
February 16, 2009 by
Jason New storage features have come to Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP SP3 and releases of the Windows Server platforms. Windows Feature Pack for Storage 1.0 was released to web (RTW) and is now available for download and integration with the supported operating systems. This is the finalized version of Windows Feature Pack for Storage 1.0, with Microsoft cooking the pack since 2008. In fact, in August 2008, the Redmond company was dropping a pre-release version of the solution via Microsoft Connect.
“The Windows Feature Pack for Storage 1.0 includes the following features: Image Mastering API Update for Blu-Ray Media – this feature enables the Windows platform to do master style optical burning on Blu-Ray media. Smart Card Driver – this release provides support for new form factors, such as ICCD,” Microsoft revealed.
“The following system requirements are necessary to install the Windows Feature Pack for Storage 1.0 – the system must be running one of the following operating systems: Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments »
January 31, 2009 by
Jason In addition to the plain-vanilla Windows 7 Beta (7000.0.081212.1400) releases, Microsoft has also made available the checked builds for both the client and server flavors of the operating system. However, although meant for testing, the checked builds of Windows 7 client Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta (Windows 7 Server Beta) are designed with a specific target group in mind: device driver developers.
At the same time, the Redmond company is not serving the checked builds of Windows 7 client and server through its official Win 7 hotspot of via the Microsoft Download Center. The developer releases are only available through Microsoft Connect. The following Connect ID WIN7-3HQW-RF74 along with a Windows Live ID permits access to the downloads. Microsoft is offering 7000.0.081212-1400_server_unstaged_en-us-GB1SXCHK_EN_DVD.iso; 7000.0.081212-1400_client_unstaged_en-us-GB1CXCHK_EN_DVD.iso; 7000.0.081212-1400_server_unstaged_en-us-GB1SIAiCHK_EN_DVD.iso and 7000.0.081212-1400_client_unstaged_en-us-GB1CCHK_EN_DVD.iso. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 15, 2009 by
Jason While building Windows 7, Microsoft is attempting to resolve scenarios that managed to successfully handicap Windows Vista in terms of compatibility. In this context, in order not to break devices that currently work with its precursor, Windows 7 will come to the table, from the get-go, with support for all Vista-certified drivers.
Compatibility with devices designed for Vista ensures that users will have a seamless upgrade/migration experience. Grant George, the VP of Test for the Windows Experience, revealed that Microsoft had full compatibility with Vista-certified drivers for Windows 7 as a primary goal.
“Drivers for basic functionality are in-box (by in-box we mean available as part of the installation of Windows). This includes drivers for mainstream storage, network, input, and display devices, so the OS can be installed and user can get online where, if needed, additional drivers can be acquired from Windows Update. Drivers update and/or install with minimal end user effort. When drivers are upgraded, there aren’t problems with the new drivers. Drivers are reliable,” George explained. Read More»
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January 06, 2009 by
Jason
You will use the following tools when you prepare images and deploy Windows Vista throughout your organization:
Sysprep This is the updated version, modified for Windows Vista.
Setup A new installation tool for Windows Vista that replaces WINNT and WINNT32.
ImageX The new command-line tool for creating WIM images.
Windows SIM A tool for creating and modifying Unattend.xml files.
PEimg The tool for customizing Windows PE 2.0 images.
Windows DS The new version of RIS, which adds the ability to deploy Windows Vista images as well as Windows PE 2.0 boot images. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
November 30, 2008 by
Jason As of November 2008, Microsoft is delivering the first taste of DirectX 11 for Windows 7 for download. A release aimed at developers, The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit, brings to the table the successor of Direct3D 10.1, namely Direct3D 11. In the SDK package, the Redmond company is offering a technical preview of Direct3D 11, but also the adjacent components and tools. Backwards compatible, content developed for Direct3D 11 hardware will also be compatible with earlier products supporting Direct3D 10 and 10.1 (in Vista SP1). Via the Windows 7 Developer Guide, Microsoft provides an insight into the new features made available by Direct3D 11.
“Geometry and high-order surfaces can now be tessellated to support scalable, dynamic content in patch and subdivision surface representations. To make good use of the parallel processing power available from multiple CPU cores, multithreading increases the number of potential rendering calls per frame by distributing the application, runtime, and driver calls across multiple cores. In addition, resource creation and management has been optimized for multithreaded use, enabling more efficient dynamic texture management for streaming,” Microsoft revealed. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
October 06, 2008 by
Jason If you’re upgrading a computer running Windows XP, you can save money by opting for an upgrade rather than the full version of Windows Vista.
However, you can’t necessarily perform an ‘in-place’ or ‘over-the-top’ upgrade; sometimes you have to perform a clean installation of Windows Vista, which means backing up and reinstalling all your current programs, folders and files. The table shows where an over-the-top upgrade is possible.
In practice, a clean install means a fresh start; anything short of this can carry over problems from your old, cluttered version of Windows XP. Strictly speaking, when Windows Vista installs itself over Windows XP, it actually does perform a clean install and then imports all the old settings.
This should help prevent problems and can even, in principle, carry through hardware drivers that can’t be installed under Windows Vista itself, thereby preserving the working life of older devices. However, we’d recommend a truly clean install whenever possible. Read More»
Posted in Windows XP | No Comments »
September 21, 2008 by
Jason Normally, the blue screen of death contains a driver name, and some addresses; if you’re lucky, removing that driver will do the trick. But what if there is no driver name on the BSoD? And what if you don’t have all the skills to play with crashdumps and debuggers?
In this case, Autoruns comes to the rescue. This is a graphical tool that allows you to disable/enable drivers in a very easy way.
The strategy:
1. Boot into safe mode (since the system is crashing when you attempt to boot normally);
2. Start Autoruns, and switch to the Drivers tab;
3. Go through the list, and uncheck the drivers that are suspicious;
4. Close the program, restart and boot normally
The steps above will be repeated until the system is able to boot correctly.
When that happens, remember what were the last changes you applied, and try to enable some drivers back – until you figure out which one of them was causing the issue. Read More»
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Windows Vista, both the RTM and Service Pack 1 versions, can lose installed drivers in scenarios in which the computer is started via the Last Known Good Configuration feature. According to Microsoft not only Vista RTM/SP1 is affected, but also Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1. Machines booted with the Last Known Good Configuration feature can have some .inf files removed from the %windir%\inf folder. In this context, the operating systems will also lose the installed drivers associated with the .inf files.
“These .inf files correspond to the drivers that are included with Windows. If you try to install a new device that uses an .inf file that has been deleted, you may receive an error message that resembles the following: “Driver not found.” If you try to reinstall the same version of driver that was originally serviced, the devices that use that .inf file may not work correctly,” Microsoft informed.
The Redmond company is offering no less than five updates designed to tackle these specific issues. The releases have been available for download since the end of the past week, and are tailored to both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Vista RTM/SP1, but also to the x86, x64 and Itanium-based Systems variants of Windows Server 2008. The updates will bring the platforms out of the inconsistent status generated by starting the computer with the Last Known Good Configuration feature. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
Whenever you play computer games that utilizes 3D graphics, a decent frame rate of about 25-30 frames per second is a prerequisite to make the games run smoothly and be at all enjoyable. If you play on a desktop PC, you always have the option to put in a more powerful graphics card, but that’s not an option with laptop computers. Another problem with laptops – but one that can be avoided – is the lack of updated graphics card drivers. Using updated drivers can provide better performance in new games thanks to game-specific fixes and improvements.
The Problem with OEM Drivers
Although both of the leading graphics card manufacturers (ATI/AMD and Nvidia) provide generic driver updates regularly that are designed to work with all of the respective manufacturer’s chips – even the laptop versions – most OEMs (laptop manufacturers) do not allow these to be installed on your laptop, since they prefer to use proprietary solutions for all their driver updates. As a result, you may be forced to use drivers that are as old as your laptop if the OEM doesn’t update their drivers on a regular basis, which is unfortunately often the case. Read More»
Posted in Hardware | 1 Comment »
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