Windows 7 & P55 USB Issues

I have seen a few articles (Apple Forums, Engadget Mobile) about sync problems with iTunes and iPhones/iPods on Windows 7 with P55 chipset motherboards

I was also getting the ‘unknown error occurred (0xE8000065)’ when trying to sync my iPhone, but enabling C1E support (Enhanced halt state) in the BIOS seems to have resolved my problems with with synching. (BIOS release 0711 for the Asus P7P55E-Deluxe has this option enabled in default settings- release 0606 did not).

However- I am also having issues with other USB devices that I did not have prior to upgrading to a P55 chipset. My Logitech Harmony remote will not sync and my USB headset will not work as long as I have then plugged into a USB port on the motherboard- but plugging them into a PCI USB card works correctly.

Hopefully the latest chipset driver from Intel will resolve these issues (but P55 is not listed as supported under this driver?)…

Enabling AHCI in Windows 7

Most modern motherboard with integrated SATA controllers offer a few options for accessing connected drives- usually these choices are ATA, RAID or AHCI.

ATA is a basic interface and it works well with older operating systems (such Windows XP). This emulation is good as you generally don’t need to load additional controller drivers while installing windows (F6 during bootup)

RAID offers different disc configurations for redundancy and/or performance- and generally requires a driver to setup Windows.

Advanced Host Controller Interface (ACHI) is a newer implantation that allows for SATA drive hot plug and supports native command queuing (NCQ). This can have some performance benefits to Widows Vista/7. Most board that support SATA II drives will have this option- it should definitely be an option on the Intel x58 and P55 motherboards…

I found some info about converting an ATA install to AHCI on I Think Different and the PC Perspective forums.

If you installed Windows 7 on an ATA configured drive (like I did), you don’t need to re-install the OS again; a small registry tweak will enable the AHCI driver and Windows will re-detect the drive on next boot up.

The registry key is located in:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Servuces\msahci.

The Key is a reg_dword named ‘start’. In non-AHCI system, this is set to ‘3’. To enable the AHCI driver, this needs to be changed to ‘0’.

After the above change is made, make sure all of your data is backed up, reboot into BIOS and change the SATA controller from IDE to ACHI. Reboot back into Windows 7, let windows re-detect the drive, reboot again and you should be using AHCI! :)

Windows 7 Connectivity Issue

I formatted my system and installed the RTM (build 7600) of Windows 7; all worked great.  I went about installing my necessary applications (Firefox, NewsLeecher, etc) and all seemed to be good.

A few days ago I rebooted- and I was unable to connect to the internet.  My tray icon indicated there was a network issue and a quick IPCONFIG revealed that I had two gateway addresses:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : OuterNET
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.100
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.1
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0

I thought that was a bit strange…

I disabled and re-enabled my network connection and the problem ceased.  However, when i rebooted again, I had the same issue. 

I did a little research and found that some users having similar issues that were caused by the Bonjour service that is installed with Adobe CS3.  I did not see such a service installed, but there is one labeled ‘##Id_String2.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B879762##’.

When I opened the properties for this service, it reveals that it is the Bonjour service that others have had issue with:

I set the service to ‘disabled’ and rebooted; the issue has not returned.

Formal instructions for removing the service can be found in the Adobe forums.

NWN2 on Windows 7 b7100

I have ran into another issue with Windows 7 built 7100 (RC). I recently installed Neverwinter Nights 2 on my Windows 7 system and I get an error that ‘No 3D card found’, despite my GXT285 working great with all other games.

I did some Google searches and it appears that this issue is partial to DirectX on the 7057/7100 builds- and only to this game. Others tester were reporting that NWN2 worked on build 7000, stopped with 7068/7100, and is again working in build 7127.

I tried upgrading to 7127 x64 from inside of 7100 x64 and had three successive failures (possibly due to my RAID0 boot drive on the Gigabyte SATA2 RAID) and decided to start over and install 7127 x64 clean. I was able to get the base install to work, but now I received errors when trying to run AVG or Nero: 'side by side configuration errors’ made these applications (plus likely a good deal of others) impossible to use, so I reverted back to b7100.

Finally back to build 7100, I did a little creative Googling and finally found a ‘fix’ on the BioWare forums:

To get NWN2 to run on Windows 7 - download this file - Click Here - take ownership of the original file (look in c:\windows\system32 or c:\windows\syswow64 depending on your flavor of OS), rename it (I recommend renaming the extension to something other than .dll in case you need the original file later on), then move the downloaded file into the same folder as the original. Good to go.

To get the NWN2 Toolset to function under Windows 7 - you need to manually install the actual DirectX 9.0c package. Best version to get is Microsoft's updated end-user redistributable, as this not only places the correct DirectX 9.0c files on your system, but will update any DirectX 10 files as well. The file can be found here - Click Here - download, unpack to any folder on your system, and run the dxsetup.exe file. The toolset will now run.

Neverwinter Nights 2 will now run after taking ownership and replacing the dxdign.dll file in c:\windows\syswow64\ (for x64 version).

MKV (H.264) Support on Windows 7!

DivX Labs has created a codec for MKV video container support on Windows 7. It is a free ‘preview’ download- after creating an account and joining the Project Rémoulade group…

1701 A.D. and Tagès CP Issues with Windows 7 x64

I picked up a copy of 1701 A.D. (made by Aspyr) for $15 at Target as it seemed to be a well designed RTS/Sim game. I tried to install it on Windows Vista 7 x64 RC and I received a ‘driver incompatible with this version of Windows’ message when it tried to install the ‘Tagès drivers’.

The ‘Tagès drivers’ appear to be a form of copy protection for DVD-ROMs; without this driver the game attempts to start but fails with the error that copy protection is not installed. I highly suspect that this is due to it not being written to support an x64 Windows version.

I could find no information on this on the Aspyr site- save for the 1701 A.D. 1.02 update. The patch tried to re-install the Tages drivers- and appears to have somewhat succeeded- save for now when I start Windows 7 I get an error ‘Tages driver blocked due to incompatibility issues’.

I resolved that I would just uninstall the drivers and the game and be done with it. I uninstalled the game, but the Tages drivers persisted and I could find no way to remove.

A search of the web turned up a Tagès driver update page- with both x86 and x64 support. I downloaded the v5.5 driver, re-installed the game and it now works.

I believe (albeit I have not tested as of yet) I will need to run the Tages 5.5. setup again to eventually remove the Tages driver.

Copy Protection Incompatibility with Windows 7?

I purchased a copy of ‘Darkstar One’ on close-out at Target (for $2.48) and finally tried to install it tonight. During the install on Windows 7 b7077, I was prompted with a ‘driver incompatibility’ alert:

Apparently, the copy protection used by ‘Tages Protection’ is not compatible with Windows 7.

Running the program produces an error:

Odd- an incompatible driver for Windows 7 is actually a form of copy protection?

Windows 7 ‘Start Menu’

I am a big fan of customizing the Windows Start menu to consolidate the programs into folders that make items easier to find (and yes, I keep my inbox devoid of all email that I am not presently working with).

In Windows XP and earlier, this was done by right clicking the start button and selecting ‘Open Folder’ or ‘Open All Users’; These folders were located in c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu and C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu. Using these two folders I could drag around/cut/paste/delete the icons to make my Start menu folder look like I wanted it to appear:

In Windows 7 the ‘Open Folder’ and ‘Open All Users’ options have been removed (I am pretty sure this was present in Vista). The actual ‘Start Menu’ folder location appears to have moved around a bit in Windows 7 (and possibly Windows Vista); The ‘main’ repository for the Start Menu items is located in:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\

An individual’s start menu items are now located in:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

…and there is another folder for ‘All Users’:

C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

I believe the later two are ‘legacy’ locations for older programs that insist on installing program items for ‘current user or all users’.

Windows 7 b7057

The Windows Beta builds have been circulating around the normal web locations for several months and I have ventured to try these on my Laptop and NetBook. I did try once on my main PC but it was personally rejected due to specific software incompatibilities; NeatWorks being as primary concern.

I mistakenly installed Windows Vista SP2 beta as a clean install from a MSDN ISO image- a mistake as SP2 beta is integrated into Windows and cannot be installed- such as when I want to install SP2 RC1 and I am told to ‘uninstall prior versions of SP2’.

Vista was having issues (routine Windows Leprosy- as it happens every 3-6 months) so I resigned myself to using Windows 7 as my primary rig. By the Lords of Kobol’s graces it appears that NeatWorks is not compatible with Windows 7! (or it could be that NeatWorks upgraded from v4 to v4.5 in the past few weeks). nVidia also announced driver support for Windows 7 so all the better.

Daemon Tools appears to not work with Windows 7; a quick Google search indicates that the free Virtual CloneDrive from SlySoft will do most of what I used Daemon Tools for- and it works with Windows 7…