Though Shalt Not Update Driver, thus spoke winblows.

[XDelusion]

Ok, not sure if I should have posted this here since it is winblows related, but here it goes...

 I got a Virus, and decided to go ahead and re-isntall winblows after I had cleared it all out. So when I re-install Winblows Xp of course identifies and installs drivers for all my hardware during install. Now the problem I am having is with my ATI All In Wonder Radeon card. I can install the software package, but then after you reboot, you have to go into the hardware manager, and select your video card, and choose update driver in order to use the updated drivers off the CD which have the 3D accel support and video capture support ect. Now for some reason or another Winblows REFUSES to see any such files on the CD. This is the SAME CD that came with the card, and the SAME CD I have used countless times in the past to install the updates from. What is the freaking deal here, is winblows f*cking retarded or what!?

 I tried to do a search on the CD-ROM for the driver files, but no matter what, winblows wants to look on my hard drive instead, and NEVER looks on the CD-ROM. I am going insane, please help!

[kd7ota]

Nope,

Its not windows that is retarted, its the user behind the keyboard.

Since the drives are crapping up, why not just download the latest ones off the internet so it installs them on your hard drive, so when it goes to search on your "harddrive", it should find them.

btw, freaky looking avatar, is it a guy or a girl?

And, since you got a virus, should of simply used norton to take it off. But oh well, I have mine flawlessly running.

[kd7ota]

When you say it doesnt look at your CD rom drive.. Maybe just specify the location of the actual folder of the driver in the CD. Failing to do so will just skip scanning the folders and say there is nothing.

[XDelusion]

The CD is fine, I used it last week to do this. It is just something different with Winblows, it ain't me this time. And yes I did update my virus scanner, and clear the system of all virus' before re-installing winblows, evern deleted the boot sector.

[kd7ota]

Probably better off getting a GeForce 4 or 3 Ti for cheap.  ATI had problems with games anyways most of the time.  :-D

[KennyR]

You shouldn't have reinstalled. Chances are you'll just get the virus again in the time it takes you to download and install the protection patch. Oh well...

But Windows is blatantly stupid when it comes to drivers. Blaming the user doesn't help when the OS has no real logical way of identifying, installing and tracking drivers. When you get a driver problem in Windows you really get one. In win98 I only fixed a corrupt driver by deleting an ini file in a hidden directory to fool Windows into thinking it didn't have a driver so it would allow me to install over the top of it.

All I can suggest is that if the CD has an installer on it, you run it and have it copy its files to the hard disk, and then try to install the driver. If someone thinks that Windows driver installation is intuitive, they need slapped around a bit until common sense returns.

[Jope]

I see you misspelled Windows.. Oh well, try to be more careful next time.

And about the problem.. either select search cd rom drive and have the disc in the drive, or browse the correct dir in the specify a location box.

The "specify a location" has to be where the driver's .inf file is, else Windows won't find it. (usually the search in cd-drive option is correct, as most driver cds have the infs in the root directory)

I'd suggest you get the newest reference drivers from the chip manufacturer's website anyways, those CDs that come with the cards are obsolete before the card hits the shelves.

And you're right, there are hundreds of Windows-specific forums out there, that could have helped you.

[XDelusion]

I didn't mis-spell winblows, that's how bILL ment it to be.

 As for the Search directory option, yes I have done all the above suggestions already, NONE of them work, winblows is like,"derrr, you mean C not E right?!".

 I searched and searched the CD, and found some drivers that winblows would accept, though I had to overwrite the newer files that winblows had offered already? That's a new one, so anyhow as soon as the latest drivers get down downloading, I am going to re-boot and see how all of this is working. I think perhaps somehow permissions are screwed up if that is possible?

 As for the Virus, yes it has been scanned FULLY, updated, deleted, canned, ect. The virus has got to be gone. It was the weird32 virus, so it should not effect what I am doing here anyhow, only EXE files on my hard drive.

[DonnyEMU]

My solution would be to just go to ATI's Website. Download the drivers off their site (screw using the Device Manager unless you know how to choose "ADVANCED"  and set your own location for the install and ignore any microsoft warnings about the files not passing their inspection..

Solution One:
The easiest solution is forget your install cd go to the website, install the drivers (ATI usually uses the standard windows installer) then reboot and have it work..

Your CD is probably older than what is up on ATI's site anyway..

What windows is getting confused about is the path to the drivers.. You have to choose advanced and that you know the location of the drivers.  What the select path thing then does is go out and look for a .INF file that is in the same folder tree as the actually driver and uses that .INF file to install the driver (ala magic)..

What you are probably doing when you "update driver" is pointing it to look at the CD but not to the folder where the .INF file is to the machine where to find the driver and go from there..

Solution Two:
A simple solution to your cd problem is click "update driver" clicked advanced so you can browse for a folder, then browse to wherever those .INF files are and hit okay and next for them to load..

if you browse the ati CD or did a "search" of the CD looking for *.INF I bet you'd find the folder path to where you need to point the device manager "update driver" button needs to look to install everything just fine and dandy..


Next: go to support.microsoft.com and look up ".INF" files, it will explain what these magic buggers do for you to eliminate the confusion...

[DonnyEMU]

Your installation problem is no worse that an Amiga Installer script that is written badly..

-Don

[N7VQM]

Don't forget that you must UNINSTALL the old driver from Add/Remove Programs and revert to Standard VGA before installing the newer Catalyst driver.  If you don't, be prepared for hell.

Makes me wish I'd gone with an nVidia card.

[KennyR]

Radeon cards are great - just not on Windows. ;-)

[levelLORD]

N7VQM wrote:
Don't forget that you must UNINSTALL the old driver

Isn't that a fresh instalation of WinXP?

@KennyR

I agree, next card, at least for me, is something from ATI, nVidia - never again.

Later.

levelLORD

[DonnyEMU]

I myself am a proud owner of an eVGA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra.. The card just rocks and I love the auto driver updating and very good tech support website presence eVGA offers..

The other thing I like about this card is it's fully directx 9 compliant and offers all current pixel and vertex shader support that's standard with Dx9..

That means some really kick ass cinematic 3d fx.. I like ATI but I think nVidia just outclasses them with driver support and system integration support. I was a big ATI fan and still have their TV card in my machine, it interoperates fine with the 5900 card.

I also never have to "UNINSTALL" a video driver (at least not so far)..

[N7VQM]

levelLORD wrote:

Isn't that a fresh instalation of WinXP?

An ATI driver was present in my system when I first installed WinXP.  Maybe that doesn't apply to non-SP1-patched WinXP install discs?