Driver problems, please read.

[Aces High 2]

Hi all,

Last night I had horrendous problems with TrackIR drivers. I bought a 7 port powered Belkin hub in order to try and solve persistant disconnect problems that I've been having with my HOTAS Cougar.

I disconnected all four USB devices (Cougar, TrackIR, X-Keys keyboard and ZIP drive) that I was running on my PCI USB 2.0 NEC chipped card and then plugged in the hub which Windows XP detected and installed . I plugged my devices back in and one by one and they were detected EXCEPT the TrackIR. which insisted on being recognised as a "USB Device" for which it couldn't install any drivers.

I followed the following advise in a thread posted on this board which seemed to present a solution for this very problem :

Quote :

"To delete the trackIR completely, which we have only done in Win2K, you must do the following:

Have device plugged in, delete from Device Manager. Unistall our software. Run Regedit and delete everything with the following in it: NaturalPoint, Eye Control Technologies, Pid_2235, Pid_1002, EZUSB, EZmon

That should do it, restart and then install our software, then install the device, it should seem like the computer is finding it for the first time, if it doesn't run you through the "new device found" proceedure, like it did the first time then we didn't get all the entries. Make sure it shows up properly in the Device Manager and then try it out. "

Having edited the registry as described above and double checked that all of these entries were removed I re-booted and still the TrackIR unit was detected as a "USB Device". After many tries at the above without success I disconnected the hub and plugged the USB devices back into the PCI card and restored XP back to an earlier time and Windows detected the devices except TrackIR which it still detected as a "USB device". I uninstalled Track IR and then re-installed it and all seems back io normal."

Sure enough the Pid entries required permissions to be altered in Regedit but all were removed as well as the other referrences to Naturalpoint, Eye Control Technologies, EZUSB, and EZmon.

Conclussion : the above method for registry editing doesn't work with Windows XP/SP1 there's still some entry(ies) Pids ? there that prevents this method from working.

BTW I have also recently removed two Windows Quickfixes that were reported to be causing USB problems.

Regards

Aces JG123

[Jim]

Hello:

We are aware of this issue in XP. The removal proceedure will work in Win2K, but not XP. As you pointed out, there is some strange business going on in XP where we can't find out where our system is registered and delete it. Very frustrating for us and some users who have this issue.

BTW, this is a top priority for us to find the entries and make an automated fix routine.

[Aces High 2]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply and, as usual, your great commitment supporting a great product.

I thought I was going crazy last night but earlier today I stumbled accross this post on the Rage 3D forum from a chap called R0mm3169 which might have some bearing on the issue, I don't know but it does effect XP+SP1 and might extend to other devices :

Quote :

"plesse excuse the length of this post. This may prove helpful to someone having driver issues with their video card and maybe even ANY peripheral under windowsXP.

a couple of days ago I finally decided to move off the 6018 drivers (they've worked flawlessly for the games I played) under windowsXP. This is where the pain begins.

I upgraded to DX9 and upgraded my sound card drivers as well. So I've installed plenty of ATI drivers before, know the prodecure like the back of my hand, no sweat right? WRONG. Major stuttering in some games. Fine, I'm busy, so I don't get back to it for a few days. So last night I decide to tackle the problem. UGH!!! What a pain in the arse. I tried Omega drivers, older catalyst, everything fails, but going back to 6018 was perfect again. Something screwey going on here. So I start paying closer attention to shat is going on as I clear out drivers. Well, it appears that some of the DLL and Sys files are coming back even after I delete them. XP file protection, but I had disabled that after installing XP. Ok, check the reg, it's back on. Fine, disable it, reboot, try again. BETTER. But not quite perfect. I can now delete all but 1 file, ati2mtag.sys (c:\windows\system32\drivers). BAH! It also resides in the DLL cache. Delete, it comes back. Go into safe mode, delete, reboot into normal, it comes back. Scan the reg for that entry, delete all possible ati2mtag references I can. Still no dice. Delete, try a quick driver install while it's gone, bah, old version replaces new.

TIME TO SCREAM!!!!!! ARGHHHH!! Throwing a hissy fit at this point, I AM NOT RE-INSTALLING WNDOWS! I will BEAT YOU INTO SUBMISSION!!! So I did a search on the SFC problem. MS screwed me. After SP1 the registry disabling of SFC does not always work. I had to hex edit sfc_os.dll and replace that in the System32 and Driver cache dirs. Reboot. Voilla. SUCCESS doctor, hax0r1ng surgery and the patient breathes again. Unbelievable rigamarole I had to endure to install a damned driver. Just want to send my personal thanks to Bill Gates and the microsoft staff (who are also receiving this in the form of e-mail and snail mail, I will not go unheard) and hopefully this may help someone here who is having a problem with drivers.

BTW, after this I went back and looked at my sound card drivers, 2 dll's were also not updated properly and that has ben rectified as well.

hope this helps someone"

End Quote

Regards and thanks

Aces JG123