HyperPac´s site

A little bit unexpected I needed an external WLAN interface for my laptop, which still runs the much dead OS Windows XP x64 (64-bit Edition). And I was really scared with the last driver madness in my mind.

Anyway I got this Ralink thing for only 15 EUR (around 20$) on eBay and I was really surprised. The device came with x64 drivers. Yessss…and it worked right after I installed them. Unbelieveable…

The performance was a little bit bad, so I grabbed the newest drivers from the Ralink website. The performance increased a bit and also the newest drivers have a great support for x64 based OS (also Vista and Windows 7).

Nearly all Ralink chipsets feature x64 compatible drivers which is – at this price level – a really cool thing. Most upper class devices only have a support for Windows 7 x64, but not for Windows XP x64 or other x64 systems.
But with all the good news about this device, there´s one thing that can´t impress as much as the rest. The antenna which should supply a +5dbi connection boost. It was really hard to notice at least a boost, but honestly there´s one, but only around +1dbi / +2dbi. If you´re on a bad coverage this antenna won´t make things better at all.

In general, you can´t do anything wrong with this device at that price and if you don´t plan to use any other OS than Windows XP x64 you won´t have much choice at all.

Update :

Well with this nice 2.4 GHZ WLAN antenna from hama I boosted my WLAN stick. It works really good. Connection raised from a low signal strength to a good and sometimes even very good signal strength. The antenna was about 18 EUR on eBay (around 25$) and can be wall mounted. It is connected via a reverse SMA plug, compatible to the Ralink WLAN stick.

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Erhaltet ihr folgende Fehlermeldung wenn ihr via Windows Sicherung einen Systemreparaturdatenträger (kann das Wort mal einer für Glücksrad vorschlagen ?) erstellen wollt,

Systemreparaturdatenträger kann nicht erstellt werden – Falscher Parameter (0×80070057)

dann liegt es daran, dass der SPTD Treiber (der die Kommunikation zwischen Windows 7 und eurem CD/DVD Brenner regelt) nicht mehr aktuell ist.

Lösung :

1.) Den neusten SPTD Treiber von http://www.duplexsecure.com/windows7 herunterladen (achtet auf 64bit oder 32bit)

2.) Treiber installieren, Windows neustarten

3.) Sicherung aufrufen => Systemreparaturdatenträger erstellen

4.) Freuen, dass es funktioniert !

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If you receive the following error when trying to create a new system resuce disc within the Windows 7 backup,

Can´t create system rescue disk – wrong parameter (0×80070057)

then your SPTD drivers (it controls the communication between Windows and your CD/DVD burner) is out of date.

Solution :

1.) Download the latest driver from http://www.duplexsecure.com/windows7 (64bit or 32bit depending on your Windows version)

2.) Install the driver and restart Windows

3.) Open the backup menu => create system rescue disk

4.) Smile, cause it works !

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Source & Thanks to : http://www.pcwelt.de/forum/windows-7/372788-systemreparaturdatentr-ger-erstellt.html

I found this little piece of software in an article at golem.de about the ash cloud from Island. Funny hah ?

But this software is so great that I have to write about it. What is it ? The website says it´s a Freeware Access Tool for mobile Internet. And it´s a software tool that supports numerous GPRS / EDGE / UMTS modems (USB, PCMCIA, PC-CARD, etc.) and a bunch of mobile net providers all over the world. Especially when you´re abroad and don´t want to spend millions for international (data) roaming you can just buy a prepaid sim, insert it into your (sim- & netlock free) modem, select the appropriate profile in MWCONN and there you go – happy surfing.

It´s also very helpful if you need to use more than one data modem. You can create a separate profile for every device and then simply select the one you need.

The tool also allows a nearly endless configuration of everything and supports Windows and Linux. Admittedly the graphical interface of the tool is not the most beautiful and you may need some time before you know how to handle it. But then it provides great functionality, anywhere in the world. They also have a Wiki where you can check if your modem is compatible with the software.

Website: http://mwconn.net

Wiki: http://www.mwconn.info/wiki/

I got my hands on Hitman – Blood Money for a couple of bucks but when I tried to play it, Windows always says that the “msvcr71.dll” is missing.

Here´s the solution :

1.) Download the missing msvcr71.dll from here

2a.) If you have a 32bit Windows (Vista or 7) copy the file to C:\Windows\system32

2b.) If you have a 64bit Windows (Vista or 7) copy the file to C:\Windows\SysWOW64

3.) Run the game and have fun !

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Thx to :

http://i.justrealized.com/2009/05/16/how-to-fix-missing-msvcr71dll-problem-in-windows/

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Seit dem Update auf Version 3.6.2 hat mein Firefox beim Beenden die offenen Fenster und Tabs nicht mehr gespeichert. Startete ich den Browser neu, saß ich jedesmal vor einem leeren Browserfenster, ohne all die wichtigen Tabs um die ich mich noch kümmern wollte. Glaubte ich zu erst an ein Problem im Profil, so hat sich eine einfache Einstellung als die Ursache erwiesen. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, dass ich es selbst umgestellt habe, deswegen gebe ich einfach mal dem Update die Schuld.

Nur wenn bei “Einstellungen -> Allgemein -> Wenn Firefox gestartet wird -> Fenster und Tabs der letzten Sitzung anzeigen” ausgewählt ist, speichert Firefox auch die offenen Tabs / Fenster fürs nächste Mal.

Tja, so einfach kann es sein, man muss es halt nur wissen…

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Since I´ve updated my Firefox to version 3.6.2 it doesn´t save my tabs / windows when I close it. Everytime I restart the browser I only got an empty browser window and all the nice tabs I wanted to take care of were gone. At first I believed that there might be a problem with my Firefox profile, but it was just a simple setting. I can´t remember having changed it so I blame it on the  update.

The solution is quite simple. Navigate yourself to “Tools -> Options -> General -> When Firefox starts” and select the following “Show my windows and tabs from last time”.

And yes, the next time you start Firefox all your tabs are there…life can be so easy.

If you want to have all your system parameters and everything that can be adjusted within Windows 7 in one big folder, then you should create  the following directly on your desktop :

Desktop => New Folder => Name “XYZ” + “.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”

The new folder can have any name you want (in this case it´s “XYZ”) and you need to add this string to the folder name (including the point). When done, the symbol of the folder will change and when you double click it, you have everything you want in one big folder.

Note 1 :

This also works with Windows Vista but several crashes of the explorer have been reported, so use it only carefully.

Note 2 :

If you don´t want to mess up your desktop with a soo long folder name you can also create it in a subfolder on your desktop. But – some people reported crashes, so use it carefully.

Recently I was looking for a virtualization software because I needed a virtual operating system to test stuff and a place to install iTunes where it couldn´t do any harm.

More accidentally I found Sun´s Virtual Box – which is free and open source. It´s small, fast, reliable, supports x64 virtual systems on a 32bit machine, runs on several plattforms (win, mac, linux, open solaris) and is very advanced in it´s functionality.

And did I mention that it´s free ?

I´m using it with a Windows 7 x64, a Windows XP x64 and a Windows XP 32bit installation and in all 3 environments it runs great. For windows users it provides a nice graphical user interface.

It supports USB, LAN and IDE / SATA sharing – the guest with the host machine and a possibility to pass-through the devices directly to the virtual machine. Furthermore you can mount iso´s directly into the virtual machine and use them as boot device or simply as CD-drive.

The only thing I miss is a good Direct 3D integration. Though there is an (experimental) support for D3D, it doesn´t work to good practically. I tested it with some older games and most of them fail to recognize the virtual graphics adapter as a real D3D compatible graphic card. This is kinda sad, cause it would have been an easy possibility to enjoy older games in a Windows XP or a MSDOS virtual machine.

But as final conclusion – if you need a free, reliable and fast virtualization software, Sun´s Virtual Box is your pick.

I´m using Sun´s VirtualBox for a while to host multiple Operating Systems on my machine. I discovered that it is not possible to re-size fixed disk images without doing a completely fresh install of that virtual machine. I found a quite helpful post at Nick Heppelston´s BizTalk Blog to solve this problem.

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I found this fascinating quote today:

In my previous post I extolled the virtues of Sun’s desktop virtualisation software, VirtualBox. One thing niggled me though – I couldn’t easily expand a Virtual Disk Image (VDI) and was regularly reaching the space limits of the modest 20Gb disks I was creating; I needed an easy way of expanding disks before I could use it as my main virtualisation platform and felt comfortable in recommending it to my readers.modhul.com, Nick Heppleston’s BizTalk Blog, Dec 2009

You should read the whole article.

Well this is part 2 of my personal driver odyssey with Windows XP 64bit. I own a T-Mobile web’n'walk Stick 3. Without branding it´s a Huawei E170 and – important at a later point of this article – similiar to a iCON 225 USB HSDPA / HSUPA modem.

The problem :

After installing Windows XP 64bit the usb modem doesn´t work. Installing the provided drivers directly from the device (the device is also a USB mass storage) is without any sense, cause it comes without any 64bit drivers.

If you´re lucky the device is listed as not working in the device manager. If you aren´t then it simply doesn´t appear.

The software (T-Mobile Internet Manager) will install anyway (together with the not compatible drivers) but it will probably say something like “Device not found / or device not connected” although the stick is connected and may as well blink blue (HSPA) or green (EDGE).

The solution (might differ for every particular case) :

0.) Plug your web’n'walk Stick into a USB port of your pc. Update the firmware of the web’n'walk Stick with the software from the T-Mobile webpage (can be found here).

1.) Install the drivers and the software directly from the updated stick and restart your pc.

2.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager, check if the device is recognized and if you can connect. If so, congratulations, this one was easy for you. If not – continue with step 3.

3.) Download the iCON 225 device drivers (can be found here – Driver Installer 4.0.17.0) and extract it to a folder on your disk.

4.) Uninstall the T-Mobile Internet Manager and restart your pc.

5.) Install the iCON 225 driver, by using the \TcpSchema 2\without service\x64\DriverInstall.msi from the folder where you extracted your iCON driver. Restart your pc.

6.) Open the device manager and check if the USB mass storage device (aka the stick) has a yellow exclamation mark. If so, unplug the stick from the usb port, wait a moment and reconnect it (the exclamation mark should disappear afterwards).

7.) Now install the T-Mobile Internet Manager by using the setup.exe directly from the usb sticks T-Mobile Internet Manager folder. Restart your pc.

8.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager and yesssssssss now the device is recognized and you can connect.

Have fun !!!

Appendix :

These 2 Huawei devices must appear in your device manager. Otherwise the stick won´t work at all. In some cases you might see these devices already after installing the inital drivers and software from the stick (Step 1), but marked as not working with yellow exclamation marks. In this case, ETNA will help you out. ETNA is a user developed driver by Maysi2k originally designed to bring a web’n'walk Stick to live with Windows Vista x64. But ETNA also proved suitable for some Windows XP x64 installations.

Howto :

0.) Download and extract ETNA to a folder on your disk.

1.) Open the device manager, choose the yellow marked device(s) – (you have to do it one by one).

2.) Update Driver and give Windows the folder you extracted ETNA to search for newer versions.

3.) Windows will automatically install the ETNA drivers for the appropriate device.

4.) Repeat these steps until all the Huawei devices are no longer marked as not working.

5.) Start surfing !

Well I heard many good things about Windows XP 64bit, especially in combination with dual core cpu´s and x64 designed applications. So I decided to install it on my Fujitsu Siemens Si 1520 notebook.

I prepared myself that this might be a little complicated but I didn´t expect such an nightmare. At first I got my hands on the Windows XP 64bit Superior Release, June 2009. It installs pretty smooth and really quick (about 20 minutes total) and recognizes nearly all of the devices.

But…drivers for all the not recognized devices are damn hard to find and in about 70% of the cases simply unavailable. A good try are the Vista x64 drivers – they may not work either .

My installation of Windows XP 64bit didn´t recognize the beloved Conexant High Definition Audio Chipset. And who can live without sound today ? I couldn´t so I started to search the net for suitable x64 drivers. Fujitsu Siemens as manufacturer doesn´t support XP 64. They have a Vista x64 driver, but that one doesn´t work. I found a great variety of drivers in the net, though most of them didn´t fucking work.

It took me around 3 days to get the Conexant Windows Vista x64 driver working, (yeah I know it´s a Vista driver, but the XP 64 driver didn´t work) but than the epic fail. Sound from the internal speakers (sound like shit), but no sound out of the headphone plug. The red SPDIF light was there, but no SPDIF headphones in sight – and by the way – who the hell needs SPDIF headphones ?

I was pretty annoyed, searched the net again, found nothing, got angry and decided to modify the Vista x64 driver on my own. And after some modifications on the INF files there was SOUND – also out of the headphone plug. You can find the modified driver at the end of this article, with absolute no warranty for anything. It should work with nearly any Fujitsu Siemens notebook that has a Conexant High Definition Audio Chipset.

But there´s one important limitation. I didn´t manage to get the microphone plug working. I couldn´t find the correct routing within the INF files. Any help is appricated. The internal microphone is working, but not the microphone plug.

I also own a T-Mobile web’n'walk Stick 3 (a Huawei UMTS / HSDPA / 3G usb modem). Though T-Mobile provides an update for the device, I couldn´t get it working. Also not with the included XP 64 drivers ?!?!

My conclusion(s) so far :

+ fast and reliable operating system

+ great for dual core cpu´s in combination with a bunch of memory ( > 3 GB)

+ high speed on x64 applications

+ more “modern” than the antiquated Windows XP SP2 32bit

- driver compatibility is a nightmare

- driver support by the manufacturers is bad

- requires too much time to get all the things working

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Modified Windows XP x64 Conexant HD Audio Device Drivers by Pac, October 2k9

Download : windows_xp_x64_conexant_hd_audio_device_drivers

Instructions & Notes : readme_first