Make S3 ProSavageDDR graphics card work properly on Windows 7.

Over the last few days I've been using my old Fujitsu Siemens notebook, which runs on an old hardware (it is not worth mentioning its specifications). It had Windows XP installed and after a few crashes and a lot of lagginess, I decided installing Windows 7 on it, hoping it would run better afterwards. So the installation went smooth, but I got stuck at what I was afraid of, the drivers. Almost anything worked out-of-the-box, but in a limited way. For the video card, which I want to talk about, Windows 7 used some sort of basic graphics driver, instead of using a dedicated one, which meant very sluggish graphics and improper resolution (had to find the right one by myself).

Basically, S3 (the company who manufactured ProSavageDDR) dropped the support for this graphic card, along with many others, leaving on their website only links from where you can theoretically download the drivers. Theoretically, because the download links are broken, and now (at the time of writing this article), even the webpage is down. But the main problem is that many of the other download links (from other websites) for the driver for ProSavageDDR are down, broken or link to nowhere, so it is quite difficult to find the driver for this graphics card. Moreover, the support has been dropped when the driver was designed for Windows XP or earlier, so there was no driver for Windows Vista or 7 created. 

However, I managed to find the driver on a website (link posted below), and I even successfully installed it on my laptop and it works more than decent. The idea is that you can first try installing it normally (double click that file), or, if that fails, you must install it in compatibility mode: right click the file -> Properties -> Compatibility -> Check the box from "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)". Then, just reboot and you should see at Screen resolution the name of your graphics card. If that happens, it means that everything is OK.

Download link: ProSavageDDR driver (Windows XP and 7, confirmed to work). 

Windows 7 touchpad driver for most Dell laptops.

When you finish installing Windows 7 on most Dell laptops after you had XP or Vista before, what you'll observe related to the touchpad is that even if it is highly accurate, features like scrolling on the edge of the touchpad or forward-back gestures are not working at all. And this happens because Microsoft have included into their OS a quite basic driver, which assures only the normal functionality of the device, without any additional feature.

Many Dell laptops are using touchpads which are manufactured by Alps, on Dell's official site being available drivers designed for XP/Vista only. However, even if after installation Windows prompted me that this driver has known compatibility issues with 7, Windows wasn't able, as expected, to find a solution for this, so I ran the software like it was.

Surprisingly, it works without any major problem, it just moves pretty slow and it adds a little inaccuracy when using the touchpad, but I think it might be corrected using application's settings, but I didn't have time for that yet. However, features like scrolling or forward-back gestures on the edges on the touchpad work perfectly. You can install it and if you then prefer using your laptop without it, you can remove it.

Tested on my Dell D610 laptop with a fresh installed Windows 7 and works. It might work on most other Dell models, mainly with the condition of having similar Alps touchpad devices.

Download link: http://www.4shared.com/file/yqlbVFU3/R113813.html

Installing Windows XP under Ubuntu, via VirtualBox.

I wrote some time ago an article on which I described how to install Ubuntu on a Mac OS X via VirtualBox, and now I've installed a Windows XP on Ubuntu. So, it works pretty well, and the steps described in that article are 99% identical (with the exception of the first steps, where you select the Guest OS). The article can be found here: http://it-nthusiast.blogspot.com/2010/02/installing-ubuntu-on-macbook-via.html.

Some notes: You may have problems with the resolution, since the Guest OS doesn't see the Graphic Adapter. It will use a driver provided via Guest Additions. At times, Windows XP becomes quite unstable, but since now everything worked well (most of hardware worked out-of-the-box).

Below is screenshot which shows you my desktop, including my problem with my resolution.

Did you know that Windows 7 can run applications designed for previous versions of Windows ?

For those who recently turned from Windows XP to 7, there is an (very) useful option that can make programs made for Windows XP, to run on Windows 7, even if they're not compatible with it. All you have to do is to right-click on an application, click "Properties", then go on "Compatibility" tab. You now have to click on "Run this program in compatibility mode for:", and select "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)".

This trick works to applications, games, and even drivers. Even if this usually works, it is recommended to use the Windows 7 designed versions, especially for drivers, which may have different problems if they are ran this way (may be unstable, cause crashes, and even may not work at all).

Warning: this trick may not work for any application; i'm not responsable for any loss/damage you can occur by using this trick

ATI Radeon X300 aero on Windows 7/Vista.

*Update: Download ATI Radeon X300 driver for Windows 7: http://www.4shared.com/file/199253812/27d26aeb/atix300driver.html

I attached a link which contains the back-up of the driver for ATI Radeon X300 for Windows 7. Since I'm no longer using Windows 7, I can't tell you for sure if it works or not (it should be working). I think it might be installed via control panel, by clicking update drivers (and selecting the file you've downloaded). Note that you should have WinRAR, because it's a .rar file (uncompress it before starting the update procedure). Please leave a comment to know if works or not !

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As you probably know, the are some problems on running aero effects from Windows Vista or 7 on ATI Radeon X300 graphic cards, due to incompatible drivers with these operating systems. After searching for hours on forums, I thought there is no change of running aero from Windows 7 on my Dell D610 laptop. But I found a solution, when I was searching a driver for my sound card.

There is a program available, named DriverMax, which searches automatically for newer drivers available for all your components inside your computer. In the free version, you can download only 2 updates for any pc component every day, in the paid version the number being unlimited. Until now, it did his job excellent on all my computers, even if they were running Windows XP, Vista or 7.


So, just give it a try, it takes you nothing: http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/