According to Microsoft, pre-Beta development milestones of Windows 7 fail to play nice with USB network adapters that rely on pre-Windows Vista drivers. The symptoms involve NDIS 5.x USB network adapters not being displayed in the Windows 7 Performance Monitor. NDIS refers to the Network Driver Interface Specification library, which, following the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista, evolved to version 6.0. Version 5 of NDIS was used by Windows operating systems before Vista.

“Perfmon only shows adapters that indicate that they have a physical, hardware connector. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduced a new Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) known as NDIS version 6. Network driver developers are encouraged to move their drivers to this new specification,” Microsoft revealed.

The Redmond company does not have an update to resolve the issue, nor does it indicate that it plans a resolve. With not even a workaround made available for Windows 7, Microsoft is only advising users to make sure that the network adapter comes with drivers updated for NDIS version 6. The Redmond company explained that Windows 7 would be aware of all physical connectors as long as they were plugged in via NDIS miniports built especially for NDIS 6. Only in this context would Perfmon be able to display all physical connectors. Fact is that NDIS in Windows 7 comes with limited support for legacy USB Network Adapters, but only limited.

“While NDIS supports NDIS 5 drivers, it does so in a legacy, compatibility layer and does best-effort to determine if the adapter has a physical connector. If the adapter does not have any hardware resources assigned to it, which is the case for USB NICs, NDIS assumes that the NIC does not have a connector. Perfmon, as a result, will not list the NIC as an available network interface,” Microsoft added.

Windows Media Center makes it really easy to watch TV on Windows Vista (Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate) with a built in Guide that lets you browse TV shows and movies and schedule recordings of your favorite ones. Many PCs today come with TV functionality built in via TV cards. But not all Windows Vista PCs come equipped with TV capability. Unlike a few years ago - adding TV functionality to your PC is very easy. Let me share my experience in adding TV functionality to one of my PCs.

AMD brings TV capability to your PC through their ATI TV Wonder products. Some of their products are PC cards that must be installed inside the actual PC - and others are USB devices that can simply be plugged in to a USB port. I picked up AMD's ATI TV Wonder 600 USB TV tuner - which is Certified for Windows Vista. This small USB device lets you plug in a coaxial cable for TV capability or use an antenna for free over-the-air television - including over-the-air HDTV.

The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB has the following features:

• USB 2.0
• Hybrid TV Tuner Stick for:

• Over-the-air Digital TV / HDTV1 (ATSC)
• Over-the-air / Cable Analog TV (NTSC)

Remote control

Telescopic antenna to receive free-to-air TV channels

Capture from VCRs, camcorders with the included audio/video input cable

I took some unboxing shots to share with you:

Setting up TV functionality in Windows Media Center is really easy. If you have not used Windows Media Center before, when you launch Windows Media Center for the first time it will take you through a series of steps to set everything up.

 

If you have used Windows Media Center before and already did Windows Media Center's initial setup - to set up TV all you need to do is go to Settings and TV and click on "Set Up TV Signal". Windows Media Center will take you through a series of screens with options to set up everything you need for watching TV.

Picking up the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB TV tuner allowed me to easily add TV functionality to my main desktop PC. I had TV functionality in a matter of just a few minutes. Since the ATI TV Wonder 600 is a USB device, I can pack the device up and take it with me and use it on my laptop as well.

Hauppauge also offers products for bringing TV onto your PC and Windows Media Center.

I plan to dive deeper in several upcoming posts in using Windows Media Center and TV functionality.

Three Windows Vista non-security updates, that had originally been released as hotfixes, and then released as full fledged updates for download, will finally be pushed through Windows Update. As mentioned by the Windows Vista Blog, these updates will eventually become part of Vista’s SP1, but if you don’t want to wait for the benefits they offer, the update will be pushed to you this Tuesday, the 13th.

Here’s what will be coming through Windows Update:

• An update on system compatibility, reliability and stability: extends the battery life for mobile devices, improves stability of wireless network services, and shortens recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity, among other fixes.
• An update to USB core components: mainly affects systems returning from sleep or hibernation, fixing problems causing 1-2% of all crashes reported.
• An update to Windows Media Center: among other things, affects interaction issues occurring between Media Center PC and Microsoft Xbox 360 when Xbox 360 is used as a Media Center Extender.

Drivers

• Driver compatibility for Windows Vista (White Paper) (Microsoft)
• DriverMax (backup drivers)
• Getting started with hardware, drivers and devices for Windows Vista (Microsoft)
• Free Vista Drivers (RadarSync)
  
• Improvements in Device Driver Management in Windows Vista (Microsoft Word Document)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center Driver for Windows Vista (64-bit) Hardware
• Repairing or updating a Windows Vista driver (Microsoft)
• (The) Vista Master Driver List (Ed Bott)
  

Hardware

• Cumulative update rollup for USB core components in Windows Vista (KB 94160)
  
• Hardware Compatibility List (IeXBeta)
• Microsoft hardware support for Windows Vista (Microsoft)
• More Windows Vista help for hardware, devices, and drivers (Microsoft)
• Reliability update for the USB stack in Windows Vista, Knowledge Base Article 925528
• Windows Vista Hardware Assessment (Microsoft)
• Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List (Microsoft)
• Windows Hardware, Device and Drivers Help (How to) (Microsoft)

Software

• Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 933305: "Applications that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo"
  
  • Hardware and software vendor contact information, A-K:
    Knowledge Base Article 65416
  • Hardware and software vendor contact information, L-P:
    Knowledge Base Article 60781
  • Hardware and software vendor contact information, Q-Z:
    Knowledge Base Article 60782
• Software Compatibility List
• Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
  

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