ATI driver flaw exposes Vista kernel to attackers
An unpatched flaw in an ATI driver was at the center of the mysterious Purple Pill proof-of-concept tool that exposed a way to maliciously tamper with the Windows Vista kernel. Thanks to pacpis for this news.
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12.8.2007 ATI Catalyst 7.9 drivers
ATI/AMD has released a new version of its drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Version 7.9 of the ATI Catalyst drivers bring many bug fixes, speed improvements and new features.
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10.9.2007 AMD not eliminating ATI brand, reports false
One of the unforeseen ramifications of the AMD-ATI hookup is the new hyper-rumor-transport bus, a new technology whereby unsubstantiated rumors become fact at an alarming rate. I lamented this sad state of affairs a few weeks ago when patently false information regarding motherboard licensing was making its way around the 'net, and now we get to do it again.
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8.8.2006 AMD Gains Antitrust Approval to Buy ATI
Advanced Micro Devices said yesterday it has gained approval from key U.S., Canadian, and German antitrust regulators for its $5.4 billion plan to buy Canadian chip set developer ATI Technologies.
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7.9.2006 ATI Radeon X1650XT vs. Nvidia GeForce 7600GT
The next generation of mid-range graphics cards are just around the corner, so should you even consider purchasing a GeForce 7600GT or Radeon X1650XT graphics card?
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7.12.2006 First alleged photos of the ATI Radeon HD 5870
Today we got the first glimpse of one of the new upcoming DirectX 11 video cards from ATI. The Radeon HD 5870, also known by the codename name “Cypress”
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11.9.2009 ATI Radeon X1650 Pro vs. Nvidia GeForce 7600GS
As much as we love testing and talking about the latest innovations in PC graphics, it's only a fraction of the gamers market that can truly enjoy these high-end products as soon as they come out of the oven because of its high prices.
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31.10.2006 The Vista driver outlook gets a little brighter
’ve been watching for the past six months as PC hardware makers deliver updated drivers to make their products work with Windows Vista. Lately, the trickle has turned into a steady stream.
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8.7.2007 Driver Magician Lite 3.31
Driver Magician Lite is freeware, it identifies all the hardware in the system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up to a location of your choice.
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11.10.2007 Windows Vista Display Driver Model
The Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is a new display driver architecture supported in Windows Vista. This display architecture is an overhaul of the Windows XP-based display architecture and gives users a better performing, more reliable desktop experience, while supporting new scenarios, graphics, and applications.
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2.8.2006 Vista SP1 Has Driver Compatibility Problems? Do Tell!
Ever since February 4, 2008, the day Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 were released to manufacturing, Microsoft made a move indicating that it was not entirely comfortable to release Vista SP1.
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4.3.2008 Driver Magic - Automatically updates your computers drivers
Automatically updates your computers drivers quickly and easily.
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4.7.2007 Device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate
After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA -- something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
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24.10.2007 Vista SP2: Windows Driver Model Upgrade
Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista extends the operating system's support for drivers that play nice with all Windows operating systems.
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28.12.2008 Xinput Driver for Microsoft Common Controller (64 Bit)
The Microsoft Common Controller Driver is a new game input standard that is used for both the Xbox360 console and for Windows XP SP1 and above.
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6.5.2006 Windows Driver Kit RTM Build 6000.16386 Available on Connect
UPDATED! Microsoft have made the final version of the Windows Driver Kit available on Connect under the
Microsoft Windows Driver Kit Beta Program.
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5.11.2006 Intel Centrino Wireless Driver Malformed Frame Remote Code Execution
Security vulnerabilities exist in the Microsoft* Windows* drivers for the Intel® 2200BG and 2915ABG PRO/Wireless Network Connection Hardware because of the way that they currently handle certain frames.
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7.8.2006 Windows Driver Kit Beta release hints at upcoming Vista SP1
Thanks to pacpis for this post. One of our members received the following e-mail earlier today from the WDK team:
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18.7.2007 exFAT DRIVER for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
Microsoft has released an update for Windows XP SP2 and SP3 system that adds exFAT file system drivers to the operating system.
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6.2.2009 It's Time to Face the Ugly Truth, SP3 or No SP3, the Clock Is Ticking for Windows XP
As 2008 has kicked in, it's now time to face the ugly truth. The clock is ticking for Windows XP. And while Microsoft may view this as a natural stage in the evolution of a product introduced all the way in 2001, a healthy proportion of end-users and businesses will fail to see eye to eye with the company on this one.
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5.1.2008 The Only Way for Windows XP SP3 Is Down
SP3 will do nothing for XP, but still more than what SP1 will do for Vista - The third and final service pack for Windows XP will do little to nothing for the operating system, but will manage to deliver a superior boost to the platform's momentum in comparison to Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.
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12.4.2008 Office XP SP3 Info
Office XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) provides the latest updates to Microsoft Office XP. SP3 contains significant security enhancements, in addition to stability and performance improvements. This service pack applies to any level of Office XP.
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Sneak Preview of XP SP3?
An unofficial preview pack containing what purports to be Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been uploaded to The Hotfix web site. The Hotfix is an independently-run site that specializes in downloads and discussions of Windows patches and bug fixes.
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Microsoft Delays XP SP3
Bink has an interesting article up on his site concerning Windows XP SP3. Microsoft has apparently pushed back the scheduled release date of SP3 to the second half of 2007.
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16.1.2006 Windows XP SP3 Preview No. 5
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11.2.2006 Windows XP SP3 On The Horizon
According to Microsoft press release about Unified Access Control and Network Access Protection, Windows XP service pack 3 (SP3) is in development and will be released later this year.
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24.5.2007 Windows XP SP3 Available for Download!
In two weeks too :) Microsoft confirmed officially that Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be made available for download in the next couple of weeks.
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29.8.2007 Windows XP Closes In on SP3
Microsoft's most successful operating system, ever, has inched closer to Service Pack 3. Release Candidate 1 is now available from MSDN and—so I hear—from TechNet. I can only personally confirm MSDN availability.
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4.12.2007 Deploying Windows XP SP3
With a pre-Release Candidate build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 available for download, the imminence of the final version of the refresh is starting to take contour.
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13.12.2007 Should You Upgrade from Vista to XP SP3?
Windows Vista was released to manufacturing and to businesses in November 2006, and the operating system hit the shelves only at the end of January 2007.
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27.12.2007AMD Supports Microsoft Windows 7 in ATI Catalyst 9.3 Unified Driver
AMD today released Windows 7 driver support as part of the latest ATI Catalyst 9.3 unified graphics driver. ATI Catalyst 9.3 represents the industrys
first unified driver installation package to incorporate Windows™ 7 support, including Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.1 compliance, bringing
with it a host of benefits for developers currently testing and updating applications using the widely available Windows 7 beta release. In addition,
the inclusion of Windows 7 drivers sends a clear message to the millions of AMD graphics customers worldwide “ ATI Catalyst 9.3, and every planned
future release of ATI Catalyst, is ready for the final release of Windows 7.
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18.03.2009Catalyst 8.12 display driver
AMD has released the new Catalyst 8.12 display driver for Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Media Center Edition, Windows Vista 32-bit and
Windows Vista 64-bit. The new Catalyst 8.12 drivers, aside from performance improvements, enable ATI Stream technology. View: ATI website
Download: ATI Catalyst 8.12 Display Driver
Read full
story.....
neowin.net -
11.12.2008ATI Driver Package Opens Vista to Flaw
In case you haven't seen it,
the ATI driver package can
potentially open your Vista
kernel up to a compromise. ATI
and MS are working to rectify
the issue.
In an interview, Ionescu
confirmed his tool was
exploiting a vulnerability in
an ATI driver - atidsmxx.sys,
version 3.0.502.0 - to patch
the kernel to turn off certain
checks for signed drivers.
This meant that a malicious
rootkit author could
essentially piggyback on
ATI's legitimately signed
driver to tamper with the
Vista kernel.
jcxp.net -
13.08.2007ATI driver flaw exposes Vista kernel to attackers
An unpatched flaw in an ATI
driver was at the center of
the mysterious Purple Pill
proof-of-concept tool that
exposed a way to maliciously
tamper with the Windows Vista
kernel.
Purple Pill, a utility
released by Alex Ionescu and
yanked an hour later after the
kernel developer realized that
the ATI driver flaw was not
yet patched, provided an easy
way to load unsigned drivers
onto Vista effectively
defeating the new
anti-rootkit/anti-DRM
mechanism built into
Microsofts newest operating
system.
In an interview, Ionescu
confirmed his tool was
exploiting a vulnerability in
an ATI driver atidsmxx.sys,
version 3.0.502.0 to patch
the kernel to turn off certain
checks for signed drivers.
This meant that a malicious
rootkit author could
essentially piggyback on ATIs
legitimately signed driver to
tamper with the Vista
kernel.
winbeta.org -
10.08.2007ATI: Linux vs. Windows Vista
The results may surprise you...
Since AMD introduced their
new Linux display driver last month, we have published a number of different articles looking at the Radeon performance across
their different GPU product generations. This ATI/AMD Linux driver testing and exploration continued this month with the release of the
8.42 driver, which finally introduced AIGLX support for the fglrx driver. One
area though we haven't yet analyzed is how their official Linux driver now compares to their much-optimized Windows Catalyst driver. Today, however,
we will be looking just at that as we compare the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB performance under Linux and Microsoft Windows Vista.
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31.10.2007AMD on the Driver Ball
Today AMD will release an
updated driver for desktop
Radeon video cards that closes
the exploit we have seen in
the last couple of weeks.
While some folks have narrowly
reported that ATI is
susceptible to this flaw, it
would seem that it impacts
NVIDIA as well although we
have yet to see any reaction
from NVIDIA on this subject.
So do not assume that you are
safe from this exploit if you
are running an NVIDIA based
graphics card. NVIDIA has
commented that it does know
about the issue and is
"digging in" since last
week.
The market recently discovered
a potential security
vulnerability that could
impact AMDs Catalyst software
package. After immediate
investigation, AMD determined
that a small section of code
from one of the files in our
installer package is
potentially vulnerable. The
AMD plan is to provide a new
ATI Catalyst package no later
than Monday, Aug. 13, 2007,
that resolves this
vulnerability. We strongly
recommend that desktop ATI
Radeon graphics users update
to Catalyst version 7.8 once
it is available on
http://ati.a
md.com/support/driver.html
. AMD and Microsoft are also
investigating additional
distribution channels for this
update. This vulnerability was
not exclusive to AMD.
winbeta.org -
14.08.2007ATI Releases Catalyst Beta
Driver for Windows Vista RC1
ATI is one of the first
graphic providers to make a 32
and 64-bit driver that
supports the Longhorn Display
Driver Model (LDDM) the
Microsoft Vista revolutionary
graphic driver standard as
well as the first to provide
LDDM drivers for integrated
graphics processors. By making
LDDM drivers available more
than a full year prior to
Windows Vista release, ATI
provides developers with a
stable, feature-enabled and
performance-optimized platform
for application development.
ATI is also the first to
provide Catalyst®
Windows Vista driver feedback
via our Catalyst®
Crew Feedback program.
Product series
supported:
*
Radeon® 9500, 9550,
9600, 9650, 9700, 9800, X300,
X600, X700, X800, X850
series
*
Radeon® X1300, X1600,
X1800, X1900 series
*
Mobility™
Radeon® 9550, 9600,
9700, 9800, X300, X600, X700,
X800 series
*
Mobility™
Radeon® X1300, X1400,
X1600, X1800 series
*
CrossFire™ Xpress
3200 series
*
Radeon® Xpress 200,
200M series..
windowsvistax.com -
04.09.2006ATI releases Catalyst 9.3 drivers for Windows 7
Windows 7 users with ATI cards can take a deep sigh of relief today, as ATI has finally made available the latest 9.3 release of their Catalyst driver
suite with proper support for 7.
As well as support for Windows 7, the drivers have supposedly improved Folding@Home performance on it's
HD 2000 series cards and above, and also now include the HDMI audio drivers for Windows Vista by default in the main driver package.
Unfortunately, TV capturing on ATI's All-In-Wonder cards will not function in Windows Media Center and no proper Windows 7 support is included for
this function in this release.
jcxp.net -
18.03.2009ATI & nVidia Windows Vista
Beta 2 Drivers
To coincide with the release
of Windows Vista Beta 2, both
ATI and nVidia have released
updated drivers for the new
beta 2 build of Windows Vista.
The new nVidia driver includes
the new nVidia Control Panel.
Both drivers can be downloaded
from the links below.
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24.05.2006Catalyst 'Shoot 'em up' driver to bring big FPS gains
AMD is preparing to release its Catalyst 7.10 graphics drivers for ATI Radeon graphics cards later this week, and they're expecting to deliver big
performance gains for Radeon HD and Radeon X1000-series GPUs with this update. Those improvements mainly focus on first-person-shooter games, hence
the cheesy "Shoot 'em up" name AMD has given the driver update. Here's a quick run-down of the performance boosts AMD is expecting:
-
Battlefield 2142 Crossfire™ performance improves 5-23% on the ATI Radeon™ HD 2600, ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 and ATI Radeon™ X1300/X1550 series
- Call of Duty 2 performance improves up to 6.7% on both single card and Crossfire ATI Radeon HD 2600 and ATI Radeon HD 2400 configurations
- Call of Juarez DirectX® 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 42% and single card performance improves up to 34% on all ATI
Radeon™ HD 2000 series products.
- Company of Heroes DirectX 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 80% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000
series products and single card performance improves as much as 31% on ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 and ATI Radeon HD 2600 products...
winbeta.org -
09.10.2007Building Vista Images with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) - hit a BSOD
Doug Klokow: While putting together a Vista image using MDT (RTM), I assembled a group of drivers to support a number of HP machine models. After
assembling a list of machines I downloaded a number of drivers directly from HP's website, and added them into the out-of-box drivers in MDT.
I had several machine models which were blue screening after the first reboot, and finally determined that the Blue Screen was the
result of a driver I had included to support ATI graphics for a nc6400 laptop. The HP file was
SP36487 and included the ATI video driver to support the laptop,
and also a small driver identified as a ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver, and was accompanied by MSI which when run was identified as a North
Bridge Filter Driver.
winbeta.org -
07.12.2007ATI Catalyst Drivers for Vista RTM
ATI has posted their Catalyst
Beta drivers for Windows Vista
RTM. (even though Vista
hasn't technically been
released to RTM yet) The
driver team notes that this
version of the Catalyst Beta
driver will work under Windows
Vista RC2.
neowin.net -
03.11.2006ATI Driver Flaw Leaves Vista Kernel Open To Attacks
An unpatched flaw in drivers
from ATI creates a security
hole to sneak malware past the
improved security features in
Windows Vista and straight to
the Vista Kernel. Microsoft
says that they are working
with ATI to release an update
and security watchers think
that might be far from
straightforward to roll-out.
The existence of this flaw in
ATI's driver came about after
a developer released a
proof-of-concept tool call
"Purple Pill" which creates
an easy way to load and unload
unsigned and potentially
malicious drivers on Windows
Vista. The utility can be used
to circumvent new anti-rootkit
defenses that are built into
Windows Vista by turning off
checks for signed drivers.
The developer that
wrote the "Purple Pill" tool
pulled the utility hours after
its release and realizing that
the ATI driver flaw "Purple
Pill" uses, which was
recently presented by Vista
Kernel security expert Joanna
Rutkowska at Black Hat last
week. The functionality of
"Purple Pill" is similar to
that of "Atsiv" a tool which
was designed by Linchpin Labs
in Austrailia and is part of a
research project into driver
signing. Microsoft recently
responded to the development
of "Atsiv" by revoking it's
license and classifying it as
malware, much to Linchpin
Labs' surprise. "Atsiv" had
evolved into a project that
allowed users using legacy
hardware to deploy Windows
Vista and to install unsigned
drivers for the legacy
hardware.
neowin.net -
13.08.2007ATI Catalyst 9.7 now available, WHQL-certified for Windows 7 RTM
To coincide with
Windows 7's release to manufacturing, AMD has announced the latest
version of its ATI Catalyst graphics driver.
Catalyst 9.7, available to download from
game.amd.com, is a single unified WHQL-certified driver for both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Key features of the
release are listed by AMD as follows...
winbeta.org -
23.07.2009How to identify a buggy device driver on Windows Vista
If your computer is acting unpredictably, locking up, and encountering blue screens of death, then youre most likely the victim of a faulty driver.
The Driver Verifier Manager (DFV) is a great tool for troubleshooting driver problems by identifying the troubling driver. Although DFV does not
actually fix the driver, it still is a really useful tool because it helps you identify the troubling driver so you can choose to delete or update the
driver.
Before you attempt to use this tool, please be sure that your are really having driver problems. The tool will prevent
your computer from starting by identifying the troubling driver. I say this only because it may be a lengthy process for you but if you are
having troubles, it will definitely be worth it.
winbeta.org -
18.02.2008Despite rumors, Windows XP SP3 still not quite ready
With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 out the door, Microsoft was largely expected to release Windows XP SP3 last week or this week. It didn't, instead
making public a refresh build of SP3 Release Candidate 2...
betanews.com -
26.03.2008XP vs. Vista - A Tale of Framerates: Redux
We recently published an
article comparing framerate
performance in XP versus Vista
on NVIDIA hardware. Our
readership wanted to see what
ATI could do with the same
task so that we could see if
Vista was really to blame for
what we saw.
Up to
now, its been claimed that
poor driver support has
crippled Microsofts new
operating system. We wanted to
try to associate hard numbers
to this issue and take an
industry accounting of what
users can expect from Vista.
We even went so far as to test
two different video cards and
driver sets. Both were from
NVIDIA, and included a 7600 GS
and an 8800 GTS 320MB.
However, our scope was
more limited than we realized.
After the article, a
consistent criticism was that
we did not include ATI
hardware in our evaluation, so
any claims that we made were
unqualified. Our readers were
absolutely right. One of the
reasons that our content is
better than most publications
is that because we have the
best readership in the
industry and we listen to
them.
winbeta.org -
06.06.2007AMD/ATi Catalyst 8.3 display drivers released - Making a compelling case for Vista
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: AMD/ATi have released the Catalyst 8.3 display drivers pack - and this latest updates does more to encourage gamers onto Vista
than Microsoft has managed so far.
Catalyst 8.3 is no
small update to the drivers. There are a whole raft of new features added. Here are some of the highlights...
winbeta.org -
06.03.2008ATi gets WHQL Certification
for Vista Display Drivers
Underlining the company's
leadership in developing
hardware and drivers to
support Microsoft Corp.'s
Windows Vista operating
system, ATI Technologies Inc.
today announced that its
driver has been granted the
graphics industry's first
Windows Hardware Quality Lab
(WHQL) certification for
Windows Vista by Microsoft.
WHQL certification sets a high
bar for quality and
reliability, and is considered
essential by many business and
home users.
Windows
Vista is the first version of
the Microsoft operating system
that requires hardware for 3D
acceleration. WHQL
certification reassures
businesses and consumers that
ATI graphics processors are
fully ready to unlock the
stunning graphical features of
the powerful Windows Vista
platform, including Windows
Vista Premium(1).
"ATI is working closely
with Microsoft to ensure the
best performance and most
reliable Vista experience
through our top-to-bottom line
of graphics processors," said
Ben Bar-Haim, vice president
of software, ATI Technologies
Inc. "With Windows Vista, 3D
graphics now matter to
everyone and ATI's WHQL
certification gives businesses
and consumers alike the
confidence that their ATI
system is ready for
Vista."
neowin.net -
27.09.2006NVIDIA drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes in 2007
Nearly 30% of logged Vista crashes were due to NVIDIA driver problems, according to a Microsoft data included in the bundle. That's some 479,326
hung systems, if you're keeping score at home, and it's in first place by a large margin -- Microsoft clocks in at number two at 17.9 percent,
and ATI is fourth with 9.3 percent.
The data points in the table cover an unspecified period in 2007, and Microsoft makes no attempt to
break the aggregate data down into which device drivers, specifically, returned the highest number of crashes. If the number of failures were split by
month and then graphed, we'd presumably see the number of NVIDIA driver failures per month decreasing as the company slowly brought its driver
issues under control.
The data clearly indicates that NVIDIA had a driver problem, but it's impossible to quantify the scope of that
problem given the numbers above. NVIDIA holds a greater percentage of the market than ATI, which means that there will inevitably be a higher
percentage of NVIDIA driver crashes than ATI driver crashes; however, the degree to which such market share considerations have affected the results
above is hard to determine in the absence of more data. There's also the matter of data collection; Microsoft's charts do not clarify if
multiple crashes from a single system each counted as separate events. In theory, NVIDIA's proportion of total driver crashes could be inflated by
a relatively small handful of systems with severe driver issues.
neowin.net -
28.03.2008
