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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 7 Migration Tool to Move From Windows XP to Windows 7
In past we had covered guide on upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately there is no direct upgrade path from Windows Xp to Windows 7 and you have to use Windows Easy Transfer utility if you want to move your user and program files from XP to Windows 7.
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22.11.2009 Vista SP1, and then Windows 7, Windows 8 and Non-Windows Midori
2008 saw the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft's journey on the Windows path is far from over.
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5.8.2008 Windows 7 RC Brings Windows XP Mode Beta and Windows Virtual PC Beta
The Release Candidate of Windows 7 will bring with it the first Beta development milestones for Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.
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29.4.2009 Windows Reactivator 2.0 - Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator
Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key.
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3.6.2009 Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2
Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
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28.2.2008 Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9 – 1 Billion and Counting
Is Windows dead? Or, at least, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's proprietary operating system?
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15.9.2008 Week in Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9
This week in Microsoft, we covered 128-bit support possibly coming to Windows 8 and Windows 9, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Bill Gates, Office 2010 Starter, Microsoft MVP status, Windows Live Hotmail, the EU, and Microsoft Security Essentials.
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10.10.2009 Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!
Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
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Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3: Official Release Dates
A French website, PC Inpact, has posted the official Microsoft product change request forms for Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
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6.2.2008 Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 Straight from Microsoft
Via the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. That's right! Microsoft is offering access to free downloads of Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2.
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6.3.2008 Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copy
"Its interesting that people seem to think that Vista under performs in every area of the system which is quite an incorrect perception.
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27.5.2008AMD 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.
winbeta.org -
18.03.2009NVIDIA releases graphics drivers for Windows 7 Beta
In a press article today, NVIDIA announced that it has released new graphics drivers for Windows 7 Beta, which it says will be "the start of regular
NVIDIA driver updates for the forthcoming operating system". The new drivers, released today, have support for the new Windows Display Driver Model
(WDDM) v1.1 which is used in Windows 7 Beta. The new WDDM offers improved performance in both 2D and 3D applications. The new GeForce drivers,
version 181.71, are currently available from the NVIDIA website.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
02.03.2009Catalyst 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 -
11.12.2008WDDM Overhaul On The Way
Microsoft is to overhaul
Windows? graphic driver model
after realising that the
Windows Display Driver Model
(WDDM) 1.0 ? which will ship
with Vista ? needs improvement
in the way it shares GPU
resources between programs and
Windows itself.
Steve Pronovost of
Microsoft?s DirectX team
disclosed at WinHEC in Seattle
last week that although the
WDDM 1.0 introduces some
rudimentary task scheduling
for GPUs, a new generation of
GPU hardware and a major
architectural change to the
way Windows deals with video
cards will be required.
He said that the
trouble with WDDM 1.0 is that
once one program is using the
GPU, other programs are shut
out until the process
completes. In Vista, that can
cause less fluid rendering of
on-screen graphics, if
multiple programs are trying
to use GPU resources at
once.
jcxp.net -
02.06.2006ATI: 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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31.10.2007ATI 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 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 -
13.08.2007Windows 7 vs. Vista: high-end cards put to the test
ATI rolled out a unified driver for Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows
7 Beta last week, intimating Vista-matching performance for the new
operating system whose release candidate is scheduled for the end of
May 2009.
Windows 7 uses an updated driver model,
WDDM v1.1, and ATI's confident
that its drivers are up to scratch right now.
href="http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17630&page=1">We
took a look at Vista
and 7 performance on an ultra-high-end Radeon HD
4870 X2 2GB
card,
finding that, in our gaming suite at least, ATI's claims were borne
true.
Choosing the
twin-GPU 'X2 as a worst-case driver scenario, comparing it
against the GeForce GTX 295, ATI's performance was more consistent.
However,
these £300-plus cards are few and far between, so,
today, we take another look at Vista vs. 7 performance, but with a
Radeon HD 4870 1GB
vs. GeForce GTX 260 896MB - with both cards now shipping
at around £175.
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28.03.2009ATI 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.
jcxp.net -
24.05.2006AMD 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 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 -
23.07.2009ATI 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 -
03.11.2006Windows Server 2008: Printer-Driver Packages
Day Twelve. We're almost halfway through our series. Today we'll continue on with our Printing theme - specifically, Printer-driver packages.
We'll also provide some background on the driver store feature of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
Printer-driver packages
are digitally signed printer drivers that install all of the components of the driver to the driver store on computers running Windows Vista or
Windows Server 2008. Using printer-driver packages on a print server that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 enables users who are not
members of the local Administrators group to connect to the print server and install (or receive) updated printer drivers. Before we go too much
further, let's go over the concept of the driver store.
winbeta.org -
12.02.2008Catalyst '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 -
09.10.2007ATI 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 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 -
27.09.2006How 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 -
18.02.2008Windows 7 Beta 1 has problems with XP Display Drivers (XDDM)
I've been enjoying Windows 7 so much over the past week, that I've been evangelizing it to all of my friends. One friend with a Dell Inspiron
710m decided to take the plunge. Windows 7 installation went well, but we can't find any compatible display drivers for the Intel 855gm graphics
card. The graphics card in question doesn't support Windows Vista or Window 7's new WDDM driver model, but Windows Vista shipped with XDDM
drivers for this card out of the box. I feel that Windows 7 should have all of the same in-box drivers as Vista, and it's a bummer that this one
is not included.
Read
full story.....
neowin.net -
12.01.2009
