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 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 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 New PC model
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 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 Windows 7 High Definition Model
While Microsoft is still mute when it comes down to communicating details related to the first Beta of Windows 7, reportedly due either at the end of October or in mid-December 2008, the company is addressing issues such as the high definition model of the operating system.
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16.8.2008 Windows 7: Model for Microsoft Reinvention
The most popular theme in classic American cinema is redemption. Unexpectedly, the fallen hero or heroine gets another chance and in a moment makes up for mistakes made years earlier.
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29.1.2009 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 Inside the Google Chrome OS security model
Google plans to use a combination of system hardening, process isolation, verified boot, secure auto-update and encryption to thwart malicious hackers from planting malware on its new Google Chrome OS.
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19.11.2009 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 Driver Magic - Automatically updates your computers drivers
Automatically updates your computers drivers quickly and easily.
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4.7.2007 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 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 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 How to Install Vista Language Packs MUI on all versions of Vista + video tutorial
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business versions of the Microsoft licensing restrictions can only preserve a language!
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23.9.2008 The Vista Built-in Super Administrator Account Has Survived in Vista SP1
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is designed to evolve the RTM version of the latest Windows client from Microsoft, made available in November 2006 to business customers, and in January 2007 to the general consumers.
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15.2.2008 Vista SP1 Is Out, XP SP3 Old News, the Pink Edition of Vista Is In
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now nothing more than water under the bridge, now that the service pack was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, shipping to general users on March 18.
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27.3.2008 Tell Hasta la Vista to XP - Time to Upgrade to Vista SP1
Like it or not, this is the right time not only to upgrade to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 but also to tell hasta la vista to Windows XP.
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30.6.2008 Instant Change Vista Product ID with Vista ProductID Changer
In past we have reviewed number of application to recover product key like Product Key Finder, WinGuggle, Windows product Key Finder.
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1.11.2009 Vista SP1 RC1 Flies Past Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2
Despite the fact that Microsoft has expressed its official position regarding testing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 ahead of its finalization, there is simply too much of a hunger for the service pack.
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27.12.2007 Vista SP1 Won't Resolve the 4 GB RAM Limitation of 32-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows operating systems, and Windows Vista makes no exception whatsoever to this rule, are limited in terms of the amount of system memory that can be addressed to no more than 4 GB.
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4.1.2008 Vista Loader 2.1.3 - Windows Vista Activator 2008 Support SP1 with No Boot String
Vista Loader is one of the most successful Vista activation crack available to date, second only to physical modify (hardmod) the BIOS to include SLIC table to make BIOS Vista activation-compliant.
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15.5.2008 x64 Vista SP2 JPG Rendering Performance Inferior to x86 Vista SP2's
The JPG rendering process on 64-bit flavors of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is inferior to that on the 32-bit variants of the operating system.
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10.6.2009 Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
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4.12.2007 New Vista OEM Activation Hack - Vista Boot by gkend
Thanks to Steve Jobs for this article on his blog and to our forum members to clecha, Nighthief and fitterphil120 for most of the findings. One again the “Chinese” come up with a new method to trick out the Vista Activation. We have seen Softmode and VistaLoader, however “ Vista Boot by gkend” does promise even more.
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21.5.2007 Windows Vista on Super Nintendo, As Real As Vista on PSP
We're puzzled and confused... How can a console that's at least ten times less powerful than the acclaimed PSP cope with Windows Vista's requirements?
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15.8.2007 Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1 - Office 2007 benchmarking
Enough with benchmarking the OS - let’s see if Office 2007 is any faster on Vista SP1.
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26.2.2008How 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.
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18.02.2008Windows 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 -
12.02.2008ATI 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..
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04.09.2006Microsoft: 1 in 10 Vista printer driver installations fail
At a WinHEC session in Los Angeles last week, bloggers report, just during last September, of the driver installations for Windows Vista automatically
reported back to Microsoft, over 11% of install attempts for printer drivers failed...
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11.11.2008Catalyst 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.....
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11.12.2008Device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate
After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, Ive 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.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little
notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you cant do anything but use the web browser for half an
hour. Youll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code.
Read full story.....
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24.10.2007Creative Sound Blaster Audigy
series Vista Beta Driver
This download is a
beta driver providing
Microsoft? Windows? Vista
32-bit and 64-bit Beta Build
5231 support for Sound Blaster
Audigy?, Audigy 2, and Audigy
4 series audio devices. It is
not fully tested and provides
limited
functionality.
nr
This download supports
the following audio devices
only:
* Creative Sound
Blaster? Audigy including
Platinum and Platinum eX
series
* Creative Sound
Blaster Audigy 2 including
Platinum, Platinum eX, and
Value series
* Creative
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
including Platinum and
Platinum Pro series
*
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy
4 Pro and Sound Blaster Audigy
4
Take note of the
following:
* THIS IS AN
UNSUPPORTED BETA DRIVER. There
is no technical support for
this driver.
* We
recommend that only
experienced users install this
driver. Do not install this
driver for critical
tasks.
* This download
supports Windows Vista 32-bit
and 64-bit Beta Build 5231 and
may not work on other Vista
builds.
Dow
nload:
Creative
Audigy Beta Driver for Windows
Vista..
winbeta.org -
17.11.2005Vista Service Pack 1: It lives
With all the
Microsoft-created confusion
out there around when — and
even whether — the company
plans to deliver the first
service pack (SP) for Windows
Vista, it’s nice to see some
concrete proof that Vista SP1
does exist.
The
http://www.winfuture.de/news,3
1801.html>WinFuture.de folks
managed to grab a quick
snapshot of a machine running
a build of Vista SP1 during
one of the Rally talks at the
Windows Hardware Engineering
Conference (WinHEC) in Los
Angeles this week. Plain as
day, it says: “Windows Build
6001 Service Pack 1, v113.”)
I also saw a
PowerPoint slide mentioning
the existence of Vista SP1
during a WinHEC chalk talk on
“The Future of Input” at
this week’s show. (The
context: A shim for the
kernel-mode driver foundation
version of the digitizer
driver will ship as a Windows
Driver Kit sample in Vista
SP1. That was it.)..
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17.05.2007Windows 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.
winbeta.org -
28.03.2009NVIDIA & Vista Driver News
No doubt NVIDIA's lack of
Vista drivers for their
hardware has been a heated
topic since the launch of the
8800 series. Well we have a
lot of good news tonight
direct from the mouths at
NVIDIA. NVIDIA has released
their "NVIDIA Windows Vista
Driver version 100.54"
tonight to developers,
testers, and reviewers under
an information embargo. So
obviously it will likely be
found online any minute for
your download. Some things to
note though.
This
driver is intended for testing
on GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS series
GPUs. This driver is intended
for DirectX 9 and DirectX 10
application testing in single
GPU only. It is not
recommended for NVIDIA SLI
testing. 3D performance of
this driver is improved over
Release 95 Vista drivers, and
is on par with Windows XP for
the top applications, with the
exception of OpenGL
applications. This driver can
also be used with GeForce 7
and GeForce 6 series GPUs,
though performance can be
slower on some applications
because we still have work to
do on our drivers.
jcxp.net -
26.01.2007ATI 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 -
10.08.2007NVIDIA & Vista Driver News
No doubt NVIDIA's lack of
Vista drivers for their
hardware has been a heated
topic since the launch of the
8800 series. Well we have a
lot of good news tonight
direct from the mouths at
NVIDIA. NVIDIA has released
their "NVIDIA Windows Vista
Driver version 100.54"
tonight to developers,
testers, and reviewers under
an information embargo. So
obviously it will likely be
found online any minute for
your download. Some things to
note though.
This driver is intended for
testing on GeForce 8800
GTX/GTS series GPUs. This
driver is intended for DirectX
9 and DirectX 10 application
testing in single GPU only. It
is not recommended for NVIDIA
SLI testing. 3D performance of
this driver is improved over
Release 95 Vista drivers, and
is on par with Windows XP for
the top applications, with the
exception of OpenGL
applications. This driver can
also be used with GeForce 7
and GeForce 6 series GPUs,
though performance can be
slower on some applications
because we still have work to
do on our drivers.
jcxp.net -
28.01.2007AMD 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.
winbeta.org -
18.03.2009Creative caves; supports Dolby Digital, DTS in Vista driver
After nearly two years of outright lying about Vista compatibility, Creative has finally released official X-Fi drivers that add support for Dolby
Digital and DTS decoding in Microsoft's newest operating system. Originally, Creative claimed that fundamental changes to the Windows sound driver
model made it impossible for the company to offer certain features that were available under XP, including Dolby Digital and DTS decoding.
Creative's user community wasn't happy with that answer, however, and various driver modding projects began, including one by infamous modder
Daniel_K.
Daniel_K managed to restore the aforementioned capabilities to both Audigy 2 and X-Fi cards, which is when Creative stepped in
early last spring, and ordered him to cease and desist from his activities. This went over extremely poorly with Creative's customers, who were of
the opinion that Daniel and those like him were actually fixing broken software Creative refused to patch, in the hopes of forcing users to buy a new
sound card. Creative held its stance for several days before backing down, but the damage appears to have been done—Daniel_K's software is
still readily available, but the modder himself has vanished from the scene.
neowin.net -
04.08.2008ATI 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: 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.
winbeta.org -
31.10.2007WDDM 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 -
02.06.2006Intel G35 Express spec page confirms Shader Model 4.0 support for X3500 IGP
Not the most Earth shattering news ever, but something for a quiet Friday afternoon at least. Intel have made live their official G35 Express chipset
specification page which shows the X3500 IGP supporting DirectX Shader Model 4.0.
It wouldn't normally be news at all, but
Intel's DirectX specification support in recent IGPs hasn't always been that clean cut. They recently added hardware support for VS processing to
X3000/X3100 products via a driver update, for example.
The
G35 Express (which I seem to type as G63 all the time, oddly) spec page showing SM4.0 support therefore hints at the launch
driver providing support from day one, inside Windows Vista of course.
The chipset sports IHC8 variants as the I/O processor,
rather than ICH9, PCI Express 1.1 support, a new memory controller that the IGP can make better use of, and the IGP has native support for HDMI and
HDPC.
It's just a shame Intel have no discrete graphics boards to augment the IGP, since as a triple head display user I'll
need three outputs, and Vista limits me to one installed driver for all graphics processors. Otherwise I'd have been first in line for the first G35
Express board with 8 SATA ports, dual-link DVI and a PCIe x16 port for the Intel graphics AIB.
winbeta.org -
24.08.2007Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista
In this article, we will look at five features of Windows Vista that are often misunderstood, provide their background and rationale, and present the
straight scoop on how to deal with them. Based on feedback from IT professionals, these features are: User Account Control, Image Management, Display
Driver Model, Windows Search, and 64-bit architecture.
winbeta.org -
14.05.2008Turn Off the Obnoxious HP Driver UAC Popup Update Check in Vista
If you are using Vista and have an HP printer, especially of the All-In-One variety, you've probably noticed that once a week or so you get this
obnoxious User Account Control popup dialog out of the blue asking for permission to run some Hewlett Packard update process called hprbupdate.exe.
winbeta.org -
02.10.2008
