On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a healthy
configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows Vista
Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last month, with
beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support, game play support,
etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I made
the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and choosing "Search
automatically for updated driver software". IMO this is a severely broken
component of Vista but that's not the point of my post here. The automatic
update UNINSTALLED all of my video card drivers and told me I "successfully"
updated to the "Standard VGA Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's available,
but I've already rebooted a few times with different attempts to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web site, but
all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible components to install
(that was both before and after "updating" to the "Standard VGA Adapter").
However, the .inf file containing a reference to the Xpress 200 series is
there. (Actually, three such references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing it
because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs in this
directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their filenames are
suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know whether these
".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and should be expanded
for this purpose?

Jon

I used the EXPAND command to extract the .dl_ files and other "*.??_" files,
but there are still missing files when using the .inf from Windows. I guess
there are several files in the .cab file that would need to be extracted
first...

Jon

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a healthy
configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows Vista
Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last month, with
beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support, game play support,
etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I
made
the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and choosing
"Search
automatically for updated driver software". IMO this is a severely broken
component of Vista but that's not the point of my post here. The automatic
update UNINSTALLED all of my video card drivers and told me I
"successfully"
updated to the "Standard VGA Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available,
but I've already rebooted a few times with different attempts to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web site,
but
all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible components to
install
(that was both before and after "updating" to the "Standard VGA Adapter").
However, the .inf file containing a reference to the Xpress 200 series is
there. (Actually, three such references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing it
because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs in
this
directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their filenames are
suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know whether these
".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and should be
expanded
for this purpose?

Jon

OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up, though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset, and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress 200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a healthy
configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows Vista
Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last month, with
beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support, game play support,
etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I
made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and choosing
"Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this is a severely
broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my post here. The
automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card drivers and told me I
"successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different attempts
to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web site,
but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible components to
install (that was both before and after "updating" to the "Standard VGA
Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a reference to the Xpress 200
series is there. (Actually, three such references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing it
because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs in
this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their filenames are
suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know whether these
".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and should be
expanded for this purpose?

Jon

Jon--

As to Aero Glass, have you tried forcing it this way:

Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPol icy set to 2 (32-bit
DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges :

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Also see:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob.../26/15036.aspx

On the missing driver:


As to the driver wizard bug, that more than one poster in this thread has, I
haven't seen it but I'd sure wonder how many people have and will come Jan
30. I'd try to feed it back to MSFT and if I can finda good route to the
driver teams, I'll post it for you.

I have found that much of the time I have trouble installling a driver
instead of using the new hardware wizard or the update driver wizard from
device manager and letting them browse, what works is to browse to the
location of the driver folder where the files have downloaded but in your
case you have a roadblock in the way of the driver download from the site.

I'd try all restore points prior to this; if no go then Last Known Good
Configuration @ F8 Windows Adv Options. If no go I'd do a Startup Repair:
You run the startup repair tool this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD. For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or from a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.

This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.

Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.

Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:

How to Use Startup Repair:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE featu

_____________________________________

CH
_______________

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up,
though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset, and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress
200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild
Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a
healthy configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows
Vista Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last month, with
beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support, game play
support, etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I
made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and choosing
"Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this is a
severely broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my post
here. The automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card drivers and
told me I "successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different attempts
to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web site,
but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible components to
install (that was both before and after "updating" to the "Standard VGA
Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a reference to the Xpress
200 series is there. (Actually, three such references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing
it because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs in
this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their filenames are
suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know whether these
".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and should be
expanded for this purpose?

Jon

Thanks for the post. I appreciate you trying.

Yes, I had already tried following those steps to get Aero to start, no go.
However, after trying the DirectX SDK Browser sample executables I realized
D3D isn't working so fine after all, as the responsiveness to the mouse is
about two seconds delayed even though frame rate seems fine.

I hadn't saved restore points and it wasn't set up to automatically save, so
System Restore won't work.

Startup Repair won't work because it boots fine and as far as Vista is
concerned (that is, as far as it is illogically making sense of things) the
only conceivable stable configuration is with Standard VGA.

Jon


"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

As to Aero Glass, have you tried forcing it this way:

Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPol icy set to 2 (32-bit
DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges
:

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Also see:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob.../26/15036.aspx

On the missing driver:


As to the driver wizard bug, that more than one poster in this thread has,
I haven't seen it but I'd sure wonder how many people have and will come
Jan 30. I'd try to feed it back to MSFT and if I can finda good route to
the driver teams, I'll post it for you.

I have found that much of the time I have trouble installling a driver
instead of using the new hardware wizard or the update driver wizard from
device manager and letting them browse, what works is to browse to the
location of the driver folder where the files have downloaded but in your
case you have a roadblock in the way of the driver download from the
site.

I'd try all restore points prior to this; if no go then Last Known Good
Configuration @ F8 Windows Adv Options. If no go I'd do a Startup Repair:
You run the startup repair tool this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD. For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or from
a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.

This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go
to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the
power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.

Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and
you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.

Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:

How to Use Startup Repair:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE featu

_____________________________________

CH
_______________

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up,
though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset, and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress
200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild
Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a
healthy configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows
Vista Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last month,
with beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support, game play
support, etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I
made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and choosing
"Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this is a
severely broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my post
here. The automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card drivers and
told me I "successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different attempts
to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web site,
but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible components to
install (that was both before and after "updating" to the "Standard VGA
Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a reference to the Xpress
200 series is there. (Actually, three such references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing
it because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs
in this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their filenames
are suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know whether
these ".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and should be
expanded for this purpose?

Jon

Jon--

You can try to use startup repair to fix Vista regardless of whether you're
in a no boot situation. It does an assessment and tries to fix what's
broken but it doesn't always fix.

CH


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the post. I appreciate you trying.

Yes, I had already tried following those steps to get Aero to start, no
go. However, after trying the DirectX SDK Browser sample executables I
realized D3D isn't working so fine after all, as the responsiveness to the
mouse is about two seconds delayed even though frame rate seems fine.

I hadn't saved restore points and it wasn't set up to automatically save,
so System Restore won't work.

Startup Repair won't work because it boots fine and as far as Vista is
concerned (that is, as far as it is illogically making sense of things)
the only conceivable stable configuration is with Standard VGA.

Jon


"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

As to Aero Glass, have you tried forcing it this way:

Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPol icy set to 2 (32-bit
DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges
:

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Also see:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob.../26/15036.aspx

On the missing driver:


As to the driver wizard bug, that more than one poster in this thread
has, I haven't seen it but I'd sure wonder how many people have and will
come Jan 30. I'd try to feed it back to MSFT and if I can finda good
route to the driver teams, I'll post it for you.

I have found that much of the time I have trouble installling a driver
instead of using the new hardware wizard or the update driver wizard from
device manager and letting them browse, what works is to browse to the
location of the driver folder where the files have downloaded but in your
case you have a roadblock in the way of the driver download from the
site.

I'd try all restore points prior to this; if no go then Last Known Good
Configuration @ F8 Windows Adv Options. If no go I'd do a Startup
Repair:
You run the startup repair tool this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD.
For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or
from a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.

This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go
to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the
power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.

Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and
you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.

Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:

How to Use Startup Repair:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE featu

_____________________________________

CH
_______________

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up,
though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset,
and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress
200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and
with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild
Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why
is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a
healthy configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to
Windows Vista Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last
month, with beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support,
game play support, etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components," I
made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and
choosing "Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this
is a severely broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my
post here. The automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card
drivers and told me I "successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA
Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different
attempts to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web
site, but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible
components to install (that was both before and after "updating" to the
"Standard VGA Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a reference
to the Xpress 200 series is there. (Actually, three such references are
there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try installing
it because it "cannot find the required files". There are several DLLs
in this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but their
filenames are suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does anyone know
whether these ".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how they can and
should be expanded for this purpose?

Jon

Fine, but as far as Vista is concerned, the Standard VGA Adapter isn't
"broken" and doesn't need to be "fixed" in the first place. There is no
final driver for Vista for the Radeon Xpress 200M and the driver I was using
before came from XP, and the driver for XP installer won't run on Vista.

Only solution I've found so far is to format the drive, install XP MCE, and
upgrade, all over again.

Jon

"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

You can try to use startup repair to fix Vista regardless of whether
you're in a no boot situation. It does an assessment and tries to fix
what's broken but it doesn't always fix.

CH


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the post. I appreciate you trying.

Yes, I had already tried following those steps to get Aero to start, no
go. However, after trying the DirectX SDK Browser sample executables I
realized D3D isn't working so fine after all, as the responsiveness to
the mouse is about two seconds delayed even though frame rate seems fine.

I hadn't saved restore points and it wasn't set up to automatically save,
so System Restore won't work.

Startup Repair won't work because it boots fine and as far as Vista is
concerned (that is, as far as it is illogically making sense of things)
the only conceivable stable configuration is with Standard VGA.

Jon


"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

As to Aero Glass, have you tried forcing it this way:

Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPol icy set to 2 (32-bit
DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative
privileges :

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Also see:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob.../26/15036.aspx

On the missing driver:


As to the driver wizard bug, that more than one poster in this thread
has, I haven't seen it but I'd sure wonder how many people have and will
come Jan 30. I'd try to feed it back to MSFT and if I can finda good
route to the driver teams, I'll post it for you.

I have found that much of the time I have trouble installling a driver
instead of using the new hardware wizard or the update driver wizard
from device manager and letting them browse, what works is to browse to
the location of the driver folder where the files have downloaded but in
your case you have a roadblock in the way of the driver download from
the site.

I'd try all restore points prior to this; if no go then Last Known Good
Configuration @ F8 Windows Adv Options. If no go I'd do a Startup
Repair:
You run the startup repair tool this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD.
For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or
from a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next
to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.

This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go
to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the
power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.

Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and
you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start
the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.

Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:

How to Use Startup Repair:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE featu

_____________________________________

CH
_______________

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up,
though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset,
and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress
200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and
with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero
is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild
Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why
is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a
healthy configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to
Windows Vista Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last
month, with beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support,
game play support, etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components,"
I made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and
choosing "Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this
is a severely broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my
post here. The automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card
drivers and told me I "successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA
Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different
attempts to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web
site, but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible
components to install (that was both before and after "updating" to
the "Standard VGA Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a
reference to the Xpress 200 series is there. (Actually, three such
references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try
installing it because it "cannot find the required files". There are
several DLLs in this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but
their filenames are suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does
anyone know whether these ".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how
they can and should be expanded for this purpose?

Jon

Hi John, I had the same problem as you with my ATI Radeon X800GT.

Before I finally managed to "fix" it, I too could no longer turn Aero on.
In the end, I uninstalled everything ATI through Control Panel, then
reinstalled the beta Vista RC1 drivers (not sure which version of Vista
you're using), and that finally sorted a lot of my problems. One program I
use regularly (WinAVI Video Converter) may still bluescreen my computer,
which only started after the driver update from Windows Update, I'm too
scared to try :P.

Only thing is, it seems to have ruined my connection to my Media Center
Extender; it sits at the "contacting..." screen now and then says there was a
"failure" about five minutes later, every time.

*sigh*

"Jon Davis" wrote:

Fine, but as far as Vista is concerned, the Standard VGA Adapter isn't
"broken" and doesn't need to be "fixed" in the first place. There is no
final driver for Vista for the Radeon Xpress 200M and the driver I was using
before came from XP, and the driver for XP installer won't run on Vista.

Only solution I've found so far is to format the drive, install XP MCE, and
upgrade, all over again.

Jon

"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

You can try to use startup repair to fix Vista regardless of whether
you're in a no boot situation. It does an assessment and tries to fix
what's broken but it doesn't always fix.

CH


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the post. I appreciate you trying.

Yes, I had already tried following those steps to get Aero to start, no
go. However, after trying the DirectX SDK Browser sample executables I
realized D3D isn't working so fine after all, as the responsiveness to
the mouse is about two seconds delayed even though frame rate seems fine.

I hadn't saved restore points and it wasn't set up to automatically save,
so System Restore won't work.

Startup Repair won't work because it boots fine and as far as Vista is
concerned (that is, as far as it is illogically making sense of things)
the only conceivable stable configuration is with Standard VGA.

Jon


"Chad Harris" msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net wrote in message
...
Jon--

As to Aero Glass, have you tried forcing it this way:

Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPol icy set to 2 (32-bit
DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative
privileges :

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Also see:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob.../26/15036.aspx

On the missing driver:


As to the driver wizard bug, that more than one poster in this thread
has, I haven't seen it but I'd sure wonder how many people have and will
come Jan 30. I'd try to feed it back to MSFT and if I can finda good
route to the driver teams, I'll post it for you.

I have found that much of the time I have trouble installling a driver
instead of using the new hardware wizard or the update driver wizard
from device manager and letting them browse, what works is to browse to
the location of the driver folder where the files have downloaded but in
your case you have a roadblock in the way of the driver download from
the site.

I'd try all restore points prior to this; if no go then Last Known Good
Configuration @ F8 Windows Adv Options. If no go I'd do a Startup
Repair:
You run the startup repair tool this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD.
For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or
from a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next
to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.

This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go
to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the
power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.

Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and
you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start
the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.

Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:

How to Use Startup Repair:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreins...rtup/index.htm

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE featu

_____________________________________

CH
_______________

"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
OK so I went to Acer's site (Acer is the laptop brand) and downloaded a
Windows XP update for the graphics adapter. Their site is messed up,
though,
because the Aspire 5050 is marketed as having an Xpress 200M chipset,
and
the previously installed drivers I'd been using for a month were Xpress
200M
drivers, but what I downloaded from Acer was for Radeon Xpress 1100.

The Xpress 1100 drivers install correctly (as in, without errors and
with
32-bit color and support for my laptop's native resolution), but Aero
is
disabled and I cannot reenable it (its option in Appearance settings is
still gone, only Vista Basic is showing).

I've found Direct3D support to be working correctly by firing up Guild
Wars
and World of Warcraft and seeing solid performance and resolution. Why
is
Aero disabled if D3D is stable?

Jon


"Jon Davis" wrote in message
...
On an Acer Aspire 5050 which has a Radeon Xpress 200M I upgraded a
healthy configuration of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to
Windows Vista Ultimate. Everything has been working fine for the last
month, with beautiful 3D video, Aero support, Media Center support,
game play support, etc., until now.

After ATI's Vista update "failed to find any installable components,"
I made the idiotic mistake of opening up the Display settings and
choosing "Search automatically for updated driver software". IMO this
is a severely broken component of Vista but that's not the point of my
post here. The automatic update UNINSTALLED all of my video card
drivers and told me I "successfully" updated to the "Standard VGA
Adapter".

The "Rollback Driver" button is, and always has been, dimmed. I'd try
rebooting to the "last successful hardware configuration" if it's
available, but I've already rebooted a few times with different
attempts to fix this.

I had recently downloaded the Vista RTM drivers from ATI/AMD's web
site, but all Setup does is tell me that there are no compatible
components to install (that was both before and after "updating" to
the "Standard VGA Adapter"). However, the .inf file containing a
reference to the Xpress 200 series is there. (Actually, three such
references are there.)

I tried pointing to this .inf file, but Windows fails to try
installing it because it "cannot find the required files". There are
several DLLs in this directory where the .inf file was extracted, but
their filenames are suffixed with ".dl_" rather than ".dll". Does
anyone know whether these ".dl_" files are compressed, and if so, how
they can and should be expanded for this purpose?

Jon