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Did Windows 8 Eat My Cameras?
Maybe just a coincidence. But I purchased two Dell Latitude ST tablets.
They came with Windows 7 Pro SP1. The original plan was to run Windows 7 on one and Windows 8 on the other. Although I was going to purchase licenses for both to run Windows 8. Just in case the future of Windows 7 becomes obsolete. Those that have done so before me has stated some problems running Windows 8. Mainly they are a tad slower than Windows 7, WiFi problems, and camera problems (these has two cameras). I never seen the WiFi problems, but the other two I have experienced this too. Anyway I did get the cameras working somewhat under Windows 8. I backed up Windows 7 on one machine and installed Windows 8 fresh (as most people said they had the best luck going this route). Well what I had working with the cameras went downhill. Now Windows 8 didn't complain, but nothing showed at all, totally blank. Ok, backed up Windows 8 and restored Windows 7. Dang, the Dell utility (which doesn't work under Windows 8) says that something is using the camera(s). Nonsense! All of my fancy utilities says nothing is using the camera(s). Even Zentimo would complain if something was using it if I tried to remove it and it never did. I really dislike dual booting systems, but this was driving me nuts. So I copied one Windows 7 backup with one Windows 8 on the same drive in different partitions. I did this many times before and it isn't that hard to get both of them bootable. And I used BCD as a third party boot manager in this fashion. Although that Windows 8 secure boot threw up a fit. PIA to get around that problem. And like others, booting in Windows 7 after Windows 8 was booted caused Windows 7 to run chkdsk on the Windows 8 partition. Although still no help. So I abandoned dualbooting... thank goodness. So what it looks like to me is everything can see the cameras are truly there, but nothing can communicate with either of them. Maybe this whole thing is just a coincidence and that there is just a lost connection somewhere. But is it? So far the second slate tablet is working wonderfully under Windows 7. I don't know if I would try Windows 8 just yet on it. I even cloned the working Windows 7 one over to the non-functioning camera one and still no dice. So that pretty much eliminates software as the problem. -- Bill Dell Latitute Slate Tablet 128GB SSD ('12 era) - Thunderbird v12 Intel Atom Z670 1.5GHz - 2GB - Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8 |
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#2
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Did Windows 8 Eat My Cameras?
BillW50 wrote:
Maybe just a coincidence. But I purchased two Dell Latitude ST tablets. They came with Windows 7 Pro SP1. The original plan was to run Windows 7 on one and Windows 8 on the other. Although I was going to purchase licenses for both to run Windows 8. Just in case the future of Windows 7 becomes obsolete. Those that have done so before me has stated some problems running Windows 8. Mainly they are a tad slower than Windows 7, WiFi problems, and camera problems (these has two cameras). I never seen the WiFi problems, but the other two I have experienced this too. Anyway I did get the cameras working somewhat under Windows 8. I backed up Windows 7 on one machine and installed Windows 8 fresh (as most people said they had the best luck going this route). Well what I had working with the cameras went downhill. Now Windows 8 didn't complain, but nothing showed at all, totally blank. Ok, backed up Windows 8 and restored Windows 7. Dang, the Dell utility (which doesn't work under Windows 8) says that something is using the camera(s). Nonsense! All of my fancy utilities says nothing is using the camera(s). Even Zentimo would complain if something was using it if I tried to remove it and it never did. I really dislike dual booting systems, but this was driving me nuts. So I copied one Windows 7 backup with one Windows 8 on the same drive in different partitions. I did this many times before and it isn't that hard to get both of them bootable. And I used BCD as a third party boot manager in this fashion. Although that Windows 8 secure boot threw up a fit. PIA to get around that problem. And like others, booting in Windows 7 after Windows 8 was booted caused Windows 7 to run chkdsk on the Windows 8 partition. Although still no help. So I abandoned dualbooting... thank goodness. So what it looks like to me is everything can see the cameras are truly there, but nothing can communicate with either of them. Maybe this whole thing is just a coincidence and that there is just a lost connection somewhere. But is it? So far the second slate tablet is working wonderfully under Windows 7. I don't know if I would try Windows 8 just yet on it. I even cloned the working Windows 7 one over to the non-functioning camera one and still no dice. So that pretty much eliminates software as the problem. To learn something about cameras, I like to read articles on using Linux with them. Sometimes, you learn something technical about the cameras, that explains potential gotchas with Windows. Like, maybe the camera uses runtime "firmware" that is loaded by the driver. And it's not communicating, because the firmware didn't get loaded for some reason. But searching for details from the Linux world, can tell you what other cameras are similar, what special features they might have (loadable firmware) and so on. You don't have to run Linux, just learn from the experiences of others, getting Linux to use those particular cameras. Then, once you know what the special requirements might be, use keywords of such, in some Windows related searches. Webcams come in "UVC compliant" and "custom". A UVC compliant one is supposed to work with the built-in UVC driver (so it works right away). On my webcam, the top resolution of the camera is not available via UVC. If I want all the pixels it's got to offer, I still have to install the manufacturer driver. If all I want is guaranteed 320x240, UVC will give me that :-( Some cameras are strange enough, they really need the manufacturer driver, or nothing is going to happen. Paul |
#3
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Did Windows 8 Eat My Cameras?
On 2012-12-15, Paul wrote:
To learn something about cameras, I like to read articles on using Linux with them. Sometimes, you learn something technical about the cameras, that explains potential gotchas with Windows. Like, maybe the camera uses runtime "firmware" that is loaded by the driver. And it's not communicating, because the firmware didn't get loaded for some reason. Well said. Linux and digital imaging is quite straight forward in itself, there's a neat little app called gphoto2 which does nothing more than capture the current image from a device. So, for example, if you want to take a set of images throughout the day, you can just put this in cron or leave it running in a loop with a few minutes delay. Perhaps you'd like to see what your pets get up to whilst you're out of the house? To be honest, this is the sort of thing that I'd do with a SLR and a wide angle lens. -- Regards, Ed http://www.usenix.org.uk/ |
#4
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Did Windows 8 Eat My Cameras?
On 12/15/2012 2:59 PM, Paul wrote:
BillW50 wrote: Maybe just a coincidence. But I purchased two Dell Latitude ST tablets. They came with Windows 7 Pro SP1. The original plan was to run Windows 7 on one and Windows 8 on the other. Although I was going to purchase licenses for both to run Windows 8. Just in case the future of Windows 7 becomes obsolete. Those that have done so before me has stated some problems running Windows 8. Mainly they are a tad slower than Windows 7, WiFi problems, and camera problems (these has two cameras). I never seen the WiFi problems, but the other two I have experienced this too. Anyway I did get the cameras working somewhat under Windows 8. I backed up Windows 7 on one machine and installed Windows 8 fresh (as most people said they had the best luck going this route). Well what I had working with the cameras went downhill. Now Windows 8 didn't complain, but nothing showed at all, totally blank. Ok, backed up Windows 8 and restored Windows 7. Dang, the Dell utility (which doesn't work under Windows 8) says that something is using the camera(s). Nonsense! All of my fancy utilities says nothing is using the camera(s). Even Zentimo would complain if something was using it if I tried to remove it and it never did. I really dislike dual booting systems, but this was driving me nuts. So I copied one Windows 7 backup with one Windows 8 on the same drive in different partitions. I did this many times before and it isn't that hard to get both of them bootable. And I used BCD as a third party boot manager in this fashion. Although that Windows 8 secure boot threw up a fit. PIA to get around that problem. And like others, booting in Windows 7 after Windows 8 was booted caused Windows 7 to run chkdsk on the Windows 8 partition. Although still no help. So I abandoned dualbooting... thank goodness. So what it looks like to me is everything can see the cameras are truly there, but nothing can communicate with either of them. Maybe this whole thing is just a coincidence and that there is just a lost connection somewhere. But is it? So far the second slate tablet is working wonderfully under Windows 7. I don't know if I would try Windows 8 just yet on it. I even cloned the working Windows 7 one over to the non-functioning camera one and still no dice. So that pretty much eliminates software as the problem. To learn something about cameras, I like to read articles on using Linux with them. Sometimes, you learn something technical about the cameras, that explains potential gotchas with Windows. Like, maybe the camera uses runtime "firmware" that is loaded by the driver. And it's not communicating, because the firmware didn't get loaded for some reason. But searching for details from the Linux world, can tell you what other cameras are similar, what special features they might have (loadable firmware) and so on. You don't have to run Linux, just learn from the experiences of others, getting Linux to use those particular cameras. Then, once you know what the special requirements might be, use keywords of such, in some Windows related searches. Webcams come in "UVC compliant" and "custom". A UVC compliant one is supposed to work with the built-in UVC driver (so it works right away). On my webcam, the top resolution of the camera is not available via UVC. If I want all the pixels it's got to offer, I still have to install the manufacturer driver. If all I want is guaranteed 320x240, UVC will give me that :-( Some cameras are strange enough, they really need the manufacturer driver, or nothing is going to happen. Paul So true Paul. ;-) -- Bill Dell Latitute Slate Tablet 128GB SSD ('12 era) - Thunderbird v12 Intel Atom Z670 1.5GHz - 2GB - Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8 |
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