Windows 7 drivers

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I have PC fitted with a Netgear PCI 10/100 card FA311v1. I've installed Windows 7, but there are no drivers for this card. I have checked the Netgear site but there are no Windows 7 drivers.

A quick Google shows a few sites like mxdtr.com that claim to have drivers for download. I'm a bit curious as to why they can offer something that Netgear can't - apparently for free. Naturally I am suspicious - further Googling hasn't turned anything up - anyone have any knowledge/experience to offer?

[TykeMerc]

I have PC fitted with a Netgear PCI 10/100 card FA311v1. I've installed Windows 7, but there are no drivers for this card. I have checked the Netgear site but there are no Windows 7 drivers.

A quick Google shows a few sites like mxdtr.com that claim to have drivers for download. I'm a bit curious as to why they can offer something that Netgear can't - apparently for free. Naturally I am suspicious - further Googling hasn't truned anything up - anyone have any knowledge/experience to offer?

Just use the Vista drivers until Netgear get around to releasing a Win7 specific one.

If the card is defunct so Negear aren't bothering then it's quite possible that some enthusiast has written a Win7 driver as it's just a matter of knowing how Win7 works, how to write a driver and knowing the relevant info for the card, that info is easy enough to extrapolate from older drivers.

[VectraMan]

I hate those sites. There's loads that promise to have drivers, but all the links download DriverDetective.exe. Whether that works or not I have no idea, but I don't like the sound of it.

I installed XP and Vista onto an old machine for testing the other day. That had a sad old Kingston card. XP detected it fine, but Vista would not, and I couldn't find drivers anywhere. All I could find about it was a note on a Microsoft blog saying the drivers had been removed from Windows because "the device was not of sufficient quality".

Anything calling itself 10/100 must be pretty ancient. Might be time (for both of us) to cough up the £10 or so for a newer card.

[Clippy]

Combination of what has already been said.

This card is from the Windows 9x days - I know because a few months ago I was having a clear out and came across one!

As such, Netgear definitely won't have written any drivers for it so your choices are to either find some generic Windows 7 drivers that will work with it or shell out a tenner buying a new card.

[TheFaQQer]

<scooterscot>
Get a Mac!
</scooterscot>

I had a few drivers missing / unavailable in Windows 7 (and the machine kept crashing) - moved to Ubuntu and not had a problem yet.

[pzz76077]

I have PC fitted with a Netgear PCI 10/100 card FA311v1. I've installed Windows 7, but there are no drivers for this card. I have checked the Netgear site but there are no Windows 7 drivers.

A quick Google shows a few sites like mxdtr.com that claim to have drivers for download. I'm a bit curious as to why they can offer something that Netgear can't - apparently for free. Naturally I am suspicious - further Googling hasn't turned anything up - anyone have any knowledge/experience to offer?

What you need to do is get a copy of the latest driver.

Install it taking note of the install location.

Once installed, navigate to the install directory, right click on the .exe and select properties.

Hit the compatibility tab. Then select 'XP Service Pack 3 Compatibility'.

This should get you working without any problems.

I had a similar problem with LAN drivers under W7 on some old hardware a while back, this routine sorted things out.

PZZ

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Thanks all, mentioned this to a geezer at work who produced a linksys card of similar vintage for which I found some drivers. I have already run Ubuntu on this machine, and one other but I wanted to check the viability of running Windows 7 on it.

PS (in case ScooterScot really does turn up) I also have a Mac