Quote:
Originally Posted by tcsenter
This file is not provided by Microsoft in-box on any version of Windows or Service Packs. It is only provided by VIA or by hardware vendors on driver CDs or the vendor website.
So it is not going to magically appear on any Windows CD, slipstreamed or not, since Microsoft doesn't supply this driver at all. Someone would need to custom prepare a Windows install CD to include the VIA drivers. There are methods to accomplish this:
How to Add OEM Plug and Play Drivers to Windows XP
How to add OEM Plug and Play drivers to Windows installations
Svrops.com - Windows XP Unattended Install
nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation
I can confirm the "in-box" USB drivers supplied with SP2 and SP3 are fully functioning with numerous different USB devices on dozens of VIA-based computers I have either built or serviced in the past four years, whether it is through the integrated USB controllers on VT8235 and VT8237 Southbridges, or the discrete VT6212 and VT6214 chips used on USB2.0 add-in PCI cards.
That is not to suggest I have never encountered glitches or problems with USB devices on VIA controllers, because I have. Most of which I encountered prior to Service Pack 2 for XP, particularly with the VT6202 PCI chip or older VIA motherboards released prior to 2004. In fact, I have for a few years now recommended avoiding PCI cards with VT6202 chip.
Although the VT6212 and VT6214 are much improved, and I personally have used both chips with no problems, I recommend NEC USB2.0 chips over VIA, if only because so many others report problems with the VIA chips.
That said, the Microsoft drivers supplied with SP2 and later are correct for VIA USB2.0 controllers. The drivers are not 'incomplete' if vulfnth.sys is not installed. This file is not supposed to be installed unless there is a particular reason to do so, such as an actual problem with a USB device.
I haven't installed the VIA USB drivers on any system in a few years now. Even when I have encountered USB problems in the past, installing the VIA drivers usually did not solve anything.
|
I appreciate your response but must beg to differ with much of it:
1) It is a fact that the USB driver supplement is actually available here on viaarena and literally has been for years, despite the earlier problems we agree where MS demanding that only CD versions distributed with motherboards were [at that time] the only way to go.
2) You are specifically incorrect. I define "broken" as the absence of the filter file. The specific facts are that a) A broken version of the VIA driver is in Service Pack 2; go check for yourself, b) the RTM SP2 XP release also contains the driver, albeit broken in a specifically different way with regard to driver dates. Again, go confirm for yourself. Either way, I can install using only SP2 XP install media and get the driver installed directly without using any VIA-supplied download files or CDs. The board is a TYAN S2495ANRS that I am using for these purposes. It was supplied with a now-obsolete CD that only would work post-SP1, and not at all on SP2.
3) Whenever any of these drivers are installed, vulfnth.sys is specifically missing. By installing the VIA files available here, including the current 270 release after the fact, the vulfnth.sys file is added on. Clearly it is not part of any release from MS. But for SP2 purposes, the 260 or 270 release [perhaps some earlier formerly available here; I never tried those earlier versions] do upgrade the driver to include the filter file.
4) Whenever the filter file is not present, the board predictably exhibits behavior suggesting the hardware is flakey. Whenever the file is restored, the hardware works perfectly fine. Clearly, the file is mandatory for this class of hardware to work. If you are saying that for some newer implementations it MIGHT be unnecessary, I cannot speak to that, but clearly there is no advantage to NOT installing the file, if you can [if you can elect that; in my repair install I have no choice but to not get it]. Thus, I can only surmise that certain users are setting themselves up for problems because they provably do not have the file; we agree that without having the 270 or similar VIA files, the file is definitely not present.
5) When I repair installed this system, I now have lost the ability to put back the file which I have demonstrated is vital to this board. Anyone in the same situation therefore will inevitably be in trouble should they elect to do a repair install. For myself, I seem to now be forced into a total reinstall from scratch unless I can figure out how to get the 270package to override the situation caused by the contamination effect of an otherwise workable repair install, etc.
Thus, my twofold interest is in spreading the clearly true nature of the general install problem, suggesting people are free to upgrade the driver with available [from here] downloads, and doing so would at worst do no harm, and more likely will upgrade the system's reliability depending on exact configuration; I don't see a scenario suggesting not to try.
The other half is to seek help getting past my problem where now my system has become predictably unstable unless I can solve the problem the repair install has caused. Thus, my seeking help in making the 270 package installation more robust so that it installs correctly as it did when the system was initially installed before many, many hours of subsequent apps, etc. installs, which is unfortunately a truly large amount of work merely to overcome the quirkiness of a driver install, etc.
I simply cannot relate to a system where adding in the file doesn't fix anything yet was broken; my experience is the total opposite where the file must be present to prevent demonstrable instability. I use a variety of USB devices ranging from cameras to USB CF etc. drives to USB 2.0-based hard disks, etc. Perhaps you never got the right combination to experience the horror, etc. that then was totally solved by upgrading the driver.
This also applies to VIA-chip-based add-in cards BTW.
I totally agree with you that NEC chip-based cards totally work and are no hassle. The built-in drivers in XP since at least going back to the original SP1 just work fine. In fact, the Adaptec PCMCIA version of the NEC chipset is provided with an optional driver; the built-in XP SP2 driver works better on this card!
I will check out your links to see if anything there is applicable to adding in the 270-version of the driver over and above the already-present no-file version that absolutely IS in SP2, which in turn is apparently consistent with the posts of others here, etc.
I'll report back if anything works, or I can invent some other way of getting around the repair install problem, etc. In any case, thanks for your input.
cjl