Windows 7: windows 7 and mn-730 wireless pci card

ok so i got this microsoft wireless card (MN-730) it worked flawlessly on the beta. it found it automatically and everything, i update to the RC and now it doesnt work at all, i install the vista drivers, and it makes it run at 100% and crash, i tried the XP drivers same thing. so now im figuring they ditched total support for this card. is there any wireless card that works?



thanks in advance

HI CenZ, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums! Lets see if wee can help figure this out?

According to this web page: Windows Vista Compatibility Microsoft MN-730 Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps 2.4GHz PCI Adapter

the MN-730 is not Windows Vista or 7 compatible. I am wondering, as you did not specify, whether you have used 32 bit or 64 bit 7?

Others have had success installing drivers in "compatibility mode". Here is a tutorial that might help you get the driver installed.

Hope this has helped?

Robert

I got the card to work on Win 7 (32 bit) using the good old official XP Microsoft Driver downloaded form their site. (Yes the supposedly non-Vista and Windows 7 compatible one) I just updated to Win 7 on this computer and the MN-730 is the network card I'm using right now.

It takes a bit of a quick hand however to get it installed.

1. Grab the driver from Microsoft.com and get the driver (MSBNDownload.exe):
MSBBN: How to update the firmware and software for your Microsoft Broadband Networking device
2. Run MSBNDownload.exe and choose a place for it to unpack itself
3. While it is running it will eventually tell you that it doesn't support your OS (or something similar) however it will have unpacked a lot of files into the folder you specified
4. Open that folder full of files and find MSBN.MSI
5. Make another new folder elsewhere and open it
6. Run MSBN.msi and tell it to use the folder you just created

** next is the tricky part ***

7. While MSBN.msi is running it will momentarily unpack the actual driver (.inf files etc.) into the folder you created above. When they appear, quickly select all (ctrl + A), copy (ctrl + c) and paste (ctrl-v) them elsewhere. (If you aren't quick enough the program deletes them when it detects that your OS isn't supported)
8. Open device manager, and choose your network adapter (the one that isn't working)
9. Use the old fashioned update driver options and choose 'Have Disk'. Go to your folder of sneakily copied driver files and choose mn720.inf ( I know, not 730, but it works great on the 730 )
10. Viola

Oh, I guess the "true" step one is to download MSBNDownload.exe from another computer and move it to the MN-730 computer via USB storage or whatever. However if you are on the internet reading this something tells me you probably already figured that part out.

mike,
thanks for the tip. i'm trying this on my Windows 7 system, but no dice. it tells me that it couldn't find a compatible driver in the folder. any other ideas on how to get this thing to install? right-clicking on mn720.inf and selecting "install" doesn't work either, as it says that the inf doesn't support that method of installing...

thanks for anything more you can offer!