Boston 735 USB speakers with Realtek AC97

Step 1 - locate and save file 7507807.exe or search for the "BA735 USB" driver which contains all the Boston Human Interface Device drivers. Run the file and save the files somewhere useful and easy to find on your PC.

Step 2 - go to Device & Printers; right mouse click your PC's icon and choose Device Installation settings. Choose No and Never .... I like to call this turn off the MS knows best switch. Save changes etc.

Step 3 - Install the BA735 USB speakers to the USB port you intend to leave it on.

Step 4 - W7 should now try to load the driver. Because I didn't do in this order not sure of how this works, but make sure W7 goes to the %\7507807\CABS\WIN2KINF folder and you should see the BAUSBHID.inf driver file. Install this one and none other. If all works the HID entry in Device Manager WILL say "Boston Human Interface Device". You may hahve to reboot after this.


Step 4B (how I got it to work) was to Select the first "USB input Device" from the Device manager HID section. Then choose which driver to install as in the steps above. It must be from the WIN2KINF folder.

Step 5 - In the "Sound" option in control panel make sure the Boston USB AUdio Device is set as the Default Device. Have something playing to test it out, I still had speaker connected directly to the sound card and this just swapped the sound from them to the Boston ones. Voila!

A similar process to this will get these same speaker working in XP.

Good Luck.

premorob,

Thank you for posting your directions. I have just upgraded an old Gateway Essential 667 with the Boston 735 USB speakers to XP and of course the sound didn't work. Even used the installatin disc that came with the computer.

After searching for three days and posting at TechGuy and MSFN your post popped up in a new search.

I had downloaded the 7507807.exe from gateway, but XP would not extract the files because they were incompatible with the OS.

Following a hunch, i checked the files on the installation disc. There was a folder labled WIN2000. Note in the folder said although 2K has not been released yet these are the drivers needed. (Boston, I forgive youfor deleting all the 735 USB driver files.)

Plugged the speakers into the computer and let windows install them. Initially the XP Wizard doesn't give you the option to choose your dirver. Then went into Device Manager, HID, Boston HID and updated the drivers to the 2K ones.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get the rest of the interface to work. The GUI i can live without, but it would be nice to be able to control the volume from the knob on the speaker.

Again, thanks for posting. These speakers and the regular 735 Digitals are very good. I have a set of them running on my Vista with digital output. In my opinion, just as good, if not better, than any 2.1 set sold today.