Solved Installing Basic Display Adapter WDDM driver from Windows 8 into 7

[spapakons]

Hello!

I have an old noname custom-built laptop which has the following hardware:

Intel 855 mobile chipset (the desktop equivalent is 865, socket 478)
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz socket 478 CPU
Intel 855G graphics adaptor
Realtek AC'97 audio
etc

Since the graphics card is too old, I cannot install Intel's XP drivers. If I do, after next reboot they are considered outdated and they always change to Standard VGA Graphics Adapter, which of course supports no Aero and no 3D.

After trying many registry tricks to enable aero without success, I gave up. All these tricks need a WDDM graphics driver and they are meant to enable aero in Windows Vista Home Basic WITH an WDDM driver installed. Since I used Standard VGA Graphics Adapter none would work. The same would be true if I could install latest Windows XP drivers, but then I would at least have some DirectX functionality.

When Windows 8 Developer Preview was released, I tested it in a similarly old laptop which had no WDDM drivers for its old ATI graphics card. But Windows 8 install Microsoft Basic Display Adapter instead of Standard VGA graphics adapter, which IS WDDM! Then I tried to copy all the relevant files (INF and DLLs) for the driver from Windows 8 in order to install it in Windows 7. Unfortunatelly installation fails, as it tries to install a service and cannot do that for some reason Anyone else that managed to use the Microsoft Basic Display Adaptor driver in Windows 7 or has seen anything relevant on the Internet? Please help! It would be nice to use the full potential of the Intel graphics card (nice taskbar colors instead of this light gray, some DirectX acceleration) in Windows 7 as well! I tried to install 8 to see if there is any improvement, but the installation failed as the CPU doesn't support NX bit and PAE

Thank you in advance!

 

[AddRAM]

You would just have to suck up and install the original OS that came with the pc.

 

[spapakons]

Reply to addRAM

Well, not exactly the reply I was looking for. Thank you, but I would rather you guys don't reply unless you have something useful to say. The purpose of this forum is to find a solution, if any, not to give up at first difficulty! Replies like "cannot be done, give up" don't help, at least explain why, give reasons.

The original OS was Windows XP. This same laptop handles Windows 7 without any issues (slow down etc). My only complain is that graphics are in very basic mode, without any DirectX support, just because the latest Intel driver is for Windows 2000, not XP and it will rollback to Standard VGA Graphics adapter after restart due to incompatibility. If I could find native Windows XP driver, I believe it would at least let me have some DirectX functionality without which even a simple screensaver cannot load if it needs DirectX and this is annoying. I'm not playing any demanding games, only flash games and Popcap games (eg Zuma Deluxe) which can be configured to play without any hardware acceleration, but it wouldn't hurt to have some DirectX support from the graphics card, as I had with Windows XP. Any workaround? Is there any generic/legacy WDDM driver I could use, apart from the official Microsoft Basic Display Adapter?

An alternative would be to enable Aero Standard (allows changing of taskbar colors, no 3D Flip etc), but as I already said in my original post, no registry trick works without a WDDM driver, and no, utilities such as Aero enabler do not work either. Any other tricks to try? Any third party utility or registry trick that would allow me to change the default light gray color?

Thank you again.

 

[MrNeeds]

Well, not exactly the reply I was looking for. Thank you, but I would rather you guys don't reply unless you have something useful to say. The purpose of this forum is to find a solution, if any, not to give up at first difficulty! Replies like "cannot be done, give up" don't help, at least explain why, give reasons.

The original OS was Windows XP. This same laptop handles Windows 7 without any issues (slow down etc). My only complain is that graphics are in very basic mode, without any DirectX support, just because the latest Intel driver is for Windows 2000, not XP and it will rollback to Standard VGA Graphics adapter after restart due to incompatibility. If I could find native Windows XP driver, I believe it would at least let me have some DirectX functionality without which even a simple screensaver cannot load if it needs DirectX and this is annoying. I'm not playing any demanding games, only flash games and Popcap games (eg Zuma Deluxe) which can be configured to play without any hardware acceleration, but it wouldn't hurt to have some DirectX support from the graphics card, as I had with Windows XP. Any workaround? Is there any generic/legacy WDDM driver I could use, apart from the official Microsoft Basic Display Adapter?

An alternative would be to enable Aero Standard (allows changing of taskbar colors, no 3D Flip etc), but as I already said in my original post, no registry trick works without a WDDM driver, and no, utilities such as Aero enabler do not work either. Any other tricks to try? Any third party utility or registry trick that would allow me to change the default light gray color?

Thank you again.

Have you tried this tutorial? Install 855GM Series Video Driver on Windows 7 - Tutorial

 

[MrShowdown]

Isn't the 855 is used by the Intel Centrino (1st Generation - Carmel) and the Pentium M Banias?

 

[spapakons]

Thanks!

Thank you a lot!

So there is a solution to my problem after all... I'll try it later when I have more free time! I'll let you know if there was any success

 

[stormy13]

And evn after going through all that to get the driver to install, you still won't have Aero. The reason is that Aero requires at a minimum DirectX 9 hardware, and that old Intel 855 is DirectX 7 at best.

 

[spapakons]

Yes, I'm aware that with XPDM (Windows XP Driver Model) drivers I won't have Aero, but at least I will have some little DirectX support, so I can launch some nice screensavers without the annoying message no DirectX device found. Also some of the games I play (simple ones, read previous replies) might benefit from hardware acceleration. In fact I expect go get as much graphics acceleration as the display adaptor would give in Windows XP with Intel drivers. I don't want more, and I don't care about Aero effects. The only thing I would care about is if I could change the default non-aero light gray taskbar color with something else. Surely it RGB value might be stored in some place in Registry. If I knew where to look for, I could change it to another color. Any suggestions? I wouldn't like to install any third party utility such as Windows Blinds just to change the taskbar color, let alone I doubt they can do it.

Thank you all for your support. I'm going to test the driver hack in a while, I'll tell you if I succeeded.

 

[spapakons]

SUCCESS!!!!

You can now pour the champagne into your glass! It worked! Now the driver stays there and doesn't revert to Standard VGA Display Adapter after restart! And, yes, I tested it, I can load many nice screensavers that require DirectX to work and they do work without any glitches, without being slow or whatever! I have the same graphics performance I had in Windows XP!

Thank you all for your help, especially MrNeeds for giving me the link to the hack! God bless you my friend!

To really make my day, any ideas about that annoying light gray taskbar color?

Thank you again!

 

[MrNeeds]

SUCCESS!!!!

You can now pour the champagne into your glass! It worked! Now the driver stays there and doesn't revert to Standard VGA Display Adapter after restart! And, yes, I tested it, I can load many nice screensavers that require DirectX to work and they do work without any glitches, without being slow or whatever! I have the same graphics performance I had in Windows XP!

Thank you all for your help, especially MrNeeds for giving me the link to the hack! God bless you my friend!

To really make my day, any ideas about that annoying light gray taskbar color?

Thank you again!

no worries my friend, glad we could help.

 

[Mark Phelps]

I had a similar problem with an Intel 915 chipset -- uses XPDM driver, which works OK in Win7, but no Aero -- period.

You didn't ask but if you're thinking about upgrading to Win8, you need to know that MS removed support for XPDM drivers from Win8, so you will then be stuck with using the default Basic display driver -- which, since there is no Aero in Win8 anyway, is not a big loss, but any other features (like virtual desktop) that came with the 855 driver won't be there in Win8.

 

[spapakons]

Well, after reading some posts of how to bypass PAE/NX checks, I managed to install Windows 8 (by patching the appropriate system files) in that old laptop. Unfortunately XPDM drivers are not supported in Windows 8 and higher, so I was stuck with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. Yes, this driver is WDDM and I could finally set the colors as I wanted. But everything was done in software, no hardware acceleration from the graphics card, so it is VERY slow! I was so disappointed that I recently formatted and return to Windows 7. I managed to install the Windows XP driver (XPDM) and I have no Aero, but everything is as fast as it gets. In that case, I would rather have speed than Aero. So let's face the bitter truth, without OEM WDDM drivers, I recommend stick with Windows 7 and latest OEM XP drivers for best performance, but no Aero. Install Windows 8 and newer, only if you have WDDM drivers for your card!

I rest my case.