32-bit Vista running under 64-bit Windows 7 - Device Driver question.

The hardware is the Pinnacle Dazzle Video Creator Platinium (DVC170)

The only have the 32 bit driver for it.

Driver 14.0.0.162 (32 bit)

You are diffently out of luck for a 64 bit driver but I found a video that shows you can use Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode with this device. It appears they have already installed the driver and software so it won't help with installation but it shows that it works. You can find the video here How To Use A Dazzle Dvc170 On Windows 7 64bit

Because it's a USB device you should be able to use it with any Virtual PC software that supports attaching local USB devices and install either XP 32 bit or Vista 32 bit, you shouldn't have to use XP Mode. Microsofts Virtual PC (excluding Virtual PC 2007) can support USB and I'm 99% sure VMWare Player can, I've never used VirtualBox so I don't know if it can but if you are familiar with it then you probably know if it can.

You might find a Virtual PCs performance to be a little underwhelming. If you do I suggest you do what 'cluberti' suggested in post #4 paragraph 1.

Hope this helps.

Hi all
I'm surprised how in these economic times people just glibly say buy a new piece of kit -- if the old hardware works fine -continue using it -- I have some expensive hardware that's almost 15 years old and I have no intention of replacing it -- works fine on an XP VM.

Your USB devices should function perfectly on a Virtual Machine -- I don't know about VBOX but VMWARE'S latest release (vmworkstation rel 8 -- paid for software or vmplayer rel 4 FREE) has made running video apps on Virtual machines quite OK now (provided the app doesn't do too much with the real hardware and uses proper API calls).

You'll find VLC for example plays most DVD's perfectly now on a VMware vm -- didn't before- so I suspect your USB device should work fine.

The time where this stuff gets tricky is if you use PCI cards -- some Virtual Machine systems allow certain PCI cards to be "passed through" to the Virtual machine enabling the virtual machine to access the basic hardware of the PCI card rather than using the VM's Virtual BIOS".

Performance should be adequate -- don't bother with XP mode however --use a fully separate Virtual Machine.

Incidentally you can (so long as you don't use more than 4GB RAM for Host AND VM) run 64 bit Guests on a 32 bit Host.

I tested some x-64 W7 variations and the newer W8 developer edition x-64 using an XP host --works great.

Cheers
jimbo