These driver problems with Windows Vista and various manufacturers just keep going from bad to worse. Whether it’s a graphics card, printer, or mouse; Vista seems to BSOD right, left, and center at the slightest provocation.<\/p>\n
If you’re using Windows Vista and you’ve been getting a ton of blank blue screens (more on that later), and you just happen to have a Logitech USB mouse or keyboard with Logitech’s “Vista Compatible” SetPoint 4.00 installed, then that’s most likely to blame.<\/p>\n
Not having written drivers ourselves, we can’t honestly and fairly point the finger of blame at any party in particular. It’s very possible that either Microsoft or Logitech is to blame for this, but you never know. <\/p>\n
If you know how to analyze BSOD dumps (btw, blank BSODs won’t create kernel memory dumps, make sure you have “small memory dump” selected); you’ll find that the WinDBG (or whatever debugging tool you choose) points its stubby little fingers at USBPort.sys and Win32k.sys – both stock Vista components.<\/p>\n
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The fact that no Logitech-created or modified files trigger the BSOD coupled with the plethora of similar BSODs under non-Logitech hardware environments seems to lean heavily towards this being a Windows Vista kernel-related issue… Especially because Microsoft has issued several hotfixes that “address” USBPort.sys-related BSODs for Windows Vista – none of which seem to take care of this problem on our test machines.<\/p>\n
Then again, low-level drivers for various USB-powered components can perform operations through these Windows-core files and end up causing them to trigger the BSOD through no fault of their own.<\/p>\n
At any rate, we’ll post back as soon as we have definitive answer, and we’ll be contacting both Microsoft and Logitech in the meanwhile. For now, either get that 2 dollar mouse out of the closet or, better yet, go back to Windows 2003 or XP if you’re serious about productivity and uptime.<\/p>\n
[list of usbport.sys-related kb-articles<\/a> for windows vista]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These driver problems with Windows Vista and various manufacturers just keep going from bad to worse. Whether it’s a graphics card, printer, or mouse; Vista seems to BSOD right, left, and center at the slightest provocation. If you’re using Windows … Continue reading