Thread: USB 2.0 drivers without SP1 WINXP

I wanted the same thing and could never find a solution so I just installed SP1 =\

There's nothing wrong with SP1

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

There's nothing wrong with SP1

Unless you can't upgrade to it because you have a bogus copy of XP.

Not that I do...now.

Originally Posted by Defiler

Unless you can't upgrade to it because you have a bogus copy of XP.

Not that I do...now.

Smart people get around that everyday

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Smart people get around that everyday

Even dumb people too. It was just a reply for shiznits and giggleizles.

I would never promote illegal SW, but I have a "friend" who tried installing SP1 on his win xp pro EPIA. My friend had problems installing sp1...something about a licensing issue...and now he can't get his usb2 wireless LAN adapter to work . What should I tell my "friend"?

I'd tell your "friend" to reinstall XP with a "corporate" key.

Originally Posted by Rireal

I'd tell your "friend" to reinstall XP with a "corporate" key.

Tell your friend to search the net.... there is a program for your friend that will allow you to change your key so that when you try to install sp1 from microsoft.com it will recognize it as a legal copy..... Very easy

Either way, generally SP1 is required to run USB2 in any fashion. In our service department, our tech and I have attempted many times to circumvent this seemingly nonsense requirement.

With every motherboard we attempted, the driver CD (as well as the downloaded versions from the manufacturers) demanded to see SP1 before they would allow USB2.

We contacted a couple of the manufacturers direct (Asus and Gigabyte), and asked their technicians what gives. Apparently, a few key components that makes USB2 work, yet retain backwards compatibility with USB1.1, were not included in the initial build of XP, simply because USB2 was not a common thing to have at the time of its development and subsequent release. It was never believed that USB2 would catch on, since firewire already had the market by the short and curlies.

Once it was discovered that USB2 was catching on bigger than ever anticipated, the capability was added to XP via Service Pack 1. Mobo manufacturers attempt to enforce stability of their products under XP by locking down the installation of drivers, unless SP1 is present. We were told that there are methods by which we could force the needed driver files to their appropriate places from their drivers CDs, and even add the required registry entries, but without the necessary DLLs to make the communications happen the way they are expected to, you will still never see USB2 functionality.

Despite the problems that some users have had with installations of SP1, bear in mind that an overwhelming majority of users that had problems with it were owners of preman machines (Dell, Compaq, Gateway etc.) Most homebuilt-users (including yours truly) may install it without issues, as long as one of two requirements are met. The first is that you have a legal copy of Windows. The second is that you have a "it's legal as of right now because I found a way around it" copy. Either one, using the CD key you got when you purchased the installation disc, or the Corporate Edition key (also the MSDN Developers' key) will let you download and install SP1 without a problem.