Got my camera this morning. A Kodak C533. It takes dazzlingly clear pictures. Too bad I don’t have it anymore. The cameras software was not compatible with Windows 98, which I already knew. That’s why I bought an SD card and a card reader to go with it. The camera and the card worked flawlessly. The card reader on the other hand was a PITA! The drivers had to be downloaded from the companies internet site. Try as I might, the driver wouldn’t download. The INF files downloaded as did the instructions. But the driver would not download. I took the card reader back to Wal-Mart and exchanged it for a different brand. Got it home and had the same thing happen. By this time, I was really pissed off! That was it! I had had it! I packed everything up and the whole * mess back to Wal-Mart and got my money back! Without the card reader, the camera was worthless. Now I have money for trains when I go to Alexandria tomorrow. Hare’s Art and Hobby, look out! There’s a tornado coming!
Maybe, I’m wrong here, but isn’t the .inf what contains the driver?
Jeffrey,
So you didn’t get a CD that came with the camera? Usually the CD has the drivers on them.
Tom
There is a hidden cost associated with digital photography-the computing power needed to back it up.
Granted, the person just wanting to take photos to post on the internet doesn’t need as much computing power as the person who spends all day crunching 16 megapixel files from a Canon 1Ds MKII to be printed to mural sized prints, but you get the idea. Older computers often just can’t handle todays digital files with that much ease.
By the way, no card reader I’ve ever handled required drivers to work. The same thing goes for the USB external hardrives and key drives I’ve used-just plug them in and they come up as “USB mass storage device” with no trouble at all.
they do, but a caveat of the (newer) Kodak cameras/drivers is that they need 2K/XP to install… although this is becfause the original version of '98 didn’t support USB (although '98 SE does).
Jeff - I’m suprised you could grab the INF files without having any form of the driver with them… usually they’re bundled together with the DLL file(s) that they need in order to install, although I’ve seen INF files that only tell the computer to add line(s) to certain DLL file(s) and the driver works - perhaps this was what these “drivers” were (especially prominent with USB devices). Thats too bad that you could not get the drivers to download, and I bet you tried everything under the sun to get it to work. If you were going to look for a different solution (other than return the equipment) I would suggest Newegg or TigerDirect for the equipment. Even with shipping, they can usually beat out most Brick & Mortar stores (and they have a lot of customer reviews on products, so you can judge what will or won’t work)
Ben - they need drivers in win 98 because it doesn’t have the required USB hot-plug things that newer OS’s have. Although it usually works out that you use one or two different devices and '98 will then recognise any USB device you throw at it (with the exception of printers… they always need the driver)
When I tried loading the drivers, there was nothing in the INF files that Windows could recognize as a driver. This is the first time that I’ve had this problem. I know there’s bug that sometimes effects the way USB devices work on Windows 98 platform with an AMD processor, but I already have the patch. That shouldn’t have been the problem.
I use XP Pro, had a concord 3 megapixel camera with a 64 Mb sd card. Everything was USB only. No problems at all; until I dropped the camera once too many times smashing the battery. The next camera is probably going to be in the same leaque as a Canon Rebel or similar with the full view finder and digital storage out the max.
Win98 is limited in some ways. I think with the release of VISTA XP Pro prices are taking a hit and should come down pretty well.
It is a fact of computing life that you upgrade every 5-10 years or so. Me? I like to build new systems each 5 years or so.
Some cameras try to get you to use ONLY THIER stuff with all kinds of strings attached to it. No thanks. It’s either USB compatible and readable by Microsoft or forget it.
In the mean time I use cell phone as a camera. It generates rather good imagery believe it or not and uploads straight to my email and then from there to the computer.
Don’t bank too heavily on Vista. From what my friends in IT are telling me, it’s well worth avoiding. These guys are pros, and they won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. That says something.
If I knew 'nix well enough to get the games to work, I would be running that…
…but i dont. (although, I LOVE *nix as far as stability, and non-gaming use)
Jeff, when you were using the INF file(s) (OK, I know it’s too late now, but anyway…) - did you try to open them through the Add Hardware wizard (Add Hardware->I’ll search->Have Disk), as far as I know, thats the only way to make the computer actually read the INF files (it’s really dumb at finding them… especially '98)
As far as vista - it is teh fail. Just like every other M/Soft product (we’re testing it out for possible use here on campus), and it locks you out of things even if you are the local computer admin… and it’s even more of a nightmare on a domain environment…
I tried everything. It just wouldn’t work.
Computers! Aren’t they wonderful??!! [banghead] I just sold ALL my cameras and picked up a Polarock. You know, the one with the little bird in it that jackhammers the picture into a small, flat stone.
I think it’s time to bite the bullet and upgrade to at least XP. I’ve still got a Windows 95 machine sitting in my office, but I took it off-line when my ISP swapped their software and no longer supported '95. (Actually, it was the highest version of IE that went with '95 that was no longer supported.)
As for Vista, well, our IT department says they will be rolling out all the lease refresh machines with it starting in a few months. I just got a new machine last year, so I’ll be stable for a while, long enough for them to get the bugs out of Vista. IT here is notoriously conservative. Before my lease came up, I was still running NT on my desktop.
The two other desktops at home run XP. I’ve got no complaints about it. I had a total hard drive failure on one, and my daughter’s teen chats and downloads “fixed” her machine pretty good, so I’ve had to restore both OS’s from the startup disks and bring them back to the current patch levels. It went without a hitch both times.
That’s why I won’t buy the new VISTA. I like my XP too much.
I am in touch with several people who are riding hard on the new VISTA and we are learning alot every day.
Here is a website that will assist those seeking to learn about VISTA
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917
I personally will not upgrade until at least VISTA SP1 but am planning on maintaining this old XP Pro for as long as she can go after a total hard drive array replacement later this year.
This thread should in reality be called “Computer Woes”, as there wasn’t anything wrong with the original camera.
Win98 is the culprit here, as it is woefully out of date now. With the release of Vista, it is now THREE versions out of date. And a computer old enough that 98 is the latest OS on it - it will be USB1.1, which may indeed connect to the camera or card reader, but will be woefully slow - particularly as with a newer camera the files are larger since they are higher resolution.
The only reason I even have a card reader is three cameras ago, it was a serial interface to connect the camera to the PC and it was way faster to pop the card and use a card reader to copy the pictures. Both cameras since then directly attach via USB and the card reader is somewhat pointless.
And USB devices are notoriously finicky. Do NOT connect the device then try to install the driver unless instructed to do so. The normal course is to start the setup and then connect the device when prompted.
–Randy
If you are running a machine with Windoze 98, it is probably time to seriously consider an upgrade. If I were our shopping for something new, I’d be looking at one of the new Macs. You’ll enjoy the benefits of the photo friendly Mac program called i-Photo which has drivers for just about any brand of camera or card reader already built in. Firewire has replaced USB as the method of choice for transferring photos is unquestionably the best way to best way to transfer video. There are also plenty of feature-rich second party programs for manipulating digital photos designed for the Mac OS. A vast majority of professional photographers, publishers, videographers and graphic artists who rely on Macs rather than PCs.
Now that the Macs come with Intel processors, you can load the Windows OS of your choice (XP, Vista) and boot off that rather than Mac’s OSX if you find it absolutely necessary.
The computer isn’t old. I built it from new , and I mean new, parts last year. I just used my existing OS, which happened to be Windows 98SE. I’ve been thinking about going to XP. This debacle with the camera epuipment has just about made my mind up in favor of the XP. My USB’s are half and half. There’re 16 ports total, 8 1.1 and 8 2.0, 4 of each on the back and 4 of each on the front.
Well if the machine is new enough, and has at least 512MB RAM in it, you will love XP. It will probably be faster. And if you hate the interface - just change the settings to ‘classic’. I personally do not like the XP user interface and have my computers all set to classic view.
As for Vista, a couple of our guys are running it already. Mostof the changes are the UI, some of it looks too cartooney for me. I’d fire it up but I don’t think even this machine has quite enough horsepower to get the full experience - mainly limited by the video card. My CPU chould be fine, and it has 1GB RAM. At this point I’d love to go Linux but there are some work-related things I do that just absolutely won’t run under Linux at this time. Plus the occasional game - or I’d just use VMWare and run XP in a VM under Linux when I just HAD to be in Windows. But VMWare can’t emulate USB2.0 and the video performance is not good enough for games.
–Randy
Ive the Three Gig Prescott, 2 gig matched Kingston RAm and 6800 class video card and the horses to run VISTA if I want to. The computer is primarily a communications ternimal and a gaming one during downtime.
Im just sitting out teething troubles and strongly encourage you to try XP Pro.
One word of caution. XP Pro will ask you to activate online or by phone your serial key. If you fail to do so within 50 bootups or a time limit (I think 30 days) you will lose the XP key.
Be certain to get XP SP2. That will save you alot of headache downloading to catch up.
The second computer will be installed XP Pro and the network increased with a third computer at some point in the future when everything is stable.