I’ve use a dual monitor layout on my work computer and quite often I will have one monitor that has virtual machines or remote desktop sessions running and often have my other windows maximized on the other monitor.  I’ve found it kind of annoying to have to click in the different windows as I move back and forth between the two monitors and so I did a little digging and found that Vista has the “Ease of Access Center” that allows you to easily (read: no registry hacks) set the focus follows mouse feature.  Now when I move my mouse back and forth between the monitors I can start typing right away.

Here is what I did:

• Press the Windows key and type “ease of access”
• Select “Ease of Access Center”
• Scroll to the bottom of this screen.
• Click “Make the mouse easier to use”
• Check “Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse”
• Click “Save” and you are done.

I’m working on a small project developed using MaxStream’s XBee-Pro USB module.  To save development time and costs we are using the eval board to send commands from the computer.  The drivers on MaxStream’s website are pretty old and are only 32-bit, no help for Vista 64-bit.

MaxStream is using an FTDI USB to serial port adapter on this board, but have changed the vendor information slightly for their application.  I was able to find FTDI’s usb drivers for 64-bit Vista (and 64-bit XP), but because of the changes to the USB device string it wouldn’t install the drivers. 

After a little digging I was able to add the needed modifications to the driver information files.  After making the modifications windows recognized the drivers from FTDI as also being for MaxStream’s hardware (however, I had to try to install the drivers twice in a row for it to take-not sure why, but it worked on the second try and I didn’t care after that).

Here are the modifications I made (add the lines to the specified sections in each file):

ftdibus.inf

[FtdiHw]

%USB\VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc%=FtdiBus.NT,USB\VID_0403&PID_EE18
%USB\VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc%=FtdiBus.NT,USB\VID_0403&PID_EE19

[FtdiHw.NTamd64]

%USB\VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc%=FtdiBus.NTamd64,USB\VID_0403&PID_EE18
%USB\VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc%=FtdiBus.NTamd64,USB\VID_0403&PID_EE19

[Strings]

USB\VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc=”Digi PKG-U USB Wireless Module”
USB\VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc=”MaxStream XBee XTender Port”

ftdiport.inf

[FtdiHw]

%VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc%=FtdiPort232.NT,FTDIBUS\COMPORT&VID_0403&PID_EE18
%VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc%=FtdiPort232.NT,FTDIBUS\COMPORT&VID_0403&PID_EE19

[FtdiHw.NTamd64]

%VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc%=FtdiPort232.NTamd64,FTDIBUS\COMPORT&VID_0403&PID_EE18
%VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc%=FtdiPort232.NTamd64,FTDIBUS\COMPORT&VID_0403&PID_EE19

[Strings]

VID_0403&PID_EE18.DeviceDesc=”Digi PKG-U Serial Port Adapter”
VID_0403&PID_EE19.DeviceDesc=”MaxStream XBee XTender”

Installing Vista on my HP zd8000 was fairly trivial with the exception of the built-in Texas Instruments PCIxx21 CardBus Controller four-in-one media reader.

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