Getting FLIP to Work in 64bit Windows
A week or two ago, I decided to replace my main laptop’s aging Vista installation with Windows 7, via my University’s MSDAA subscription. Yay, free software! So I could install it on both my main laptop and my netbook, I decided to install the 64bit version on the larger laptop, leaving the 32bit version for the tiny Atom powered netbook. This is because the MSDNAA licensing only allows one license of each product to each user, although products are usually split up by their 32bit or 64bit versions.
A week later and I’m beginning to see why everyone’s so wary of 64bit. Granted, the present situation is much better than it used to be, but it only takes the one or two “gotchas” to turn a good experience sour. Case in point my beloved JTAG-MKII, with it’s cruddy Jungo drivers. After manually fixing up the driver installation (automated install doesn’t work under 64bit Windows) I managed to get it working in AVRStudio briefly, before it caused my machine to bluescreen. Subsequent attempts either resulted in AVRStudio not detecting it, or more bluescreens. Not happy.
As a backup, I thought I’d use FLIP and test out some problematic code on one of Matt’s great Micropendous boards. Of course, the Jungo driver fails to install. Nevertheless, I persevere and point it manually to the correct location – only to have Windows barf on it because it’s not signed. I realise why signing is important — but really Microsoft, is *requiring* signing really the only option? Under 32bit versions you only get a warning which you can dismiss, but under 64bit you either boot into “Test Mode” (which results in an ugly banner on the desktop), or you, well, complain about it. That’s progress for you.
Thanks to a very helpful AVRFreaks member however, I now have FLIP up and running, via his own custom signed drivers. These are actually the official Atmel/Jungo drivers, except properly signed with the user’s own digital certificate, so that it can be installed. If you’re on a x64 system like I am and are having similar troubles, make them go away with this package (AVRFreaks registration required):
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?module=Freaks%20Files&func=viewFile&id=3842&showinfo=1
On a LUFA related note, due to exams I’m not working on it too hard, so I’ve been focusing on making new combined demos (since that’s fairly straightforward). I’ve added in a combined MassStorage/Keyboard ClassDriver device demo, a CDC/Mouse combined ClassDriver demo, and a new Printer Host Class Driver and associated demo. Hopefully that will satisfy user’s thirst for more demos while I work on passing my end-of-year exams :).
UPDATE: I’ve just installed the beta of AVRStudio4 (from http://www.atmel.no/beta_ware) which is supposed to contain Windows 7 x64 friendly drivers. I’ve installed them – now to see if I still get the occasional bluescreens I was getting with the older driver…
Just use virtual machines for anything complicated and unlikely to work. You can probably get Virtual PC from your uni MSDN sub and then simply stick a version of XP on it. That’s what I use for my AVR development (well, I use VMWare…), it also has the advantage that I can simply pause the VM and leave it exactly as I had it and then come back to it days later…
In general I’ve had no problems with the x64 builds of Vista or Windows 7. But then I bought a new machine especially for it from Dell and so didn’t have any driver issues.
Len,
Thanks — actually, VirtualPC is now free for everyone, it’s only the XP license that you’d need to purchase/beg/borrow/steal. The MSDNAA subscription gives me Professional licenses of Win7, which means free “XP Mode” (with or without the required XP license for the virtual instance I’m not sure, but I can get that for free also if needed). However, I’d rather have things work natively than use such “band-aid” approaches.
I’m hoping that soon as people start migrating towards Win7 Jungo will fix the driver, so it doesn’t crash my system all the time. I’m not holding my breath, but working on my main laptop and then debugging on the netbook sucks.
– Dean
Hi Dean,
How did you install the Atmel Beta drivers?
I installed AVRStudio from that link, then plugged in my AVRSUB90 board, did the funky reset and it showed up in device manager with a banged icon. Right-clicked on that icon, update driver and pointed it at C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\AVR Tools\usb64
“Windows could not find driver software for your device”
Is that what you did?
Mike,
There are two different sets of drivers available, depending on what hardware you have.
FOR OFFICIAL AVR PROGRAMMERS AND DEBUGGERS:
1) Install beta_ware AVRStudio
2) Insert Atmel hardware, install the USB drivers from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\AVR Tools\usb64”
2) Open device manager
3) Click the “Jungo” node from the treeview
4) Select Action->Add Legacy Hardware
5) Go through the prompts, click “Have Disk” when prompted, navigate to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\AVR Tools\usb64” again
6) Remove/reinsert Atmel hardware
FOR THE USB AVR BOOTLOADERS:
1) Download the digitally signed drivers from the first link in my post
2) Extract drivers to a temp location
3) Insert USB AVR
4) Open device manager
5) Click on the faulty USB AVR device node, open properties
6) Click the “Upgrade Driver” button, navigate to the signed drivers temp directory
The new beta_ware drivers seemingly correct the Win7 x64 instability problems when using the JTAG-MKII or other Atmel hardware. Until Atmel releases signed USB AVR drivers in their seperate FLIP software download package however, we’ll be stuck using the digitally signed versions provided by one of the users at AVRFreaks.net.
– Dean
THANKS!
I really needed this.
Does anybody have a working link?