Bootcamp 1.2 Released, and drivers packaged much nicer.

For those like myself running XP on their macbooks, the release of Bootcamp 1.2 just made things a lot nicer. Previously all the drivers were packaged as one installer, which gave you no choices as to what was installed. Not a problem if you were happy to go with the defaults. I don’t like the defaults however, specifically the video drivers. I have for a long time used modified video drivers with lots more options than the default offering.

The Omega Drivers (www.omegadrivers.net) run perfectly on mobility cards, and I would highly recommend them for everyone (instead of waiting for official mobility drivers to come out). There are other drivers also which have a newer version available than the Bootcamp release (sound, wireless and intel chipset to name a few). With previous releases of Bootcamp drivers it was all or nothing, which meant running the installer, and then manually changing the video driver etc… The new package however has individual packages for each piece of hardware. You could chose to install individual components (but that would probably be a pain).

There is an easier way to pick and choose: The CD you make (or folder which you can drag to a USB drive) will have a file called setup.exe, which should autorun (if you have autorun turned on). The setup.exe file itself just calls the individual packages one by one. One nice feature of the installer is that it will skip without error any of the individual packages which are absent. To avoid having to uninstall and reinstall my preferred video driver, all I had to do was delete the folders for the video driver (3 for ATI – the three named ati****.exe). Easy as that – it install all the updates drivers apart from the ATI video drivers. I haven’t checked how up to date the other drivers are, and will post back when I do. The official changes are below:

Significant bug fixes have been made to the following technologies in this release: • Windows XP and Vista drivers • Boot Camp System Tray item • Onscreen Boot Camp help in Windows • Boot Camp Assistant Installer • Mac Drivers for Windows Installer • Apple Remote • Apple USB Modem • Apple Software Update • Trackpad • International keyboard support

The help file doesn’t appear to have anything particularly helpful.  The Apple Software Update software looks just like its OSX counerpart.  It should help keep everything up to date.  Immediately it offers iTunes and Quicktime updates.  The trackpad should now offer 2 finger scrolling (untested) and there is remote support (I’m keen to try this out, particularly in presentation software like mediashout.  I’m unsure what personalisation it offers, and didn’t find any software) Comment if you find newer drivers, or info on th remote capabilities. Hamish