It's supposed to work with Windows 2000. No CD was part of the bundle.

I've Win2000 Pro SP4 installed and when I connect the webcam on the USB
socket, it claims a driver. The problem is that I don't know where to look
at on the Windows CD nor what driver to search on the net.
A quite long time spent to google around didn't bring any clue. I read the
F*****g manual, I downloaded it from the Targus site. I sent a message to
Targus whose guy in turn told me that I had to install a driver. I bought a
box of candles and made them burning around St Targus' shrine. No way.
Wonderful product, wonderful hot line !

Any clue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

frischmoutt wrote:
It is a UVC type web cam. USB Video Class is supposed to follow
standards. I find the problem with the concept though, is WinXP
at least, doesn't offer an easy way to adjust the camera. It
means my 1280x1024 UVC type webcam, cannot actually be adjusted
to 1280x1024, using WinXP alone. If I have the manufacturer's software
installed, it adds extra capabilities, over and above the basic Windows
support, and makes the camera usable.

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna...sku=A 1677944

When I tested in Linux, I think I at least got some kind
of software there to make adjustments. And I easily got to
find out something about the hardware characteristics. Linux
has added webcam support in the kernel, so if you download
a very recent distro (the more recent, the better, in terms
of bugs), you may also get to test the camera there.

Something you should know about so-called "high res" USB2 webcams,
is the frame rate "trick". The advert will say, in two separate
sentences, "1280x1024", "30 frames per second", but those are
mutually exclusive. You can get 640x480 @ 30FPS or 1280x1024 @ 5FPS.
And the last time I checked, 5FPS was useless for anything other
than a basic security cam application.

In any case, try looking in your Win2K, in the control panel
"Scanners and Cameras" and see if the Targus shows up there.
If it does, then you know the basic Microsoft driver is loaded.

The free image editing program "GIMP", has an Acquire item,
and that should be able to connect to Windows Image Acquisition
if a valid device is available. Again, proof the camera works.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

But as for what works for things like web chat, or phone applications,
I haven't a clue what driver stack works for that.

What I found for my UVC class camera in Windows, is a very basic
functionality, barely able to prove it works, when I didn't use
a full driver/software package. And yet, if I did install the
whole (Logitech) package, I ended up with a bunch of crap
left running all the time (as if the only reason I owned a
computer, was to use their stupid webcam). I uninstall any
software that thinks it "owns" the computer. Which kinda
reduced the utility of the camera, a lot. If they'd
just provided simple drivers with no visible profile on the
computer, I'd be much happier.

Good luck,
Paul

"Paul" <nospam (AT) needed (DOT) com> a écrit dans le message de news:
hf4a7t$84g$1 (AT) news (DOT) eternal-september.org...
kdhs1&sku=A1677944

thanks a lot Paul for this long explanation. I already checked the "scanner
& camera" in the CP, as well as the acquire function of several softs I have
on the computer. None of them, is able to see the cam. Quite obvious since
the USB driver isn't installed hence there's a yellow big question mark in
the properties. I have The Gimp as well as other programs on my liberkey,
I'll have a look on them. However I'm feeling that it's hopeless as fas as
the driver won't install.

The problem is that I don't know where to look on the CD. I suspect that I
missed to install some optional module when I installed Win 2000. Possibly
something like Net Meeting or another chat module. I assume that the needed
driver would have been installed at the same time. Since I'm not familiar
with these functions, again, I'm completely ignoring what Win 2000 might
offer to do the job and where to look for.

I also was expecting that some kind of free suite would exist on the web,
supporting both the driver and some editing or capture software. My purpose
isn't to chat nor to acquire sequences but to capture still images.
1280x1024 is perfect for my static need. I might use a digital camera but
it's huge wrt the little sugar lump sized targus cam.

Thanks again

frischmoutt wrote:

I did a little more research this time, first hand research.

I booted Win2K SP4 (on my second hard drive), connected my UVC webcam and...

Nothing. Exclamation in Device Manager. No driver. No WIA. Nothing.

It turns out, I was deceived. There *is* some level of USB2
support in Win2K SP4, but what most people see is the Mass
Storage support for USB pen drives or USB hard drives. But there
doesn't appear to be a UVC driver for Win2K. The various
classes supported are listed here.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/connec...faq_intro.mspx

The bottom of the box my UVC camera came in, only lists WinXP
and Vista. The camera was probably released after Win2K stopped,
so maybe they could have written the driver for Win2K as well.
I don't think my camera relies entirely on UVC, because a few
features (like face tracking) are things that are done outside
the spec. And the 1280x1024 resolution option is not visible
via UVC. I don't know how they manage that (i.e. how features
which are non-standard, are handled if UVC class support is
being used.) The max resolution choice falls short of that value,
if just UVC is driving the camera.

So you're really going to need to install some software
to get it to work in Win2K. I figured you'd be able to limp along
with UVC. But when I tested mine, the support just isn't there
in Win2K SP4. I even tried Update Rollup 1 and that
didn't help.

Does your packaging give any system requirements ?

Have another look through the CD.

The thing about webcams, is all the "value" is the CD
that comes with them. If you see a webcam for sale, a
white box with no CD, those aren't worth anything.

On other kinds of hardware, you'd track down the VID (vendor
ID) and PID (product ID) to find a driver. The reason that
won't work for your camera, is the VID and PID are programmable
via EEPROM. It means the ID returned by a webcam is virtually
worthless for finding a third party driver. I've tried to help
people before, and unless a Linux driver writer identifies the
hardware inside the thing, I can't always translate the
VID and PID into something useful. (This defeats the whole
purpose of having a VID and PID, which is to identify hardware
for plug and play. Making the VID and PID programmable, is intended
to make it very very difficult to use someone else's perfectly
good driver for the same physical hardware.)

If you want to look for the VID and PID, you can use UVCView.
I notice the archived copy I used to refer people to, has been
removed. Thanks Microsoft. So now we're down to personal copies
people have saved. This is the standard blurb I used to post
for this.

*******
ftp://ftp.efo.ru/pub/ftdichip/Utilities/UVCView.x86.exe
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB...VCView.x86.exe

File size is 167,232 bytes.
MD5sum is 93244d84d79314898e62d21cecc4ca5e

This is a picture of what the UVCView info looks like.

http://www.die.de/blog/content/binary/usbview.png

Some information on the parameters seen in UVCView.

http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb5.htm
*******

Using UVCview, the VID and PID of my camera are

===>Device Descriptor<===

idVendor: 0x046D = Logitech Inc.
idProduct: 0x0990

If that information was in a .INF file, it would look like

usb\vid_046d&pid_0990

If I search on the web, based on that info, I get pages
like this.

http://www.drivershq.com/Drivers/Dev...5/Drivers.aspx

So even if the Targus product number isn't giving you
anything in a search, try using the .INF form of VID/PID
and do a search that way. The odds aren't very good,
but it doesn't take long to run a search.

Good luck,
Paul

On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 22:45:11 +0100, "frischmoutt"
<frischmoutt (AT) ici (DOT) com> wrote:


AFAICT, Win2k doesn't support generic webcams without having
a driver installed, at a bare minimum it would list the
supported resolutions and framerates.

I expanded/extracted the entire contents of a win2k /Sp4 ISO
and searched for both Targus, and separately AVC05 as text
strings and nothing was found. Searching for even more
generic text like "Cam" brought up a very limited number of
supported webcams, not yours.


I'd try contacting Targus again, when you talk with a level
1 CSR you may get a different answer every time you ask a
question, they often don't know what they are talking about
but eventually you might get ahold of someone who does, or
you could ask to be escalated to the next level up in their
tech support chain.

Another option might be to pop open the webcam and note the
markings on the control chip, web searching for that chip #
or a part of it might lead you to other products with the
same chip, using same driver or close enough.

You might also try plugging it into a WinXP system to see if
it works w/o supplying a driver, and if it does look at what
files device manager lists it using and copy those to a
folder on the win2k system. I don't know if that will work
but could be worth a try, or of course update the system to
run XP instead of 2K.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul" <nospam (AT) needed (DOT) com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:34 PM
Subject: Re: Targus AVC05EU micro Webcam


[...]

ivers.aspx
Paul, this is impressive !
I have to work hard for days to completely explore the mine of information
you provided !

I already dumped the Win2000 CD and found nothing. Normal the AVC05 has been
released few months ago.
I got a driver CD for Win2000 from the web. Unfortunately directory names
are in not representative. I'll burn the iso and try to use the autorun.
I succeeded to find a generic driver from the Win 2000 CD and install it
unfortunately the yellow thing was still there after the install. I
neglected to reboot and deleted it. Now I can't manage to find it again !
I'll print your message in order to easily step through it.

Thanks again.

"kony" <spam (AT) spam (DOT) com> a écrit dans le message de news:
4oudh51p63kcjj63cg4r3b7i1ovqc92qhj (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
Hello kony,

Your reply is as impressive as Paul's one !
I more or less went through the first steps you described. However, not
properly and the traceability isn't perfect so I missed some clues. I've to
redo properly the job.
The Targus hotliner forwarded my message to the upper level. I'll wait for
one or two days more and, in case it's not successful, i'll give a phone
call instead of mailing.
I've a computer with XP at the office. It's a good idea I didn't have it
yet.

About the OS I just upgraded from Win98 :-)), let me three or four years
more to switch to XP :-))
I promiss to do it when I'm retired !
Anyway, lots of people reporting on the web, seem to have the pretty same
issues with XP.

Now the week end is coming, it's raining and freezing outside (+9 °C this
morning) this leaves time to experiment.
I'll do a reporting by next Mon.
Bye

----- Original Message -----
From: "frischmoutt" <frischmoutt (AT) ici (DOT) com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: Targus AVC05EU micro Webcam





Gentlemen,

I followed your recommendations.
The computer at the office refused to recognize the cam and asked to instal
a driver. It failed because I don't heve admin rigths. However this is XP
someting SP3.
First conclusion the Cam driver isn't a standard option or our company's
windows version is filtered.
I tried the cam on the ASUS M51 owned by a collegue of mine. The cam
instantly worked. Irfan View, ACDSee, etc, VLC, etc, are able to see and
capture images. I spent no more than 30 min on it. I've to get access again
to this computer. There was a line dedicated to Video Capture Peripherals in
the System Property list. Opening the driver properties for the USB cam,
gives a complete list of modules installed in Windows & System32. Both
Microsoft drivers and D-MAX (Sonix213) ones, from Macro Vision Corp.
In Irfanview, menu, Vid Acquision, I also discovered two drivers with the
same name or similar: "USB 2.013M UVC..." The reason is that the embedded
cam has the same chip hence the same driver. Addressing separately each one,
allows to switch between the embedded cam and the Targus cam.
Then later on, I searched the web and found an XP/Vista driver. Tried it
this evening on my computer, it doesn't instal. I'm not surprized.

Anyway, this first step is very promising. Now I've to re-address properly
the different operations, gathering the modules listed in the System
Properties, trying to install them under Win 2000. There are lots of
information I've to note under System Properties. I've not completely
understood the VID/PID, especially if they're written in a flashable PROM
and what to do with them. Next step is to collect these information.

See you soon.

frischmoutt wrote:
When you have a hardware driver, there is usually an INF file, and
a line in there matches the VID and PID. The hardware wizard won't
install the driver, unless the VID and PID of the driver, match those
in the hardware. So it helps to have that info, when hacking the INF.

If you're expecting to drag the class components from WinXP and
drop them into Win2K, I've never heard of anyone doing that. It
should make an interesting experiment. Make sure you have
a backup of C: before you begin messing with it.

Paul

On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 21:04:07 +0100, "frischmoutt"
<frischmoutt (AT) ici (DOT) com> wrote:


Does it appear to not install because it can't find a
supported webcam, or because it doesn't like that the OS is
win2k?

I ask because sometimes installers are too smart for their
own good and will reject an OS merely because the
manufacturer didn't want to have the expense of official
"support" for an old OS. In that case you might see if the
installer does something like extract the driver files to a
temporary folder in your windows/temp folder when you run
it, sometimes you can get lucky and just copy/paste that
folder somewhere before the installer exists and then you
have access to the files to manually point a hardware wizard
at them.

Just as Paul mentioned for the other process, if you do this
it would be good to have a backup made of the windows
partition so just in case the system won't finish booting
with a foreign driver, you have an option to restore the
prior working config.


There may be a way to manually tell it to use what it
considers the *wrong* driver, wrong because the VID/PID
doesn't match up, once you have the individual driver files
you can point a new hardware wizard at instead of depending
on an automated installation routine.