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mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Are there any good rumors or is there any information or knowledge about getting the iSight working in either Vista or XP, using either Parallels or Bootcamp, to be able to use Windows Live 8, etc?
 

hob

macrumors 68010
Oct 4, 2003
2,004
0
London, UK
mkrishnan said:
Are there any good rumors or is there any information or knowledge about getting the iSight working in either Vista or XP, using either Parallels or Bootcamp, to be able to use Windows Live 8, etc?
About once a month for the last 3 months I've done a google search for iSight Windows Drivers, spent about 20 minutes looking around and then ended up wanting to bust my head through a wall due to reading the same info over and over!!

So basically, I haven't heard anything new - but I'm still interested!!
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
hob said:
So basically, I haven't heard anything new - but I'm still interested!!

I thought I heard a bang on the other side of the wall right before I hit my own head against it! :eek: ;) :D

I'm surprised that no one has tried to reverse engineer this or somehow take somebody's Firewire driver and adapt it or something. It's particularly weird that some Windows variants know that it is a Firewire camera and yet don't support *using* it. :rolleyes:

And I am guessing that as of yet, Vista betas do not have a driver for it?

P.S. Thank you for bumping this thread, Hob. This was one of those things where I was fairly certain there wasn't any news I didn't already know about, and didn't really expect anyone to come to the rescue with a solution, but... still, responses are nice! ;)
 

JFreak

macrumors 68040
Jul 11, 2003
3,152
9
Tampere, Finland
I'm very surprised if it doesn't work right away -- after all, it's just a "DV camera" that has no record or playback features. Only DV streaming. If it doesn't work with generic drivers, then Windows multimedia sucks big time.
 

Scarlet Fever

macrumors 68040
Jul 22, 2005
3,262
0
Bookshop!
JFreak said:
I'm very surprised if it doesn't work right away -- after all, it's just a "DV camera" that has no record or playback features. Only DV streaming. If it doesn't work with generic drivers, then Windows multimedia sucks big time.
nope, it crashes XP so badly you cant repair it. I had to delete the partition, re-partition it, re-install XP, re-install drivers, and i didnt touch anything i wasnt supposed to the second time around.
 

pincho

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2006
160
0
Sydney, Australia
Scarlet Fever said:
nope, it crashes XP so badly you cant repair it. I had to delete the partition, re-partition it, re-install XP, re-install drivers, and i didnt touch anything i wasnt supposed to the second time around.
:eek: really? all it did for me is give me a BSOD, restarted and Windows was fine.
 

Scarlet Fever

macrumors 68040
Jul 22, 2005
3,262
0
Bookshop!
haha... maybe im just a windows noob...

When i double clicked it, it crashed completely, and when i tried to restart, it said please insert the winXP disc to repair OS. i did, and i couldn't figure out how to make it repair.

Not that it really matters any more... windows has come and long gone on my MacBook
 

mlrproducts

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2004
449
556
JFreak said:
I'm very surprised if it doesn't work right away -- after all, it's just a "DV camera" that has no record or playback features. Only DV streaming. If it doesn't work with generic drivers, then Windows multimedia sucks big time.


Its on the USB bus, not the firewire bus on the new built-ins. You would think that would make it easier..
 

joequincy

macrumors newbie
Aug 31, 2007
11
0
Sacramento, CA
iSight thru Parallels

Well, I can tell you that the iSight works in XP thru Parallels 3.0

I've just used it in Photoshop CS3 Extended, and I can go to My Computer and open up "USB Video Device".

The trick is to make sure that Parallels passes the iSight thru to the Virtual Machine. Go to the Parallels menu bar (I'm new to macs... I'm referring to the bar at the top of the screen) and choose "Devices", then highlight "USB" and make sure "Built-In iSight" is checked. This will bring up a hardware found dialog. After screwing around with it for a while, I either used the AVC Device driver (in order, choose "no", "manual installation", "I will choose") or exited without installing a driver. I wasn't paying close enough attention at that point.

Then check your "My Computer". If there's a camera, great! If there isn't... try doing the other option (of the two I just gave you).

And I just confirmed full functionality in Windows Live Messenger.
So yah... have fun!
 

TimJim

macrumors 6502a
May 15, 2007
886
2
Well, I can tell you that the iSight works in XP thru Parallels 3.0

I've just used it in Photoshop CS3 Extended, and I can go to My Computer and open up "USB Video Device".

The trick is to make sure that Parallels passes the iSight thru to the Virtual Machine. Go to the Parallels menu bar (I'm new to macs... I'm referring to the bar at the top of the screen) and choose "Devices", then highlight "USB" and make sure "Built-In iSight" is checked. This will bring up a hardware found dialog. After screwing around with it for a while, I either used the AVC Device driver (in order, choose "no", "manual installation", "I will choose") or exited without installing a driver. I wasn't paying close enough attention at that point.

Then check your "My Computer". If there's a camera, great! If there isn't... try doing the other option (of the two I just gave you).

And I just confirmed full functionality in Windows Live Messenger.
So yah... have fun!

i ran bootcamp and windows and my isight worked in My Computer>Camera
 

Jopling

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2004
363
0
I also still think this thread has more to be added. There are no apple supported drivers for the external firewire isight in XP. The picture quality is horrible and it doesn't work as a microphone. I just don't want to have to buy a mic for when i play games in XP. If anyone knows of a solution, PM me.
 

blueskip

macrumors newbie
Jul 5, 2008
1
0
I waded through a 174 page thread this morning from 2005 and lo and behold on page 174 posted just last week was the answer to the question. So old threads do help! The information I was looking for was on a NEW TV. I learned several things from that 2005 thread. One thing I learned was that same TV has been made for three years now with only a few minor changes.

I sold the iSight. I couldn't get it to work and never found any evidence Apple "supported" it. It was a crappy product apparently unless you owned a compatible device. I personally think it's assinine that Apple releases any product incapable of being used with a Windows based machine when 95% of the world is using Windows. It's just good business sense to make it work. The iPod is a shining example of that.

This was one of Apples mistake products IMHO. There have been one or two here and there although I'll be the first to admit most of their products are top shelf even if they are a little overhyped/priced in my opinion.
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Crap, I didn't even realize I was the OP of this thread. :eek: I was wondering why I even posted in a thread on this topic!

I'm also a mod now. :p I deleted numerous posts arguing about thread bumping and insulting each other and so on. Keep it civil, please.

But anyway, current status, correct me if I'm wrong?

- In Bootcamp: built-in iSights work fine (act like USB devices); firewire iSights do not work at all.

- In Parallels: All iSights work as USB devices (to the guest OS), regardless of whether they're internal or external.

Both answers same for Vista and XP.

Yes?

Basically at this point, if no one has yet made drivers for the FW iSight, I think we have to just settle that it isn't going to happen. Since OS X now supports USB cams well, I guess they become a reasonably good option, even though few of them are as nice as the original iSight, and those that are do not look as pretty. :eek:

With respect to the asinine or not nature of the firewire iSight working in Windows, it is probably worth noting that it was a Mac accessory that was designed in the PPC-era to give Macs a webcam, at a time when PCs had cheap USB webcams (that stunk) and Macs didn't support USB webcams. So much has changed since then. And the iSight has been discontinued for some time now and is clearly not coming back.
 

Scorpio70

macrumors newbie
Mar 14, 2009
1
0
Confirmed

- In Parallels: All iSights work as USB devices (to the guest OS), regardless of whether they're internal or external.

Don't know about externals, but in my MacBook Pro the internal camera works fine after telling Parallels to plug it in (Devices->USB->iSight). The wizard fails the install and there's the question mark on the iSight camera in the device manager, but all the same the camera does work. At least in Messenger it does.

--
Scorpio
 

billmister

macrumors 6502
Sep 15, 2007
338
0
- In Parallels: All iSights work as USB devices (to the guest OS), regardless of whether they're internal or external.

Don't know about externals, but in my MacBook Pro the internal camera works fine after telling Parallels to plug it in (Devices->USB->iSight). The wizard fails the install and there's the question mark on the iSight camera in the device manager, but all the same the camera does work. At least in Messenger it does.

--
Scorpio


I am in the same boat as you. FOR DAYS NOW i['ve been trying to get this to work. I found drivers from my os disk, online, and they don't work. It fails to install the drivers.

I've tried vmware, parallels. What really funny and killing me, is that i have 2 friends and they are running parallels or vmware and they are able to make it work. My last friend who is helping me just got vmware because i told him about unity.

He installs it, it picked up that their was a new hardware plugged in, he located the drivers to the deskop where he found it online, and it F@#$@ INSTALLED!?!?!??!!??!?

i did the same sh@# and it would not install for me. Even from the mac Os disk.

Now the ONLY explination i can have is, he has a black macbook. My other friend has a macbook pro 17 but 2 years ago. COULD IT BE that newer models don't allow it to work?

I have a macbook pro penryn and it's not letting me do it.
 
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