GETTING A HAUPPAGE TV CARD
WORKING IN WINDOWS XP
 

 

 


This weekend I had the pleasure of spending countless hours trying to get my Hauppage 401 TV-Tuner + radio working in Windows XP.  I have come across a way that should save others from this headache, and after e-mailing Hauppage tech support in the various regions, I received a response that what I’m suggesting should work, although it’s “un-supported” since we’ll be using drivers that haven’t been written 100% for Windows XP.

 

This is the part when I warn you that I’m simply doing this as a service, because after posting that I got this to work on a few message boards, I’ve been swamped with e-mails asking me how to do this.  I figured putting this on the web would be a benefit to those interested in using the Hauppage TV card in WindowsXP, but I offer no guarantee that it will work for you.  Moreover, if you crash your whole system, burn down a house, manage to get alien channels, or anything of the sort I cannot and will not be held responsible.  This webpage is not supported or endorsed in any way by Microsoftâ or Hauppage and this webpage will be taken down upon request by either company or anyone who deems the information provided here to be improper in any way.  By continuing reading this page you willfully acknowledge all of the aforementioned statements.  If you do not, then you must leave this website now.

 

I apologize for the above long-winded pleasantries, but just trying to make it clear that you can choose to follow my directions or not, but from this point on, it’s all your fault if something/anything goes wrong.  I honestly don’t see how anything could happen, since Hauppage provides a way to remove all the stuff, which works even in WindowsXP, but consider yourself warned.

 

For those that are a bit skeptical, Hauppage’s Spain website has an image that shows their hardware to be WindowsXP compliant, and at one point I found a logo like this on the US website, but I can no longer find it now (could have been removed, or perhaps I just can’t find my way back...if someone finds the picture in English, let me know and I’ll post it here)

 

 

Now for the meat of the webpage.  Here’s how to get it working:

 

REMOVING BAD TRACES OF THE HAUPPAGE CARD FROM YOUR SYSTEM:

 

  1. If you have already attempted to install your Hauppage TV card in WindowsXP and have not had success (if you did, then why would you be reading this, right?), then go into DEVICE MANAGER by having right-clicked on “My Computer” and remove the device drivers.  Alternatively, you can run HWClear.exe which is available from the Hauppage website and tell it to remove all traces of the Hauppage drivers, .inf files, and software if you so choose.

 

 

 

DOWNLOADING THE FILES YOU’LL NEED:

 

  1. Go to: http://www.hauppauge.com/html/sw_wcst.htm - wdm and download the WDM file.  This file is the one that contains the driver for both the video and audio portions of the Hauppage TV card.  It isn’t supported as being WinXP compatible, but like I said earlier, it worked for me and was confirmed to work by some Hauppage tech people via e-mail. 

 

     The one I used is:

Name: WDM19226.EXE
Version 2.29
size=1,082K
Updated August 22, 2001

  1. Go here: http://www.hauppauge.com/html/sw_wcst.htm - wintv and you will find links that will allow you to both watch TV and the radio program will be there if you scroll down a bit.

 

The ones I used are:

 

Name: WINTV2K331_19206.EXE
Version 3.31
size=2468K
Updated July 26, 2001

 

Version 1.42
size=324K
Updated April 24, 2001

 

I have not tried using the remote, so I cannot confirm or deny that the driver shown on the page will work or not in Windows XP.

 

 

INSTALLING THE DRIVERS AND SOFTWARE

 

  1. From what I have heard there are 2 ways to install the drivers, so try either way and hopefully one will work.

-         Double click on the WDM driver file and it will install the drivers to WindowsXP.

-         Unzip/extract the contents of the driver .exe file using a program like WinZip, then when prompted by Windows XP for drivers, point it to the extracted files and it will locate and install the video and audio drivers.

 

  1. Once you have installed the drivers, reboot your computer and then go back into DEVICE MANAGER and make sure that there are no yellow question marks by your hardware.  If there is a yellow question mark, try uninstalling the hardware drivers and then installing the hardware using an alternate method in step 4.
  2. If you have no problems in device manager concerning your Hauppage TV card, then you’re ready to install the software.  You can do this simply by double-clicking on the TV .exe file you downloaded and then you can install the radio program (if applicable – as in your card supports the radio feature) by double-clicking on that file as well.  For good measure, I rebooted my computer here in order to ensure that the software was installed 100% and didn’t need to install anymore .dll or other files upon Windows XP startup before working properly.

 

  1. If you’ve reached this point, then hopefully you’ve gotten your card working and all is good.  In the event that you haven’t, then depending on your problem, you have a few options: 

-         If you got the drivers working, but are having lockups or other problems, then check and see if your Hauppage card is sharing any IRQ’s.  My card is sharing IRQ 9 successfully with my SB Live! Value card and my secondary video card (Diamond Stealth 2000 – Virge VX chipset), but I’ve had problems in the past when my Hauppage PCI 401 card was sharing an IRQ with my primary video card (GeForce 2 GTS – AGP).  The main problem I had was discoloration, but this was because some card in my system was not sharing IRQ’s properly.  I moved the slot that the Hauppage card was in and thus changed the cards it was sharing IRQ’s in and haven’t had a problem since.

-         If you can’t get the drivers to load, then I would suggest you double check that you downloaded the right drivers (don’t use the normal Windows 2000 files, use the WDM files that officially support: Windows98SE, WindowsMe and Windows2000 and unofficially support WindowsXP)

-          If you have the right drivers, then try both methods mentioned in step 4 to get the drivers correctly recognized and installed for your system.

-         If you still have problems, I would suggest checking the Hauppage website often and hoping that they’ll post “official” drivers and start providing tech support for Windows XP.  On October 25, 2001 Microsoftâ will be releasing the final version of Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional.  At this point, I would think that Hauppage will begin providing support for WindowsXP and will have the drivers shown on their website.

 

 

Your comments and suggestions to this website would be greatly appreciated. 

I can be contacted at: doublen786@hotmail.com

 

 

All trademarks and copyrights are the rights of their respective owners.  I have written this webpage in hopes of helping people who face the same troubles that I did, but in the event that I have done anything wrong in any manner by providing links and information as I have, please notify me and I will not hesitate to take this webpage down.