Mike,
It's been awhile but I finally got around to using your procedure to install device drivers for my G-Wiz MC2. Thanks to you I have them installed and I can now communicate with my G-Wiz. I'm including the steps I had to follow below but basically the key is disabling the security feature- "
In brief, the solution is to disable the Windows 8 driver signature enforcement before installing the 64-bit driver that is available from the G-Wiz website." As I have a laptop instead of a tablet there were differences in my process to make it work. Fundamentally one is to disable the security feature and install the device drivers however your PC/Tablet/Windows 8 version requires. It was interesting that I had to install the drivers in 2 different places.
Mike thanks again for publishing your procedure, much appreciated. Instead of selling my G-Wiz MC2 I now have a usable great flight computer.
StanO
Ive noted changes in red to the procedure based on using my computer, a 2012 Sony Laptop which does not have a touchscreen, and Windows 8 Registered in December 2012. Your mileage May vary. My flight computer is the G-Wiz MC2.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?59230-Installing-G-Wiz-FTDI-drivers-on-Windows-8
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Rob Briody has still been assisting me with suggested fixes to my driver installation issue, but alas, I didn't have any success until this evening.
Woo hoo!!!
I had some spare time today, so I thought I'd have another crack at installing the FTDI drivers. This time I deleted all the files associated with my prior efforts and started from scratch.
In brief, the solution is to disable the
Windows 8 driver signature enforcement before installing the 64-bit driver that is available from the
G-Wiz website.
For the benefit of anyone else who needs to get their
G-Wiz USB/Serial interface connected to a
Windows 8 device, here are some step-by-step instructions outlining how I got my interface working.
1. Download a copy of the "
Windows Vista 64bit" driver ZIP file from the
G-Wiz website at: [/FONT]
[FONT="]https://www.gwiz-partners.com/html/drivers.html[/FONT][FONT="]. Save a local copy of the ZIP file onto your
Windows 8 device. Here's the current URL for the ZIP file:[/FONT]
[FONT="]https://www.gwiz-partners.com/win64USBDrivers.zip[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]
2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file into a folder on your
Windows 8 device (i.e. you can't install directly from the ZIP file).[/FONT]
[FONT="]NOTE[/FONT][FONT="] If you plug your
G-Wiz USB/Serial Interface into a USB port of your
Windows 8 device and try to install the drivers at this point, the software install will fail with an error message which says:[/FONT]
[FONT="]"
The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file. The file is likely corrupt or the victim of tampering."[/FONT]
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A security feature called "Device Driver Signing" has been built into
Windows 8 to prevent installation of bad drivers, but it also creates a problem if you're installing older hardware. The solution is to disable the
Windows 8 driver signature enforcement.
3. From the
Windows 8 "desktop", swipe in from the right-hand edge of the screen in order to display the "Charms Menu".
4. Select the "Settings" option (i.e. the bottom option that looks like a cog).
5. At the very bottom on the "Settings" menu, on the right-hand side of the screen, you will find the words "More PC Settings"
Change PC Settings. Select this option.
6. On the left-hand side of the
PC Settings page, select the "General" option. The
General settings themselves are shown on the right-hand side of the screen. Scroll to the bottom of the list of settings.
7. Under "Advanced Startup" you will see a button entitled "
Reset Now"
Restart Now. Select this button. You will be presented with a series of options for restarting your device.
8. On the
Choose an option screen, Choose "Troubleshoot", then choose "Advanced Options" and then choose "Startup Settings".
9. Select the "
Restart" button when it appears.
10. Once your device has restarted, you will be presented with a list of startup settings that you can change. You can now disable/enable the
driver signature enforcement which should be option 7. Press the
[F7] key
(didnt work for me) or the number
[7] key and your device will continue the boot-up process. This options screen will "time-out" if you don't choose an option within about 15-20 seconds. If it does time-out on you, the
driver signature enforcement will be enabled/re-enabled by default, and you'll have to start again from
Step-3 (above).
I tried the [F7] when it didnt work tried the [7] key which worked. However, I think I was too slow and had to repeat the process.
11. Once
Windows 8 has fully re-booted you should plug your
G-Wiz USB/Serial Interface into a USB port on your device.
12. From the
Windows 8 "desktop", swipe in from the right-hand edge to display the "Charms Menu" and this time select "Control Panel"
not displayed. Then select "Device Manager" from the
Control Panel window.
I keyed the Windows logo key + [X] key to select from the lower left hand corner and get Device Manager to display.
13. "
G-Wiz USB Adapter" should be listed under "Other Devices"
Ports (COM & LPT). Right-click on "G-Wiz USB Adapter" to display the shortcut menu, and then select the "Update Driver Software..." option.
After doing this I had to go to Device Manager as I wasnt given the option (greyed out) to update the driver.
14. Choose "
Browse my computer for driver software". Navigate to the location in your local storage where you extracted the
G-Wiz driver ZIP file in
Step-2. Follow the prompts to install the driver software.
I had to assign a device driver for both the G-Wiz USB Adapter under Ports (COM & LPT) and G-Wiz USB Adapter under Universal Serial Bus controllers, by repeating steps 12-14. As I had to repeat the process several times to find the devices I may have taken more steps than necessary, but I was able to load the drivers to the devices and a COM port was assigned.[/FONT]
[FONT="]15.[/FONT][FONT="] Once the driver is correctly installed your
G-Wiz USB Adapter will be listed in the
Device Manager window under "
Ports (COM & LPT)" with its assigned COM port number displayed next to it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]NOTE[/FONT][FONT="] I successfully installed the driver software but my tablet still would not assign a COM Port to it. So I installed the driver software a second time and now it works just fine.[/FONT]
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16. Take note of the assigned COM port number displayed in
Device Manager and fire up
G-Wiz FlightView to test that it successfully connects to your
G-Wiz flight computer(s).
17. Reboot your
Windows 8 device once again and it will automatically re-enable
driver signature enforcement. If you would like to double-check whether it is re-enabled, you can repeat
Step-3 through
Step-10 above.
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