Windows Vista drivers (or Netflix watch now on Linux)

["laymusic" <user=1494@nabble.blu.org>]

I don't understand how *anybody* keeps a Windows system running, 
unless they never do anything at all to it.  My laptop has been 
running windows for almost two years now, and still works, but I've 
only ever added anything to it by USB, and not often that. 

I wanted a computer that would run my shiny new Sharp Aquos TV in 
1080p, so I got a refurb HP Pavilion, which came with Vista Home 
Premium.  I installed Ubuntu Gutsy with no problmes.  I needed a DVI 
output to get the 1080p, and the onboard graphics didn't have one, so 
I added the cheapest low-profile nvidia card I could find at newegg. 

When I put in the new graphics card, it looked like it was going to be 
magic -- I plugged in the dvi to hdmi cable into one of the hdmi 
inputs on the TV, and both Linux and Windows seemed to recognize 
without me fiddling with configuration files that I wanted to use the 
whole TV screen, and to be sending 1080p.   

Linux is still doing this. 

Unfortunately, one day last week I had a DVD from Netflix that my 
cheap Apex DVD player wouldn't read, even after I did the windex 
thing, so I decided to try playing it in the Pavilion DVD drive. 
Neither operating system did this out of the box -- Linux said I 
needed more codecs and Windows said I needed a better video driver. 
So I gave them both what they said they wanted.  At this point, 
Windows looked like it thought it was playing the DVD, but I couldn't 
hear the sound.  Linux had problems with Totem and Mplayer, but VLC 
would play the DVD pretty well, even though I still missed a bit of a 
couple of tracks, and I couldn't figure out how to do the fast forward 
or reverse. 

The worst thing is that the next time I tried to boot Windows, it went 
to 800x600 graphics, and I can't figure out how to tell it to do 
1080p.  I have upgraded the video driver (the one I gave it first was 
the one that came in the box with the card; now there's one it found 
on the internet), but it still won't do 1080p, or play sound.  Linux, 
and the HP splash screen, and the boot menu, are all using 1080p, and 
Linux is playing sound fine, so I don't see how it can be the 
connections. 

My guess is that if I could figure out how to downgrade the video 
driver back to what was there when I plugged the graphics card in, I 
would be hearing sound and seeing 1080p video again, but I have no 
idea where Windows Vista puts such things, or how to tell it to do 
that.  Does anyone know? 

Alternatively, the only thing I need Windows for on that machine is 
the Netflix Watch Now, so if somebody knows a way to run that under 
Wine or something, then I wouldn't need to figure out anything about 
Windows Vista and driver downgrading.  Has anyone figured out how to 
do "watch now" on Linux? 

-- 
Laura (mailto:[hidden email] , http://www.laymusic.org/ ) 
(617) 661-8097 fax: (501) 641-5011 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139 

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