Online group buying has taken off in a big way in the Australian market, with the market now worth nearly nearly half a billion dollars and significant growth predicted over the next 12 months and beyond.read more
It seems to me unlikely that the drivers will have changed that much in the fortnight or so since this product got released, but as a gesture of good faith I go to the Microsoft site and download all 117 megabytes of the current LifeCam software, which seems to have the same version number as the CD I'm already using. As I half-expected, when I try to install the downloaded version, the software points out that it's already installed, and insists I uninstall it before trying again.
Uninstalling it amusingly brings up a Microsoft User Account Control message saying that the software is from an unknown publisher -- a message you might occasionally encounter on a freeware program, but not usually on something out of Redmond. This suggests that the Hardware team haven't been working too closely with the Vista guys, as well as reinforcing the widely held notion that UAC is a complete waste of space.
I persist, rip out the software, and install again from the download: Sadly, the end result is exactly the same with the download as with the CD version: it doesn't work.
By the way, it seems that the hardware division isn't the only part of Microsoft writing shaky software. The support FAQ for the product (which I visited before the reinstallation debacle) lists plenty of other software-related problems, but not the specific problem I'm experiencing.
When I tried to use Microsoft's online support site to lodge a query about the problem, I went through the whole process of entering a product ID and a description of the problem and then got confronted with the following error: "An unknown application error occurred. Please try again in a few minutes."
I did, only to get the same message again. I guess that's one way of keeping support costs down, but writing software that actually does what it's supposed to the first time would still be a better long term strategy. And I really do wonder how Microsoft can justify telling other software developers to provide publisher information about their products to help ensure greater security when its own divisions clearly can't be bothered. In the meantime, the camera is basically only good for stirring coffee.
David Bass
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