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  • Saitek X45 Flightstick

    Posted on by micha Comment

    Years and years ago I bought a Saitek X45 Flightstick, primarily for playing “X – Beyond the Frontier”. This was all good and fine under Windows 98. Didn’t work properly under Windows XP – the throttle never worked in the game.

    Anyway, the time has come for me to setup a Windows gaming PC again, and I pulled out the joystick and dusted it off. Plugged it in and wonder of wonders, after installed “jstest-gtk” it just worked. No setup, no configuration, no calibration. Mind, this is under Linux Mint 14….

    So reboot into my brand spanking new Windows 7 install, and while the Device Manager detects it, Windows itself doesn’t. So, head over to the Saitek site and download the relevant drivers (link).  Now I don’t know who’s to blame (Windows or Saitek), but basically the driver installer just sits there on a blank page waiting for the joystick to be plugged in (even though it is). Replugging doesn’t help either.

    Finally I manually extract the files (yes, 7zip can extract files from (most) EXE archives) and use the Device Manager to manually install the driver. This works, and Windows sees the joystick.

    Even the Mad Catz (Saitek) Profile Editor now sees the joystick and all appears to be well in the world..

    Unfortunately the latest version of X-BtF (2.2) still doesn’t fix the throttle control 🙁


    Computers 📎and tagged

  • Installing Windows 7

    Posted on by micha Comment

    So the time has come for a re-install of Windows 7.

    Base install took over an hour on reasonable hardware (X2 240, 4GB).  I fail to understand why.  Then there were the 101 updates plus 49 optional updates.  Time for SP2? I think so..

    20140119_WindowsUpdateUPDATE:  So it took nearly 5 hours to install all the updates.  After the obligatory 3 or 4 reboots, there were another 8 or so updates (and 2 reboots) before Windows was finally up-to-date.

    Apart from normal configuration, the following are the software packages which I consider to be essential to make Windows 7 usable and safe:

    Safety:

    • Antivirus Software. The 2013 winner was Avast Antivirus, and one I’ve used a lot in the past. As a bonus Avast now includes Anti-spyware protection.
    • Firewall.  Windows Firewall is ok for incoming threats, but for preventing outgoing connections you need a third-party firewall.  Comodo is good.

    Usability:

    • X-Mouse.  There’s registry tweaks or this simple program.
    • Alt-Drag to drag and resize windows.
    • Multiple Desktops.  Dexpot is the best I’ve found recently.
    • Console Replacement. ConEmu is quite good.
    • Notepad Replacement. I like Notepad++.

    Essential Software:

    • Archive Manager.  7zip is my choice.
    • SSH Client.  PuTTY is really the only option. A 64-bit version is here.
    • CCleaner is a quicker uninstaller and easily manages autostartup programs as well as various other system utilities.
    • PDF Reader.  I like Foxit as a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader, although Nitro is quite good too.
    • I like to run the following Gadgets to keep an eye on system performance:

    Applications:

     


    Computers 📎and tagged