Windows 8.1 - Legacy Firewire Drivers

Question

Hello,

I need to use the legacy firewire drivers for my system.

Windows 8 does not have this driver anymore and it does not allow the installation of the driver files from a Windows 7 system due to driver signing.

The only way to get the driver to install is by enabling test mode and disabling something else. This results in a screen watermark.

Can Microsoft please provide a signed version of the Legacy driver? It would cure headaches for a big chunck of audio engineers who choose to use Windows.

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi,

We have made the legacy 1394 driver available to download for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 today. Please see the blog below and instruction on download/manual installation.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2014/09/10/announcing-the-availability-of-a-standalone-legacy-1394-ohci-firewire-package.aspx

thank you,

Koichi Hirao [MSFT]

Answer 2

I assume Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is a native 64 bit application. This would explain, why it works. The same as my EDIUS 7.

Answer 3

"except for the piece that required the firewire card to be run in legacy mode" ... exactly my point because in Windows 8 there was no driver signed by MS for the "Legacy" driver for the IEEE 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller.

Windows 8 is compatible with all TI Firewire controllers and other brand FW controllers, but Windows 8 had dropped support for the "Legacy" FW driver. So any device that required the "Legacy" driver would not function. Other devices that do not require the "Legacy" driver, will function properly.

An installed Firewire card would always show up in Windows 8 Device Manager, but the "Legacy" Compliant driver was never signed by MS in Windows 8 (as it was in Win 7) and therefore was not available for use in the Win 8 o.s. for devices that required the "Legacy" driver. (There are many work-arounds to get the "Legacy" driver from Win 7 and install it into Win 8, but recommended only to be done if you are a computer technician or risk messing up you system)

I have upgraded to Windows 8.1 and for some reason my devices that previously required the signed Legacy driver in order to operate, now function well. For example... Mini-DV video from my camcorder to my computer via TI FW card using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 to capture the footage works perfectly now.

I am not a computer tech to know exactly the why and how of it from Microsoft, but hope this sheds some light on the issue anyway.

Answer 4

Some more Details:

My previous video editing program (EDIUS Neo 3,5) was a 32 bit program running under Windows 8.1 64 bit. Video import did nor work.

The new program (EDIUS 7) is native 64 bit. Video import works with no problems.

When I connect the camcorder to the firewire input the first time, windows lets pop-up a program "Tape Importer (32 bit)" as shown in the task manager. This program does NOT work.

Could it be that only native 64 bit programs work correctly with the windows 8.1 64 bit firewire driver?

Is Microsoft working on this issue?

Answer 5

FYI: Windows 8 never supported Firewire.

For you, maybe. But what you experienced does not count as 100% of the time, for everyone.

I have used Windows 8 before the 8.1 upgrade with a TI firewire card which installed automatically. All equipment worked perfectly, except for the piece that required the firewire card to be run in legacy mode. This is an issue with the equipment, not the firewire card or OS.

Moving on, does Microsoft have any input into getting the driver signed?