I just repaved Wyoh with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, since I wanted a 64-bit OS and there’s no fucking way I’m running Vista on my primary dev laptop. I’ve been running XP x64 at work for a while, but my work box has shit on-board graphics so I never had to seek out the latest ATI drivers for a 64-bit XP install. Wyoh on the other hand has an embedded Radeon Mobility X1800 graphics board that really needs ATI’s latest drivers.

Apparently the OEMs that license the Mobility Radeon chips don’t like ATI providing the latest and greatest Catalyst bits online, since dumb users could download them before the OEMs have a chance to verify them, thus marring the user experience and (more importantly) costing said OEM a support call. Lame!

Fortunately, there’s a workaround. Download the normal non-mobility Radeon drivers from ATI, then run the Mobility Modder against them, which somehow munges the INF and MSI files so what used to be desktop Radeon drivers are now mobility Radeon drivers. You see, it’s one set of driver binaries for the entire Radeon line; ATI just munges the installer so it won’t install on Mobility Radeon chips to placate the goddamned OEMs.

I just went through these steps, and though it’s bullshit to have to jump through this sort of hoop to get drivers, I’m glad the guys over at DriverHeaven went to the trouble to build Mobility Modder in the first place, else I’d be totally fucked.