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silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

macbook air isight problem

I am using VMWare Fusion 1.1.1. Used to run Win XP on a Macbook, and built-in iSight was working fine.

Traded in the Macbook for a Macbook Air, reinstalled Fusion and Win XP, and the VMWare Tools. But now it cannot find a driver for the built-in isight.

Is it possible that the isight for the new MB Air requires a new driver?

(isight working fine in OS X - not hardware problem)

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15 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Did you install Apple's Boot Camp drivers in XP?

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silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

maybe?

I tried the isight driver from this website - http://www.maconlysource.com/?p=885

which was supposed to be extracted from the bootcamp driver. But the windows hardware installer did not recognize that as a correct driver for my built-in isight.

Other than that, I don't know how to extract the drivers from the Leopard DVD. Any wise suggestions?

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borisdusek
Expert
Expert

You should not need to extract the driver from the Leopard DVD. Simply power up the VM, insert the DVD into some other Mac and enable that shared CD/DVD for Macbook Air. (From the Fusion FAQ, it seems that this should be possible, you just can't install Windows using the shared disk). Then in the Windows VM, a setup wizard should appear automatically and you should install the drivers there (if you have an option, you can select just the isight one).

Btw., be cautious about the shared CD/DVD with Fusion, see FAQ at the very bottom (Major known issues with the Macbook Air) at .

Message was edited by: borisdusek to warn silverblack about issues with shared CD/DVD and Fusion on MB Air

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I don't see any information on that page about which version of the drivers those are (e.g. are they from the Boot Camp beta?), it would not surprise me if the MacBook Air has a new iSight that only works with Leopard Boot Camp drivers.

If Boris' suggestion doesn't work, you could make an .iso of the DVD on another computer.

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silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

I actually have an external DVD drive. So I poped in the Leopard DVD under XP, it found bootcamp folder, and installed a bunch of drivers - see attached.

Uninstalled the previous isight from Device Manager. Rebooted, and new hardward detected, but still couldn't find a suitable driver (exact same problem as before).

Should I uninstall the VMWare Tools, in case it is blocking Windows from seeing the new bootcamp drivers?

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

No you do not need to uninstall VMware Tools...

Have you connected the Apple Built-in iSight to the Virtual Machine via the USB icon in the Status Bar or the Virtual Machine > USB > Connect Apple Built-in iSight command?

If yes then post a screenshot of Device Manager.

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silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, I have connected the isight manually under USB.

By the way, I re-installed win xp pro over again to be sure - same problem.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Yes, I have connected the isight manually under USB. By the way, I re-installed win xp pro over again to be sure - same problem.

I would try manually installing the iSight Driver and to do that you need to manually extract the files out of the setup file...

Directions to extract the iSight Driver from the AppleiSightInstaller.exe file...

On the Leopard DVD, while in Windows, look for AppleiSightInstaller.exe and copy it to its own folder on the hard drive.

Although you cannot execute it by itself however you can use UNRAR to extract the files and then point to that folder when necessary.

At a Command Prompt: unrar x AppleiSightInstaller.exe

Note: The above command assumes the unrar.exe and the AppleiSightInstaller.exe are in the same folder and the Command Prompt is set to that folder.

This will extract the files necessary to manually update the device.

You can get a copy of UNRAR from...

GNU utilities for Win32

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/unxutils/UnxUtils.zip

When extracting the UnxUtils.zip the unrar.exe is at "/UnxUtils/usr/local/wbin/unrar.exe"

Then in the Device Manager select the "Built-in iSight" on the "Others devices" node and right-click and select Properties then on the Driver tab click the Update Driver... button and follow through with the ensuing dialog boxes to manually point to the extracted files folder and update the driver.

silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

When I click your link to download - http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/UnxUtils.zip

I got the following error:

"Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /UnxUtils.zip on this server."

I found another copy of unrar.exe from here - http://www.reenigne.org/computer/librepos/index.html

I ran command prompt as suggested, but it didn't extract anything. See screen shot.

Message was edited by: etung to delete Apple's iSight driver - it's not OK to redistribute someone else's stuff. See section 4e of the Terms of Use

(Sorry - I wasn't thinking)

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

When I click your link to download -

I got the following error:

"Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /UnxUtils.zip on this server." Sorry the link is no longer a good link...

Updated Link:

When extracting the UnxUtils.zip the unrar.exe is at "/UnxUtils/usr/local/wbin/unrar.exe"

I found another copy of unrar.exe from here -

I ran command prompt as suggested, but it didn't extract anything. See screen shot.

The version of unrar.exe you downloaded was 2.0 and the AppleiSightInstaller.exe is compressed with a newer version and that why it fails.

silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks WoodyZ. Everything worked in extracting the driver this time. But... (I couldn't believe it) windows still didn't accept that as a proper driver.

Now I'm worried. Does that mean there is something wrong with my computer? (since it's not likely that Apple supply the wrong boot camp driver in the MB-Air recovery dvds)

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

The only thing I can think of at the moment is that maybe Apple is using different iSight hardware on the MacBook Air and needs a driver that is different then the version that shipped on the Leopard DVD although it was my understanding that Apple pressed a MacBook Air specific Leopard DVD that will only work on a MacBook Air and Apple also cautions the use of a Non-MacBook Air specific Leopard DVD on the MacBook Air so I would have thought the included Boot Camp Drivers would work.

It would be interesting to know if the iSight Driver would install on a Boot Camp partition install of Windows XP vs a native file based Fusion Virtual Machine.

Are you running Windows XP from Boot Camp partition or just a native file based Fusion Virtual Machine?

You may have to contact Apple about this issue.

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silverblack
Contributor
Contributor

I was running it as a native file based Fusion Virtual Machine, may have to try boot camp at one point. Before that, I'll browser the Apple forum and see if I find anything. I suspect not too many MBA owners use boot camp or virtualization due to the already small hard drive that came with MBA.

Thanks for all your help Woodyz, and all others that responded.

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jrockett
Contributor
Contributor

Have there been any updates for this problem? I have vm fusion running on my macbook pro and the iSight camera works yet has a yellow question mark in device manager like the previous posts. I tried the bootcamp drivers and the manual extraction but I get the same error about the software cannot be found. Are there new drivers out now? Thanks.

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