Disable unsigned drivers on Vista 64bit...

F

Frosteh

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 30, 2004
Messages
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So I grabbed another 2Gb of RAM the other day and basically want to upgrade to Vista 64bit to make the best use of all the RAM and the 64bit architeture of my CPU (especially for when UT3 arrives)

But with my 1024mb video card I can say bye bye to about 1.5Gb of my 4Gb under a 32bit OS :(

Anyhow I'm worried about it enforcing digitally signed drivers, I read somewhere that putting this into a CMD window with admin rights disables the checks

Code: 
bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

Could anyone confirm this actually works? Considering how many people want to disable this I've read in the past I can't actually find a lot about it online, which leads me to think it's not going to work.

Does it have any other kind of side effects on the OS, or does it purely effect driver signing?

Cheers for any help.
 
1Gig of video RAM...
concidering the highest I can see is 768Meg...

"ZOMG I'm going so fast"

I doubt even 1/2 of that RAM is even being touched, you even goto 64bit Vista to further reduce yr options...
 
The 7950GX2 has 1024mb of Video RAM, you can get even more than that if you SLI video cards together. Besides even if it was just 512 I'd still be installing RAM I cannot use because of an OS limitation.

I frequently use all my RAM, when I have games of CoH online and I host as the server Vista uses all 2Gb of my RAM and approx 1.2Gb of the pagefile.

Im sorry if you don't think its a good idea going to 64bit or not, thats circumstantial and is my choice, I'm just asking for a bit of help with it.
 
Do you have hardware that needs unsigned drivers? I've been fine in my 64-bit installation and haven't needed to worry about disabling the check.
 
Frosteh said:
The 7950GX2 has 1024mb of Video RAM, you can get even more than that if you SLI video cards together.
Click to expand...
Also, FWIW, if you have any TV tuner cards/RAID cards with onboard memory, that also eats into the limit in a 32-bit environment. It's amazing how it adds up.
 
LhasaCM said:
Also, FWIW, if you have any TV tuner cards/RAID cards with onboard memory, that also eats into the limit in a 32-bit environment. It's amazing how it adds up.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is just the biggest chunk to be taken out, there are other things, in fact any kind of memory widnows needs to address uses up a portion of the virtual address space.

I don't know what I have signed drivers for and what I don't, no one really documents if drivers are specifically signed for Vista 64bit or not, one would assume that any drivers released for 64bit would be signed due to the nature of the OS but it appears thats a stupid assumption.

Im worrying the most about my RAID drivers, I boot off a RAID 0 array which complicates the install of the OS Somewhat, although with Vista 32bit the drivers came on the disc which was nice, lets hope 64bit is the same, and that they're signed :/

I hear some software like CPU-Z is effected by this problem, i just hope if thats the case that the command above works.
 
If it is something that is an intermittent item, you can hit F8 and disable the check when booting up, but that would only apply until you restart again.

For your biggest concern: hopefully, since the drivers came on disk for Vista 32-bit, you'll be fine with the 64-bit installation. If not - you'll find out immediately in the installation attempt (since the drives won't be a visible target to install the OS) and you can just cancel and retreat to the 32-bit realm. I would sincerely hope that MS wouldn't have included unsigned drivers on its own installation disk...that would be counterproductive.

Speaking more generically, from what I've seen at least, most hardware vendors won't claim to have a "final" Vista x64 driver unless it is signed. Beta drivers might not be, but the final release ones they offer should be. Of course, nobody's perfect...
 
I actually dont restart very often, only when I have to, like with windows updates or software that requires it, other than that the PC is basically on all the time, F8 might not be so painful, but it's rememebring then having to restart again because you forgot.
 
Can anyone confirm if the command line parameter is the same as this fix I've just run across:

http://www.vistarip.com/e107_plugins/faq/faq.php?0.cat.3.8

It uses the GUI to edit the values, but wether its exactly the same value or not I'm not sure. To be honest "DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS" sounds a little less accurate, like maybe it disables a whole bunch of stuff, rather than just driver signing.
 
I have yet to find a way to keep it OFF after reboots etc. I have a driver for my Nostromo n52 that doesnt load/work unless I boot up with F8 and disable driver signing checks etc. Even now that it is installed I have to do the F8 dance every reboot or the driver shows the yellow /!\ in device manager and doesnt work.
 
This cmd line really does work. I have been using coretemp on a vista system at work and the only way I could get it to read is by disabling the driver signing and running as admin. Now it works like a champ and I never have to go back and redo the driver signing thing, it stays off for me. (Vista 64-bit business)
 
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