Helmers Blog

As you probably know, I’m running Windows 7 for a long time now. With the installation of the ‘official’ Windows 7 Beta after a few weeks I received a Action Center message that there was an updated driver for my biometric fingerprintreader, which I could install and use. Since the installation of the latest ‘unofficial’ build the biometric driver wasn’t installed automatically, but after a manual installation the driver (and the icon with the exclamation mark disappeared).

Note : I installed the driver on my Windows 7 64-bit installation, but I noticed that there’s also a 32-bit driver available in the package!

Note 2 : Tony Krijnen also tested the driver with a Sierra Wireless MC 8780 (On a Fujitsu Siemens T4220) and the drivers works on that config also! Thanks Tony for testing!

Too bad still two devices couldn’t be installed automatically. One of them was the Sierra Wireless (MC 8775) HSDPA Wireless adapter which is integrated in my Lenovo T61.     there were three devices in my Laptop (Lenovo T61) which, at the Devices and Printers screen, gave me the icon you see below.

Because I have internet access everywhere I didn’t really bother, but today one of my colleagues asked me if I already had the HSDPA modem working and I had to answer him that I didn’t….

After a small Google search and some reading I didn’t find a solution. Hans (the colleague in question) mailed me a driver he found somewhere which should do the job….and it worked!

Let me explain how I finally got the HSDPA modem working:

Step 1 : Download the Sierra Wireless driver and unzip it.

Step 2 : Open Devices and Printers (Start-> just type Devices and printers and press enter)

Step 3 : Right click the Mini Card icon with the exlamation mark next to it (see the picture above)

Step 4 : Click Properties

Step 5 : Click Change Settings (maybe you have to go to the Hardware tab and press Properties first)

Step 6 : Click Update (or Install) driver on the driver tab

Step 7 : Click Browse my computer for driver software

Step 8 : Browse to the MC8755\AC\Drivers\WinVista\64bit click Next

Step 9 : When the driver installation finished successfully you probably see a few more (new) devices appear in the Unspecified list. For every new device you have to repeat steps 3 to 8 to install the correct driver.

Step 10 : It could be possible that you still have a Network Adapter/Controller with a exlamation mark left, just repeat steps 3 to 8 also for this device. At the end you should see something like the image below!

I also had to install the Vodafone Connect Software to use my HSDPA modem, but if you have a different HSDPA/Mobile Phone operator you probably want to install their software

Download the Sierra Wireless HSDPA (MC8775) driver
More info about Sierra Wireless and Windows 7

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