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I'm trying Windows 8 at home and noticed, that my video card (Radeon 4550) does not get driver update for Windows 8. It has some Microsoft driver, but that driver does not support acceleration (at least some of it), so question is should I try to install Windows 7 drivers for my VGA or stick with Microsoft provided ones?

3 Answers 3

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You should be able to install Windows 7 drivers, indeed. The driver model hasn't changed much since Vista (mostly minor refinements and optimisations but nothing really critical). Your main problem might be installers that check the OS version and refuse to be installed on anything newer.

Besides, I wasn't able to install drivers that couldn't ever work (e.g. because they're for a too old Windows or some entirely different hardware) anyway (Windows already refuses), so you should be good to go.

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You should try and install the drivers. If anything just do a system restore (if minor damage was done) to revert back to original settings.

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Not specifically Radeon but I have installed various NVidia Windows 7 drivers on a few Windows 8 machines and they have all worked fine once I made sure I was using the latest version. One older version was possibly the cause of a blue screen - but I can't be sure - it could equally well have been dodgy RAM.

They should be fine. But, of course, backup/system restore point/whatever your choice of emergency recovery first.

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  • The author has an added problem that going forward ATI/AMD are not going to release updates to the drivers used by the Radeon 4550.
    – Ramhound
    Oct 29, 2012 at 10:41
  • Fair enough. Nevertheless, Windows 7 drivers will work. But, perhaps, it may be more prudent to use the Microsoft ones for this particular piece of hardware. Or upgrade the card. Choices, choices...
    – shunty
    Oct 29, 2012 at 10:56
  • Problem is, that my Radeon is in notebook, so I would need to change whole notebook - and it is not so old, has i7/ssd inside...
    – Giedrius
    Oct 30, 2012 at 9:10
  • On the bright side, that will reduce your choices! Go for it...
    – shunty
    Oct 30, 2012 at 12:22

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