If you have a Windows PC and and iPad, you may have spent some amount of time wishing you could connect the two. Thanks to Avatron and AirDisplay, an iPad app, now you can. AirDisplay has released a Windows driver for the iPad, which can turn the iPad into a wireless second display for your Windows-based PC.

Two Displays Are Better Than One!

The AirDisplay app was originally released for the Macintosh and enabled Mac users to use their iPad as a second, wireless display for Macintosh computer. The iPad functions as a second display. The Windows version of the driver hasn’t yet been deemed “ready for prime time,” but the display driver is in beta. Being able to use an iPad as a Windows display device isn’t new. MaxiVista, another iPad app, will allow you to do the same thing.

Chances are good that if you have an iPad, you also have at least a relatively up-to-date OS’s, but in case you don’t, AirDisplay won’t won’t work with a Windows dinosaur. Minimally, the app requires Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. On the plus side, if you’re running the 64-bit versions of Vista or Windows 7, you’re in luck. AirDisplay will support these operating modes. It can also support the 32-bit versions of these systems. The app supports only the 32-bit version of Windows XP.

The wireless connection between your PC and the iPad is Wi-Fi only. Once the driver and Air Display utility are installed on your computer, and the AirDisplay app is installed on the iPad, your iPad will appear as an extended display on your PC. Select it and you’re good to go.

The AirDisplay app probably isn’t the ideal choice for very heavy-duty display responsibilities. (In other words, don’t expect much if you’re planning to run Left4Dead 2 on it.) It can, however, act as a pretty good monitoring device for certain applications and utilities that you might want to run continuously, but not otherwise take up desktop real estate. It can also help you run apps that traditionally require two displays, like graphics programs and programming shells.

It’s also a fun way to get some extra cycles out of your iPad when it would otherwise just be sitting there. The app is low-cost – about $10 and is available through Apple’s iTunes app store. You can also download it from Avatron.

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Dell has said that plans to stop selling Windows XP downgrades on new computers. Microsoft has imposed an October 22 deadline for third-party manufacturers to stop selling Windows XP downgrades. Dell says it will stop supporting Windows XP drivers in 2012, two years ahead of what Microsoft says is its “drop-dead” date for Windows XP retirement.

Where Does This Leave The Customer?

Microsoft’s EULA for Windows 7 allows users to downgrade to Windows XP at any time, so what’s really at stake here is the customer’s ability to get a pre-loaded computer with Windows XP. Is that such a loss?

For individual users, the move away from XP may not be such a big deal. The pushback on this decision is likely to come from corporate users who have large user communities. The move to XP may require hardware or software upgrades, additional licensing costs, and a significant amount of preparation, rollout and post-upgrade support. Some corporate users have chosen to delay these expenses by sticking with what they have until they can do controlled upgrades.

Even this might not be as terrible as it sounds. The Microsoft Volume Licensing agreement enables enterprises that commit to certain licensing volumes to use any operating system they choose. In theory, a volume-licensing customer could continue to use XP indefinitely.

That’s not necessarily wise, though. Microsoft has already limited technical support to Windows XP SP3 users. Users who have not upgraded their service pack versions yet won’t find Windows driver updates or patches, even for critical vulnerabilities. Next year, XP will celebrate its 10th year on the market, and despite a great deal of user loyalty, it appears as though the move to Windows 7 is happening in earnest.

If anything, Microsoft and Dell are simply applying pressure to users to make and stick with a migration plan. Ultimately, power distributors like Dell will help move users away from older XP implementations toward Windows 7 distributions. When everything is said and done, it’s probably the only way to get users who subscribe to the “If-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it” philosophy of upgrading. It will also add a little pressure to specialty equipment manufacturers to upgrade their product line to accommodate the move to Vista-based operating system support. By eliminating Windows XP and older versions of the operating system from the global installed user base, Microsoft can make more progress in its efforts to bring a more secure, more intelligent and more efficient computing platform to the market.

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If you’re considering an upgrade to Windows 7, one of your major concerns will likely be driver compatibility. This is especially true if you’re upgrading from Windows XP or if you’ve deployed a new computer and plan to use existing peripheral devices. In a controlled IT environment (such as what you have at home), you may experience few or no problems, largely because you have a small network and only a few devices.

Windows 7 Home Experiences Don’t Always Translate

Home users may not understand what the big deal is when IT professionals talk about migrating to Windows 7. After all, how hard can it be, right? You’ve been on Windows 7 since it came out and everything works fine. Sadly, in the corporate IT environment, there are a striking number of variables that come into play during OS migration. Migrations are always well thought out and never rushed. (Or at least that’s the way it should be…)

Two of the major issues with corporate IT environments are the shared nature of certain peripheral devices (like printers) and the special work needs of some staff members. One staff member may be using Windows XP while another may be using Vista. One staff member may be using a 32-bit OS while another is using a 64-bit version. Most staff members print to one printer, while a few members need to print to a different device. In a corporate environment, the possibilities are nearly endless, so the migration process is often slow and frustrating. What works for one user simply WILL NOT work for another.

Finding the right drivers for each variation is critical. Ideally, the vendor of each peripheral device would have developed an appropriate Windows 7 driver but that often turns out not to be the case. So what happens when the manufacturer has not provided a Windows 7 driver for a specific critical device? Sometimes, good old-fashioned detective work and a little bit of luck can mean the difference between business-as-usual and throwing out a perfectly good widget.

Your relative “luckiness” increases if you’re migrating from Vista to Windows 7, and tends to decrease a bit if you’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. Your fortune is of course tempered by whether or not the manufacturer made a Vista driver. If so, your Vista driver might work just fine under Windows 7, but there are no guarantees!

In my next post, I’ll go through the processes of finding the right drivers, finding acceptable drivers and migrating to the new operating system.

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If you’re still using Windows XP (you’re not alone; many users are) XP has a built-in tool to help you troubleshoot driver problems. Driver Verifier is part of the OS, so there’s nothing to buy or install. Just type verifier.exe in the Run line and restart the computer. Verifier also has a GUI interface to help you navigate the options.

Verifier Knows A Lot About Drivers, But Will That Help?

Driver Verifier probably isn’t going to be of too much help to you unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool computer nerd. It can help you identify problems, but if you don’t have much experience with what the program is telling you, knowing how to run Verifier won’t solve your driver problems. It may not even help you understand what’s going on.

One of the more useful functions for novice users will be Driver Status. This command will tell you whether a driver is loading or not. A status of Loaded means that a driver has been loaded and was verified as operating according to Hoyle. Unloaded means that the driver isn’t loaded right now, but has been loaded at least once since you restarted. Not Loaded means that the driver load failed or that the system never tried to load the driver. This is a helpful bit of information if you’re trying to troubleshoot a driver problem.

For the most part, Verifier is designed for advanced users, programmers and technicians who have a good grasp of what Verifier is trying to say. For the novice user, what matters most is whether or not the driver works – not why it’s sailing or failing. For these users, the best product is something like Driver Detective. Driver Detective does all of the interpretation work on your drivers, and determines whether or not your drivers are working. It also determines whether you have the correct version of the driver for your hardware and OS. It will even download and install new or updated drivers. As an added benefit, Driver Detective can tell when a driver has gotten corrupted or damaged, and will automatically install a fresh copy.

These are the services that most users will be interested in when it comes to detecting, diagnosing and repairing driver problems. As a driver manager, few products compare to Driver Detective’s easy installation, configuration and operation. It’s also highly reliable, and very affordable so you can trust it to take care of your computer just like a professional would without breaking the bank!

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