Notes on Windows 7, ArgyllCMS with Spyder2 Device
The biggest issue is that Windows 7 has very strong requirements on driver signing. In theory I think this is an excellent idea and may indeed keep the operating system installs of many people more stable than if this requirement is not present. However, in some cases it is an impediment: We need a libusb-based driver that will work with ArgyllCMS and the only option that I’m aware of is an unsigned driver. The good news is that Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider program exists for Windows 7 and it can put it into “Test Mode” which will allow you to load an unsigned driver.
Files (google for them):
-
dseo13b.exe
-
SIXAXIS_libusb-win64.zip
-
Argyll_V1.0.4_win32_exe.zip
-
dispcalGUI-0.2.6b3-Setup.exe
Steps:
-
Extract SIXAXIS_libusb-win64.zip
-
Run bin\inf-wizard.exe from the above extraction and choose your Spyder2 device to create the libusb-based driver files for it
-
Run dseo13b and follow directions to put the system into test mode
-
Reboot and run dseo13b again to sign all of the spyder* files in the above directory (I had to sign the .inf files and I signed the .sys and .dll too). Do this for each spyder* file in the SIXAXIS bin directory (the files created by inf-wizard.exe).
-
Start Device Manager and update the drive for the Spyder2 device. Choose “Have Disk” or similar and navigate to the SIXAXIS bin directory. Choose the unsigned (no certificate) driver.
-
I had problems with the above. I had to repeat it a couple times before it finally worked.
-
Extract Argyll_V1.0.4_win32_exe.zip to C:\ (the files inside are all in a Argyl_v1.0.4 directory
-
Go to the Windows Advanced System settings and add C:\Argyll_V1.0.4\bin to the end of the PATH environmental variable. You may be able to skip this step if you use the displayCal GUI instead of Argyll directly. I didn’t skip it.
-
Install dispcalGUI-0.2.6b3-Setup.exe.
-
Reboot again.
-
Start a command prompt and go to c:\argyll_v1.0.4\bin and run “spyd2en.exe” to extract some of the drive firmware payload (or similar) from the standard Spyer2 driver. (This maybe the equivalent of the “use Spyder2 device” (don’t have exact wording) option in the displaycalGUI interface).
-
In displaycalGUI, choose the menu option mentioned above.
-
You may need to restart displaycalGUI
-
Now displaycalGUI should see the Spyder2 device.
When I tried to use displayCal with the Spyder2 device, I kept getting “instrument access failed” messages kicked back from one of the ArgylCMS executables. I don’t know what I did to solve it. It might have been rebooting. I googled a while on it and finally it just started working. Not exactly a stellar guide here but there is little else out there.
The rest of it is still uncharted territory. I did notice gamma defaulted to 2.4 so I bumped that down to 2.2. I set my profile to Photo and am running a calibration right now. It looks like quite a lengthy process to do calibrations/profiles. Or the progress is slightly unclear. Either way, I’ll be ecstatic if this lets me use the full potential of the Spyder2 device without having to buy the Spyder2 Pro license/upgrade (at that point, I’d opt towards buying a new device).
The last thing missing is the LUT/profile loader. I am hoping the Spyder2 profile loader will work with the files generated by ArgylCMS.