How to install camera drivers for older Philips cameras in Windows Vista?
(Philips Vesta, Vesta Pro, ToUcam, ToUcam Pro)

When you try to install camera drivers for older Philips webcams in Windows Vista you will obtain an error message, that the driver is not dedicated for this Windows version.
The bad news is, that it seems that Philips doesn't plan to release Vista drivers for older cameras, unfortunately.
The good news is, that you can build your own woring driver installation set for Windows Vista from the current Windows XP drivers.

The following procedure shows how I built driver installation set for my Philips Vesta and Vesta Pro cameras (it works with all PCVC675, PCVC680K, PCVC690 cameras). I think that this procedure should be applicable (with small modifications) also for other types of webcams.

Step 1 - Create your own driver installation set

For creating your driver installation set you need to have the latest camera drivers installed on your WIndows XP system. I could place my installation set here on the website, but I am afraid, that it is not possible because of copyright.
PCVC675, PCVC680K, PCVC690 webcams require to collect the following files from your Windows XP system:

Depending on driver version, driver language, your file sizes and dates may differ from the dates and sizes shown here.
I created the collection by searching the shown files on my WIndows XP system disk. I copied the found file into one location - where are created the installation set (F:\K3_Vesta_Vista_Drivers).

If you have ToUcam camera, you can find the prepared driver set on Tim Jensen's website:
ToUcam Pro Drivers for Windows Vista

Step 2 - Start Windows Vista and connect the camera

Now, when we have our driver set prepared, we can start Windows Vista. After logging to Vista as administrator, we can connect the Philips Vesta camera to USB port.
Vista will inform you about new hardware found:

Select the first option - Locate and install driver software (recommended). If Vista will ask you for getting privileges for some of the next operations, just confirm it.

Step 3 - Go through the driver installation procedure

Now the standard driver installation procedure follows. The system will ask you whether to search for new drivers online:

Select the third option - Don't search online - we have our drivers prepared in some local folder.

Now another message appears:

Select the second option - Browse my computer for driver software (advanced).

Now you can specify the folder with the prepared drivers using the Browse... button. In our case it was F:\K3_Vesta_Vista_Drivers.

Then press the Next button.

Now the warning appears:

As the drivers are original from Philips, we can safely confirm Install this driver software anyway.

After a short installation procedure you should see the message about successful installation:

Press the Close button.

Another information about installed drivers appears:

Again press the Close button.

Step 4 - Try your camera and use it

Now you can use your camera in Windows Vista. If you use K3CCDTools, don't forget to set the Windows XP compatibility mode. Now you can run K3CCDTools with your camera.

Final notes

If you use camera in WDM mode (in K3CCDTools menu Device - WDM), you will encounter a missing Video Source dialog with camera properties. This problem appears also in all other programs capturing in WDM mode. I am working on finding some feasible solution.
The Video Source dialog works properly in Video for Windows (VfW) mode.

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Last Update: 28.06.2007