UGA-125 working on a Windows 2008 Server x64 platform.

Discontinued Products UGA-125
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I attempted to intall the UGA-125 in a Dell T-110 Server running Windows 2008 Server RC2 X64. The install failed during the CD installation part loading drivers. I then read the book, yes if all else fails, and this was the first time I seen that this will not work with any server edition. Hummmmm… Hearing that before on several other software installs to the server, I would just selecting a different O/S driver/software and always had success. I then gone to DisplayLink http://www.displaylink.com/support/do… and download the display driver located there. Ran the file and next thing you know I had the display working, sort of. The screen refresh was terrible, sometimes taking up to 2 minutes, totally unusable. I then change the Colors to Medium (16 Bit) in display settings and it worked perfect. I tried numerous web pages, pictures etc and there is no difference between it and the other monitors running Highest (32 Bit). Just adding my 2 cents here and some FYI…

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Hi Jim,

Thanks for posting these experiences! There are some special tricks for running USB graphics with Windows Server SKUs, but it should be possible to get it to behave just like a Windows 7 client machine.

  1. You need DisplayLink drivers version 5.6 or later (March 2011) for the installer and driver to be compatible with Windows Server. At this point, drivers on CD may be older than that, so doing the download as you did is the way to go.

  2. By default, Windows Server 2008 R2 does not include Aero (desktop composition) functionality which DisplayLink USB devices rely on. Without Aero enabled, you’ll get performance problems perhaps similar to what you saw. But’s easy to install. Visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wi…# and click on the “How do I get Aero if I am running Windows Server 2008 R2?” link at the very bottom to expand that section.

You probably saw a big jump in performance by moving to 16 bpp both because of less data per pixel, but actually the most important part is that causes apps to not use advanced features which are slow on the non-Aero (“Basic Mode”) bath.

So … if you’re willing, what I’d suggest is switch back to 32 bpp (since Aero requires this), and install Aero using the link in step #2 above. Your server machine should now work like a normal Win7 desktop, including for USB graphics.

Let us know how that goes, and if you have any trouble. And again, thanks for posting these experiences, as they’ll be helpful to anyone else using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a client.

Thanks!
Bernie