DisplayLink Releases Beta of Windows Server Support (2003, 2008, 2008 R2)

Posted on 03. Jan, 2011 by in Windows

On Jan 1, 2011, DisplayLink released the first beta of their version 5.6 Windows drivers.

The most significant feature in this release is Windows Server support:

  • Windows Server 2003 (32-bit only – same as DisplayLink’s XP drivers)
  • Windows Server 2008 (32/64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 and derivatives like Windows Multipoint Server 2011 (64-bit, since R2 is 64-bit only)

Prior to this release, DisplayLink drivers would refuse to install on these server platforms.

This is great news for several use cases, including:

  • USB terminals in combination with Microsoft Multipoint Server 2011 Beta. We’ll have much more news on this in coming weeks.
  • Anyone using Windows Server SKUs as a client PC (common among software developers)

On the bug fix side, DisplayLink reports improved stability with more than 3 DisplayLink screens.

This release is compatible with all Plugable USB graphics products, and can be downloaded from DisplayLink’s 5.6 Beta Forum. We consider the prior release (5.5 M1 dated Dec 3, 2010) to be a critical upgrade because of nVidia and other compatibility improvements. This one is more of an optional upgrade for the great majority of users on normal client copies of Windows.

DisplayLink Releases New Mac Driver Beta (1.6 Beta 3)

Posted on 29. Sep, 2010 by in UGA-2K-A

DisplayLink has released an updated beta of their version 1.6 Mac drivers, available for download from their Mac forums. This is the first update in quite a few months, so it’s a good sign for Mac users.

The main feature of the new beta are fixes for some problems experienced on resume from sleep.

In terms of our general recommendations for Macs and Plugable’s DisplayLink-based products, we still want to emphasize that all Mac drivers are of a beta/pre-release level of quality compared to the Windows products. They still 1) are incompatible with recent MacBook Pros with switching graphics 2) disable the USB ethernet interface on docking stations like our Plugable dock. 3) are too frequently broken or fixed by Apple’s OS X updates — Apple often seems to be changing driver interfaces in subtle ways that affect USB graphics.

We expect and hope that support from both DisplayLink and Apple will improve in time, and we’ll be able to recommend the combination without qualification. Until then, it’s good to see releases like this for incremental progress.

DisplayLink Snow Leopard 64-bit Support in Beta

Posted on 22. Mar, 2010 by in UGA-2K-A

DisplayLink has just released an updated beta OS X driver with Snow Leopard 64-bit support.

Previously, Snow Leopard users had to be careful to stick with a 32-bit kernel to use DisplayLink devices. This driver removes that limitation.

The beta drivers are available from DisplayLink here: http://displaylink.org/forum/showthread.php?t=268

These drivers work on all of Plugable’s laptop docking and graphics adapter products (UD-160-A and UGA-2K-A). Note that this driver is still in beta, and has limitations which are noted below in DisplayLink’s release notes.

DisplayLink Mac OS X Software Release: External Release Note

Version: 1.6b1 (23745)
Date: 18th March 2010

Improvements over the DisplayLink Mac OS X Software 1.5 release

* Snow Leopard (64 Bit) Support

More information on how to use this software can be found in the Mac OS X User Guide found on the DisplayLink website (http://www.displaylink.com/mac)

Supported Operating Systems

The DisplayLink software can be installed on any Intel-based desktop
or laptop Apple Mac computer running client versions of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2 (32 and 64 bit versions), Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 and Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11.

Note that at the time of writing these were the latest available versions of Mac OS X tested against.

Supported Mac platforms

This software supports all Intel-based Macs. It does not support Power-PC based Macs.

Known Issues

This is a DisplayLink driver release that supports 2D acceleration on Mac OS X platforms. This software has some limitations:

* No 3D (OpenGL) acceleration – some features of Mac OS X applications that require hardware OpenGL
acceleration, such as Keynote presentations and iPhoto slideshows, will not function properly.

* Colour calibration does not work with DisplayLink enabled displays on Mac OS X versions prior to 10.6.2

Note: Applications that require Quartz OpenGL hardware acceleration support will likely exhibit problems with this version of DisplayLink software. Some problems can be avoided by making sure the DisplayLink display is not set to be the main display (the display with the menu bar) If an application refuses to launch when a DisplayLink display is present, try to disconnect all the DisplayLink displays, then launch it and then reconnect the displays.

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