I’m working on involving an embedded USB system using an Atmel AVR32, and starting development using the EVK1101.  I downloaded the latest (as of 6/20/09) version of the support software from Atmel: AVR32-SoftwareFramework-AT32UC3B-1.4.0.zip

I’m running Windows Vista 64 Home Premium on my system, and this is not explicitly mentioned as being supported.  I attempted the process and first ran into an issue with the driver not being signed.  So I searched around and found ways that put it in ‘test’  mode using a program called ‘dseo13b.exe’ (Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider).  Then I read that this kit uses the libusb-win32 driver  (http://libusb-win32.sourceforge.net/), so I downloaded that and tried using it after plugging in the Eval board.  The driver starts installing but got an error message:

Atmel EVK1101 USB Problem in Vista 64

So that didn’t quite work.  I saw some talk also of setting the program to run in ‘XP Mode’ (right-click on an executable in a folder window to see the various properties, it’s on the ‘Compatibility’ tab, but since this is being installed directly by the O/S, I didn’t see how this would work in this case.

The next plan was to use VirtualBox to run a ‘virtual’ instance of Windows XP, so that was next done.  First I got an XP virtual machine set up (topic for a separate post coming soon), and then extracted the .zip file and mounted the partition within the VirtualXP machine.  (You may have to reboot in order to see the “folder” which should be in something like  ‘My Network Places / Entire Network / VirtualBox Shared Folders \\VBOXSVR\Atmel’

Then follow the procedure as outlined in the various guides and manuals, except that before plugging in the USB cable, first bring up the ‘Device Manager’ in both the Vista system and the VirtualXP one.  You should see it appear as an ‘LibUSB-Win32 Devices’ or possibly, ‘Other Devices’ (I had tried a number of different things before doing this so my results may be a bit different.  Then go to the ‘Devices’ menu in the VirtualBox for the VirtualXP and on the ‘Devices’ Menu  |  USB Devices’ you should see it listed.  Just pick it and watch as it magically disappears from the Vista list and shows up on the XP one, and then asks for the drivers, etc., just like it’s supposed to.