SIIG Cyber Serial under Windows 2008, or getting old drivers to work

I’m in the process of “upgrading” a server from Windows 2003 server to Windows 2008 server, and one of the things this server does is manage a few serial devices.  Therefore, it contains an old PCI serial board, but the manufacturer has since moved on to newer hardware, and hasn’t bothered to update the drivers.

Trying to install the Windows 2003 drivers yielded the following:

a service installation section in this inf is invalid

And, naturally, refused to install.  To track down the source of this error, there is a file created in \Windows\inf called “setupapi.dev” that logs details about the driver installation process.  Reading through this file, the reason for the error is evident:

inf:       ServiceBinary=C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\mf.sys  (mf.inf line 39)
!!!  dvi:       Add Service: Binary 'C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\mf.sys' for service 'mf' is not present.
!!!  inf:  {Install Inf Section [MFINSTALL.mf.Services] exit(0xe0000217)}

Intriguingly, a quick search through C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository showed that the driver does exist, it just happens not to be installed.  There’s a folder called mf.inf_Identifier (where “Identifier” appears to be random junk) that contains a file called mf.sys.  Copying this file into C:\Windows\System32\Drivers allowed the device drivers to install, and they appear to work perfectly well.

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3 Responses to SIIG Cyber Serial under Windows 2008, or getting old drivers to work

  1. mike says:

    I cant believe this worked to make my cyberserial version 2.0 2 port db9 PCI card work in windows 7 32-bit using the XP driver. I havent tested the card yet but this fix makes the driver install smoothly and appear properly in Device Manager with no errors.

    Thanks so much, a brilliant fix!

  2. Chris says:

    Me too, old MRi parallel port card. MRI PCI PP2 Cyber 8000, could not get it to install under Windows 7 32-bit, a google of the error line in setupapi.dev.log brought me to your page and your suggestion allowed it to install without errors. 3 days later old HP 4L still working fine on the card although I had to add lpt3 manually to the ports list in print server properties in “devices and printers”.
    Thanks for posting this fix.

  3. Saved says:

    Googled the error and got your page. I had downloaded the latest drivers from SIIG with the same results. Your a printers life saver, thanks alot!

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