solution for MOBILITY radeon 9600 (and other MOB/RADEON) users!

being the übergeek i am, i purchased a laptop today, being as today was the first day my financial situation would allow me to do so

anyways, my laptop is equipped as follows:
AMD Mobile Athlon64 3000+
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
ATi MOBILITY RADEON 9600 (64MB)
60GB HDD (4200rpm/8MB buffer)
Broadcom MaxPerformance 802.11g wireless adapter
VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet adapter
24x24x24x8x CD-RW/DVD-ROM
15.4" 1280x800 widescreen LCD
(yes i'm pimping it out, cuz it's a pimpin' rig )

it's an eMachines laptop (weird, huh? it rocks though!)... and eMachines hasn't provided any driver updates for the video card. When you go to ATi's driver selector thingy, the instant you choose "Mobile", you get directed to a cheesy page saying to refer to your laptop manufacturer for driver updates. this put me in a conundrum, because SL did NOT like the regular driver for whatever reason (not to mention, i hate getting stuck with outdated drivers).

the fix? go download the desktop version of the catalyst drivers... however, when you run the executable, note the path you unpack it to, and then don't run the setup program. instead, do the following:

</saving my arse>

1. go into your system's device manager and find your video card
   
2. right-click it and select "Update Driver"
   
3. in the driver installation wizard, choose "Install from a list or specific location" and click Next
   
4. tell the wizard not to search for the drivers, that you will choose the driver to install, and hit next
   
5. click "Have Disk..." and then browse to where you extracted the catalyst drivers earlier. You will have to navigate into the "Driver\2KXP_INF" folder (or as appropriate for your OS)
   
6. on the list, find the RADEON xxxx SERIES entry that matches your card. for my MOBILITY 9600, the first "RADEON 9600 SERIES" driver worked for me. if the first one doesn't work for you, try another
   - note that the RADEON IGP xxx SERIES drivers are after the RADEON xxxx SERIES drivers...
   
7. at the "update driver warning" dialog, click "Yes" (if it appears)
   
8. Windows should then proceed to install the drivers and prompt you to restart your computer
   
9. restart and enjoy!
   

p.s.: i think a lot of laptop users could find this useful... perhaps a linden could make this sticky (and perhaps clean it up a bit?)

Failing that, there's the Omega and DNA drivers, or a repackaged copy of the Catalyst drivers which appear to be exactly what Phil suggests here, only with an installer.

All three are linked from my page here.