This article explains how I installed/updated Windows Vista® drivers for a D-Link® DWL-G122 Rev B USB network adapter. This article is informational-only and not intended as advice. Improper driver installation can cause your PC to crash, lockup, or fail to boot. Proceed at your own risk, and no ‘tech support’ is provided.

The article is only relevant to Revision B (known as B1) of this adapter (the DWL-G122 was available in 4 different revisions). The Rev B1 version was very popular because it had native Linux driver support, and also worked well with Windows XP. I have personally used the adapter under Linux (Suse® and Ubuntu®), XP, and Vista®. Unfortunately, D-Link has done a poor job of releasing new drivers for this adapter. To date, D-Link had only released one beta driver package for Vista 32 (Vista X86), and nothing for Vista 64. The Vista 32 beta driver is no longer available for download, either. Luckily, Rev B1 contains a Ralink® RT2500USB chipset, and Ralink has continuously updated the Windows drivers for this adapter. The latest driver package (as of this writing) is dated 11-11-2008, and contains drivers for Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, XP 32/64.

Installing these drivers for D-Link DWL-G122 Rev B1 cannot be done conventionally, but the process is reasonably easy for any seasoned PC technician. To maintain a “clean” PC, I will extract the drivers in a Virtual Machine. This step is optional.

These are the steps that I performed to update the driver for Vista 32 (complete with screenshots):

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