Where can I find XP drivers for a R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse?

[Rekrul]

I found a Mad Catz R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse in the trash. The mouse seems to work fine just plugging it in, but without a custom driver for it, I don't have access to all the adjustable settings.

The Mad Catz site doesn't list XP as one of the choices for downloading a driver. In fact, they don't even list Win7. Their dedicated support site no longer works and even an old email address I found, bounces.

Their file repository is still online, and has a couple different driver versions listed in both 32 and 64 bit, but it doesn't indicate what OS they're for. Googling for a driver leads to dodgy sites with conflicting claims about what OS each version of the driver works on. Driverguide has no Mad Catz drivers at all.

Does anyone know if These will work on XP? The files are dated 9/7/2016 on the site, but the contents (they're self-extracting archives) are dated 10/1/2015.

RAT_7_Mouse_7_0_45_2_x86_Drivers.exe
RAT_7_Mouse_7_0_45_2_x86_Software.exe

Or this one? The file is dated 2/6/2017, and the contents 1/23/2017.

RAT_7_Mouse_7_0_60_6_x86_Drivers.exe

I know I could just try installing them, but I don't want to risk screwing something up by installing a driver meant for another OS. Also, if it doesn't work and doesn't give an error message, I won't know if there's something else wrong, or if it's just the wrong driver.

I don't even know if I need both the driver (~20MB) and the software (~96MB) to get all the features.

 

[hang-the-9]

You won't mess anything up by trying to install the driver. You can always extract the files with something like 7Zip and see what the contents are. There should be an .ini file or some other names of folders that give a clue about what version of Window they are for.

 

[Rekrul]

You won't mess anything up by trying to install the driver. You can always extract the files with something like 7Zip and see what the contents are. There should be an .ini file or some other names of folders that give a clue about what version of Window they are for.

Looking inside, the directory names are no help and there's no INI files, but there are some INF files. Some of them have;

Signature= $Windows NT$

But then some of them also have;

Signature= $CHICAGO$

As far as I'm aware, "Chicago" refers to Windows 95 and I'm pretty sure that they never produced Win9x drivers for these mice. Did Win95 even support USB?

BTW, that's from the highest numbered driver they have on the site, 7.0.60.6.

I found a link to this site;

https://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?v_page=12&v_code=512#11

Which says that version is compatible with XP, and that 7.0.45.2 is the latest "application" for XP. I compared the copies of those two files from that site with the ones from the Mad Catz file site and they're identical. It's weird though, they have earlier mice, like the R.A.T. 4 & 6, which only have drivers listed for Windows 7 or better. Seems like it should be the other way around...

 

[hang-the-9]

Windows 95 did have support for USB, in a way. There was an OEM version 95B 95C that came with USB support. Those were not available to the public though. You may see those installed on pre-built computers. Install the drivers and see if they work.

 

[190221]

they used the signature "chicago" for all of 9x i beleive, at least 95 and 98