Another thing that I didn’t like in Windows Vista is it doesn’t have a built-in way to activate webcam to test if it is working or not. To test a webcam in Vista, I had to use the “Audio and video setup” feature from Windows Live Messenger. Like in Windows XP, when you have a webcam connected, you can activate the webcam from My Computer and see what’s on the webcam without using any other software. I wonder why did Microsoft removed it in Vista? Perhaps to give software makers such as CyberLink an opportunity to make money from their webcam software called YouCam?
free youcam 3
CyberLink YouCam is a very popular webcam companion software which normally cost $34.95 that is bundled in some laptops such as HP. You can add effects to your web cam video, including adding emotion effects, avatars, frames, filters and distortions, take a series of quick web cam photos using the Burst feature, instantly capture or schedule a web cam video, upload a web cam video directly to YouTube, email web cam photos and videos directly from CyberLink YouCam to your friends, print off your favorites web cam photos and finally share and view PowerPoint files and images together during web cam sessions.

Computeractive magazine gave their readers a fully licensed YouCam version 1 and the offer has expired. Then ChrisKing posted a link in forum to YouCam version 2 but it is hosted in HP. I downloaded it, tried to install and got the error “This software can only be installed on a Hewlett-Packard system”. It may seem impossible to install YouCam 2 on non-HP laptops but you know me, I like to challenge myself by researching on how to make things possible and then share the knowledge with you all.

CyberLink YouCam 2 is NOT a driver for your webcam. It is a software that gives dynamic effects to your video from your webcam. Do take note that before you can install CyberLink YouCam 2, you must first have a webcam. If you don’t have one, you won’t be able to install.

1. First of all, you can download the full version of CyberLink YouCam 2 from here. The installer is hosted in a HP FTP server, if you can’t download, make sure you have access to port 21.

2. Next, extract the sp42568.exe file by right clicking on the file and select extract. 7-Zip is able to extract the installer file for YouCam 2. If your archiving software can’t extract, then try using Universal Extractor. You should have a new folder called sp42568 with a bunch of files inside it.
Extract YouCam installer

3. Now you’ll have to download the trial version of CyberLink YouCam 2. Extract the CyberLink.1707_YUC080401-01.exe file like what you did in step 2. This time you will have a new folder called CyberLink.1707_YUC080401-01.

4. Finally you will need to copy define.ini file from CyberLink.1707_YUC080401-01 folder to the sp42568 folder and overwrite it. Run the setup.exe file from sp42568 folder. Voila! You now have a full version of CyberLink YouCam 2! It can be installed on both Windows XP and Vista.

free cyberlink youcam 3

The latest version of CyberLink YouCam is now version 3 and I believe very soon you’ll find a lot of computer magazines started to give out free licenses for the version 2.

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