[LiveBrianD]

I've noticed quite a range in planned obselece of products, particularly involving drivers. I have a wireless card from 2005 or 2006 that doesn't work on Windows Vista or 7 64-bit. Then I have an Epson Inkjet that's from 1999 (yeah, Windows 2000 was barely out) and yet that works plug and play with Windows 7 64-bit (I had to pull that out of the attic because my Brother laser printer was giving me trouble, surprising that the ink didn't clog even though it hasn't been used for 2 years). Then I had a canon laser printer that's also from around 2000 or so and won't work properly with anything newer than XP (issues with their utility in Vista 32-bit, though actual printing works, and no luck at all with win7 64-bit) or with macs. What have you guys found with this?

edit: odd, on epson's website they only offer drivers for XP 32-bit (note: it only has the basic driver anyway, no stupid utility that you don't need), even though Windows installed it automatically on win7 64. Strange...

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 18 October 2011 - 04:20 PM

[mjd420nova]

The incompatablity of drivers from one flavor of windows to the next is a serious fault by Microsoft. I still have many users who wanted to move up to Vista but had to roll back to XP when their printers, scanners and other peripherals wouldn't work with the newer versions. I don't see this as planned obsolesence but an oversight by M$. What possible reason would they have for making everyone want to move to a newer version if their older stuff wouldn't work with the new. A simple agreement with the mfgrs and providing them with the proper source codes to allow them to update the drivers and continued usage. Once I generate a system, OS and peripherals, I never try to upgrade the OS for just that reason.

[LiveBrianD]

mjd420nova, on 18 October 2011 - 06:31 PM, said:

The incompatablity of drivers from one flavor of windows to the next is a serious fault by Microsoft. I still have many users who wanted to move up to Vista but had to roll back to XP when their printers, scanners and other peripherals wouldn't work with the newer versions. I don't see this as planned obsolesence but an oversight by M$. What possible reason would they have for making everyone want to move to a newer version if their older stuff wouldn't work with the new. A simple agreement with the mfgrs and providing them with the proper source codes to allow them to update the drivers and continued usage. Once I generate a system, OS and peripherals, I never try to upgrade the OS for just that reason.

Just like some big companies - profits first, don't bother looking at the long-term consequences.

However, I have seen some HP printers from 2000 or so that have Windows 7 64-bit drivers available on hp's site. What's with that then? This is, in a way, like FF vs Chrome - with new versions of firefox, addon compatibility is broken (sometimes you can force it and it works fine, other times you get serious errors), but with Chrome, I've never had an issue. Say, why doesn't the windows update utility allow other programs to update through it so I have fewer updaters running? And why can't I ban a program from startup if it keeps readding itself when I don't want it?

Also, how hard is it to actually make a driver for 32-bit windows (JUST basic driver, no printer utility or whatever) run on 64-bit windows if you have the source code? Heck, often I wonder if an old printer can be forced to work on a new OS by using a driver from a newer printer (same series and all) from the same manufacturer? I got that wireless card to work on windows 7 64-bit by finding the chipset and downloading a driver from realtek's site. Seriously airlink, the driver is already out there, but you must make it so inconvenient for me to find it and make it work? As I result, I've decided that I will not buy another airlink product unless it is significantly cheaper than the others. Man, how they cannot figure out that doing things like that will result in lost business in the long run... (like how companies do not realize that DRM may INCREASE piracy, no matter how much customers complain and bittorrent traffic increases)

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 18 October 2011 - 07:27 PM

[smax013]

While I am not saying that some companies don't upgrade drivers when they potentially should, you do need to keep in mind that updating a driver costs them money. If it is a product that they are no longer selling, then that is ALL cost with no way for them to actually recoup that cost. In other words, they have ZERO incentive to update drivers for products that they no longer sell as they will not make any additional money but rather only spend money. For the perspective of their bottom line, they are better off NOT upgrading the driver and "forcing" you to get a new printer, etc.

Now, they do have to be careful because if they don't upgrade a driver for something that lots of people have and can reasonably expect an upgraded driver, then that can create a backlash in that you piss off a lot of customers. So, that is why to see them update some drivers but not others.

Also, sometimes a device (such as a printer) uses enough of a "generic" system, that having updated drivers is much easier to do. For example, my LaserJet 6MP still works with ALL my computers, including those running Mac OS 10.7 and Vista (and I would assume Windows 7 if I ever get around to installing it). That is because it can use a nice "generic" postscript driver or even a nice "simple" PCL driver. My HP DesignJet that will do 11x17, OTOH, does not have a Vista driver to my knowledge, so it is kind of toast if I drop XP.

As to Microsoft's role, that is the nature of upgrading things like OSs. In order to get all those nice improvements that you like in Windows Vista and/or 7, Microsoft probably had no choice but to change how drivers works. And if you want the benefits of a 64 bit system, then you definitely need different drivers. So, I would be a little less hard on Microsoft in this area. If you don't like having to deal with a new driver system, then keep using XP...and of course, forgo all the improvements in Windows 7. It is the nature of the best...in order to improve stuff, they will have to "break" compatibility with some things.

[LiveBrianD]

If they don't provide updated drivers, I'll have to replace the printer, and they won't get to make money selling me ink cartridges. That's exactly why, after having a Canon printer that only worked with XP and older (no Win7 64-bit, no OS X), when I replaced it, I did NOT buy a canon printer. With inkjets, that's even more relevant because the actual printer is cheap, but cartridges are expensive, so if they kept supporting it they'd earn plenty of money there. Oh well, they are often idiots.