[GLLUG] windowx xp pro

Richard Houser rick at divinesymphony.net
Tue May 1 19:12:14 EDT 2007


pdwald wrote:
> Sorry I did not intend to discredit your response. All opinions are 
> valid, they are only different in a sense. When Windows XP 64 came about 
> I also believed that it was a sort of joke. And drivers support for 
> Windows historically was also a joke (when I remember that very often I 
> had to restart the system only because of a new hardware install..) 
> hardwaresecrets.com <http://hardwaresecrets.com> is a very cool website 
> I use to visit on regular basis.
> -pedro

I was not sure about the current 64-bit driver support for XP 32-bit. 
The last time I checked, it was only about a year and a half after the 
initial 64-bit release.  Vista was expected to help change things, but I 
didn't have the details about what was changed since then.  It might 
still be hit-or-miss depending on the hardware in question.

Microsoft Windows' driver support is STILL a joke.  I was not referring 
to third party-drivers, which are frankly the only thing that makes 
Windows run semi-properly on the vast majority of systems.  Try looking 
for a system that's supported fully by MS Windows alone for something 
like a corporate install, it's near impossible.

Hopefully, MS has improved the driver system since XP 32-bit, but it's 
harder to get worse than where they were at.  Little things like 
swapping USB ports a device is plugged into requiring a 2+ minute 
automatic driver re-install process point out how fragile some of that 
has to be under the hood.  Keep in mind that we are talking about a 
driver that is up running, then the device moved to another USB port. 
There shouldn't NEED to be ANY reinstall performed, as the drivers are 
already there.


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