XP Driver support (or lack of)..

We do assist the OEMs in getting their drivers up to par, its very rare
that we right a driver from scratch for something thats not MSFT branded.

 

But suppose he standardized on it?

 

You don't have to do a repair, just an inplace upgrade from the Trial.

 

Actually, he's having some driver issues himself, I spoke to him last night,
was really frustrated, he's at a lost.

 

Well, being a beta tester for many years, I do a clean install of all my
operating systems every month or two. So, I am not thinking like a regular
user.

 

ROFLOL.

 

Is she shipping your used keyboard too

 

The thread "X64 trial to x64 full verion OEM" seems to indicate that a
repair install is the way to go.

Darrell Gorter[MSFT]:
"OEM media is limited to upgrading other OEM media, not other types of
media. So you could do a repair installation, but not a inplace upgrade."

 

No, I got that already. ;-)

 

Thats correct, if its an OEM version and you want to upgrade from the trial,
you have do a repair install, instead by booting off the CD. Only, Volume
License and MSDN Subscriber Editions of XP Pro x64 can upgrade a trial.

Thanks to Darrell for updating me on that.

 

I hate to sound like a crank here, but what about *MICROSOFT* Hardware?

I have a wonderful Natural Multimedia Keyboard, and half of the wonderful
buttons are now useless.

Who does the drivers for Microsoft and Microsoft-branded hardware? One would
think that Microsoft *would* be writing the drivers, but since the drivers
for such devices are not to be had that those of us who *do* use Microsoft
Hardware are litterally left on a lurch.

The word that comes to mind: Pathetic.

--ScottK

 

I have been waiting for the Epson R300 driver, date on the Epson web site May
2005, they have missed that one.

It all boils down to 'what is in it for me' what do companies get out of X64:

Microsoft get to sell a flash new operating system ($$)
AMD/INTEL new processors ($$)
NVIDIA,ATI faster graphics card ($$)

Epson - nothing no new printers
logitech - may be a bit of gaming stuff, Camera and useful stuff - no point

 

What somebody needs to do is write kind of a generic 64-bit wrapper driver
that simply forwards calls to the existing 32-bit drivers--assuming the
driver model and API interfaces have remained the same. Kinda like the old
32- to 16-bit thunk mechanism back in the days.

It would create a performance hit, but may allow *some* current 32-bit
drivers to be usable, until the hardware manufacturers get off their
butts...I wouldn't expect it to be workable for 3D gaming, but it might be
"good enough for now" for simple things like printers?

I dunno, I'm just throwing out ideas here..maybe this is technically
impossible to do at the kernel level, or the driver architecture simply
can't accomodate this sort of approach...I only wrote a rather dumb driver
once.

 

For things like printer drivers, I'm betting the hold up is getting a better
grasp on the Metro format.

-- Sean M

 

Hardware drivers on x64 need to be written on a low level so it can interact
with kernel, don't expect any wrappers, back in the days were, well, back in
the days.

 

All I know is that I have shelled out good money for XP64 and nothing
actually works,

I'm unable to connect my printer my camera doesn't upload and to top it all
off 50% of my software won't even get passed the install stage (Norton etc)

For the future of computing, this has to be a joke if none of the big
companies are behind this and writing 64 Drivers

Come on Microsoft Pull your finger out...how about you stop using the paying
public as beta testers

 

Driver support is the responsibility of the hardware and software vendors
NOT Microsoft. They have known about the x64 system for over a year if not
two years, but they're just starting to respond. The x64 system has been
very stable since the first CPP release. Norton has a corporate edition that's
supposed to be compatible but no home user version yet. I've been using x64
for 18 months without any problems other than drivers and there are more
drivers available now than there were 18 months ago. Complain to the
hardware and software vendors since they are way behind as usual.





"paying customers, beta testers again !" <paying customers, beta testers
again [email protected]> wrote in message

 

You should not be loading Norton. It will not work. It will in a future
release, but not yet. Avast and eTrust 7.1 are known to work fine. The
software you are most likely having trouble with are those requiring their
own drivers, such as for printers, cameras, etc.

If you read the forums such as this one and especially PlanetAMD64 you can
find what things to use and to avoid. There is a download area on
PlanetAMD64 with downloads that can help resolve some issues. Since you
spent good money, spend some quality time checking out what others are
saying.

 

Lots of printers work using drivers already provided, just takes a little
trial and error. Most decent cameras are treated as a removable drive and
can download just fine. Then you can use your programs to play with them.
That said, I think that this version has been slipped in as a pseudo-beta
for the Longhorn 64-bit version to get the driver crowd moving. It provides
XP and additional power for a select small group of users. Since there will
be no retail version, and way too many problems for the average desktop
user, therefore not much incentive for manufacturers to support it, it
probably will languish in the corner until Longhorn makes it obsolete.
Useful for a few, fun for early adopter types that thrive on difficulty and
sort of a ME to everyone else. Sorry guys.


"paying customers, beta testers again !" <paying customers, beta testers
again [email protected]> wrote in message

 

"paying customers, beta testers again !" <paying customers, beta testers
again [email protected]> wrote in:

I hope you've set up a dual boot system? As you find more and more
drivers you'll eventually be able to use the OS for all your computing.
Some drivers are coming and some will require possible upgrades of
hardware and software.

Logitech is supposedly working on a new 64 bit version of Mouseware, other
companies are in various stages of readiness and some haven't decided if
they will support X64 or not.

Microsoft can't write 64 bit versions of Norton, etc. They can only wait
just as you and I.

What you can do to help is to email those companies you need drivers from,
let them see that there is a customer base and they'll lose out if they don't
get busy soon. (I'm sure I could rewrite that more grammatically but you
know what I mean, I hope?)