In ,
SC Tom wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Tom Lake wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message ,
Mortimer writes:

No, I would say it _is_ Microsoft's, for making an OS (or OS
variant) which can't use older drivers. Why should hardware
manufacturers have to keep producing new drivers (especially for
kit they no longer make - don't know if that's the case in this
case)?

Why should MS (or ANY OS maker) support all old hardware ad
infinitum? In order to advance the OS, keep it able to use the
latest hardware and keep it secure, some things must be left behind
or you'd end up with a huge, ungainly mess. If the manufacturer
doesn't support the newest OS, then MS certainly doesn't have the
resources to write drivers for every piece of obsolete equipment
out there. Tom L

In the early days, an OS was screwed big time if it didn't support
the legacy factor. You can have the world's greatest OS ever seen,
but it is totally worthless if it doesn't support the past. Same is
true today. If you burn bridges as you go, you will always lose.
Since most of the old people at Microsoft has retired. The new
replacements just don't know any better. And I see Microsoft getting
into trouble because of this. Even Microsoft had to layoff people in
recent times because of this (the first time in history). And it
isn't going to get better for Microsoft until they relearn this
lesson. And if they don't... well either Linux or the Mac (or
something unknown to us today) will just take over.

I don't think Linux or Mac (or something unknown) will ever displace
Microsoft in my lifetime, but I'm sure someday in the future, it may
be replaced as the top dog.

The if the old people were still at Microsoft, I too feel the same way.
But they left and have long retired. Now Microsoft has new people who
have to learn all of the old lessons or die. Just like so many other
companies in the past had too. If the new people are really smart and
learn very fast, they will do just fine. If not, well then what can save
them?

Years ago (many, many), I tried OS/2 Warp for a little while. After
installing it and rebooting, I no longer had a CD-ROM drive. No OS/2
drivers for it, and none from (IIRC) Panasonic either. The only
drives that were native in OS/2 were Matsu****a and a couple of
others, and even though they own Panasonic now, they either didn't
then or the two drives weren't close enough for the Matsu****a
drivers to work with my drive. I tried OS/2 with Windows 3.1
(upgrade) thinking that might solve the problem, but no joy there
either.

Another bad point was that I had an IBM Big Blue thermal printer, and
I couldn't get either version of OS/2 to recognize it either. IBM OS
won't print to an INM printer? What's up with that? After a couple on
months of searching and using it (it was stable and speedy. No
wonder; it had no drivers taking up memory), I finally went back to
Windows. I've tinkered with other OSes over the years, but have never
left Windows for good. Works fine for me. If there's something about
it I don't like (and believe me, there's plenty), I can usually
figure out a workaround or find a third party app to get 'er done.

Don't get me started about IBM's OS/2! I know all about OS/2 far more
than I even want to admit too. Talk about waving a carrot on a string.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3