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Old July 9th 18, 05:37 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Default Buying Windows 7 - related question

KenW wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jul 2018 20:04:41 -0700, mike wrote:

On 7/8/2018 7:29 PM, KenW wrote:
If Dell does not have Windows 7 drivers for your hardware, you are
stuck.


KenW

That's pessimistic.
Hardware vendor drivers sometimes exist.


Believe what you wish. Dell does their own thing with drivers
(modifications) and many drivers from hardware manufactures will not
work on Dell computers. Just went through that on my Dell.


KenW


The register level specification is only available to the
hardware manufacturer.

An OEM computer maker may re-arrange or re-package materials
they received from the hardware manufacturer.

For example, take a laptop video driver. The panel comes off
a "digital bus" connection, perhaps LVDS. The panel has a
certain size. The system needs VESA information so that
the OS can find the screen. Some products have a low res
and a high res variant, and the software materials have to
match the setup. In such a situation, the OEM computer
maker adds the necessary file to some software. And this
is necessary, because the "panel" isn't actually PNP. The
declarative software added to the package takes care of that.

If the laptop panel had a hidden internal VGA connector, and
the GPU had a VGA output, the two could be plugged together
to make a PNP solution. Any driver would then be "bog standard".
This is why desktop video cards with VGA and HDMI connectors
work so well = they fully support PNP, without tricks.

For something like Wifi, there might be firmware, and
firmware versions.

But some other driver types, would be bog standard, and
no amount of splash graphic in the installer will change
that. If my computer has an Asmedia two port SATA, that'll be
a bog standard driver.

*******

Microsoft has a great deal of leverage in this situation.
If they want to strong-arm the hardware companies to not
provide drivers for Windows 7, they seem to have some
licensing terms (maybe for the "driver kit" that tells
the hardware people how to make a driver), that give
leverage. For example, no manufacturer is allowed to
release their own USB2 or USB3 driver, for... Windows 10.
When ever Microsoft finished the Class driver for a
hardware standard, that's generally where the licensing
cuts in and stops individual driver releases.

Intel likes to "shave the edges" of this situation, by
providing a USB driver. But, about ten lines into the
file, you find

#include usbport.inf

which means basically "call the Microsoft driver and
have Microsoft finish this please". The only thing the
file actually does, is set a text string in Device Manager.

It's my feeling, that Microsoft has used their licensing
leverage, to stop driver support for Win7.

Just as, in the case of the Microsoft attempt to do an
x86 to ARM translator, Intel threatened to send the
lawyer clown car. And so far this year, no Microsoft
ARM based product has appeared with a 32 bit x86 run
capability (I'm still waiting for a "battle royale" :-) ).
So that's an example of the "vice versa", where Microsoft
wanted something, and Intel told them to **** off.
For some strange reason, you'll notice over the years,
that Apple hasn't had too much trouble accommodating
two instruction sets during transition periods.
One presumes either the limited duration of the
transition period, or some cash, quieted up such
a situation. I think one of their solutions
was done by Transitive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitive_Corporation

"This technology was also licensed by Apple Computer
in its transition from PowerPC to Intel (x86) CPUs,
starting in 2006. Apple marketed this technology as
"Rosetta".
"

I don't remember IBM or Motorola threatening Apple...

Paul
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