Paula said:
My computer manufacturer has nothing to do with it. I bought the
computer with XP on it. It is not their responsibility to provide
drivers for an unsupported OS. It is Microsoft's responsibility to
provide a compatible service pack that doesn't break drivers.
Uh, no.
If a hardware manufacturer wants his stuff to work with an OS, it is the
hardware manufacturer's responsibility to provide the necessary interface
(driver).
Microsoft produces an OS with well-documented APIs that the drivers use. If
a driver does not conform to the standard, that's the driver's problem. For
example, a driver-writer might take advantage of an un-documented feature or
a bug in the API. If he does, he's playing Russian Roulette. MS may change
the action of the un-documented feature or correct the bug to conform the
API to the published specifications.
Here's another example: hardware folks used to actually replace system DLLs
(that contained the APIs) with versions that could work with their hardware.
This, of course, broke other applications. Vista put the kebosh on that
nonsense by disallowing replacement of vital system components. Now the
hardware (and software) people HAVE to conform to the standards. Some don't
do a very good job.
Here's another example: For TEN years, Microsoft has been telling developers
to NOT use the registry as a scratch-pad - a place to store program
parameters and variables. With Vista, they enforced the rule. Presto: All
prior versions of Quickbooks won't work on Vista.
No, it is entirely the responsibility of the hardware vendors to provide
drivers that conform to Vista's published standards. If a hardware driver
DOES conform and still doesn't work, Microsoft will cooperate with the
hardware vendor to find a fix their part of the problem.
