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Main Forums => Hardware, Software, and Other Imperialist Crap => Topic started by: Clear_Runway on June 25, 2010, 08:13:02 AM

Title: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Clear_Runway on June 25, 2010, 08:13:02 AM
<rant>
you know what annoys me? hardware makers who insist on using proprietary drivers. particularly for networking, since you can't download a driver if you can't get on the internet, so you have to get another computer and put the driver on a flash drive, then install it. my Toshiba laptop has pretty much zero problems with this (except for a nearly-useless FM tuner which Microsoft has no reason to support) but other brands fail badly. my hp desktop has a proprietary video driver, which is annoying but easily fixed, but my sisters dell laptop (which i recently downgraded to win2k, and boy is it fast!) has proprietary network, video and audio drivers. yes, I had to download a file to get the sound to work.
</rant>

so, yeah, just annoys me. has anyone encountered something worse?
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Chris on June 25, 2010, 10:20:01 AM
You downgraded to Windows 2000? What did you think was going to happen? The native driver cab files are from around 1999 when Windows 2000 was being developed. Your hardware in which it was installed on was probably developed and manufactured after 2007.

I have done two Windows 7 installations and I have really had no issues with drivers so far. Though I'm sure in a year or two as new hardware comes out things will change.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Clear_Runway on June 25, 2010, 10:25:02 AM
yeah, but audio is something that shouldn't even need a driver. besides, it's sp4, so i figured it would have some more drivers.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Chris on June 25, 2010, 10:27:29 AM
Oh, no. Believe it or not every component in your computer has a driver, including audio no matter if it's an internal card or a card by Creative.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: 12AX7 on June 25, 2010, 10:31:05 AM
Your hardware in which it was installed on was probably developed and manufactured after 2007.

 After the issues with crappy drivers in XP; and hardware manufacturers began to do their own drivers. Now, instead of going to a Windows site to upgrade *.* ; you have to go to all the different manufacturers' sites to get the latest drivers.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Clear_Runway on June 25, 2010, 10:47:59 AM
actually it was made in 2005. and i'm mostly just mad about network cards tending to suffer from this the most often, thus getting you in a catch-22.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: ivan on June 25, 2010, 10:54:57 AM
I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

I NEVER had ANY problems with DOS 3.2.2.

If you're going to downgrade, go all the way.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: pbsaurus on June 25, 2010, 12:59:13 PM
Going all the way would be to fingers and toes wouldn't it?
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Joe Sixpack on June 25, 2010, 01:16:44 PM
What I don't understand is why you are expecting anything to work without a driver.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Clear_Runway on June 25, 2010, 09:51:00 PM
what i mean is, it really isn't as complicated as pretty much everything else computers do, and it really should be as standardized as, say, flash drives, which have drivers that install instantly and are practically unnoticeable. not that I know anything about it.

and if you want to go back to putting holes in tickertape, ivan, please try it. I'm pretty sure it'll be hilarious.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: ivan on June 26, 2010, 04:09:14 AM
You know, there was a time... There was a time when I actually did poke holes in a ticker tape with a goddam pen to make the Telex work.
Title: Re: driver encounters of the proprietary kind
Post by: Joe Sixpack on June 28, 2010, 11:50:04 AM
I have always had a conspiracy theory that 3com purposely didn't want their drivers native in XP. At the time, the 3C905x was pretty much ubiquitous, and it would have made a hell of a lot of sense to include it. So why didn't they?
I think it was so a bunch of home user types would upgrade, see that their NIC didn't work, and go by a new one with a shiny 'made for XP' label.