Computer hardware rant

[ifallsguy]

Re: Computer hardware rant

Did you check the laptop builder's site? There could be new drivers there. The bluetooth on my Gateway didn't work with the upgrade, but their site listed a new driver I found worked fine.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Computer hardware rant

You can always just load up XP on any new machine.

True, dat, but the point is, I don't want to have to, because it means buying another copy of it and the only copies of WINXP you can get these days, are OEM copies for computer builders. That's another $125, on top of what you pay for the machine.

As for drivers, I agree that companies like Epson knew darn well that WIN7 was coming. They may not have known exactly what it was going to "look like," but they knew it was coming and they knew that 64 bit was coming. Not writing a simple driver for a machine that was sold a year or so before WIN7 came out is pretty lame. Its also obvious that the intent is to sell new hardware.

As an analogy, my Nikon DSLRs shoot in both JPEG and a raw format called "NEF." Every time I buy a photo editor, I have to install patches that recognise NEF. I have zero problem doing that. The same is true of any new camera that I buy. Since the NEF format is slightly dfifferent for each new model, I need a new patch. Again, no problem.

The point is, that some companies are recognizing these issues and are supporting them.



???

 

[mscher]

Re: Computer hardware rant

Sorry but Epson had everything they needed to write those drivers for over a year before the release of Win 7. It is a decision by Epson not to support. More than one small company either wrote the code needed (not a major change from Vista or XP). Epson and a number of other major companies have a history of NOT SUPPORTING new operating systems. The comment they can't anticipate is bogus. It is decision to sell replacement equipment to keep their bottom lines up. I tell my clients they should avoid these companies due to their not even trying to update drivers for products less than 12 months old.

FWIW, in the past hardware vendors wrote free driver upgrades as a courtesy only.

Since they are in business to make a profit, writing free driver upgrades, not only costs them in developement, but also the lost revenue, on a new scanner, which average about a wopping $70 for a flat bed.

Microsoft could probably write some backward compatability into the OS, but has no incentive to do so. They often won't do it with their own applications software.

 

[WizeOne]

Re: Computer hardware rant

This is old news now but a while back I had trouble with cheap flat bed scanners and with OS upgrades from companies that wouldn't write new drivers. So I stepped up to a relatively expensive HP 5P scanner. It wasn't but a couple of years old when I switched to Win XP.

Guess what? HP did not write drivers for the 5P in XP. I think I paid about $250 for this scanner and it is still sitting up on it's stand. I just couldn't bear to throw another scanner in the trash.

At the time I tried all the options that I found. None of them worked. Now I just use the scanner in my OfficeJet 6210 but I would really like to have been able to use the big 5P flatbed.

 

[ftl900]

Re: Computer hardware rant

Did you check the laptop builder's site?

Good point. I think I did, but I checked again just now, and the newest they have is an XP driver that won't work for me. It's a Dell Inspiron 1420, and I don't really need BT all that much anyway. Other than that and an occasionally glitchy touchpad, it works very well for me, and WIN7 ROCKS! So I'm fine with it as it is.

 

[DaleT]

Re: Computer hardware rant

I feel for ya. For what it's worth I run into this almost daily with equipment that can run up to $12,000 each. The biggest issue as has been stated is the 64bit vs 32bit systems (be it xp, vista, or 7). A majority of my vendors are not planning on supporting the 64bit anytime soon. To make matters worse, the products having the issues are not planned to be upgraded anytime soon. One particular unit was just released 2 years ago. It's predecessor had been around for approximately 10 years before that. I actually have several pieces that still have to be run off of parallel ports or serial ports. We've found some ways around the serial but the parallel has been a bear. Being that my company rents equipment to end users, saves them long term investments, we spend a considerable amount of time troubleshooting over the phone. In many of my talks with vendor support I've found they haven't even tested their equipment on Vista yet. My point with all of this is, they've got us coming and going with software and hardware and short of going with linux or possibly mac there is no way to get out.

 

[SnapperHunter28]

Re: Computer hardware rant

eh...i go to kinkos if i need to scan something...let them worry about the drama

 

[aunique.226]

Re: Computer hardware rant

The company should know about the latest technology.You just tell to the in charge person of the regarding company to replace your hardware.Or you just move on to Vista,may it works.If it is not working with Vista then sell it and purchase a new one which is compatible with Windows 7 64 bit.