Drivers are necessary but pesky

TechMan column:

By Ced Kurtz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It is operating system upgrade season, what with Apple releasing Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on the way in October.

So welcome to another episode of TechMan's infrequent series, "It's Right in Front of Me but What Is It?" Today's subject is drivers.

Not the kind of drivers who try to run you over in their giant SUVs while instant messaging their inamorata, but device drivers for your computer.

Technically, device drivers aren't right in front of you. You can't see them because they are pieces of software; but anytime your computer operating system runs a device, be it a printer, a monitor or a DVD drive, a device driver comes into play.

A driver is a program that allows communication between your computer's operating system (Windows, OSX or Linux) and a specific piece of hardware. So, for example, if you press Ctrl-P for print, the operating system tells the driver it wants to print the page. The driver then gives the printer the specific commands it needs to do the printing. Obviously if no driver is present or if there is a problem with the driver, no printing will take place.

So where do drivers come from? Most of them are written by software engineers for the companies that make the hardware. That makes sense since they know the hardware better than anyone. So Epson engineers, for example, write the drivers needed for Epson printers.

When a new operating system comes out, it includes drivers for much of the known existing hardware. The hardware manufacturers have sent the new drivers to Microsoft or Apple, and they are included with the upgrade.

The problem comes when either the hardware manufacturer does not write new drivers in time or new hardware comes out after the operating system and requires new drivers.

The first is what happened to Windows Vista. Much of the rap Vista got for being incompatible with hardware was not Microsoft's fault. Vista included a slew of new drivers, but some hardware manufacturers didn't write new drivers in time. Or they didn't want to support old hardware because they wanted you to buy the newer model.

So what if you upgrade to Snow Leopard or Windows 7 and your printer just won't print? The first thing to suspect is that you don't have the correct drivers.

What to do? Go to the hardware manufacturer's Web site (in our example Epson.com). Usually there is a choice on the home page for drivers (if not, try support.)

There you need to find the driver for your particular operating system (e.g. Snow Leopard, Windows Vista) and for your specific model of device (e.g. Epson Stylus 800.)

Download the appropriate drivers and install them. If your problem is missing drivers, that should solve it.

Often the problem of hardware being too new for your operating system to have the drivers is solved by the hardware manufacturer including the new drivers as part of the device install process.

So why does this all have to be so complicated? Well for Apple, which makes hardware and can assume that many of its customers will use its hardware, it's less complicated. They just supply drivers to themselves.

But for Microsoft, which is mainly a software company, Windows has to have drivers for a multitude of different devices from a host of manufacturers. Thus the problem with Vista. Will Windows 7 have the same problem? Probably not because it is enough like Vista to use the same drivers in many cases.

Drivers are one part of using computers that do not pass TechMan's Ease of Use Standards.

But at this point there doesn't seem to be a better solution 

Posted Sep 14 2009, 01:20 PM by Ced Kurtz

Comments

alan2 wrote re: Drivers are necessary but pesky
on Mon, Sep 14 2009 7:05 PM

Being both old and old fashioned, as well as a devote of "old saws", reading your bit about it being Operating System Upgrade Season, I wonder as to why, after all, re old saws, there is The Kiss Principle (Keep It Simple Stupid), no offense intended, and then there is If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It, which my grandmother was wont to offer.

Let's say that an individual has brand X computer, with WXYZ Operating System. Both perform entirely adequately for our individual. Why would this individual want to rush off to the uncertainties of OS Upgrades, when all is working fine, other than for the great push of, from and by "marketers", which by the way, doesn't strike me as anything like a good reason. Of course, the foregoing is obviously a subjective judgment, to which others can attribute merit, malice or nothing at all. To each their own.

Jody Farr wrote re: Drivers are necessary but pesky
on Mon, Sep 14 2009 9:02 PM

Alan, the basic problem is this:

1. Software (including operating systems) are written by humans, which guarantees that bugs and unforeseen security holes will exist in it from day one.

2. Other people (hackers and other miscreants) make a living at finding and exploiting these bugs and holes.  Software companies must expend considerable resources to plug these holes to keep your computer safe.

3. After a while, it makes sense to make large updates to the software to account for advances in technology and that usually means enough rewrites to make it a whole new version of the software.  Otherwise there would be no incoming revenue since there's nothing new to sell.

Example: those folks who are still running Windows 2000 and below are marooned because Microsoft has moved on.  They can't afford to keep groups of people involved in keeping those old operating systems running.  

Of course, all of this would go away if computer wrote their own software, but something about that makes me uncomfortable (see SkyNet, Terminator robots, the Matrix, etc).

alan2 wrote re: Drivers are necessary but pesky
on Tue, Sep 15 2009 5:14 PM

Jody:

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Having said that,. I'm just an "end user", about as far removed from being an IT type as could be imagined. The story with my younger brother send his son is quite different, both being "computer engineering/computer science" types, well grounded in design, manufacturing, development and programming.

Re item 3 in your response, both of the above mentioned, other people too have been critical of Microsoft, other software outfits too, for the following reason, this reflecting expressed views. They rush stuff out the door, to quickly, without having properly debugged programs, which goes a long way toward what appear to be Microsoft's seemingly endless stream of "critical updates". Of course, debugging costs money, the software release being delayed while debugging is ongoing. One wonders however concerning whether or not it might be less expensive, in the long run, to hold release until bugs have been found and eliminated, perhaps saving users a whole lot of trouble. The foregoing could be full of holes, but please remember  that, as I stated, I'm simply an end user.

As to your last, many would likely share your expressed concerns.