Vista 'vulns' maybe not so critical, but missing drivers are

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 18 March 2007 23:32

Opinion and Analysis

Well, besides the as-yet unavailable Service Pack 1 (SP1), which won’t arrive until towards the end of 2007, it’s drivers that remain the biggest stumbling block for most people.

Video cards from nVIDIA are still without final Vista drivers, some brands of Creative soundcards will never get Vista drivers, and plenty of older hardware out there will either never be updated, or will take some time before drivers are made available as companies hope that you simply buy new hardware (and software) that is certified Vista compatible.

Microsoft virtually promised us all that drivers would be a problem of the past with Vista, thanks to 19,500 drivers pre-loaded onto the Vista installation DVD, along with a Windows Update system that was able to deliver new drivers as they became available.

Of course, Microsoft and their partners have done some fantastic work on getting drivers available, but not in anywhere near the numbers required to keep all users happy. Much of that isn’t exactly Microsoft’s fault, given the millions of different types of hardware that are available, the drivers for which are the responsibility of the manufacturer to create.

Precisely why Vista couldn’t simply be compatible with existing Windows XP drivers, or made 100% compatible even if in some kind of emulation mode until newer drivers became available is a shame.

Of course some changes to hardware, and changes to the way that Vista interacts with peripherals, such as the DirectX 10 graphics engine and new drivers required, means that older XP drivers cannot be used.

But rather than discovering a Microsoft employee believes (even if only personally) that Vista vulnerabilities will be less severe than ever, which is of course a good thing, regular updates on the progress of new drivers is something many around the world would appreciate far more than perceived gloating about Vista’s security, which in some people’s eyes is simply asking for hackers to do their worst.

Want to really drive adoption of Vista, Microsoft? Then drive your partners to drive out those drivers ASAP, and watch those sales zoom into a beautiful sales chart vista.