Hey folks, Microsoft is not in the business of generating drivers for every single third party gadget you may buy. It makes no financial sense for them to do that, unless the hardware manufacturers were to pay them to do it for them. They do provide third party hardware and software companies with proper information to allow them to keep their drivers up to date. Any hardware manufacturer, for example, must originally provide drivers to work with the current OSs, if they want to sell the gadgets. Microsoft is in the business of providing OSs and other in-house software. They are required to ensure that their OS will properly function with and take advantage of the latest CPU and BIOS instruction sets, just as the third party people must ensure that their items will function and take advantage of the latest OSs. Sometimes the new drivers may cost a bit because it takes work to keep them updated, but normally it is a very minor adjustment to cause the drivers to work with a new OS. Microsoft works with most major peripheral providers to ensure that continuity of operation between their software and hardware is maintained. The key word here is maintained. Microsoft designs, builds and maintains Operating Systems. Third party vendors design, build and maintain their gadgets. They, not Microsoft, are responsible for your problems with drivers and software compatibility with newer and better hardware and OSs. Because of the constant improvement in items from all vendors, including Microsoft, there has to be a distribution of responsibilities. That is if you don’t want Microsoft to own all hardware and software on the market. So let us all be realistic about where the responsibility lies. Some things do go wrong in any system that depends upon a distribution of responsibilities and rewards, that is the nature of research, development and maintenance, in any field. Capitalism depends on distribution of responsibilities. I know that we all wish for better coordination between computer systems vendors. Maybe someday, but perfection will never be reached in this regard.
