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Windows XP Incompatibility
What about the new hardware not supported by WinXP?
My Case In Point:
I have a two-year-old Canon A3 printer that works well under WinNT yet is not supported by WinXP. My previous (now dead) printer is supported, but not this one. So I contacted Canon and was told that the way the printer's BIOS talks to the parallel port was incompatible with the way WinXP talks to the port. Strange. Very strange. Very silly too.
The solution was to "use the Win2K driver and it may work with reduced functionality, but there are no guarantees it will work at all." Oh joy. I can use "half" of my printer, maybe.
The other options given were "Copy the document across the network and print locally" (how ridiculous is that?), and "get a new printer". Hmm? Shot himself in the foot there.
Other branded products also have incompatibility problems, it's not just Canon.
Ok, now let's talk turkey?
If the hardware works with previous versions of Windows, and can be shared across a network, then it should be useable. WinXP does not need to talk to the parallel port. The problem has gone away. Good. Get me the driver. Oh, I forgot, it doesn't exist.
Now then, who's at fault?
I don't care. It's not the issue here either.
It matters that the hardware is not supported.
I call on Microsoft AND the hardware manufacturers to address this issue. Get them to provide a valid driver or valid communications. Anything, so long as it suppoted.
How about a driver that said something like "Remote Networked Canon Printer"? I would be happy.
What about you? Where would you draw the line with WinXP?