You’ll be hearing a lot about Windows 8 in the coming weeks, largely because Microsoft has scheduled the consumer preview of its soon-to-be-released operating system on February 29. While the new operating system is designed to support mobile devices, the key to its success or failure will most likely (still) be third-party drivers.

Is Consumer Success For Windows 8 Critical?

Whether or not the consumer accepts Windows 8 depends largely upon how many of their current devices those consumers can take along for the ride. But even if an operating system isn’t a hit with the consumers, that doesn’t mean the OS will be labeled a flop.

Enterprise systems account for a significant portion of sales among the installed Windows user base, but enterprise licensing does come with some benefits that just aren’t available to consumers. Enterprise clients can choose which version of the Windows OS they use, so many enterprise license customers use that as a way to control, forestall or even avoid a particular version of the operating system.

Enterprise adoption of a Microsoft operating system typically lags behind the consumer migration, often by 18-24 months. In other words, many enterprises may just be ramping up a migration to Windows 7 – so a move to Windows 8 may not even be in the cards until 2014!

Does this deliberate approach to upgrading at the enterprise level interfere with the apparent success of an operating system? While analysts are sometimes quick to point out that Windows XP is still the reigning champion of installed Microsoft operating systems, enterprise IT professionals will readily admit that they have no plans to hold onto XP as their OS of choice.

More likely, the rapid upgrade pace of the Windows product line means that enterprise users may deliberately skip a revision level to suit their own internal needs. Many corporate users skipped the Windows Vista upgrade, largely because it was designed to appeal to consumers and didn’t play nice with the Windows Server 2003 that so many enterprise users had installed.

Will enterprise users skip Windows 7 in favor of Windows 8? Probably not, though Windows 8 will do a better job of supporting mobile computing than Windows 7 can currently pull off. Mobile computing is a consumer darling, but it has strong potential for the enterprise market as well. It’s a safe bet that both consumers and enterprise users will migrate to Windows 8. Eventually.

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If you’re starting to get interested in Windows 8, you’re not alone. The latest version of the Windows OS is getting a lot of publicity lately, mostly about its mobile-friendly designs. If that’s leaving you wondering about Windows 8′s desktop capabilities, fear not. Manufacturers will still make device drivers for your not-so-mobile desktop computer.

Windows 8 Isn’t Exclusively Mobile

Most of the press hype centers around Windows 8′s new mobile device capabilities, but you’ll still get a lot of use out of Windows 8 for your desktop setup. Windows 8 is designed – no doubt – to help users make the most of Windows on their mobile devices, though. Microsoft will be introducing a new mobile broadband framework that will help mobile users get connected to mobile broadband networks using one standard driver. By itself, that’s a big victory. Major mobile broadband hardware manufacturers have agreed to use Microsoft’s uniform driver, which should make connecting to mobile broadband networks a breeze.

It is safe to say that the writing is on the wall when it comes to mobile devices. Consumers love them, and there will certainly be more mobile computing in just about everyone’s future. While Windows 8 is getting prepared to deal with the onslaught of Windows mobile phones, tablet computers and laptops, the “traditional” computer setup will still be around. That means you’ll still see plenty of need for device drivers for these kinds of computer setups – and some mobile devices will also need device drivers, too.

It also means that Windows 8 will represent a significant change in the way the operating system works. It won’t be just an extension of Windows 7, and it does mean that some of your current hardware may not make the transition to Windows 8.

As in the past, Microsoft will carefully shepherd vendors through the process of creating and testing their hardware drivers, and making them available on D-Day, whenever that might be. Microsoft has not yet named a shelf-date for Windows 8, but it’s still rumored to be available for consumer release in the fourth quarter of 2012.

In the mean time, what should you do? It’s never a bad idea to make sure all of your device drivers are up-to-date. I normally use Driver Detective to manage all of my device drivers. Driver Detective seeks out, downloads and installs updates for the drivers that are installed on my computer. It also keeps a fresh copy of the current driver and allows me to roll back to an older version of a driver if an update doesn’t perform the way I think it should.

Driver Detective takes the work out of keeping your Windows hardware drivers up-to-date.

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A little more than a year ago, the biggest gaming news was – by far – the Kinect. This Xbox device was meant to go head-to-head with the Nintendo Wii in the hope of changing the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. Windows drivers for the Kinect weren’t available, but in a somewhat surprising move, Prime Sense – the company on whose reference designs the Kinect was built – provided open source device drivers for the Kinect. Microsoft also became involved in some behind-the-scenes open source driver development.

Will Microsoft Manage Kinect for the PC

Microsoft is now fully (and apparently transparently) behind the development of Windows drivers for the Kinect. The question is whether Microsoft is ahead of the Kinect-for-PC development? At the most recent CES, Microsoft left the impression that it will be giving away the Kinect drivers and relying on the sales of the Kinect device to generate revenue.

Of course there are a few rules to content with, one of the most notable being that open source drivers and the Xbox version of the Kinect can’t be used for commercial projects. Developers may also be limited to projects that run on Windows 7 and/or Windows 8. Noncommercial projects may only use the Windows software developer kit to write code for the company’s Kinect for Windows hardware.

Do all of these restrictions add up to too much Microsoft muddling in the Kinect soup? Initially, Microsoft wanted to limit Kinect development to the Xbox. With the release of open source drivers, Microsoft lost some of the control over development for the Kinect, though not necessarily development for the Xbox. Following the release of the Prime Sense drivers, Microsoft has reasserted its control over the development of PC applications for the Kinect following an open source model for the drivers.

It’s hard to know where Kinect for the PC development will be in a year, but it’s safe to say that the Kinect’s appeal extends beyond game applications. Developers expect to produce applications related to art, medicine, the military, automobiles, manufacturing and more. While some analysts think that Microsoft has repositioned itself ahead of the pack on Kinect PC development, I’m more skeptical.

Microsoft didn’t have a plan beyond the Xbox for the Kinect. Only begrudgingly did it extend the drivers to the PC, and only after this did the real potential for the hardware come into sharper focus for the company. Despite Microsoft’s efforts to control the direction of the Kinect for the PC, I think the open source development of applications and eventually the introduction of the next-generation of depth-sensing controller hardware will allow for the development of genuinely “open” applications. That doesn’t mean “open source” development, but rather development that can – but isn’t required to – develop according to Microsoft’s rules.
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In its 26-year evolution, Windows has come a long way. One area in which it may never excel, however, is with device drivers and automatic updates. The major problem, which is largely out of Microsoft’s control, is that device drivers generally aren’t made by Microsoft. Instead, device manufacturers write, update and distribute device drivers.

Updates Will Never Be Fully Automatic

Microsoft will distribute device drivers from manufacturers, provided that the device drivers are up to Microsoft’s driver standards and that the manufacturer makes the driver available for distribution. Not all device manufacturers choose to distribute drivers like this, so not all device drivers are distributed via Windows Update.

While some device drivers are part of the “automatic update” routine, others are left behind. By itself, this may leave some users with the mistaken impression that all device drivers they need, want or use will be delivered to their computer as updates become available. In reality, some device drivers are distributed automatically and others aren’t.

For those device drivers that are not automatically updated, the user must make the effort to go out to the manufacturer website, locate the correct driver, download it and install it. One key ingredient – letting a user know that a new driver is available – is missing. Unless the user is paying attention, or has an application installed to flag updated device drivers, the user could go for months or years not even realizing that a new device driver is available.

That’s precisely why I use Driver Detective to manage and maintain all of the device drivers on my personal computers. Driver Detective takes the work out of device driver maintenance by monitoring for driver updates. It also monitors the performance of my installed drivers and lets me know when a device driver is missing, corrupted or otherwise misbehaving.

Driver Detective stores a local copy of the device driver, so if replacement is required, the new installation can take place quickly, without having to go out to the manufacturer’s website and download a fresh copy. When a new driver is available, Driver Detective retrieves the new driver and installs it, retaining a backup copy of the old driver in the event I want to roll back to an older driver version.

Best of all, I don’t have to remember to check the hardware manufacturer’s websites for driver updates. Driver Detective does all of that for me and maintains a library of the drivers I need for my specific hardware configuration. Download your copy of Driver Detective today and see what you’ve been missing out on!

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