With the Big Day just days away, expect to see a plethora of announcements from Windows hardware manufacturers about the availability of drivers for Windows 7. The release date is next Thursday, and Microsoft has put hardware manufacturers on notice that it expects working drivers to be available for Windows-compatible hardware when Windows 7 hits the streets.
What’s The Big Deal About Signed Drivers
For some users, the subtlety of having a signed driver might escape them. For Microsoft, producing a signed driver is moving toward the R-word – requirement. Now don’t get me wrong; there is still such a thing as an unsigned driver, but unsigned drivers represent (as far as Microsoft is concerned) a potential hazard that computer users and system administrators alike need to watch out for.

What exactly is a “signed driver?” A signed driver is an assurance that a downloadable driver was produced by what Microsoft terms “a legitimate publisher.” If you’re planning on installing unsigned drivers for Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008, you’ll need to have administrator privileges. This is (presumably) to cut down on the ability of the end user to install – either purposely or inadvertently – potentially rogue drivers that could cause problems for a system.

Also, if you’re loading kernel-mode drivers on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista or Window Server 2008, these require Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS) to load.

Any driver that is hoping for the Microsoft “seal of approval” – that is, one that gets the Windows Logo mark – will need to be signed. Microsoft will not approve any unsigned drivers for use with the Windows Logo or Windows 7/Windows Vista-compatible programs.

At some point, these requirements may cause problems for users and/or administrators, but Microsoft’s toughened stance on Windows drivers stems from its less than pleasant experience with the Windows Vista release. Although Vista is about to be replaced with what promises to be a more robust, stable product, there are many hardware manufacturers that never produced a Vista-compatible hardware driver for their products. That situation left many Windows users in the lurch – not being able to upgrade because they would lose the use of critical hardware – or being forced to upgrade hardware for want of a working driver.

Microsoft is determined not to let third-party manufacturers sabotage the release of Windows 7 in the same way, so if nothing else, users should expect stronger driver requirements and a better complement of Windows drivers right out of the box on October 22.

Photo Credit: Microsoft

If you’re looking forward to the new release of Windows 7, you should rightly be concerned about drivers for Windows. If you’re like most users, you really don’t know exactly what a driver is or does, and if your computer has the right drivers installed, you may not even realize that you’re using them. (That, by the way, is ideal.)

The Reality Of Windows Drivers

The reality of drivers for computer hardware is a lot more brutal than that. Microsoft makes the Windows operating system but it doesn’t make the drivers that run the hardware people attach to their computers. The hardware manufacturers write those oh-so-necessary drivers. Microsoft will include a few generic drivers that can interface to a degree with hardware that’s more-or-less standard. For example, a VGA display driver is about as vanilla as it gets, and you’ll find a generic 640×480 VGA driver included with the OS that can run a display. It won’t run all of the hardware features that might be built into your monitor, but it can put a picture on a screen.

Hardware manufacturers are responsible for writing new drivers for their hardware. Often, manufacturers write new drivers for their new hardware, and don’t spend much time writing new drivers for their older stuff. They also tend to de-prioritize driver updates for hardware that’s no longer in production. That approach causes problems for the users whose hardware is still in service, even if particular models are no longer sold.

Despite Microsoft’s full-court press on hardware manufacturers to supply updated drivers for their hardware, it’s highly likely that an upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7 will still produce a fair amount of teeth-gnashing when the old hardware doesn’t work with the new system because the manufacturer hasn’t released an updated driver for Windows 7.

This situation really isn’t Microsoft’s fault, but that won’t stop it from taking most of the heat for poor upgrade results. Microsoft intends to fight back, however, and has said that it will withdraw its “Vista-ready” certification for manufacturers who don’t pony up with a Windows 7-compatible driver by Release Date – October 22.

So what hardware is most likely to cause driver problems? The top candidates are hardware that is no longer manufactured, or “orphan” hardware – those products whose manufacturer has gone belly-up or has been taken over by a different company; old hardware – and by “old” I mean more than 2-3 years old; and specialty or low-volume products that never jumped on the Vista bandwagon. Unfortunately, as a consumer, you won’t have a lot of leverage in this case.

Photo Credit: TMAB2003, via Flickr