Microsoft Urges Migration To Windows 7

Support Won’t Last Forever

Sales of Windows 7 remain strong, driven in part by the sales of new PCs. Upgrade remains a problem for enterprises that opted out of the Vista intermediate step. Missing out on the Vista upgrade meant that critical portions of the underlying Windows 7 infrastructure were not loaded. Since there’s no direct upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7, those who skipped Vista are in for a complete reload.

That’s one part of the problem on the enterprise level. Many enterprise customers aren’t willing to roll out Windows 7 on old computers, and have opted to do a more controlled rollout over a longer period of time. Second, the development of Windows drivers for some hardware remains a stubborn issue. For enterprises, migrating to Windows 7 may also mean significant investments in replacement third-party hardware that’s not currently supported under Windows 7.

The same concerns are true for individuals who have not yet upgraded from Windows XP or some earlier version of the operating system. An upgrade to Windows 7 may require more than simply licensing the operating system. Peripherals that work well with an earlier version of Windows may not be supported under Windows 7.

There are some ways to overcome this, however. Windows 7 does support emulation, and provided that emulation support is also built into your hardware, you may be able to emulate an older version of the Windows operating system, complete with drivers, to ensure that your unsupported hardware is still accessible.

For individuals who are considering upgrading, or who must upgrade for other reasons, check with the Windows 7 Compatibility Center to determine whether your peripherals are or aren’t supported under Windows 7. You may not have a good workaround for your unsupported Windows hardware, but at least you won’t be surprised and can plan a workable alternative before you upgrade.

Photo Credit: SFSD Technology Help Desk, via Flickr

Jungo Will Introduce Windows Driver Development Toolkit

Lastest Version Is Versatile

The newest version of WinDriver is 10.3.0 and is exceptionally stable, according to Jungo. The hardware driver development kit is used to create optimized custom drivers for computer hardware and is considered to be device independent. WinDriver offers driver development support for USB, PCI, PCI Express, CardBus, CompactPCI, ISA, PMC, PCI-X, PCI-104 and PCMCIA devices, and is used my many major manufacturers to develop hardware drivers for their peripheral devices.

Jungo guarantees that Windows hardware drivers developed on WinDriver are fully Windows Hardware Labs Quality-compliant and ready for testing. Jungo also offers hardware driver testing and submission services that can save manufacturers time and money.
Having a quality assurance process for Windows drivers is important, especially in the era of the Windows signed driver. Being able to get updated Windows hardware drivers to market is also important for maintaining customer satisfaction.

Microsoft users have consistently rated the availability of Windows hardware drivers to be among their most important adoption considerations, since hardware driver management is among the most time-consuming of user maintenance tasks. The reliable availability of drivers is also a significant user experience issue.

For reliable driver management, consider Driver Detective. Driver Detective will monitor, download, install and verify the operation of a computer’s hardware drivers. Driver Detective will also maintain a backup copy of each installed driver. In the event that something happens to the driver, it becomes corrupted or accidentally deleted, Driver Detective will reinstall the correct driver.

Using a driver management program like Driver Detective is a great way to avoid problems with hardware drivers, and to ensure that a computer is updated with the latest hardware drivers at all times. Driver Detective takes the work out of maintaining hardware drivers and works with any version of the Windows operating system.

With Windows 7, there’s more to driver management than just having signed drivers. Driver Detective will help you keep your computer up-to-date and avoid problems that may arise from using out-of-date drivers. It will also recognize corrupted drivers, so you don’t spend a lot of time trying to troubleshoot a problem. Download your copy of Driver Detective today!

Can Windows 7 Automatically Fix Windows Driver Problems?

How Does Windows Troubleshooting Work?

If you have a suspected hardware problem, or you just want to take a closer look at the built-in tool, go to the Windows button and type “Hardware and Devices.” This will bring up a list of potentially helpful links, one of which will be entitled “Find and fix problems with devices.” Choose this link and Windows will fire up a troubleshooting wizard that can examine the Windows hardware drivers you’re using.
The Hardware and Devices wizard will start by examining your system to see what drivers you have installed. This wizard will also check for missing drivers. How a driver goes “missing” is another story. Often, the driver becomes corrupted. In other cases, you or another user may have accidentally thrown out a driver. In odd cases, perhaps you threw away the driver on purpose and left your system in an unexpected position.

Regardless of how your driver “disappeared,” Windows can determine that you have a problem with the driver, or the correct driver is missing. If Windows finds an issue with your Windows driver, it will offer you the option to “Apply this fix” or “Skip this fix.” Generally, you should apply fixes, but there are situations where you would choose to bypass Windows’ suggestion(s).

If Windows can successfully reinstall the problematic driver, you might just have fixed your problem. If, for some reason, Windows can’t reinstall the driver or the driver installation doesn’t work, Windows will tell you that the driver installation failed and you’ll be left to scratch your head about next steps.

Windows may not be able to help you fix certain driver problems because it sometimes relies on having a working network connection to download and apply fixes. If the driver for your network adapter has been hosed, or certain basic Windows driver files have been removed from the installation, Windows won’t be able to help you out.
If you can’t get your network connection working, you may need to enlist the aid of a computer that can reach the network. Once you’ve got a successful network connection, you can go to the vendor’s site and download the correct driver for your setup. Save the new driver to a portable medium, such as a USB drive, and take it back to the ailing machine.

If your disabled driver is still installed on your computer, remove it using the Add/Remove Programs tool. At the very least, uninstall the driver. Once the old driver is out of the way, install a fresh copy of the device driver to see if this resolves your problem.

You may also consider using a driver management program like Driver Detective to manage your Windows drivers. Driver Detective will monitor your driver performance, update drivers, remove old and defective drivers and reinstall drivers that have stopped working. By using a driver management software program, you can avoid problems that crop up with some of your most important hardware device drivers.

Photo Credit: Oran Viriyincy, via Flickr

Windows 7 Drivers Big Incentive To Migrate In 2011

No Drivers, No Migration

The migration rate to Windows 7 has been steady thus far, but the Windows XP platform still has a significant installed user base. Windows 7 is slowly but surely whittling it away, but 2011 is the year Microsoft expects many business users to make the jump.

Windows 7 has been out on the market for more than a year. Hardware manufacturers have released a growing number of drivers for current and older products. The availability of drivers and the overall stability of the operating system haven’t gone unnoticed, but migration to a new operating system is usually a significant task in the business world. Migration requires a lot of planning and testing. Additionally, there’s no clear migration path for users that skipped the Vista platform upgrade and stuck with Windows XP.

Corporate budgeting is another issue. Budgets are often set 6-9 months in advance, so the money to support a large-scale migration may only now be available. Corporate users also need to take into account their replacement cycles. It doesn’t make sense to upgrade a desktop that you plan to replace in less than 12 months, unless you have a demonstrable need to do so.

Aside from data loss, one of the biggest concerns from those who plan to migrate is the availability of Windows drivers. Microsoft doesn’t control the availability of hardware drivers; the hardware manufacturer must provide those. If a manufacturer hasn’t provided a hardware driver for Windows 7 and doesn’t have a driver for Windows Vista, it’s a good bet that some hardware won’t be able to make the migration.

At this point, most hardware manufacturers that plan to support Windows 7 have made their drivers available or have them on the way. New products that hit the market are Windows 7 compatible, so replacement of non-compatible hardware is always a possibility. Windows 7 also supports a virtual XP mode, provided that the computer BIOS itself also supports virtualization. XP virtualization may be a solution for the “absolutely-critical-but-not-supported-hardware” problem, should it arise.

In any case, for those who migrate to Windows 7 in 2011, driver management and driver support will remain an important consideration.

Photo Credit: techedlive, via Flickr

Avatron Releases AirDisplay Windows Driver For iPad

Two Displays Are Better Than One!

The AirDisplay app was originally released for the Macintosh and enabled Mac users to use their iPad as a second, wireless display for Macintosh computer. The iPad functions as a second display. The Windows version of the driver hasn’t yet been deemed “ready for prime time,” but the display driver is in beta. Being able to use an iPad as a Windows display device isn’t new. MaxiVista, another iPad app, will allow you to do the same thing.

Chances are good that if you have an iPad, you also have at least a relatively up-to-date OS’s, but in case you don’t, AirDisplay won’t won’t work with a Windows dinosaur. Minimally, the app requires Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. On the plus side, if you’re running the 64-bit versions of Vista or Windows 7, you’re in luck. AirDisplay will support these operating modes. It can also support the 32-bit versions of these systems. The app supports only the 32-bit version of Windows XP.

The wireless connection between your PC and the iPad is Wi-Fi only. Once the driver and Air Display utility are installed on your computer, and the AirDisplay app is installed on the iPad, your iPad will appear as an extended display on your PC. Select it and you’re good to go.

The AirDisplay app probably isn’t the ideal choice for very heavy-duty display responsibilities. (In other words, don’t expect much if you’re planning to run Left4Dead 2 on it.) It can, however, act as a pretty good monitoring device for certain applications and utilities that you might want to run continuously, but not otherwise take up desktop real estate. It can also help you run apps that traditionally require two displays, like graphics programs and programming shells.

It’s also a fun way to get some extra cycles out of your iPad when it would otherwise just be sitting there. The app is low-cost – about $10 and is available through Apple’s iTunes app store. You can also download it from Avatron.

Photo Credit: Rego Korosi, via Flickr

Windows 7 Upgrades Sometimes Bring Driver Compatibility Problems

Windows 7 Home Experiences Don’t Always Translate

Home users may not understand what the big deal is when IT professionals talk about migrating to Windows 7. After all, how hard can it be, right? You’ve been on Windows 7 since it came out and everything works fine. Sadly, in the corporate IT environment, there are a striking number of variables that come into play during OS migration. Migrations are always well thought out and never rushed. (Or at least that’s the way it should be…)

Two of the major issues with corporate IT environments are the shared nature of certain peripheral devices (like printers) and the special work needs of some staff members. One staff member may be using Windows XP while another may be using Vista. One staff member may be using a 32-bit OS while another is using a 64-bit version. Most staff members print to one printer, while a few members need to print to a different device. In a corporate environment, the possibilities are nearly endless, so the migration process is often slow and frustrating. What works for one user simply WILL NOT work for another.

Finding the right drivers for each variation is critical. Ideally, the vendor of each peripheral device would have developed an appropriate Windows 7 driver but that often turns out not to be the case. So what happens when the manufacturer has not provided a Windows 7 driver for a specific critical device? Sometimes, good old-fashioned detective work and a little bit of luck can mean the difference between business-as-usual and throwing out a perfectly good widget.

Your relative “luckiness” increases if you’re migrating from Vista to Windows 7, and tends to decrease a bit if you’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. Your fortune is of course tempered by whether or not the manufacturer made a Vista driver. If so, your Vista driver might work just fine under Windows 7, but there are no guarantees!

In my next post, I’ll go through the processes of finding the right drivers, finding acceptable drivers and migrating to the new operating system.

Photo Credit: Yukari, via Flickr

Office 2010, Windows 7 Drivers of Record Revenues

Windows 7 Surpasses Windows Vista

In addition, a new survey by Netmarketshare shows that Windows 7 installations now surpass Windows Vista installations by a narrow margin. The number of Windows Vista installations has dropped consistently since October 2009, just after Windows 7 hit the market. Windows Vista market share has dropped from a high of 18.83% in October 2009 to its current level, estimated at 14.34%. While some Windows 7 installations represent upgrades from Vista, the majority of Windows 7 adoptions appear to be new.

Windows XP market share has dropped from 65.89% to 61.87% in the same timeframe, indicating that a small percentage of XP users have adopted Windows 7. The decline in Windows XP use has been gradual but steady since Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 were introduced last September.

Assisting growth in the adoption rate of Windows 7 is the fact that third-party hardware manufacturers have committed to making more Windows 7 drivers than Vista drivers when that operating system was released. Finding compatible drivers for Windows 7 is arguably easier because those manufacturers that did make Windows Vista drivers for their devices had less work to do to provide Windows 7 drivers. In some cases, no driver modifications were required, meaning that hardware vendors got “two for the price of one” in terms of driver development.

Microsoft has worked hard with third-party manufacturers to help them ensure that their hardware drivers are Windows 7 ready. Nonetheless, many hardware manufacturers have yet to produce Windows 7 drivers for their older hardware devices. Without compatible drivers, these devices are either crippled or useless, a situation that Microsoft had hoped to avoid.

For Windows users, the issue of driver management has always been difficult. Microsoft has attempted to automate the process of finding and downloading drivers in its later OS releases, but many users still do not understand how to configure the updater to download driver revisions. Further, Windows sometimes selects the incorrect driver for the user’s PC.

Despite the improvements in driver detection, driver management software is still the order of the day for many PC users. Users rely on software like Driver Detective to help them keep their PC drivers up-to-date and available, if a corruption of some type should occur.

Photo Credit: Jurvetson, via Flickr

TEKLYNX Rolls Out Windows 7 Drivers

New Drivers Are A Good Sign Of Windows 7 Adoption

As with regular printers, it’s generally a good sign when a manufacturer releases new drivers to extend the function of a device to a new operating system. Barcode printers are specialized pieces of equipment, and the availability of Windows 7 drivers is not likely to make a major splash among users who don’t have a barcode printer.

The availability of new Windows 7 drivers for a niche product, however, is a strong positive indication that more users (especially commercial users) are lining up to add Windows 7 to their list of supported operating systems. Unlike Windows Vista, which was a commercial dud, Windows users across the board are moving toward Windows 7 adoption.

With the advent of the new fiscal year, we should begin to see the many organizations that time their upgrades to budget cycles start moving toward Windows 7. The fact that Windows 7 doesn’t make major hardware demands on PCs, plus the added benefit of the Windows XP emulation mode, should make migration an easy decision.

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, however, the question of driver availability, especially for older hardware and niche products is still open. If manufacturers and software publishers create a broad range of drivers for older and uncommon hardware, and if Microsoft can deliver on its promise of stability – so far it has – Windows 7 is likely to experience the wide adoption that Windows XP did.

For the remainder of 2010, users should expect to see additional driver rollouts for older hardware and niche hardware. Until the Great Driver Migration is complete, however, some users will be engaged in a “chicken and egg” conundrum: “I’ll upgrade if the drivers are available” will do battle with “We’ll write drivers only if we see a lot of people upgrading to Windows 7.”

Once Windows 7 has been on the shelf for a year, it’s unlikely that a large number of new drivers will enter the market. Instead, manufacturers will carry Windows 7 support forward in their product line, but won’t likely look backward, even for some of their more popular legacy products.

Photo Credit: Manuel, via Flickr

You Can Still Find Windows Drivers For Your Old Hardware

Who Wants To Give Up A Printer?

Printers come in all shapes and sizes, and for right now, I’ll sidestep the question of inkjet versus laser. For most commercial purposes, laser printers rule the day because they’re longer-lasting and cost less over time than inkjet printers do. The longer lifespan of a laser printer does pose some problems, though. I can assure you that there are 10, 15- and even a few 20-year old laser printers that are happily churning out page after page, even if at an agonizingly slow rate.

That brings up one of the real challenges that owners of older peripheral hardware face when upgrading their operating system or their computer hardware: connectors. Older printers and peripheral devices expect to connect using a serial port or a parallel port. There are also a number of obsolete connector types you may have to deal with, like Centronics or PS/2 connectors. Newer hardware doesn’t always (often?) come with older connectors, including the die-hard standards like serial and parallel ports or VGA connectors.

Today’s computers come with USB ports and one or more new video connectors. With no place to connect a serial or parallel printer cable, you might be tempted to toss the old device, even if it still works. Usually, if you’re willing to do a little digging, you can find an adapter that will convert your old style printer connector to something that your new computer can recognize.

That leaves the problem of finding drivers for your older hardware. Yes, it’s possible to find drivers for old hardware. In some cases, existing drivers might work just fine, or a standard driver has been adapted for use with a newer computer and older equipment. The main obstacle becomes finding the correct driver.

In cases like this, I recommend that users download and configure a driver management software package like Driver Detective. Driver Detective has a library of millions of drivers that it can draw on to help you find the correct driver for your current hardware setup. Having the correct driver for your older hardware can mean the difference between having to replace an obsolete (yet still quite functional) piece of equipment and being able to get additional use out of it.

Photo Credit: John Haynes Photography, via Flickr

New ATI Drivers May Improve Video Performance

Video Playback Could Be Improved With New Driver

According to ATI, the new driver release will address a host of issues that arose from a variety of common actions, including playing YouTube videos using the Adobe Flash player on Firefox, and problems with video or system response while using certain games. The new drivers are available for immediate download.

ATI is one of the premiere video card manufacturers and it’s no surprise that these drivers contain a number of fixes for nagging issues. In addition to fixing problems, the driver updates also improve the performance of certain cards on specific games, like Left 4 Dead 2.

Not all Windows users are lucky enough to find driver updates so easily, however. For many users, the process of downloading and installing drivers manually is time-consuming and frustrating. Manufacturers often make several different updates available for either a variety of products or different configurations of the same or similar products.

New drivers may or may not be available based on the chipset that your computer or hardware device uses, and users may not know offhand which devices they have installed. This can be a recipe for disaster, or at least a lot of wasted time and poor outcomes. Downloading the wrong driver can be as bad as downloading no driver at all, or working with a damaged driver.

I always recommend working with a driver management software package like Driver Detective. Driver Detective has a database of millions of drivers and can determine precisely which drivers are required for your specific hardware configuration. You don’t have to worry about using the wrong drivers or missing a driver update.

Once Driver Detective is installed, you can trust it to monitor your existing drivers and look for updates. If an update is located, Driver Detective will automatically download it, install it and archive it.

The archiving feature is important because Driver Detective can also watch your system to make sure your existing drivers don’t get corrupted, damaged or deleted. Should this happen Driver Detective will download a fresh copy and you’ll be on your way! You can continue to hunt for new drivers, download them and install them as you always have, or you can automate the process and get back to work on the things that really mean something to you.

As for me, I’m going to try these new drivers on Left 4 Dead 2.

Photo Credit: Tom Francis, via Flickr