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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I think the software manufacturers try hard to avoid creating additional problems when they release a Windows driver update, but unfortunately, sometimes that’s exactly what happens. Driver updates should be pleasant and painless, but for some reason, they’re not.

Updating Drivers Is A Necessary Step

Updating drivers isn’t always an automatic process. In fact, there are several holes in what appears to be an “automated” update regimen that may leave users without the most current version of a driver, or with a driver version that doesn’t work the way it should.

First, most drivers you use on your Windows computer come from someplace other than Microsoft. Some – but not all – manufacturers use the Windows update to distribute driver updates. There are – to say the least – several noticeable absences. (Think Dell.) If your driver updates aren’t delivered to your computer, and you have no reliable mechanism to find out about driver updates, you could find yourself several revisions behind.

This usually crops up after a Windows update has been applied and some of your drivers no longer work, or do things you’re not expecting. If you find yourself in this situation, the best thing to do is verify – by going back to the manufacturer’s support site, if necessary – that you have the most current version of the hardware driver that supports your errant device.

Of course, going straight to the source will help ensure that you get the driver you’re looking for, but many users don’t know exactly what system they have or what driver they need. Download and install the right driver and everything is fine. Download and install the wrong driver, and well – let’s just say that things could get interesting.

If you’ve picked up a driver update from Windows Update and your hardware devices stop working as advertised, Windows may have delivered the wrong update to your computer. As I said, I think the manufacturers (and Microsoft) try hard to make sure this doesn’t happen, but occasionally it does happen. Again, the solution is to go back to the driver source and select, download and install the correct driver.

I’ve said it before. I’m not really a fan of doing dull maintenance work on my computer, and downloading drivers falls into the “dull maintenance work” category. I use a driver maintenance program called Driver Detective to manage all of the Windows drivers on my computer.

Driver Detective takes the guesswork out of driver maintenance and also helps to ensure that I get the most recent driver updates as soon as they become available. Check out Driver Detective for your driver maintenance needs.

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I’m a big proponent of doing regular Windows driver maintenance. I’ve never been shy about saying that you need to keep your drivers updated. Updating your drivers, however, isn’t the only thing you need to know how to do when it comes to Windows driver maintenance. You also need to know how to install and uninstall new drivers.

Automatic Installation Doesn’t Always Provide Good Results

If you maintain your drivers on your own – that is, you personally download the drivers and go through the installation routine – you may find yourself in a tight spot on occasion. There are times when it is either desirable or necessary to roll back a driver installation – that is, go back to the older version you had been using. If you don’t know how to roll back your driver upgrade/update, you can spend a lot of fruitless and frustrating hours dealing with your non-functional or semi-functional computer, bricked hardware or unexpected system crashes.

Why? Sometimes a new driver update doesn’t work as advertised, or it “breaks” something else you need or want on your computer. In either of these cases, getting your computer back to the condition it was in before the update is the only way to reclaim your lost functions or rid yourself of troublesome software.

If you believe Microsoft, most system crashes are the result of bad third-party drivers. Whether that’s true or not makes little difference when your system has crashed for the umpteenth time and you’re simply trying to get your system back together. If you find yourself in the position of having installed a new driver, and then you experience system crashes, instabilities, or your attached hardware no longer works properly, you may want to roll back the suspect driver to an earlier version. To do this, you’ll need the Device Manager.

Access the Device Manager through the Run box under the Start menu by entering “Device Manager” and press Enter. The Device Manager manages all devices connected to your computer, so you’ll need to find the “category” your suspect driver falls into. Double-click on the suspect to open the Properties dialog box. Under the Driver tab, you’ll find a button labeled “Roll back driver.” This option should uninstall the suspect driver and reinstall the next most-recent version.

If this seems like a lot of work, it is. That’s why I recommend Driver Detective as an alternative to maintaining your drivers manually. Driver Detective will seek out, download, install and maintain a copy of the current driver, as well as historical drivers that enable you to roll back to an earlier version. If your current driver becomes corrupted, Driver Detective has everything on hand to reinstall a fresh copy of the driver automatically. Download a copy today and see for yourself what a difference Driver Detective can make.

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On Tuesday, Microsoft released the long awaited kernel mode driver patch that will close the Duqu vulnerability. The Duqu worm has been making the rounds for several months and takes advantage of a weakness in the True Type Font engine. Last month, as a temporary fix, Microsoft distributed a workaround that basically disabled the vulnerable code.

Duqu Shares Some Traits of Stuxnet

In the months that it was in the wild, Duqu was widely distributed throughout Europe and the United States. The vulnerability was particularly troublesome because it will allow a malefactor to gain administrative access to an infected computer, and will allow the installation and execution of software, administrative tasks like account creation and the compromise of user data.

The Patch Tuesday delivery contained 13 updates for various flaws. Originally, Microsoft planned to roll out 14 patches, but one was pulled back to address some compatibility issues. With Tuesday’s rollout, Microsoft has delivered 99 updates so far in 2011. The company hasn’t necessarily closed the books on updates, though. Microsoft often issues a minor “Patch Tuesday” on the fourth Tuesday of the month, which this year falls on December 27.

In addition to putting the brakes on Duqu, Microsoft addressed 18 other known vulnerabilities in 12 patches. Those vulnerabilities included critical or important holes in Active X, Windows Media Player/Windows Media Center, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Active Directory and Internet Explorer that could potentially allow the execution of code by a remote user. Microsoft also fixed “important” vulnerabilities in Office, the client/server runtime system and the Windows kernel that could allow a malicious user to gain additional privileges.

Microsoft also took the opportunity to release a new version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, presumably equipped to do battle with Duqu. The worm was officially discovered on September 1 by researchers at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Despite the Star Wars-esque sounding name, the Budapest researchers named the worm based on files the malware creates, which are prefixed with the characters “-DQ.”

Despite extensive research, Duqu’s purpose isn’t known. The worm bears a strong resemblance to Stuxnet, and was originally mistaken for Stuxnet by some Internet security firms. Like Stuxnet, Duqu makes use of stolen signed security certificates and also appears to uninstall itself after 36 days of active infection. Attacking servers have been found in Germany, Belgium and China, but security experts are still unsure of Duqu’s intended targets.

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