rudedog, another quick question on Win98, specificly re: drivers. I recall that Win98 was supposed to have the new Windows Driver Model (WDM) that was supposed to allow common drivers between Win9x and NT. Putting aside from the dubious motivation for that now, given Win98 as the end of the line, does Win98 require new drivers for everything? I'd hope not, but if that's true it ought to be publicized for the sake of the poor unwashed masses purchasing retail upgrades.
The succession of driver models for the Windows flavors, win3x (mostly in the apps?), Win95, NT3.5, NT4.0, (don't know anything about pre-NT3) must cause the poor highly competitive peripheral co.s to pull hair, along with anybody else trying to upgrade. Of course, given hardware trends, OS upgrades on existing hardware is more than ever a very dubious proposition versus concurrent hardware/software upgrade. Then again, how many machines that shipped pre-Win95 launch ever did a decent job running it?
Jesse Berst had an old column on this, re: getting machines upgradable to NT5 or upgrading Win3x or something. His solution: run the old hardware till it drops, get the new OS bundled with new hardware. Of course, the OEMs would have to howl at that one for people looking forward to NT5.
Oops, so much for the quick question, but to repeat, does Win98 require new drivers for everything, or just some stuff?
Cheers, Dan. |
