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I think this is a good spot for this rant I've had brewing awhile... <rant> I get so tired of Microsoft's continual half assing of literally everything, but e

I think this is a good spot for this rant I've had brewing awhile... <rant> I get so tired of Microsoft's continual half assing of literally everything, but especially when it comes to things like this, where they're trying to move forward across multiple avenues to keep everyone happy. They do this constantly, it compromises their software quality, compromises driver stacks, because they are simultaneously trying to have new features AND legacy support, and they do this for EVERYTHING. Apple does things all the time that I don't like (especially as an iOS developer) but my experience has taught me that though whatever they've done may suck in the short term, that there's a larger plan at work and it will probably benefit me in the long run. I have NO such trust in Microsoft, because every time they have a moment where they need to say "hey, this is fucked, we need to move on to something better" it's ALWAYS followed by "but don't worry we'll still be supporting all the old garbage to the detriment of our OS as a whole." I have little love for Windows 10, I don't like the phoning home every ten minutes, I think the UI is ugly as sin, etc. but that is the future and I accept that. At some point I will need to make that leap in all likelihood, and this continued "well you really should upgrade but it's ok if you don't want to" crap just makes me terrified as to what kind of pandora's box is awaiting me when I decide to make said leap. Exactly how much stuff is going to be broken because they had to make DOS applications from 95 work on their NEW operating system? Microsoft: Shit or leave the toilet. If you're going to bank hard on Windows 10 then make sure it's something WORTH BANKING ON. </rant>

cptskippy 10y ago
I would argue that Microsoft's greatest weakness is also their greatest strength. My 13 year old scanner works just fine in Windows 10 with it's XP drivers, the same can't be said of my Wife's 5 year old scanner on her Mac. I didn't dare tell her it worked fine on Windows too for fear she might throw her Air through a window.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  To be fair, printers and scanners in OS X are much like they are in linux: They either work perfectly immediately, or they'll never work no matter how much you try. There is no middle ground in my experience. I don't know enough about how print services/drivers work to make any meaningful statements, I'm just happy I got a printer/mac combination that works well.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    That's generally been my experience as well with Macs but I've never had much trouble getting a printer or scanner to work on Linux. That might just be a function of when I tried however because I remember around 2008-2009 when it was pretty futile to get WiFi working reliably on Linux, that is no longer the case.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  If you're trying to run an old scanner on a Mac, look into Vuescan scanning software. My wife is still running a very old Canoscan scanner on her iMac with it. Vuescan supports almost everything that's not a drum scanner.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    This is what really irks me about Apple and OSX. Things work fine until they don't at which point you need to pay a third party $40-90 so that your hardware will work again. If I were sitting on some professional multi-thousand dollar hardware this might be acceptable, but I'm not pay that much for a cheap USB scanner I spent less than $100.
    - Finnucane 10y ago
      Is it Apple's fault if the manufacturers discontinue the drivers?
      - cptskippy 10y ago
        The problem isn't manufacturers discontinuing drivers, it's that Apple changes the requirements for a driver to operate with each release of it's OS making it necessary for driver manufacturers to produce new or updated drivers. For a company like HP or Canon with 10s of thousands of products in it's portfolio that's untenable, and with OSX only being a minuscule portion of their user base it becomes a huge waste of time and money.

cptskippy 10y ago

I would argue that Microsoft's greatest weakness is also their greatest strength. My 13 year old scanner works just fine in Windows 10 with it's XP drivers, the same can't be said of my Wife's 5 year old scanner on her Mac. I didn't dare tell her it worked fine on Windows too for fear she might throw her Air through a window.

FussyZeus 10y ago
To be fair, printers and scanners in OS X are much like they are in linux: They either work perfectly immediately, or they'll never work no matter how much you try. There is no middle ground in my experience. I don't know enough about how print services/drivers work to make any meaningful statements, I'm just happy I got a printer/mac combination that works well.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  That's generally been my experience as well with Macs but I've never had much trouble getting a printer or scanner to work on Linux. That might just be a function of when I tried however because I remember around 2008-2009 when it was pretty futile to get WiFi working reliably on Linux, that is no longer the case.
Finnucane 10y ago
If you're trying to run an old scanner on a Mac, look into Vuescan scanning software. My wife is still running a very old Canoscan scanner on her iMac with it. Vuescan supports almost everything that's not a drum scanner.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  This is what really irks me about Apple and OSX. Things work fine until they don't at which point you need to pay a third party $40-90 so that your hardware will work again. If I were sitting on some professional multi-thousand dollar hardware this might be acceptable, but I'm not pay that much for a cheap USB scanner I spent less than $100.
  - Finnucane 10y ago
    Is it Apple's fault if the manufacturers discontinue the drivers?
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      The problem isn't manufacturers discontinuing drivers, it's that Apple changes the requirements for a driver to operate with each release of it's OS making it necessary for driver manufacturers to produce new or updated drivers. For a company like HP or Canon with 10s of thousands of products in it's portfolio that's untenable, and with OSX only being a minuscule portion of their user base it becomes a huge waste of time and money.