3 ms·

Allegedly Vista was going to 100% force XPS drivers, but because they dropped backward compatibility in the network and sound stacks they got a lot of push back

Allegedly Vista was going to 100% force XPS drivers, but because they dropped backward compatibility in the network and sound stacks they got a lot of push back that they were crossing too many backwards compatible lines and the printer companies were the ones with the most skin in the game (and cash warchests from ink cartridge sales; and yet the least incentives to update old drivers with better software) so they backed off. Appearances are they tried to break printer driver compatibility again in Windows 8 (which had some smart ideas on how to modernize the print stack but never got off the ground with them because no drivers adapted to the new stack; and then Windows 10 dropped most of what made the new stack special including not just moving everything into user space but moving everything into app sandboxes; no more annoying printer "background app" notifications and ads would have been amazing) and got worse pushback from the entrenched interests.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
You would think Microsoft would have enough might to push back on that. Which printer manufacturer is going to sell a printer without drivers for the dominant operating system.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Unfortunately, it would be the consumers that suffer if Microsoft did push back. Since somewhere in the 90s consumer printer drivers have been as much about DRM for ink cartridges as anything else. Microsoft isn't allowed the keys to the DRM so they can't make generic drivers for old hardware. The printer companies would love an excuse to force everyone off old hardware to new hardware with fancier DRM. Also, in terms of naming and shaming specific manufacturers, HP/HPE alone has already been known to hold entire industries hostage to old (unsupported) versions of Windows or the various whims of their AIX/HP-UX Unix-based OS efforts rather than support up-to-date drivers on Windows for printers and plotters (and medical equipment and other electronics). It really is easy to imagine them telling the same bad infosec advice to consumers if Microsoft were to break compatibility in their printer drivers. No one wants the chaos of supporting their family members trying to stick on an ancient unsupported Windows XP version simply because their reliable old inkjet printer told them to. Sure everyone thinks they want the Year of Linux on the Desktop, but no one actually wants to help a friend dual boot into HP-UX, and debug cups dump output for them, just to print something twice a year.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Have any printers had the DRM in the driver rather than the printer firmware? My experience working with printer manufacturers is most of them would love to not have the responsibility of writing printer drivers. If they could offload the work to MS they would be over the moon.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      I think we'd all benefit if Microsoft had more direct control over legacy print drivers. Printer manufacturers seem some of the worst offenders in bad driver software in general. I also assume that if Microsoft had the ability to create more generic printer drivers they would. Given the huge amount of older legacy hardware that falls under any of the other Generic Class Drivers it kind of sticks out as a sore thumb how few printers have generic drivers. (IIRC, there's a Generic PostScript driver that works with early [Apple led era] laser printers back when PostScript was new and considered sufficient as the only language between the computer and the printer, and nothing recent.) My understanding is that most inkjet printers especially speak OEM proprietary languages that's not just PostScript or PDF (or Microsoft's mostly failed dream of an open XML format with fewer patent hangups than PS/PDF they tried in XPS). You would assume some of those proprietary languages include commands at least ancillary to the cartridge DRM (initiating checks, validating DRM status codes and checksums, things like that) if not directly involved. DRM is the main reason to blame these proprietary languages for remaining proprietary and not well standardized across/between manufacturers (and thus don't leave us with enough generic OS printer drivers today), though it's probably not the sole reason for the proprietary languages. I'm sure the manufacturers also have other reasons for keeping their printers using proprietary languages such as not wanting to license PS/PDF or leak too many low level details of their hardware designs (beyond just possibly leaking DRM information) or patented "secret sauce" of their own languages they believe to be a competitive asset. Microsoft's XPS push was one attempt to get them off proprietary languages and allow them to offload far more driver work to Windows directly. Seems a shame none of the printer manufacturers seemed to take them up on that.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

You would think Microsoft would have enough might to push back on that. Which printer manufacturer is going to sell a printer without drivers for the dominant operating system.

WorldMaker 5y ago
Unfortunately, it would be the consumers that suffer if Microsoft did push back. Since somewhere in the 90s consumer printer drivers have been as much about DRM for ink cartridges as anything else. Microsoft isn't allowed the keys to the DRM so they can't make generic drivers for old hardware. The printer companies would love an excuse to force everyone off old hardware to new hardware with fancier DRM. Also, in terms of naming and shaming specific manufacturers, HP/HPE alone has already been known to hold entire industries hostage to old (unsupported) versions of Windows or the various whims of their AIX/HP-UX Unix-based OS efforts rather than support up-to-date drivers on Windows for printers and plotters (and medical equipment and other electronics). It really is easy to imagine them telling the same bad infosec advice to consumers if Microsoft were to break compatibility in their printer drivers. No one wants the chaos of supporting their family members trying to stick on an ancient unsupported Windows XP version simply because their reliable old inkjet printer told them to. Sure everyone thinks they want the Year of Linux on the Desktop, but no one actually wants to help a friend dual boot into HP-UX, and debug cups dump output for them, just to print something twice a year.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Have any printers had the DRM in the driver rather than the printer firmware? My experience working with printer manufacturers is most of them would love to not have the responsibility of writing printer drivers. If they could offload the work to MS they would be over the moon.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    I think we'd all benefit if Microsoft had more direct control over legacy print drivers. Printer manufacturers seem some of the worst offenders in bad driver software in general. I also assume that if Microsoft had the ability to create more generic printer drivers they would. Given the huge amount of older legacy hardware that falls under any of the other Generic Class Drivers it kind of sticks out as a sore thumb how few printers have generic drivers. (IIRC, there's a Generic PostScript driver that works with early [Apple led era] laser printers back when PostScript was new and considered sufficient as the only language between the computer and the printer, and nothing recent.) My understanding is that most inkjet printers especially speak OEM proprietary languages that's not just PostScript or PDF (or Microsoft's mostly failed dream of an open XML format with fewer patent hangups than PS/PDF they tried in XPS). You would assume some of those proprietary languages include commands at least ancillary to the cartridge DRM (initiating checks, validating DRM status codes and checksums, things like that) if not directly involved. DRM is the main reason to blame these proprietary languages for remaining proprietary and not well standardized across/between manufacturers (and thus don't leave us with enough generic OS printer drivers today), though it's probably not the sole reason for the proprietary languages. I'm sure the manufacturers also have other reasons for keeping their printers using proprietary languages such as not wanting to license PS/PDF or leak too many low level details of their hardware designs (beyond just possibly leaking DRM information) or patented "secret sauce" of their own languages they believe to be a competitive asset. Microsoft's XPS push was one attempt to get them off proprietary languages and allow them to offload far more driver work to Windows directly. Seems a shame none of the printer manufacturers seemed to take them up on that.