New OS - new hardware!

[BobF64]

High horse - me?
What other industry can sell something that effectively self-destructs in 4 years irrespective of the amount of use?

But it hasnt self-destructed, it still works on the supported platforms. The key being "supported".

In most other industries, once youve been sold the item it is no longer up to the manufacturer to keep it "up to date", beyond their legal safety requirements.

It is in the manufacturers' interest to keep existing customers like me. Currently they shaft customers like you and you seem to enjoy it!

Ideally yes, but it is in the manufacturers interests to keep selling the latest models, because they get the most money with least problems and offer newer, sometimes better, features.

It really depends on how long the product has been on the market. If its more than 1 or 2 years old, then its likely to have been replaced and made obsolete.
Now, if its still their only product, then they really should work to support it.

[Syllopsium]

Trust is a low rent clone hardware maker; it's the luck of the draw whether their products continue to be supported across OS releases.

If you think Windows 7 not easily being supported is bad, try generic bluetooth dongles in the XP era. The hardware was pretty much identical whether a tenner or thirty quid was paid. The bluetooth stack was licensed from WIDCOMM, IIRC, but did not necessarily include updates. This meant that when SP2 came out and a few driver internals changed the cheapo clone manufacturers drivers stopped working as the code update was locked to internal hardware IDs. Larger manufacturers kept up the licensing fees and this problem did not arise.

Of course when Vista came out with a bundled Microsoft bluetooth stack the hardware started working again!

I also have an ST1200; it's going to be placed in an old PII box running Linux as I don't fancy leaving a new Windows PC on all day.

PK

[Geomath]

According to Hexus the unit was released end of 2005 - 5 months after Longhorn was announced. Vista was released to OEMs before the end of 2006. Full Vista arrived start of 2007.
So yes, BobF64, I was wrong - it was a little over 1 year, not 4. The manufacturer was aware of the imminent release of a new OS before he launched his product and, as I have subsequently found out, was only a badged unit at that. Was that morally right?

I don't believe that future-proofing/on-going support is a luxury for a responsible company.
Clearly i/o, such as PCMCIA, can be superseded and I would not suggest that it is taken that far but USB is now v3 and is backwardly compatible. There is no excuse for USB1 equipment to be chucked out just because it is older than your "1 or 2 years".

To everyone:! I know companies want to sell more equipment but it is surely better that they sell to their happy customer-base than hissing them off and having to find new mugs?

Perhaps Hexus (moderator required!) should update their reviews of products to reflect newer OS support!

At least Vista drivers work in W7 but manufactures ignore the next release at their peril.

[scaryjim]

... Was that morally right? ...

... Perhaps Hexus ... should update their reviews of products to reflect newer OS support! ...

... manufactures ignore the next release at their peril.

What have morals got to do with it? Since when did a company have a "moral" obligation to do anything, let alone predict the future? The device does not claim to be supported under Vista or 7. If you'd asked the (r)etailer whether it worked with 7 and they'd said it did you'd have a point, but I don't believe (from what you've said so far) that you did...

Do you really expect a commercial publishing enterprise like Hexus to update every review between late 2001 and early 2007 just to detail whether the device is compatible with a new OS? Hexus review products as they receive them, on the best available platform at the time. it would be a massive task to update every review, and really quite a fruitless one. You knew the Hexus review was dated from before Vista was released, so you can hardly complain that it doesn't mention the compatibility of a device with an OS that wouldn't be released for over a year. Be reasonable, please...

I suspect Trust are actually quite happy that you've just bought a 4.5 year old product off them, and won't really care that much if you've had problems making it work on an OS that it doesn't claim to support. Manufacturers will support new OSes based on the financial viability of doing so. If Microsoft make extensive changes to the driver model and Windows APIs when Windows Next rolls round, the extra work to support existing hardware in the new model might be too much for a lot of companies to bear. In which case, they'll shelve support for older models and bring out new ones. ATI have done this with all pre-HD2000 graphics cards and Windows 7, and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm...

[Geomath]

Hey - you know I don't really care.
Some peeps either misread my posts or read too deeply into them.
I am pleased that scaryjim et al replace all their kit every 3 years.
Me, I am sphincter-aware. My 386/20MB HDD/2MB RAM/Win3.1/3.5+5"floppy state-of-the-art PC is faster than I need anyway. OK so it doesn't have a blue LED but what good are they anyway?
Sodom today, Gomorrah tomorrow.

[dangel]

Hey - you know I don't really care.
Some peeps either misread my posts or read too deeply into them.
I am pleased that scaryjim et al replace all their kit every 3 years.
Me, I am sphincter-aware. My 386/20MB HDD/2MB RAM/Win3.1/3.5+5"floppy state-of-the-art PC is faster than I need anyway. OK so it doesn't have a blue LED but what good are they anyway?
Sodom today, Gomorrah tomorrow.

Feel better now? Really, easy on the sarcasm - people aren't winding you up and it's a reasonable view in all honesty that's being put across. I get you're upset n'all that (had the same with a webcam incidentally) but such is life n'all that and really you'd be better directing it at the manufacturer if you want to affect change. Just a thought.

[Geomath]

OK dangle - I did go a bit far with the 386...
The simple PSDN/USB switch I used as an example will only be improved or made redundant when we abandon USB and/or landlines.
No one appears to want to challenge manufacturers, indeed, most seem to support them. I am too ready to part with my cash for pointy-end technology as my 4-PC network (not the 386!) and 5TB will attest. But I'll be damned if I'd buy a new light switch just because the eco-bulbs don't support dimmers.

Unless we rant and rave we will be shafted, repeatedly!
Don't let them get away with it.

[scaryjim]

... I'll be damned if I'd buy a new light switch just because the eco-bulbs don't support dimmers ...

I would do that, though - but only because I don't think dimmer lights are actually that beneficial: if i want dimmer lighting I'll use a lamp And besides, you know in advance that CFLs don't work with your dimmer switches so it's your own fault if you buy some and they don't work properly

A quick Bing shows that the Trust ST-1200 "is no longer available in the current Trust assortment." (incidentally, the requirements page on their site also says just "Windows 2000 or Windows XP", not "minimum"), which might have given you an idea that support would be thin on the ground.

I can understand your frustration, and I think I agree with your general point about poor driver support (I remember waiting months for XP x64 drivers for an HP multifunction printer), I just think you picked the wrong specifics to have a go at. I suspect there are some manufacturers out there that guarantee driver support for x nunmber of years from product release, but I suspect you have to pay a damn site more than £20 - £30 for their products! If I ever feel I've been genuinely ripped off I have a go - I once got a full refund from Avria because their website stated Windows XP was supported without specifying that it was only 32bit, not 64bit - but I also respect that manufacturers have to make their own call about what is and isn't profitable, and that my anger - and indeed, losing my custom - isn't going to change their profitability. Personally, if I was you I'd've been venting more towards the (r)etailer you bought it off - give them a hard enough time and they might have given you a refund just to get you off their back

[Geomath]

This is great! I posted another thread for help about portable scanners and got squat. Made a remark about OS-dependent hardware and get spammed!

The scanner is a good example. Battery-powered, mini-SD card storage, hence Gates-free. If I can keep the dog off it it should be still be usable for my obituary (which may be fairly soon at this rate).

I would do that, though - but only because I don't think dimmer lights are actually that beneficial: if i want dimmer lighting I'll use a lamp

Exactly! Why have one peripheral when two can do the job less well!

[arbitrabbit]

Hmm, I was in a similar situation so I installed Ubuntu Linux on a old Pentium II with 256mb ram that I had lying around and now use that as my print server and scanning station now. Couple with Samba for sharing folders with my Windows laptops, that is a great solution. It is surprsing how well the old hardware works with Linux out of the box

[lodore]

The thing is if more manufacturers made open source drivers it wouldn't be a problem since after the manufacturer stopped updating the driver someone else could.

for example it annoys me that drivers from amd and nvidia are proprietary since they make money from the hardware why do they need to have a closed sourced driver?

i will give another example. the sony music player i have uses sonicstage to get music on and off of it.
you download a small installer and then the rest is downloaded from sony servers. atm i use sonicstage on my parents machine since it was discontinued and not sure if i would be able to get it to work on windows 7. i may try to find a full installer just incase sony stops the mini installer from working.

the point is proprietary software is a bad thing. luckily the newer sony music players support drag and drop so you will be able to use it for the live of the device itself and not as long as the company provides software for it.

other industries dont seem to have the same problems. people dont have to worry about not being able to play old dvd's in new players do they?
a dvd is a dvd.

Microsoft should stop charging so much for driver certification and stop changing drivers around so much that vendors are effectively forced to stop supporting products.

the computer industry seems to be able to get away with anything they want. Microsoft can charge as much as they want because most people have windows so companies have to support it.

can you name any other industry that would allow one company over 90percent of the market?

there is so many companies that make great hardware but make you use crap bloated proprietary software with it. examples include sony,creative,HP,logitech etc.

[CWH]

A nice post and I agree with the greater part of it.
However,producing a signed driver for M/S is no price at all to most Companies. All that's needed is a Publisher Identity Certificate (PIC) from Microsoft, (which is free), plus they, the software publishers, are required to purchase a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate which is around £300. Not too much of an outlay for commercial Companies that we are talking about in this thread.

Colin

[arbitrabbit]

A nice post and I agree with the greater part of it.
However,producing a signed driver for M/S is no price at all to most Companies. All that's needed is a Publisher Identity Certificate (PIC) from Microsoft, (which is free), plus they, the software publishers, are required to purchase a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate which is around £300. Not too much of an outlay for commercial Companies that we are talking about in this thread.

Colin

I haven't done any driver development on Windows in a while so my information might be a bit outdated but back AFAIK, Windows does charge you for certification for the simple reason that you need to get the driver tested in an approved lab to get the certification, which costs money. Else you get the warning about the driver in Windows, which most companies don't want.

[runeks]

I agree with a couple of posters above. Have you tried to see if it's supported in Linux?
Of course, no one can make the manufacturer support the device forever, but once the driver is in Linux and Linux changes something so the driver incompatible loses compatibility, they can update the driver source code and make it compatible again, because the source code is public. They can't do this with Windows because no one can compile Windows but Microsoft.
So I'd suggest checking out Linux compatibility when buying new hardware.

[thrustmaster]

Download virtual PC with Windows XP mode and try it there?