The equivalent in the linux world would be removing a driver from the main repo, requiring the user to either install the rpm/deb manually or use a third party repo.
Refusing to do work to say make a xp era printer work in Windows 11 is perfectly comprehensible you aren't owed that labor and even support from a vendor is finite in duration but actively disabling working hardware when the vendor has already done the work feels more like vandalism.
The blog post says "they are removing old drivers that *are not being offered* to anyone. They are starting with the subset that also *has newer replacements*, and they will publish the name of drivers removed, and wait for 6 months to hear from any hardware vendors about any concerns. The entire post is target at their driver vendors to maintain their listing in their driver repository better. I'm guessing Microsoft ignored that for decades, and hardware vendors have submitted tons of drivers over the last 25 years and they have a clean up initiative. How is that like crazy?
> Once that happens, only the hardware partner who published it can bring it back. But there’s a catch. Microsoft may demand a business justification before allowing a republish. And if the partner doesn’t respond within six months, the driver is deleted permanently.
> And while the company claims this is about improving security and reducing compatibility issues, the reality is that it’s cutting support for a lot of older devices in the name of modernization.
> In other words, things that used to work might just stop working.
> Microsoft’s cleanup may sound responsible on the surface, but for anyone still clinging to older hardware or niche accessories, it might feel more like abandonment. Once a driver disappears, finding it again could become a scavenger hunt.
One can spin anything.
> But there’s a catch. Microsoft may demand a business justification before allowing a republish. And if the partner doesn’t respond within six months, the driver is deleted permanently.
Ok.. and? You're complaining that 6 months isn't enough for a hardware vendor who published a driver that has a replacement and they believe there is a newer replacement for (but they could be wrong)? You're complaining that they might ask "why?"
Say Debian maintainers want to get in touch with a package maintainer. They are thinking of removing it from their repository because no one is using it and there are tings about it they are not sure. They ping the package maintainer. Is it unreasonable to expect a reply in 6 months? should it be 12? 24? Is is also unreasonable for Debian maintainers to ask "Why?" if the package owner's answer (oh no, please keep it)?
> And while the company claims this is about improving security and reducing compatibility issues, the reality is that it’s cutting support for a lot of older devices in the name of modernization.
Ok, editorializing is fine, but literally nothing in the Microsoft post says they are removing drivers from devices and leaving them without drivers. They are removing older expired versions of drivers. Is it possible that a particular old version of a driver is very important for a particular scenario that newer version of the same driver don't cover? Of course. How in the hell would Microsoft know that? They presumably have telemetry on downloads, loaded drivers, etc. But they still can't cover everything.
> In other words, things that used to work might just stop working.
In other words, never make any changes. Things that used to work might just stop working. ok..
> Microsoft’s cleanup may sound responsible on the surface, but for anyone still clinging to older hardware or niche accessories, it might feel more like abandonment. Once a driver disappears, finding it again could become a scavenger hunt.
oh a scavenger hunt, sounds fun.
I don't know what their process is.
Here's one recent(ish) example:
https://support.hp.com/ro-en/document/ish_11892982-11893015-...
Maybe. Maybe not. It's impossible to know without understanding how the PC is used.
Because Windows gets direct support from most HW vendors, it's generic drivers don't have to be as good as Linux's in general, but still they work fine.
Printers are very special case. They are a shitshow in different ways between Windows and Linux.
Windows printer support is from like 1920s or some shit and they can't change it and it's just bad. BUT, if you have weird ass Xerox or HP with crazy features like a printer that will print, stable, copy, re-copy, and then automatically shred the documents and their copies is likely to only ever be controllable through some HP software from 2006 that hasn't been updated since then but somehow still works on Windows.
On linux, you get much better printing service and generic support, but depending on the popularity of your office printer and the popularity of particular feature you're trying to use, it might not be in the drivers.
> The first phase targets legacy drivers that have newer replacements already on Windows Update.
Closed-source bobs are closely tied to the kernel version, since the kernel’s internal ABI and API is constantly changing. There is some documentation on why here: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/...
But also because NT interface is mostly stable unlike linux. last really major version was 20 years ago and there Microsoft doesn't need to maintain 3rd party drivers in-tree. Also, the licensing and distribution mechanism and vehicles make certain things too complex.
Also plenty of people don't like these linux kernel images and build stripped down ones.
As the kernel is maintained, polished, and updated, all drivers are maintained as well.
Proprietary blobs otoh, will break quickly, and have to constantly keep up with new kernel releases.
> Linux Delivering Driver Fix For 30 Year Old Creative SoundBlaster AWE32 ISA Sound Card
Linux is more likely to have a driver for some obscure hardware, because no one has actually been comfortable removing it in the past decade, but it's also not actually tested on actual hardware. Unless it's an Itanium CPU, in which case the code is gone.
We had the same story regarding file systems last year. Technically Linux had a driver for an old Unix filesystem, but it had only been tested on filesystems made with the same driver/filesystem-code, not on actual disks with the original filesystem.
The Linux advantage is that if you really need that hardware to work, you might get lucky, and if not, you're not starting from scratch.
You have choices. Make them.
> the Intel graphics driver keeps getting downgraded by Windows Update
Windows Update won't remove your already installed driver and replace it with nothing. Not that I'd find that shocking but that's not what's supposedly happening here.
Though like... they are reviewing their driver store and notifying hardware partners who publish and maintain drivers in their repository to re-visit and/or resubmit their drivers in an attempt to clean up old stuff. I'm super mad at stuff....
>legacy drivers published on Windows Update
You can still go download the legacy drivers directly. They just wont be automatically installed/updated via Windows Update. No devices are being bricked, your PC isn't breaking.
I get that Microsoft is the most evil company in the world, or whatever, but this is way overblown.
Directly from where? This is likely to be an issue too for older hardware.
> this could mean unexplained failures after a Windows update
I'm not sure how the author concludes that. From https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/hardwaredevcenter/r...:
> The first phase targets legacy drivers that have newer replacements already on Windows Update.
So only outdated drivers with replacements will be removed.
Likewise:
> Technically, expiring a driver means removing all its audience assignments in Hardware Development Center, which stops Windows Update from offering that driver to devices.
I don't interpret that as Windows Update proactively removing a driver that's already downloaded to a computer.
methuselah_in•7mo ago