In the absence of drivers written specifically for windows 2000, which drivers should I try first: the win98 or the nt4 drivers (to see whether they work)?
As I understand it, win98 introduced a new driver model that's _supposed_ to be native (but maybe non-preferred) for win2000 as well, so that in theory a driver written to the new standard should support both win98 and win2000.
However, I'm also under the impression that windows 2000 can deal with nt4 drivers the same way that win98 can deal with win95 drivers. Sometimes.
Assuming that I'm right on both counts (I could be dead wrong), should I try the win98 driver first, on the assumption that it will either work better than the nt4 driver (because it was written to support the new standard and thus be supported natively) or die a horrible death (if it was written for win95 and just happens to be supported by win98 in backwards-compatibility mode).
I suspect that even if it's true about 98 drivers, the vast majority of so-called "win98" drivers are really just written to the win95 driver model.
Of course, there's also the possibility that even drivers nominally written to the new spec (in theory) might not work, because the author(s) took shortcuts that win98 didn't notice, but win2k will notice and scream loudly about.
Of course, there's also the spectre that even drivers nominally written to the new spec (in theory) might not work, because the author(s) took shortcuts that win98 didn't notice, but win2k will notice and scream loudly about.
Still, I'd like to find out a definitive answer for this... Lots of people have been asking me, and I really hate not knowing for sure.
At any rate, in my experience, using Win98 drivers results in stuff breaking. If it does indeed say to use Win98 drivers in the docs, I still think they should be avoided, even if it means not having a functioning peice of hardware.
If you don't avoid it, you will no doubt sacrifice stability.