if no win2k specific drivers, which to try: nt4 or win98?
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.
Win98, Win98SE, Win95 drivers are all more or less the same. None interact with the HAL, instead, they interact directly with the hardware itself. This won't work in NT because of security, and therefor won't work in Win2K.
If Win2K drivers don't exists (chances are they will soon) use NT4 drivers only. Using Win9x drivers will result in unpredicable outcomes.
So stay with the NT4 drivers and ask (seek) for W2K drivers
Mario
Win9x drivers are NOT for Win2k. Do NOT use them.
Mario
See: "Surveying the New Win32 Driver Model for Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/periodic/period97/wdm1211.htm
(Yay! I KNEW I wasn't hallucinating & that it was for real, even if most of my friends thought I was crazy...)
In a nutshell, it basically says that a flawlessly-executed Windows 2000 driver can also work under Windows 98 *** IF *** the developer implements everything perfectly, takes no shortcuts, provides an occasional alternate method within the driver to be used by Win98, and gets really lucky.
While this might imply that a really progressive forward-looking developer might conceivably have written such a driver months ago and released it as a "Windows 98" driver, the odds of that actually happening in real-world corporate America is pretty slim (I'm a developer myself, although I don't do drivers, and god knows how many holy wars I've had over the issue of "elegant and flawless vs. good enough to sell")
Thus, as a practical matter, the fallback strategy looks like:
1. Win2000-certified
2. Win2000 beta, unless it has a bug bad enough to render it unusable
3. Win NT4 certified
4. NT 4 uncertified
5. Win98 certified -- but light a few candles & sacrifice a chicken first :-)
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