If you want to be as sure as is possible that your printer will be supported
by each successive iteration of a given operating system, get either a
PostScript printer or a PCL printer. There is no guarantee, but at least the
balance of probabilities is with you.
Some XP drivers will install and work work if you disable driver checking
upon Vista start-up. However, this is only useful for testing purposes. It
is a very bad idea to have driver checking turned off for normal system
operation. It is a security issue.
As for the legal question-for advice upon which you intend to rely, consult
a lawyer. That being said, printer manufacturers are responsible for
providing device drivers for their hardware. Microsoft do test and
distribute some of these under some sort of "logo program" as a service to
their customs through the update facility.
Best of luck finding a suitable printer and driver.
--
Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007
"Tony29" <Ton29@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:066FB9FC-D5E7-4732-B5E9-709644A567BA@xxxxxx
Quote:
> Given that there are many posts related to the eye-opening realisation
> that,
> if you have a printer that works beautifully on XP (Or earlier) you will
> not
> be guaranteed that same full functionality of the printer once you adopt
> Vista, what is going to be done about it? I have an Epson CX3650 that
> Epson
> state will never have a full functioning Vista driver developed by them -
> I
> can no longer do draft prints (and a whole pile of other problems to which
> people have already referred on this forum). So, who is our printer
> driver
> supplier now - Microsoft?
>
> It's no use saying - use the Microsoft auto install; use the drivers
> supplied by the manufacturer - there is no tecnical solution to overcome
> this
> disregard for the client community which is being demonstrated by
> Microsoft
> in collaboration with printer manufacturers.
>
> The question to the forum is - how do you get Microsoft to provide fully
> functioning drivers for printers that they (for marketing purposes) want
> to
> have in their pool of In-box drivers? Is there an anti-trust issue here?