MS Downloads of Dell Graphics Drivers?

"HillBillyBuddhist" writes:
....
Baddog is exactly correct and seems to know (on this topic at least :-)
exactly what he's talking about.

Downloading device drivers from WUD is a bad idea. Spend a little time in
the Microsoft Public Newsgroups and you'll find that even Microsoft MVPs
recommend obtaining drivers from the manufacturer of the device as opposed
to WUD.

Since it seems that everyone agrees with this, even those who many think
don't have a clue and the Microsoft approved MVP's...

WHY does Microsoft still provide this universally agreed bad feature?

"Don Taylor" wrote in message
...
"HillBillyBuddhist" writes:
...
Baddog is exactly correct and seems to know (on this topic at least :-)
exactly what he's talking about.

Downloading device drivers from WUD is a bad idea. Spend a little time in
the Microsoft Public Newsgroups and you'll find that even Microsoft MVPs
recommend obtaining drivers from the manufacturer of the device as opposed
to WUD.

Since it seems that everyone agrees with this, even those who many think
don't have a clue and the Microsoft approved MVP's...

WHY does Microsoft still provide this universally agreed bad feature?

As explained earlier in the thread.

"This is for the benefit of enterprise level hardware on which manufacturers
"extended"
drivers are not needed."

--
D

Ben Myers wrote:
What's happening is that you can't trust Microsoft's update to always do the
right thing. This has always been the case. As with anything else Microsoft
touches, they have made software updates so damned complicated that they confuse
themselves... Ben Myers

Beyond that, it's in MS's best interest to only push updates that will
support the lowest common denominator of hardware. If an older update
supports more hardware at a slight cost of performance, the'll go that
route every time.

"Nicholas Andrade" wrote in message ...
Ben Myers wrote:
What's happening is that you can't trust Microsoft's update to always do the
right thing. This has always been the case. As with anything else Microsoft
touches, they have made software updates so damned complicated that they confuse
themselves... Ben Myers

Beyond that, it's in MS's best interest to only push updates that will
support the lowest common denominator of hardware. If an older update
supports more hardware at a slight cost of performance, the'll go that
route every time.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/maintain/DrvUpdate.mspx

Apparently the local NG thugs have a reading impairment. I said from the
getgo that one should get their drivers from the mfg IF current. If WinUp
has a more recent driver then use the one from WinUp.

Is there anyone here with a clue? Go read what the experts in the
microsoft.* NGs have to say in more detail. You'll get an education.

"HillBillyBuddhist" wrote in message
. ..
| Microsoft offer basic driver sets for popular hardware. This is for
the
| benefit of enterprise level hardware on which manufacturers "extended"
| drivers are not needed. While some of these drivers are supplied by
the
| manufacturers themselves, quite often they are generic non-OEm drivers
| developed by Microsoft. In general terms, these drivers are baseline
| drivers, intended for installation on mission hardware with a minimum
| footprint and still provide functionality.
|
| If there's any content to that gibber it's hard to find.
|
| They are not and never have been recommended as replacements or
| enhancements
| to the manufacturers drivers designed for consumer machines.
| A simple experiment will demonstrate this;
|
| 1. Download the latest driver posted at Dell; save it on your HDD but
| don't
| install it.
| 2. Download the "same" driver form the Microsoft website. Save it to
your
| HDD and don't install it.
|
| Now, simply compare the file sizes.
|
| Hmmm....
|
| WOW, do you have any clue regarding these matters? You must claim that
the
| color of the website banner come into this somewhere?
|

Fred,

Baddog is exactly correct and seems to know (on this topic at least :-)
exactly what he's talking about.

Downloading device drivers from WUD is a bad idea. Spend a little time in
the Microsoft Public Newsgroups and you'll find that even Microsoft MVPs
recommend obtaining drivers from the manufacturer of the device as opposed
to WUD.

As baddog correctly stated the drivers offered @ WUD basic functionality
generally are missing extended functions that the manufacturers driver
provide.

A frequent thread in the MS Newsgroups goes something like;

"I just downloaded a driver from Windows Update and now my
(fill-in-the-blank) doesn't work anymore."

The response is invariably, "don't get your drivers from Windows Update.
Go
to the manufacturers support site for your computer/device and obtain as
driver there."

--
Doug

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details.

Remove shoes to E-mail.

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
What's happening is that you can't trust Microsoft's update to always do
the
right thing. This has always been the case. As with anything else
Microsoft
touches, they have made software updates so damned complicated that they
confuse
themselves... Ben Myers

The competence level and political bent is finally exposed. Most folks want
good PC advice absent any non-technical agenda.

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
" HW mfgs stop providing new fixes/versions at some point and often that's
before MS does." Huh? This gives me the impression that Microsoft has a
whole
bunch of worker bees scrutinizing the drivers and fixing them up.

And that's excatly what MS has for certain stability, security etc.
purposes.

And we are
supposed to think that Microsoft is so gracious and caring that they would
do
this? Sure! I'd like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge while we're at it, too.

Apparently you already did.


First, to get hardware device drivers onto the Windows installation CD and
or to
get the latest versions of drivers onto the Microsoft update site, the
chipset
developers (e.g, Intel and VIA for motherboards; Intel, ATI and nVidia for
graphics; Intel, 3com, Realtek for network cards; Conexant and PCTel for
modems;
Creative and ADI for audio) first pay Microsoft for the privilege of
including
the drivers on the install CD, then they pay to have each edition of
drivers
tested in Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL), and they
probably
pay by the megabyte for space on the update web site. WHQL DOES run some
pretty extensive tests on the drivers before they are affixed with an
electronic
WHQL certificate and made available as updates.

What a horrible nasty thing for MS to do to it's customer base.

Why are updates even done by the hardware manufacturers? Three reasons.
The
one most people should be concerned about is to fix defects. The next is
to fix
glaring performance problems, such as those revealed recently by a 3rd
party
company testing network drivers. The third, usually the case for ATI,
nVidia
and Intel, is to incorporate new hardware into an omnibus driver, i.e. a
single
driver set that supports a wide variety of chips. Examples are Intel's
800-series motherboard chipsets and nVidia's family of graphics chips.

Many hardware manufacturers, especially those of low-volume devices such
as
scanners and special purpose printers, often do not submit their drivers
to WHQL
because it is too expensive to do so.

Hardware manufacturers often augment their driver sets with additional
utilities, which you will not find on the Microsoft update site.

OH so you mean size isn't important but what about the color of the banner
on their website?

Examples might
be better fine-tuning of graphics capabilities (ATI, nVidia, Matrox) and
additional audio features (ADI and Creative).

Now where is it that the supposed Microsoft hardware driver developers
enter
into play in the above scenario??? ... Ben Myers

DUH...outside your narrow view and agenda.

William P. N. Smith wrote in message
...
wrote:
Boy am I confused.

Yeah, it's confusing. I've had some bad results with WinUp
mis-identifying hardware and loading drivers that cause it to stop
functioning, so I'm wareful of device drivers from M$. IMHO, the
order of precedence is:

Drivers from the device manufacturer (Intel, ATI, nVidia, etc). These
will almost universally be the latest and greatest drivers, with all
the current performance enhancements and bugfixes.

Drivers from the computer manufacturer (Dell, etc). These are
nessesary in some cases, where the device manufacturer's generic
drivers aren't applicable to your custom hardware. For instance,
laptop video drivers are in this category.

Drivers from MicroSoft. These aren't always evil, BTW, I've had M$
drivers automatically discover what type of video card I have and
install a functional (if not optimal) set of drivers, so I can then
know what vendor to check for the latest drivers. However, they
should be either a last resort or a preliminary diagnostic tool.

How wonderful that there is actually someone here with a clue.

"Don Taylor" wrote in message
...
"HillBillyBuddhist" writes:
...
Baddog is exactly correct and seems to know (on this topic at least :-)
exactly what he's talking about.

Downloading device drivers from WUD is a bad idea. Spend a little time in
the Microsoft Public Newsgroups and you'll find that even Microsoft MVPs
recommend obtaining drivers from the manufacturer of the device as
opposed
to WUD.

Since it seems that everyone agrees with this, even those who many think
don't have a clue and the Microsoft approved MVP's...

NOPE...only the clueless.

Oh? Are you a Micro$oft troll? I'm actually pretty competent at what I do,
otherwise I would be out of business. After nearly 20 years, I have learned not
to swallow the Microsoft propaganda, exactly like I do not accept 100% of what
any government says as the whole truth. Microsoft has a long history of
building software that is just about as complicated as it can be, going back as
far as the Windows 1.03 seminar I attended somewhere around 1986. As other
people posting to this thread have stated and as people posting to the various
Microsoft self-help NGs have stated, the Microsoft update does not always work,
and, worse yet, it does not give enough information to figure out why. This is
only stating the facts. It may be construed as political in a national climate
where the facts and non-facts are often interchanged with politics and science.

.... Ben Myers

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 19:31:41 GMT, "fred" wrote:


ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
What's happening is that you can't trust Microsoft's update to always do
the
right thing. This has always been the case. As with anything else
Microsoft
touches, they have made software updates so damned complicated that they
confuse
themselves... Ben Myers

The competence level and political bent is finally exposed. Most folks want
good PC advice absent any non-technical agenda.