How long should manufacturers provide updated drivers?

I'm asking this because I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista.
My Epson scanner is only a few years old, and is now headed for the
landfill because Epson-not a very "green" company, apparently--won't
provide a Vista driver. (The customer service person kept saying that
they "can't" provide a driver. I hate it when they use that word.
Eventually I got her to say "won't.") Worse, one of the features on
the motherboard I purchased new about eight months ago needs a driver
to work properly, and it doesn't look like the manufacturer is going
to provide one for Vista. *Eight* months!

So I'm curious about a couple of things:

(1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to
provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?

(2) Do they have any legal responsibilities at all on this issue?

Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.

- Tom

"Weltanscha" <weltanscha@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1178587608.377918.112630@y80g2000hsf.googlegr oups.com...
> I'm asking this because I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista.
> My Epson scanner is only a few years old, and is now headed for the
> landfill because Epson-not a very "green" company, apparently--won't
> provide a Vista driver. (The customer service person kept saying that
> they "can't" provide a driver. I hate it when they use that word.
> Eventually I got her to say "won't.") Worse, one of the features on
> the motherboard I purchased new about eight months ago needs a driver
> to work properly, and it doesn't look like the manufacturer is going
> to provide one for Vista. *Eight* months!
>
> So I'm curious about a couple of things:
>
> (1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
> company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to
> provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?


up to the end of their warrantee for that product, has always been my take.


>
> (2) Do they have any legal responsibilities at all on this issue?

If you check the documant that you clicked " I agree' to, It sometimes talks of driver
support.

>
> Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
> far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
> anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
> to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.
>
Almost ALL manufacturers are using '****sta' to bork consumers. Saw it coming 7 years ago,
so no surprise to me.
I use Cannon for printers and visioneer for scanners, can't say if these are supported for
vista, Don't care, Won't be doing vista anytime soon. I have dealt with so much BS already
from folks gettting vista preinstalled, that I feel I already use the **** OS. Anybody
else lose internet connection after the last update leaving you with," Internet Explorer
has an Internal error and will close. No solution is availabel at this time? wonderful!
Not.


My 1 1/2 cents.

Weltanscha wrote:
> I'm asking this because I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista.
> My Epson scanner is only a few years old, and is now headed for the
> landfill because Epson-not a very "green" company, apparently--won't
> provide a Vista driver. (The customer service person kept saying that
> they "can't" provide a driver. I hate it when they use that word.
> Eventually I got her to say "won't.") Worse, one of the features on
> the motherboard I purchased new about eight months ago needs a driver
> to work properly, and it doesn't look like the manufacturer is going
> to provide one for Vista. *Eight* months!
>
> So I'm curious about a couple of things:
>
> (1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
> company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to
> provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?
>
> (2) Do they have any legal responsibilities at all on this issue?
>
> Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
> far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
> anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
> to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.
>
> - Tom
>

I don't have your scanner nor Vista. You might try the drivers you
have on the Vista operating system. In XP there was a cautionary
statement about not being a verified or tested driver for some hardware,
but often the drivers for older operating systems still worked. It is
worth a try since there are none designed specially for Vista.

In article <1178587608.377918.112630@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups .com>,
Weltanscha says...
> I'm asking this because I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista.
> My Epson scanner is only a few years old, and is now headed for the
> landfill because Epson-not a very "green" company, apparently--won't
> provide a Vista driver.

You sure? My three year old CX5400 is supported in x32 and x64.


--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

On 7 May 2007 18:26:48 -0700, Weltanscha <weltanscha@hotmail.com> had
a flock of green cheek conures squawk out:

>I'm asking this because I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Vista.
>My Epson scanner is only a few years old, and is now headed for the
>landfill because Epson-not a very "green" company, apparently--won't
>provide a Vista driver. (The customer service person kept saying that
>they "can't" provide a driver. I hate it when they use that word.
>Eventually I got her to say "won't.") Worse, one of the features on
>the motherboard I purchased new about eight months ago needs a driver
>to work properly, and it doesn't look like the manufacturer is going
>to provide one for Vista. *Eight* months!
>
>So I'm curious about a couple of things:
>
>(1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
>company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to

When the warranty expires or when it's discontinued.

>provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?

If the product is still being made, you might get updated drivers.

>
>(2) Do they have any legal responsibilities at all on this issue?

No.

>
>Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
>far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
>anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
>to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.

Looks like you won't be buying anything from anyone every time there
is a major OS change.

Stephen
--

On May 7, 9:54 pm, "JAD" <john d...@harvesting.addys.for.****.spam>
wrote:
> "Weltanscha" <weltans...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> > (1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
> > company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to
> > provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?
>
> up to the end of their warrantee for that product, has always been my take.

Wow. That's not expecting very much, in my opinion. And I've found
that some companies will provide downloads for quite old products.

> > Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
> > far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
> > anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
> > to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.
>
> Almost ALL manufacturers are using '****sta' to bork consumers. Saw it coming 7 years ago,
> so no surprise to me.
> I use Cannon for printers and visioneer for scanners, can't say if these are supported for
> vista, Don't care, Won't be doing vista anytime soon. I have dealt with so much BS already
> from folks gettting vista preinstalled, that I feel I already use the **** OS. Anybody
> else lose internet connection after the last update leaving you with," Internet Explorer
> has an Internal error and will close. No solution is availabel at this time? wonderful!
> Not.

Some parts seem thrown together and hardly tested. And I'm not happy
that it has no facility for restoring XP backups.. Oh, don't get me
started.

In my experience it's no *less* stable than XP, though.

- Tom

On May 8, 7:30 am, Ken <u...@domain.invalid> wrote:

> I don't have your scanner nor Vista. You might try the drivers you
> have on the Vista operating system. In XP there was a cautionary
> statement about not being a verified or tested driver for some hardware,
> but often the drivers for older operating systems still worked. It is
> worth a try since there are none designed specially for Vista.

If I do that it displays some program-level error, like divide by zero
or something.

- Tom

On May 8, 4:07 pm, Stephen <y...@its.invalid> wrote:
> On 7 May 2007 18:26:48 -0700,Weltanscha<weltans...@hotmail.com> had
> a flock of green cheek conures squawk out:

> >Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
> >far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
> >anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
> >to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.
>
> Looks like you won't be buying anything from anyone every time there
> is a major OS change.

Not true. In general my experiences haven't been that bad. But I
think what's going to happen to me a lot is that I'll switch to
another manufacturer, and *they'll* screw me over too, then I'll buy
from a *third* manufacturer after that...

- Tom

> (1) In your opinion, how old does a product have to get before a
> company should reasonably consider itself free from responsibility to
> provide updated device drivers for download (free or fee)?

At the end of the warranty period, but not all companies bother to update
drivers.

>
> (2) Do they have any legal responsibilities at all on this issue?
>

No. I'm sure that there is a legal disclaimer in fine print somewhere in
documentation that comes with a product.

> Also, is there any *easy* way I can find one out how companies rank as
> far as diligence in providing updated drivers? I plan never to buy
> anything from Epson or that board manufacturer again, and I'd prefer
> to choose companies that care more about after-sale support.

You learn it in a hard way. I stopped buying Epson long time ago.