WinHEC 2007 Day 1: Why are Hardware Vendors Still Playing Catch-up?

LOS ANGELES - During a roundtable meeting of analysts and reporters here at WinHEC 2007, well-known Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay gave an assessment of the state of the Windows Vista ecosystem at four months after consumer launch.

There, Kay and others began discussing one of the more pressing problems facing the Vista community at present: Since Microsoft had more than enough time to get Vista beta tested and under way, why is it so many supporting hardware vendors were behind the ball getting drivers out on time?

The word "nVidia" was uttered, including by InternetNews.com correspondent Andy Patrizio, Supersite manager Paul Thurrott, and the dean of technology journalists, Chaos Manor's own Jerry Pournelle. "NVidia's laptop drivers suck," proclaimed the still-inimitable Pournelle.

The problem, attendees generally agreed, dealt with how well Microsoft has fared in migrating its many hardware and software partners to the Vista platform. Judging against the company's performance with the exodus from Windows 98 to XP -- which has generally been described as less than stellar at best -- Microsoft has generally done better this time around.

Maybe a small percentage of vendors have fallen through the cracks. But it's that small percentage that's causing a big problem, especially with nVidia's 64-bit drivers for Vista.

In 64-bit Vista, all hardware drivers must be signed in order to be recognized by the kernel. Yes, but there's a trick to that, involving booting with the F8 key held down. As some journalists present reported, some hardware vendors have taken to actually instructing users through their manuals to keep F8 held down when booting, for the time being.

This is the behavior of some certified vendors. So the fact that such vendors aren't reporting problems may not be due to normal circumstances.

One statistic Kay mentioned was that Microsoft is reporting one-fourth the call center volume from Vista adopters, as they received from XP adopters five years ago. Almost everyone present caught the missing small print from that statistic: Who uses the phone to report their problems any more? Many are resorting to outside means, or are relying on second parties such as unpaid Microsoft MVPs to give help.

That realization made the Microsoft representatives in the back of the room pay attention. "We're taking notes now," one said.

As for nVidia, one Microsoft rep made a comment that appeared to say that nVidia may have received its Vista certification a little too early. As the WHQL model evolved during testing, he said, driver interactions changed. Pournelle's face immediately turned from its native crimson to bright scarlet.

"Do you mean to tell me," he responded with his usual flair, "that nVidia fell through the cracks because they received their certification too early?" The Microsoft rep took that question for Pournelle...off the table.