Windows 8 Finally Works Towards Simplifying Printer Drivers
60 replies, posted
I had a "Quiet Printer".
I don't know what shitty scale they measured it by to determine it was a "Quiet Printer".
Fuck printers. I'd rather take a photo of my screen and get it blown up than have to deal with this shit.
[QUOTE=sam.clarke;37016776]They're focusing on using Direct2D to produce the print jobs as it shares the same language that XPS is written in, so printers will be capable of understanding the datastream. Direct2D is the system in use to procude the text as an image on screen, this can also be used to produce the text on paper which is pretty cool thanks to the shared coding language with XPS.
...[/QUOTE]
I didn't understand that part of the blog post, Direct2D is a COM API, while XPS is an XML based document format, they aren't related at all. I assume the author means you can use the Direct2D API to produce an XPS document (The same way you use GDI to produce EMF data for printing currently)
Edit: So instead of using GDI or producing the XPS data yourself, you can get a "print surface" for Direct2D that does the XPS output.
[QUOTE=VistaPOWA;37015744]I fucking hate it when the manufacturer packs the CD/DVD that has the driver on it with more than 200MB of useless applications that no-one needs. Oh, and you can't choose if you want to install them or not with the drivers.[/QUOTE]
Most of the time you can just point windows to the disc and it'll only install the drivers.
Windows 7 also has generic drivers for an awful lot of hardware. If I plug something in and it's fully functional, I'm not touching the cd.
I have never met a printer I didn't want to throw out the window.
How the hell are printers so ass backwards? When you plug in a mouse, the drivers automatically install, and it just works. When you plug in a keyboard, it just works. When you plug in a printer you have to jump through hoops to get the damn thing working.
[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;37029943]How the hell are printers so ass backwards? When you plug in a mouse, the drivers automatically install, and it just works. When you plug in a keyboard, it just works. When you plug in a printer you have to jump through hoops to get the damn thing working.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. In OSX all you do is plug in the printer, the drivers automatically install and you're good to go. This is what Apple means when they say Macs "just work."
[editline]31st July 2012[/editline]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7TlucMw8PE[/MEDIA]
[QUOTE=DamagePoint;37030236]Exactly. In OSX all you do is plug in the printer, the drivers automatically install and you're good to go. This is what Apple means when they say Macs "just work."
[editline]31st July 2012[/editline]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7TlucMw8PE[/MEDIA][/QUOTE]
Like when my ex-girlfriend turned off her mac, unplugged it, moved it to another room, turned it on, and her entire music library had been deleted! It just... worked. Or when my friend's macbook shipped without thermal paste, it just... worked (for about 3 seconds before it shut down and died). Or when another's friend's hard drive failed within a month of getting his mac. It just... worked (for about a month).
I'll leave out the rest of my friends hilarious stories to do with their macs, but honestly I see my friends macs crashing and burning into pieces of shit in various ways constantly, massive apple fan boy or not the notion that they just work all the time is ridiculous. I'm not going to pretend they're worse than some of the shittiest PC brands like HP, but they're far from the best.
[QUOTE=Kabstrac;37030857]My mom's iMac from 2007 freezes when you open a tab in Safari :v:. I had to disable the most viewed sites thing.
My mother's Macbook Pro also always somehow ~loses~ the Wifi password.[/QUOTE]
Well, Macs aren't perfect :v:
You should get your mom to switch to Chrome instead. I rarely have problems with Safari but Chrome is so much faster nowadays.
[QUOTE=Elspin;37030389][B]Like when my ex-girlfriend turned off her mac, unplugged it, moved it to another room, turned it on, and her entire music library had been deleted! It just... worked. [/B]Or when my friend's macbook shipped without thermal paste, it just... worked (for about 3 seconds before it shut down and died). Or when another's friend's hard drive failed within a month of getting his mac. It just... worked (for about a month).
...[/QUOTE]
I think it's more likely that the music was stored on an external drive, which just wasn't reconnected properly.
Or maybe the computer did randomly delete some specific files while it was turned off and unplugged.
[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;37031173]I think it's more likely that the music was stored on an external drive, which just wasn't reconnected properly.
Or maybe the computer did randomly delete some specific files while it was turned off and unplugged.[/QUOTE]
I can confirm it was not an external drive, I was there when she moved it and she did not own an external drive anyway, unless you count a flash drive that wouldn't hold her music.
I don't think DamagePoint realizes Windows and OSX have near the same amount of printer support, but there will always be the dumb printer that needs more than the defaults
Thats it, I am getting Windows 8.
I hate printers. Only reason I still know how to write with my hand is because my god damned printer is more trouble than it's worth.
(I also use my galaxy tab for presentation notes and such, sheets are for 2nd graders :v:)
[QUOTE=The Baconator;37031256]I don't think DamagePoint realizes Windows and OSX have near the same amount of printer support, but there will always be the dumb printer that needs more than the defaults[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I didn't really read the full article the first time. I had just assumed that they were trying to make printers plug and play, which sounded pretty silly.
Now that I reread this article it sounds like a pretty awesome system, similar to Apple's AirPrint (which only works on iOS atm).
There's a lot to like about Windows 8, even though it's a pretty controversial operating system it seems like for the first time in years Microsoft is taking the lead while Apple's lagging behind which is both awesome, and a little worrying (for Apple).
[QUOTE=brainmaster;37031421]I hate printers. Only reason I still know how to write with my hand is because my god damned printer is more trouble than it's worth.
(I also use my galaxy tab for presentation notes and such, sheets are for 2nd graders :v:)[/QUOTE]
I kinda wonder if ultra portable computers (like tablets) get more popular, if printers will be mostly abandoned in favour of things like NFC or local hotspot document transfers
Can it be an industry standard to print even if one color is low?
It's a pain in the ass, my Kodak printer won't do anything if it's low on any color. Even if I'm printing a black and white document. :suicide:
[QUOTE=Mabus;37015857]I still use a printer from the 90's[/QUOTE]
Don't worry. You didn't missed much.
Fuck printers. 2012 and printers still suck huge Thor dick. Fuck specific drivers too.
God let Windows 8 be as good as it seems
I've always found printers to be the single biggest bane of the peripheral part of computing, they are hellspawn
I hope this also means Windows will have a built in ink status interface instead of some ugly bloated one from the manufacturer.
[QUOTE=Binge le mag;37031596]Can it be an industry standard to print even if one color is low?
It's a pain in the ass, my Kodak printer won't do anything if it's low on any color. Even if I'm printing a black and white document. :suicide:[/QUOTE]
How do you think they make money?
Sometimes a cartridge is more expensive than the printer it goes in.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;37034968]Why the fuck can't somebody draft a single driver model for ALL printers and let the EU enforce it.[/QUOTE]
So basically you're saying
'Let's go ahead and not let companies advance their technology as soon as possible'
A standard driver is fine, but enforcing it is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of
Regulation of drivers: Because politicians can be trusted to make laws that actually make sense with regards to technology.
[QUOTE=DamagePoint;37030236]Exactly. In OSX all you do is plug in the printer, the drivers automatically install and you're good to go. This is what Apple means when they say Macs "just work."
[editline]31st July 2012[/editline]
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7TlucMw8PE[/MEDIA][/QUOTE]
Yeah, it works by having a fucking ton of drivers for every manufacturer included. That doesn't make OSX special, it's still going about the problem the wrong way, you are sacrificing storage space for compatibility with printers you won't use. While generic, unified drivers are what we should be striving for. Windows 8 is a good step in that direction, we are getting closer to unified drivers, and Windows is really pushing it now. Graphics drivers on Windows have been pretty good, though the manufacturer ones are still better.
If OSX didn't include that bulk of drivers, it'd have the same hell every Windows PC has with printer drivers. It isn't special, stop thinking it is.
[editline]1st August 2012[/editline]
Actually, fuck printers so much some times. Nothing is standardised, cartridges of the same colour, size and shape of each other are incompatible with no real reason. You might as well buy a new printer when your ink runs out too, that shit is expensive in comparison. Something needs to be done about this, it's horrible.
I fucking hate working with printers. Especially when it comes to setting up CUPS, I've never managed to get it working right.
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