Things were humming along just fine in Joel Baldwin's home office. Then his company sent him a new laptop PC running Windows XP. No sooner had he set up the new system than his HP OfficeJet K80 All-in-One device suddenly got a lot dumber--it still handled printing without a hitch, but Baldwin could forget about most scanning, faxing, and even copying.

You can probably guess the reason for the shutdown: lack of an essential driver to enable the OfficeJet--which was just 14 months old--to communicate with Baldwin's brand-new operating system.

And it seemed to Baldwin that HP was in no hurry to open the lines of communication between the two, issuing unfulfilled promises month after month that a driver was forthcoming.

Baldwin, a tool company manager who lives in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, says, "It doesn't seem to matter to HP that [its customers] can't use its All-in-One printers. I'm sure [the company] is selling new printers that work under XP--why can't they come out with drivers for their printers that are out there now?"

In response, HP spokesperson Katy Doherty points out that XP shipped with a built-in driver for the K series of devices to allow basic print and scan functions. In addition, Doherty says, the driver Baldwin needed to obtain full functionality for his device is now available on the company's Web site (it was posted in June of this year, nearly eight months after Microsoft's release of Windows XP).

Although plug-and-play standards have helped reduce driver incompatibilities and conflicts in the past few years, poor product support and situations like Baldwin's--in which a peripheral maker effectively renders its own products obsolete by delaying or ditching driver development for them--are problems that continue to plague many users. They are also among the most common headaches reported to DriverGuide.com, a leading driver database and support Web site.

From Device To Doorstop

Customers' frustration is understandable. If you've shelled out several hundred dollars for a high-quality printer or other device, you should be able to use it--to its full potential--until you're ready to replace it. And if you're struggling with a device that has suddenly turned into a doorstop because you upgraded your operating system, the last thing you want to hear is that the company you purchased it from has moved on and isn't interested in your problems anymore.

Fortunately, in many cases you won't run into driver problems during the reasonable life of the device. Many companies do a good job of producing new drivers to support older products, and Microsoft has grown more attentive to the issue when developing new OSs.

But if you have any doubt about the scale of the problem, you need only look on the Internet to see just how many people run into roadblocks because of driver issues. A quick search using the Google engine reveals well over a dozen sites that are dedicated solely to helping PC users find drivers--and that does not count all the sites operated by device manufacturers with large driver sections. Some sites--DriverGuide.com and WinDrivers.com, for example--collect driver software for all kinds of devices. Others, like Modem-Drivers.com and Printer-Drivers.com, are dedicated to specific types of devices.

Some Like To Watch

DriverGuide.com even has a strangely alluring feature for the true driver geek--Driver Voyeur. The page includes a box that shows you, one by one, what drivers visitors are searching for at that particular moment. And it includes a ranking of the top 10 most sought-after drivers. Topping the hit parade are drivers for sound cards by Creative Labs, OPTi, and Yamaha; modems by Lucent, PCTEL, Rockwell, and U.S. Robotics; and video adapters by S3 and SiS Corporation.

The independent driver sites can be your best friend when you're madly trying to get your printer or scanner to work in time for a looming deadline. Not only do the sites have thousands of drivers you can search, but many also have an active community of driver hounds willing to help with workarounds and other suggestions if you can't find the driver you're looking for. DriverGuide.com, for instance, currently includes a searchable database of more than 77,000 drivers, as well as e-mail-based support, discussion and driver request boards, utilities, and tutorials--and it's a free site.

Many people in the technology industry argue that it's unrealistic to expect peripheral makers to continue supporting all their products indefinitely. "Ideally, they should [support their devices]," says Charles Simmons, president of ICentric Corporation, which publishes DriverGuide.com. "But there's an economic cost at stake, and there's a limit to what companies can reasonably keep up with. For example, it's probably not fair to expect a [peripheral maker] to continue supporting a six-year-old device under XP.

"Major changes in an operating system make driver development a nontrivial task," Simmons continues. "Many drivers have to be redeveloped from scratch, beta-tested, and fixed before they're released to the public, and all of that work is very time-consuming."

Some companies pass the cost of support along to their customers. That's what happened to Martin Varga, an electrical contractor in Montreal. Earlier this year, when he needed a Windows 98 SE driver for his Umax Astra 600s scanner, he went to Umax's Web site to download it. But after searching the site, Varga discovered that the company no longer offered free support for the three-year-old scanner. To get the driver, a Umax rep told him, he'd have to fork over about $15 for a CD-ROM.

Outraged, Varga turned to a third-party driver site and downloaded the driver he needed--for free. "In my view, [charging for a driver] is a flawed policy," he says. "Highway robbery is highway robbery."

A Umax spokesperson says that the company decided to sell some drivers on CDs because offering all of them online attracted so many customers that download speed at the company's site slowed. The spokesperson acknowledges that the company has "removed many of the older drivers in order to optimize FTP service," but adds that it plans to resume offering them as free downloads in the near future.

Find Your Own Fix

Ultimately, even if the maker of your printer, scanner, or other peripheral appears to be in no hurry to provide new drivers, you don't have to let your devices slide quietly into obsolescence. Here's a checklist of the tricks you can use to keep your add-on devices running:

• It sounds like a no-brainer, but before you upgrade to a new operating system, make sure that compatible drivers are available for all your peripherals.
  
  
• If you can't find the drivers you need at the manufacturer's site, run a search at a third-party site such as DriverGuide.com, DriversHQ.com, or DriverSearch.com.
  
  
• If you decide to post a message to a driver site, include all of the pertinent information in the message header. Users who frequent driver sites--and who may have the answer you need--are looking for specifics, and a generic statement like "Driver needed" won't do the job. Driver site forums are surprisingly active places, so be sure to give their message boards a try. Even if you're searching for a particularly obscure driver, there's a good chance that someone with a similar problem has been there and can help you out.
  
  
• If you can't find what you need at a driver site, type the appropriate keywords--such as the name and model number of the product, the version of Windows that you're using, and the word driver--into your favorite search engine.
  
  
• If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Driver forums are full of horror stories from folks who added a new driver and discovered that their sound no longer worked, say, or that another component suddenly went flaky. It might be tempting to update your drivers every time a new version becomes available, but unless you're having trouble with your current driver or there's a compelling functional reason to update, the advantages probably don't outweigh the potential hassles.
  
  
• Before you install a new driver, check the user forums at driver sites for any feedback that's pertinent to your particular peripheral model and operating system. You can avoid a lot of headaches by learning from others' experiences.
  
  
• Keep track of your drivers. If you have drivers on CDs, store the disks nearby in case you need to reinstall them. A handy utility called Driver Detective (downloadable for $15 at www.drivershq.com) helps you keep an inventory of what's already installed and efficiently finds updates or locates missing drivers.
  
  
• If all else fails, try using drivers written for other versions of Windows. You may be surprised at how frequently this works. For example, many Windows 2000 drivers work with XP, even though Windows displays a warning when you install them.
  
  
• Pass it on. If you get hold of a hard-to-find driver, post it to one of the driver sites so other frustrated users can benefit from it too. Before you upload a driver, however, check to make sure that there are no restrictions on disseminating it. The vast majority of drivers are not restricted, but some are copyrighted and cannot be freely shared.
  
  

It's probably impossible to avoid all driver problems. But if you get stuck, it's reassuring to know that the tools and resources you need to get back on course are as close as your browser.

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