Epson Vista Drivers: An Update

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/Landing/VistaCompatibility.jsp' target='_blank'>http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/Landing/VistaCompatibility.jsp</a><br /><br /></div>Since I ended up keeping the Epson R1800 (what a great printer!) and I'm wanting to migrate to Windows Vista Ultimate as soon as possible, drivers are an issue. I emailed Epson yesterday to ask about the status of drivers for Vista, and they sent me <a href="http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/Landing/VistaCompatibility.jsp">to this Web page</a>:<br /><br /><i>"Epson has partnered with Microsoft to ensure that Epson products are compatible with the upcoming Windows® Vista™ operating system. When you upgrade your PC or notebook from Windows XP to Windows Vista, your installed Windows XP-based Epson product drivers will continue to function just as they did on Windows XP. What's more, updated drivers designed to utilize the new features of Windows Vista will be available for most Epson products once Windows Vista is available at retail stores. In fact, the updated drivers for some older Epson products will be included by Microsoft within the Windows Vista operating system. As for application programs which came with your Epson product, these may require updates to be fully compatible with Windows Vista."</i><br /><br />Interesting to note that the drivers will work if you do an XP to Vista upgrade, but not if you do a Vista install from scratch (which is what almost all early adopters do). I guess I'll wait until the 30th and see what happens then.

[Philip Colmer]

I've got a similar concern over my Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner. In principle, Vista should work with Windows Update a lot better than XP, in that more third party drivers will be available from it.

This can already be seen if you connect a Pocket PC to a Vista computer - it automatically downloads the USB driver and Mobile Device Center.

Drivers are one thing though. What about the applications that sit on top of the drivers? Epson scanners, for example, come with a suite of software to drive it outside of TWAIN-compatible applications. So far, none of that is available from Epson's site and I'm concerned that it won't be. I just hope that Epson aren't going to use Vista as an excuse for getting customers to buy new hardware.

--Philip

[Jason Dunn]

Drivers are one thing though. What about the applications that sit on top of the drivers?

Indeed! One can only hope that Epson realizes the ire they'll raise in their customer base if they orphan their customers. I could care less about most of the bundled software working with Vista, but in the case of scanners, the scanning application itself is certainly important.

I keep wondering if I'm going to be delighted/impressed by the response of vendors on the 30th, or angry with them. I had lunch with Jim Allchin at CES (still need to blog about that) and he said that Microsoft had been working with all sorts of hardware vendors to make sure that come the 30th, there would be drivers released. He said it was going to be much better than the XP launch...let's hope so!

[nb_phoenix]

I installed Windows Vista this evening (lots of compatibility problems).

I then installed the Epson Stylus Photo R220 driver for Windows XP.

Although the driver install program terminated improperly .. the driver installed and works exactly as it did under Windows XP.