With no fanfare, Microsoft Corp has released what is both its first Universal Serial Bus driver and the first driver built using the Windows Driver Model, points out our sister newsletter ClieNT Server News. The model is supposed to eventually result in a unified driver set for NT and Windows 95, eliminating a major pain in moving from 95 to NT. The universal serial bus driver, developed under the little mentioned code name Detroit, is technically no more than a minor upgrade to the OEM customer Service Release for Win95, or OSR 2, the set of new features, including a 32-bit file system, that can be built into personal computers immediately. Those who already own their hardware will have to wait until Memphis, or Win9x as Microsoft now calls it, before they can get hold of all the equivalent components. Sources said Microsoft kept the release low key in hopes no one would notice that the only thing it supports well is video cameras – or to be precise the one video camera in existence in sample quantities that has a Universal Serial Bus link. Some suggested Microsoft might have scored more points with the OEM community if it had built good Universal Serial Bus mouse support first. The Bus is supposed to be the universal plug-and-play panacea that lets any peripheral plug into a personal computer and self-configure. NT won’t get plug-and-play until the Serial Bus support goes into both the operating system and the software developers’ kits. OEM customers pray that will come in a service pack to NT 4.0, but Microsoft has only promised it for NT 5.0. The new driver, sources at Microsoft confirmed, will work with NT once it gets the Universal Serial Bus, and is considered internally to be the first of a string of new drivers based on the Windows Driver Model that it hopes to have ready by the time NT 5.0 hits market. Microsoft insists the Service Release is such a minor upgrade that it’s not anything like a new operating system, despite the furore over the Universal Serial Bus, and shouldn’t be regarded as Windows 96.
