WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.520 Unlike the 1990s and 2000s where we expected a new version of Windows every few years, 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:10.320 Microsoft seems pretty set on making Windows 10 the last version of Windows ever, 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:14.320 incrementally updating it instead of replacing it with an entirely new version. 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:19.280 I mean, we've heard nothing about Windows 11 or Windows 2K20, right? 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:23.440 But this raises an interesting question. Do you remember how whenever you upgraded 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.440 from one version of Windows to another, some of your older devices may have stopped working 00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:34.000 and there wasn't a good way to get them functioning again? This is often because the device's driver, the piece of software that allows your printer or 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.560 whatever and Windows to talk to each other, doesn't play nicely with a new version of the 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:43.920 operating system, making it necessary for the device manufacturer to write a new driver and 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:48.160 make it available and possibly for you to know that and then seek it out. 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:53.200 But here we are on the last version of Windows. So does that mean that the RGB trackball you've 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:58.480 had connected to your rig since people were arguing about the dress is going to work forever? 00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:05.280 Unfortunately, the answer is probably not. You see, although there does not appear to be a 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:10.320 true successor to Windows 10 coming, some of the incremental updates have changed the operating 00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:16.480 system in significant ways, including under the hood. In fact, Microsoft itself doesn't even support 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:21.600 some older builds of Windows 10, with major revisions now receiving fewer than two years of 00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:27.120 support before being considered deprecated. Users have also reported hardware problems 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:32.160 after major updates and Windows 10 has even received criticism for automatically removing 00:01:32.160 --> 00:01:37.040 programs deemed to be incompatible with new revisions of the operating system during the 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:42.240 update process. So not only are some major updates almost like getting a new version of the OS, 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:49.440 anyway, Microsoft also appears to be exerting more control over what kinds of software Windows 10 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:56.240 will even allow on the same system. And it appears that this does include drivers. Although most 00:01:56.240 --> 00:02:00.880 machines will continue to receive Windows 10 updates as they're rolled out, Microsoft itself 00:02:00.880 --> 00:02:06.240 has come out and said that some systems could stop getting updated as time goes on. And one 00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:11.280 reason for this is if there aren't current drivers. And remember that most current device 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:16.640 drivers are actually written by the device manufacturers, not by Microsoft. So similarly 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:22.800 to the days when we actually upgraded from, say, Windows XP to Windows Vista, yes, I use the word 00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:27.840 upgrade very loosely there, there may come a point in time where you'd have to stick with an older 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:32.800 build of Windows 10 if you want to keep full functionality of your devices. But this is a 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:38.320 lot trickier than keeping your older Windows 95 machine around to play Mac Warrior 2 because 00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:43.440 of how Windows 10 makes it extremely difficult to disable updates as long as you're connected to 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:49.760 the internet. But why wouldn't device manufacturers be nice and just release updated drivers? 00:02:49.760 --> 00:02:54.480 Well, the folks that make mice and scanners or whatever else are constantly updating their 00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:58.320 product lines and releasing new gadgets, and they'd rather put their time and effort into 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:03.520 selling new products and supporting their latest offerings instead of writing drivers for older 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:08.720 models that few people are using. However, the good news is that Windows 10 is a lot better at 00:03:08.720 --> 00:03:13.760 natively supporting many different models of hardware than Windows versions of yesteryear 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:18.560 that often had a hard time recognizing products without a driver disk. Even if you have an older 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:23.680 keyboard that you know and love that one day stops getting driver updates, the drivers built into 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:28.800 Windows or provided by Windows update should still provide core functionality. So it could get to a 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:33.600 point where you can still keep your old gear, but maybe not all the bells and whistles work quite 00:03:33.600 --> 00:03:38.320 right. Kind of like your Uncle Station wagon, which is still going strong despite having a 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:42.720 duct tape bumper. So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:46.080 subscribe, and be sure to hit us up in the comments section with your suggestions for 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.560 topics that we should cover in the future.