sony USB

[defjam]

i have window 2000...i tried to connect my digital camera (sony) to this computer but it asked for device driver...why is that?

i thought USB is plug n play ...

i had win XP ..when i plugged... it automatically dectected...

any advise ..i greatly appreciate

[Budfred]

USB is plug and play, but the device itself may not be... If it came out after the OS, it may require drivers to be install. It is apparently usually advisable to load the driver before plugging the device in... Hopefully it came with a disk that has the driver for Win2K...

[mjc]

PnP doesn't not mean "no drivers needed"...it means that you do not have to manually configure sytem resou rces like IRQs, memory locations, etc.

So break out the disk and find the 2K drivers and install them.....this is perfectly normal...

PS: The reason XP didn't ask for drivers is that it, in its huge unwieldy bulk it already had them........

[saphalline]

Win2K is also not for the faint of heart. It was designed to be powerful, not user-friendly (very loose term ) like the "home" versions of Windows. It needs a lot of extra drivers for the frivolous things like games and fun devices. Basically you need to know what you're doing with Win2K, which is why you won't find your grandparents with that picky OS!

[Paul Komski]

All USB devices should be "plug n play" compatible - whenever they came out. The earliest ones came out in the Win95 era.

All USB devices will require the correct drivers to have been previously installed for them to work correctly. In fact it is advisable to NOT EVEN ATTACH such devices before the drivers have been installed as this can lead to ghost devices and other such conflicts and problems later on.

Some USB devices identify themselves to the OS as HIDs (Human Interface Devices). All OSes that support USB have HID support natively installed in them and should run OK without any other driver installation. These devices are things like keyboards and mice - not scanners and cameras.

The situation relating to pnp and whether it is advisable to disable it in the BIOS, particularly for WinXP or dual-booting, can be read about HERE.

Always read your hardware's manuals and installation instructions carefully - particularly since what should be done under one OS may be radically different than under another one - otherwise plugNplay can become plugNpray.

[defjam]

Thank you!! so much guys...now i understand a little more