The things in an operating system that I think are cool usually are not what get the press coverage or the cheers at the demonstrations. The things that get me excited are those that make me more productive.
I love operating systems and enjoy writing about them, but let's get something straight—the OS is just a tool, OK? I know, that is sacrilege. But there it is—some folks are wowed by the new visual design of Windows XP and I think that's great. Others are wowed by the new digital media support—wonderful for them. What really gets me excited about Windows XP is that it is going to work better. I am especially thrilled that it is more reliable.
One of the most important reliability improvements is Device Driver Rollback. This feature lets you quickly and easily recover when you install the new driver for your cool device, and it turns out to be not such a hot idea after all. We all know the scenario, because we've all been caught by it in the past. You install a new driver—either for a device you've had for quite a while, or for a new one. And when you reboot your system you get the dreaded Blue Screen of Death and you can't boot at all. Or you boot OK, but your machine becomes flaky. It crashes in the middle of something you've done a hundred times before, or it just seems unstable.
Well, Windows XP finally gives you the tools to recover from these problems, and it actually makes it easy. Let's look at the two situations separately, since they're a bit different.
New Driver and Blue Screen of Death
If you've ever installed a new driver or program on your machine, and encountered the Blue Screen of Death when you reboot, you know how painful and time consuming it can be. At the very least, you face a couple of hours restoring the system from the backup you made. You did do a backup, right? Of course you did—everyone does, especially just before they install something new. And if you believe that, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. Cheap.
What really gets me excited about Windows XP is that it is going to work better.
Anyway, in Windows XP, you can recover from the Blue Screen of Death and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
Since the introduction of Windows NT, there has been a Last Known Good configuration option. In some cases, booting to the Last Known Good configuration allowed you to recover an unbootable system. But in Windows XP, the system's ability to recover has been substantially improved with the addition of Device Driver Rollback. If your system won't boot, restart your computer and when you see the message Please select the operating system to start, press F8. You'll see a menu of choices to try. The two you're most likely to need are Safe Mode and Last Known Good. If you've just installed a device driver and can't boot your machine, choose Last Known Good and the system will automatically restore the previous version of the device driver. Continue booting and your system should be fine.
As for that bum driver—well, you'll probably need to talk to the tech support folks at the company that provided it. Chances are they've seen the problem before and know what the workaround is. Meanwhile, you've got a system that boots and that you can use while it gets sorted out.
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New Driver Causes Instability
While a new driver can cause a system to be unable to boot, it really doesn't happen that often. A more common scenario is that a new driver causes the system to become unstable. This can take a lot of different forms—sudden crashes, certain operations cause a failure, programs stop responding, and so forth. Or the device may fail to start. In the past, fixing the problem could be a pain, but with Windows XP, it's really easy. The Properties page for the device now has a new button—Roll Back Driver.
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Rolling Back a Questionable Device Driver
Getting back to the previous driver for any device is really easy. While there are a lot of ways to get to the properties for a particular device, here's one way. (This assumes you have your Control Panel set to the new Category View in Windows XP.)
1.
Click on Start and select Control Panel.
2.
Click on Performance and Maintenance.
3.
Click on See basic information about your computer to bring up the System Properties dialog.
4.
Click on the Hardware tab.
5.
Click on the Device Manager button to bring up the Device Manager.
6.
Right-click on the problem device and select Properties. If the device is not working, it will likely appear with a red X in the middle of the icon, as shown below.
7.
Click on the Driver tab and then click Roll Back Driver. Accept as appropriate and required. If a system reboot is required, your computer will prompt you.
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Single Level Rollback
One important consideration with device driver rollback that you'll want to keep in mind—it's only a single level deep. So if a particular driver is suspect, you should roll back to the original drivers before you try to install a new one to fix the problem. This has always been a good practice anyway, but it's now much easier to implement.
