Just bought myself a nice little USB hub so I can connect more things to my computer (The Macbook only has two USB ports, and the Mac keyboard I have only gives me one more, builtin mini hub). I’m sitting in OS X, I connect the hub, connect all the things to it, move the keyboard to another port, and everything just works again, immediatly, no drivers setup, no configuration, nothing. My mouse works, my wacom tablet works, and my keyboard works.
I reboot to Windows… nothing works. I need to login first so that Windows can run its hardware wizard… First comes a USB hub, then another one. And then for some reason, just because I moved the keyboard (and mouse and Wacom connected to it) I need to install drivers for those too… but I already did that, weeks ago! Why do I need to do it all over again, just because I’m switching ports?
And it’s not just one driver, just for the mouse it’s three. THREE. USB Human Interface Device, another one of those (why two?) and then, finally, HID-compliant mouse. This is only for my mouse, for moving it (well, the keyboard and it’s USB hub) from one port to another. And here comes my Wacom Tablet; HID-compliant device, HID-compliant mouse (next, finish, next, finish), and now my keyboard; HID Keyboard Device, HID-compliant device, HID-compliant consumer control device (Oh, one of those! Ah, I know exactly what part they mean with that. Well, I don’t really care, I can figure out what it is, but ordinary Joe? Must be hell).
And I’m done. For this time. Until I say… plug in my MP3 player, in another port than the one I used before, and up pops the hardware wizard. In OS X (and in Ubuntu Linux, as far as I remember), nothing happens… well, my MP3 player pops up, mounted and ready on the desktop, no hardware wizard, nothing.
Never again Windows on the computer I use for everyday things.
PS. This was in Windows XP, I have no idea if Vista is any better in this regard, but of what I can remember from my tests of the Betas and RCs, it isn’t. But my memory kinda sucks, so if I’m wrong, please say so.
And no, nothing I had to do here is in any way hard, just click next and then finish, a gazillion times, but it’s annoying like hell, and takes too much time.