Why Does Windows Require Excessive Rebooting?

psxndc asks: "Ever since I installed the Detonator 3 drivers for my TNT2 card (under windows), I've been having issues with my TVTuner card. I've tried installing older drivers with minimal success. The drivers are easy to select between in the Adapter menu and after rebooting my machine for the umpteen-millionth time, I began to wonder 'Since drivers for the display are so modular, why do I need to reboot my entire machine each time? Why couldn't I do the equivalent of just killing and restarting X?' Why did Microsoft (and other OSs for that matter) make the GUI totally integrated with the OS? There must have been a reason. They could have still kept the modules (kernel, GUI, etc) proprietary binaries and not released the source, so control can't be the reason. What is it then?"

Comments

Integration

[maggard]

Why did MS integrate the presentation system so tightly with the underlying OS? Couple of reasons (all IMHO):

• They didn't know any better
• What became Win3x was never anticipated to become a major product - it was simply a response to everyone ele's GUI's but the standardized drivers (printer, video, etc.) made the thing a big hit
• The architecture that originated with Win3x was simply carried forward with each version
• Quick, fast, dirty
• Very responsive due to close-coupling
• Most users never change a driver in the entire time they have the machine - flexibility or efficiency in this area isn't as valuable as checking off another bullet item on some lame review

As to your Detonator 3 driver issues on your Nvidia TNT2-based graphics card:

1. Set your graphics drivers to Generic VGA drivers
2. Reboot in "Safe Mode"
3. Reinstall your Detonator 3 drivers
4. Reboot into "Normal" mode
5. Test to make sure everything went allright

By the way - install the "Coolbits" keys into your registry and enable all of the tweak settings in the drivers - built-in overclocking!