conflicting versions of drivers during installation setup

[Guest wylbur37]

Suppose you were running a SETUP program to install an application

that's about

two years old. Suppose one of the components (such as a driver)

happens to have

the same name as one that currently exists on your computer.

So this is a situation where an existing (but newer) driver

is about to be replaced by an older driver of the same name.

 

Is the operating system smart enough to prevent the newer driver

from being clobbered by the incoming (but older) driver?

 

If the answer is yes, how does the system determine which driver is

"newer"?

Does it go by the timestamp of the file, or is there some coding

inside the component that identifies the version?

 

....

[Guest smlunatick]

Re: conflicting versions of drivers during installation setup

 

On Sep 23, 9:45 pm, wylbur37 <wylbur37nos...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Suppose you were running a SETUP program to install an application

> that's about

> two years old. Suppose one of the components (such as a driver)

> happens to have

> the same name as one that currently exists on your computer.

> So this is a situation where an existing (but newer) driver

> is about to be replaced by an older driver of the same name.

>

> Is the operating system smart enough to prevent the newer driver

> from being clobbered by the incoming (but older) driver?

>

> If the answer is yes, how does the system determine which driver is

> "newer"?

> Does it go by the timestamp of the file, or is there some coding

> inside the component that identifies the version?

>

> ...

 

The OS is supposed to be aware that the driver is older but it also

requires that the installer be "smart" also. I have seen several

SETUP packages ignore the OS check routines and "brute" force the

older driver on top of the newer driver.