🚀 go-pugleaf

I know that the Microsoft-supplied driver and the AdobePS are supposed to be the same code, but I ran some tests and found that they are not. (This was over a year ago, I think.) 

I started with two newly installed Win2K machines. On one I installed a PS printer via the Add Printer Wizard, and on the other I used AdobePS. Right away, the version numbers for the various DLLs were different. Things were further confounded if you added AdobePS to the Win2K-only machine and added a printer with the Wizard on the AdobePS machine -- as I recall, each one tries to overwrite the previous code.  

Similar behavior was found for HP-supplied drivers I tested; their installer, while being the joint MS-Adobe driver, forces its own DLLs over yours, even if yours are newer. 

One of the fixes addressed by Microsoft Hotfix Q310897, which is a roll-up of a number of earlier fixes, is that version numbers can be used: In Win2K, the decision to replace a file when another driver is loaded is based only on the file time and date stamp. WinXP is designed to honor versions. 

After loading this fix, I found that you could run the Wizard or AdobePS in any order, and versions would only increase. 

And besides testing for DLL versions, I've had a ton of hands-on experience fixing printer problems by installing AdobePS over Microsoft-supplied or HP-supplied drivers in an office of some fifteen floors' worth of mostly PS printers, some Adobe, some clones. 

So that's why I continue to refer to the AdobePS, Microsoft, and HP as separate drivers. If everyone shipped the same set of files, there would not be the need, except to point out *functional* differences like the bypassing of system .inf files and the use of PPD files.