What M$ is *really* up to with Vista - a must read!

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:12 pm

If this is only halfway true, the golden times for Linux are yet to come:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... a_cost.txt

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:00 pm

I doubt Microsoft is actually to blame for most of that, it just doesn't sound like something software developers would think up. More then likely Microsoft has been forced into this by the 'content industry'.

Vendors are allowed to opt out, at first that sounds bad by implying that no \"premium content\" will be allowed if the vendor chooses that route. However if most or all vendors and customers decide to 'opt out' support for the content protection system itself crumbles and it will definitely fail. The more costly and impractical this system is, the better in my opinion. The industry needs to throw down as many road blocks as possible to prevent this system from gaining acceptance.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:14 pm

Similar predictions of doom were advanced by some Linux advocates when Windows XP came out. We all survived. I also take any statement from ATI, of all corporations, as being highly dubious. They still can't get their farkin' drivers working reliably on Linux.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 8:45 am

Kyo,

did you read the entire article? Thorougly? Vista puts 'content protection' on an entirely different level than XP. Actually it's the first MS OS with true 'content protection'. Basically, Vista will degrade output quality system wide if it is processing 'premium' content on any single resource. Due to its excessive content protection mechanism it also gets extremely vulnerable for DoS attacks - all an attacker needs to do is to purposefully make Vista believe it gets attacked, and it will lock itself almost completely.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:30 am

Diedel wrote:all an attacker needs to do is to purposefully make Vista believe it gets attacked, and it will lock itself almost completely.

I thought it would be easier for people to actually hack a computer than to make a fake hack that seems like a real hack...

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:05 pm

Diedel wrote:Kyo,

did you read the entire article? Thorougly?

You read enough Slashdot articles to realize that any document that opens with "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history" might just be a little biased.

The rhetoric sounds familiar coming from a college CS department. I remember my professors were fanatical about Linux and would trash Microsoft every step of the way.

And I did read the whole thing, thank you. I don't fear or even believe things because some random guy at a university tells me to. I'll believe it when I see it.

Chaos Death Saurer · Post by **Chaos Death Saurer** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:52 pm

I won't be upgrading to Vista for a long time, so this means nothing to me.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:11 am

on dbb.net i keep seeing vista bashing. i don't understand what some of the links say from time to time but it looks like, from people's comments, vista is going to be a flop.
Tell me if im right. Vista to xp will be:
1. less freedom
2. more graphically intense
3. more cumbersome to use
4. very expensive
5. triple the system requirements of my current dual core 64 system

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:16 am

Isaac wrote:Tell me if im right. Vista to xp will be:
1. less freedom
2. more graphically intense
3. more cumbersome to use
4. very expensive
5. triple the system requirements of my current dual core 64 system

Pretty much sums it up.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:32 am

Vista is NT's version of Windows Millennium.

It has a lot of good internal improvements, but it comes with too many minor squeaky wheels.

Most of the significant improvements most people won't notice over XP, the new driver model for audio and video would reduce the number of crashes and restarts for driver installs, but thats not a improvement for the average user of XP.

DX10 not being made available for XP and 2000 makes sense only in the vein of forcing people to upgrade, like the DX9 hardware requirement for Aero makes little sense from a technical perspective.

Im not seeing anyone upgrading to Vista, nor pirating it. You'll get one when you buy a new computer, but it'll languish on the retail shelves, where MS needs it to succeed.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 6:37 am

Isaac wrote:on dbb.net i keep seeing vista bashing. i don't understand what some of the links say from time to time but it looks like, from people's comments, vista is going to be a flop.
Tell me if im right. Vista to xp will be:
1. less freedom
2. more graphically intense
3. more cumbersome to use
4. very expensive
5. triple the system requirements of my current dual core 64 system

I'd say that the first point is wrong, I can't see why point 2 is a negative, I don't think anyone can really say point 3 until we can actually use it, point 4 is correct unless you buy a new computer, and point 5 is the one that I'm worried most about.

The only points I know that's good in it are increased security and better graphics capability in games.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 6:47 am

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:35 am

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:44 am

Spooky wrote:The latest system requirements I have seen posted for Vista are a processor running 3gh or better. 2gb of system RAM and a video card packing 512mb of video system RAM on board. A machine that has those requirements met would be quite expensive.

According to daily tech, the official system requirements for vista are: a DX9 video card, 800 MHz processor, and 512 MB of system memory.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:49 pm

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 4:14 pm

Oddly enough, I have a Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of ram, a 512 MB video card, and over 1 TB of HDD space in my main computer...

Richard Cranium · Post by **Richard Cranium** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 4:35 pm

Krom wrote:Oddly enough, I have a Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of ram, a 512 MB video card, and over 1 TB of HDD space in my main computer...

You might just have enough HP and storage then...

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:57 pm

Well, now that I've just got back from reading about Vista in a games magazine I got, I found out two more useful things:
1: No, it is not more cumbersome to use. In fact, with a special section in the start menu for shrtcuts and quick info for games, I can see it being a lot easier.
2: Parents can set a control over what games a kid can play, and how long they can stay on the computer for at a time. For example, it's now possible for an admin to block certain users from playing drug-related or overly-violent games, or prevent them from playing a game too late in the afternoon. Vista will even display a warning that, if set to lock-up for forced breaks, to save your game soon.
3: Vista will have the ability to rate the preformance of your computer. Games can then access that rating and change the graphic settings accordingly.

Also, for those of you who think Vista is going to be Window's downfall, I have yet to see an article in a respected gaming magazine to not have called it a great improvement!

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 7:27 pm

TIGERassault wrote:Well, now that I've just got back from reading about Vista in a games magazine I got, I found out two more useful things:
1: No, it is not more cumbersome to use. In fact, with a special section in the start menu for shrtcuts and quick info for games, I can see it being a lot easier.
2: Parents can set a control over what games a kid can play, and how long they can stay on the computer for at a time. For example, it's now possible for an admin to block certain users from playing drug-related or overly-violent games, or prevent them from playing a game too late in the afternoon. Vista will even display a warning that, if set to lock-up for forced breaks, to save your game soon.
3: Vista will have the ability to rate the preformance of your computer. Games can then access that rating and change the graphic settings accordingly.

Also, for those of you who think Vista is going to be Window's downfall, I have yet to see an article in a respected gaming magazine to not have called it a great improvement!

I'm still not convinced.

2. It's a nice feature, but I don't like the computer taking over control. If you want to enforce breaks and/or limiting games, keep an eye on what your kids are playing, and walk over and turn off their screen when it's time for a break.

3. Games already have hardware detection & performance settings. Again, I want to have control over these settings. As long as they don't absolutely enforce the settings, I guess I'm okay with it. All it achieves is to give MS more control, and save the game producers a little money.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:33 am

The one outstanding element I have noticed is that Vista is already being \"patched\" like crazy. (Please remember the ongoing patching of Windows XP. Ugh!) My opinion is that Vista is still not ready for release. A nearby shipyard has already installed the \"business\" version of Vista that was released at the end of November. They are having problems . . . . big time. Their IT people are running around like crazy trying to fix some really bad problems with \"software integration\" and \"compatibility\".

Sounds like said IT department is a joke and the people who made the decision to go to Vista so quickly needs to be fired. What a bunch of retards!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:57 am

Yeah, migrating an entire corporation to a Microsoft OS that is less then one year old is questionable at best, and down right idiotic if done this early.

I'm not even going to move my personal system to Vista for at least another 6 months, probably longer. When some potentially show stopping limitations begin to materialize in XP I will switch over, and probably dual boot for a while. More or less the same way I transitioned from Windows 98SE to XP, dual booting for almost a year.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 1:04 am

Hear, hear. The company I work for is just now going through the testing phase of the migration from 2K to XP. For any large (or even medium, for that matter) organization, that's the way you have to do it: get the majority of the potential issues tested and corrected before making the migration.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 1:24 am

not to get off topic but dosn't windows still have versions of windows nt and server? Why dosn't anyone use those? I know they're expensive as hell but i know Windows Server 2003 is an multi proc os. And at school they used it to run the 3dsmax render farm. If you say windows server is better than xp and vista then i will try my best to get it.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:08 am

Isaac wrote:not to get off topic but dosn't windows still have versions of windows nt and server? Why dosn't anyone use those? I know they're expensive as hell but i know Windows Server 2003 is an multi proc os. And at school they used it to run the 3dsmax render farm. If you say windows server is better than xp and vista then i will try my best to get it.

Don't bother, you'll get nothing out of it.
Its geared more towards network admins than end users, as you said yourself, it used to run the render farm at your school, rather than the workstations that provide data to that farm.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:20 am

how's that? It looks like a normal windows os.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 2:40 am

Isaac wrote:how's that? It looks like a normal windows os.

You are judging a book by its cover.

For 2003 you are paying an additional price for additional software for managing a network. You can do everything that XP can do with 2003, but you paid extra for stuff you wouldn't use, Like Active Directory and Group Policy management.

Read up on it.

DigiJo · Post by **DigiJo** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:02 am

\"digijo looks into his magic crystal ball:\"

sure, this people blessed with a little computer knowledge know about the risks of windows vista and the cut in the computer users freedom, but 2 billion computer rookies will upgrade to vista as soon as possible cause its just \"cool\". the content industry will tell you: \"no vista no content, sorry mate\" and more and more websites and internet services will run only on vista with dx10 and internet explorer 9, 10, 11 whatever with active xyz.

and finally we all need at least 1 vista pc to do what we need to do.

\"Oh, by the way, the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie? Miss Sophie: Same procedure as every year, James...\"

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:06 pm

Im going to buy vista and hang it on my gold chain necklas, next the the ps3. Man, i have back problems...

The Lion · Post by **The Lion** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:01 pm

Amusingly, the Vista content protection docs say that it'll be left to
graphics chip manufacturers to differentiate their product based on
(deliberately degraded) video quality. This seems a bit like breaking the
legs of Olympic athletes and then rating them based on how fast they can
hobble on crutches.

How innovative.

The article may be exaggerating (M$ is not dumb, they will do only what
they can get away with), but the points are there. More DRM, and meaner.

Funny the article never mentioned \"trusted computing\". This is just a
prelude to \"the real thing\".

\"Trusted\" computing FAQ

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:37 pm

The Lion wrote:Funny the article never mentioned "trusted computing". This is just a
prelude to "the real thing".

"Trusted" computing FAQ

Wait, am I missing something? I read the article, and the only thing I found bad about it was that "TC will dramatically increase the costs of switching away from Microsoft products to rival products", which I didn't quite understand.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:53 pm

I work for a university's IT department and we are looking to upgrade the Lab/Staff/Faculty PCs/Laptops to Vista by the end of 2007 early 08, but apparently the Volume Licencing is screwed up in its current state so for now its a no go. That and a lot of the campus software won't run on Vista yet. The longer we wait to upgrade to Vista the better IMHO.

But Office 2007 got the green light.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:14 pm

TIGERassault wrote:Wait, am I missing something? I read the article, and the only thing I found bad about it was that "TC will dramatically increase the costs of switching away from Microsoft products to rival products", which I didn't quite understand.

1) It kills cross compatibility, so any product other than Microsoft word won't be able to open a word document, at least not without a special key provided by the author of the document. This makes it much more difficult for companies to function without the "popular" programs, because past alternatives become too much of a pain to be practical. So, either the company has to operate with both, or just MS. This is questionable anti-competitive action.... It discourages small companies from being able to get into the market, but probably isn't direct enough to result in litigation.

2) It discourages free/collaborative software development, because the large corporations will hold the keys to enabling those programs to access the "safe" content. It is also a step toward letting companies get away with mixing public, free software development with their own private software, and selling the whole package for profit. No one wants to donate their work to a company to make money off of, so people quit working on free projects.

At least that's what they say- furthermore, it can be extended to automatically delete illegal stuff, etc. Potentially, it gives someone out there full control over what you do/have on your computer. I think the US government isn't quite sold out enough yet to allow corporations to get away with blatant censorship... but it theoretically opens the door.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:29 pm

JMEaT wrote:But Office 2007 got the green light.

Woohoo! Office rocks!

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:45 pm

DRM is just getting meaner across the board. The ones I hate the most are the kind that inextricably tie content to specific machines (Xbox Live, for example) such that you either can't move it to another machine or it becomes a serious task to do so.

Expect the practices of surreptitious rootkit installations like Sony did earlier this year to become more commonplace.

With Microsoft's attempt to get into the iPod market with the Zune (I use the term \"attempt\" very loosely, mind you), I think Windows - specifically Windows Media Player - will become increasingly corrupted with DRM.

Either way, even though I'm willing to give Microsoft a certain benefit of the doubt, I ain't buying Vista anytime soon. Why buy an operating system more resource intensive than your current one that does the exact same thing? Between the 95/98 generation and XP, there was a reason. The NT kernel is significantly more stable. But XP and Vista? It's not so clear. Withholding DirectX 10 in a vain attempt to justify Vista's existence is weak.

PC World voted Microsoft Office 2007 as the most innovative product of the year. Which I find really funny. Word 2003 is so terrible that anything would be an improvement. Because this is so much more innovative than the Wii.

Firewheel · Post by **Firewheel** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:12 pm

I'll stick to Apple and skip all of this, thank you.

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:33 pm

Linux is looking better and better.....

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:07 am

Firewheel wrote:I'll stick to Apple and skip all of this, thank you.

oh god... am i going to have to switch to mac in the near future? jk...

I'll just commit Seppuku when vista comes out.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:41 pm

Mac OS is Linux based now anyways.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:35 pm

Core Decision was delayed to 2007 in part to wait for Vista's full release.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:09 am

If they make CD DX10, it will be a no go for me. To hell with DirectX. People should go OpenGL. v3.0 is around the corner.

Anyway, the web site hasn't been updated for months, no news at all from CD ... I believe it will be a finished game if I have a copy on my HD.

What M$ is really up to with Vista - a must read!

What M$ is really up to with Vista - a must read!

░

░