DescentBB

This is utter BS.

Description
Microsoft has once again sparked controversy over its new operating system, Vista, with a change in its licensing terms which will allow owners of retail copies of Vista to only transfer their software to a new machine once. If they will need to move the OS a second time they will need to buy an additional copy.

Microsoft users have been quick to criticize the company for its move while many claim that it is precisely this attitude towards the consumer by Microsoft that will work as an incentive for hackers to work extra long hours to crack the new OS.

The company is also coming under fire from security companies due to competitive concerns. Many had planned to voice their opinions in a planned meeting with Microsoft. Unfortunately the MS Live Meeting technology used for the conference crashed 15 minutes after the meeting started. Some of the big players like Symantec and McAfee were unable to log back on.

The troubled OS has been met with skepticism from consumers while incentives such as games that will only play on the new OS (Halo 2) or the promise of DX10 gaming may not convince people to make the move, especially as long as issues such as DRM and the transfer of the OS remain unclear.

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Who are they kidding? It will be cracked in a day like xp was.

Yes, I read that before. It's utter BS for sure.

Microsoft can't stop you from using one license of an OS you legally own on one computer no matter what the EULA says. If you used the same copy on your own computer through 10 upgrades that require re-activation they can not legally stop you from doing so if you remove it from the previous computers. If they try to implement this all it will accomplish is getting them a nice big class action lawsuit, the government said a long time ago that you do not and can not lose your rights just by agreeing to a EULA.

Oh it will accomplish something else Krom.

It will make alot more people want to try Linux/Wine.

Nosferatu wrote:Oh it will accomplish something else Krom.

It will make alot more people want to try Linux/Wine.

Yup. Already there. Wonder if Google will build an OS. I've heard there has been some push to get them to make one. Not sure that would be a good thing, but it might.

I doubt that, most people are much more likely to sue then to actually put some effort into an alternate OS.

Duper wrote:

Nosferatu wrote:Oh it will accomplish something else Krom.

It will make alot more people want to try Linux/Wine.

Yup. Already there. Wonder if Google will build an OS. I've heard there has been some push to get them to make one. Not sure that would be a good thing, but it might.

Lol... yes the first MPC OS that only takes up 500k of memory! Too bad google spys on you.

I don't see how this is the end of the world. How often do you buy a new PC without an OEM version of an OS? To run into this, you'd have to be given two PCs in a row that don't come with an OS. If you buy two new PCs in a row and don't plan on keeping the older two, you'd still be elidgeble to get OEM pricing on a new copy of Vista (from my understanding).

As a comparison, does Apple even let you buy a new Mac without purchasing the OS as well? (Maybe they do, my guess is they don't).

Topher: Nope. But they're really not making any money on OS sales anyway, it's just some pretty software to run the hardware. The only time Apple makes money on the OS is upgrades. OS X cannot be purchased for use on a non-Apple machine, so OEM is their primary revenue source.

Apple is and always has been a hardware company. I think Jobs even said that not too long ago.

Funny that, going along with what Topher said, this will really only affect people who build thier own machines..but most of those people are the ones most adept at getting the cracks.

ah buuh...

the only person in this thread who is for this, is the only person in this thread who works for Microsoft.
Lame

roid wrote:the only person in this thread who is for this, is the only person in this thread who works for Microsoft.
Lame

Hey now, I didn't say I was for or against it and I work in Office, not Windows nor legal and have no real knowledge on what the intent of this change is. I do however think there's an awful lot of FUD here based on a small change that will only affect someone in relatively extreme circumstances.

Duper, were you really going to upgrade to Vista all along and this happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back? My guess is no.

Hey Topher.

Didnt Edmund Burke once say:

\"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.\"

Thats why some people speak out against MS's atrocities.

However, those who're speaking out are vastly outnumbered by those that don't know better or just don't give a flying frack.

As a result, I don't see this affecting Vista much at all really. People will just continue doing what they always do: buying OEM machines with Windows preinstalled, running them into the ground and then buying new ones, again with Windows installed. Vista is going to end up on a whole lot more desktops than Linux fanbois think.

Topher wrote:Duper, were you really going to upgrade to Vista all along and this happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back? My guess is no.

You would be correct.

Microsoft has a way of creating a new product and "closing the door" behind them. That is to say that they create things like Dx10 and start producing software that is only supported by it; Halo 2 pc being one example. Sure it may be their "right" to do that as it is their product, but when you are the only company that serves the masses, it becomes a control issue. Limiting software to two installs is ridiculous. Folks like us that need to wipe our hard drives or upgrade a couple times a year with a new Mobo or CPU or whatever are going to feel the squeeze. If you don't mind, hey, that's great. I don't have a problem with that. But this is reminding me an awful lot of the late 19th and early 20th Century and the oil companies.

I don't think you're Halo 2 example is relevant, DirectX 10 is a significant technology upgrade from 9c and because of the new Windows Display Driver Model, it's not something that can be supported on XP.

Read this, Halo 2 PC requires more than just the graphics capabilities of Vista.

Now, I don't work on Halo 2 PC, no idea what it's going to be like. But my prediction is that it's not just a straight XBox to PC port. Here they talk about how it's being called Halo 2.5 and looking in my crystal ball it's because it uses some of the new DirectX 10 features. So is there business value in limiting it to Vista only? Of course, but it also allows Bungie to take advantage of the extremely rich features of DX10 that gives the game a sense of newness over the XBox version and is an incentive for people to buy it. (Again, prediction, not a statement of what it's going to be)

Tangent aside, not being able to move Vista to more than one machine is a legal issue, not a feature issue. I really don't feel like I know enough about it to comment on it and justify why it's there. But I don't think it will be as big a hail storm as it's being made out to be. Rather, I see that Microsoft has made a change and because it's Microsoft it generates an intense amount of speculation and FUD. Check out how the announcement of the addtion of the minimized Office ribbon feature turned into Microsoft caves to customers and drops the ribbon.

Wait until Vista ships and the details are clear and official.

Topher wrote:I don't think you're Halo 2 example is relevant, DirectX 10 is a significant technology upgrade from 9c and because of the new Windows Display Driver Model, it's not something that can be supported on XP.

So then we should all act surprised when OpenGL titles with equivalent feature sets work perfectly on older Windows platforms, since the older Windows display driver model is so unworkable?

This must be a thorn in the side of many PC game developers too, namely ones who have been using Direct3d. It seems as though they will now have to choose between narrowing their potential audience by using Vista-only graphics or narrow them by using out of date graphics. (Or if no such dilemma exists, why is Halo 2 Vista-only again?)

fine, whatever, you have t3h win.

I doubt it is because Windows Vista can support something that XP cant, more likely Microsoft wants it that way, so that is the way it is. If the GPU can do it, then it would be very hard to program the OS to prevent it from happening. Microsoft saying Vista is a requirement for DX10 functions is just Microsoft saying that they refuse to make DX10 for Windows XP. Some part of Windows XP might be unable to support things that DX10 'needs' or it would be hard for Microsoft to code it in, which may or may not have been done intentionally. But OpenGL is not limited to just what Microsoft says, which is why new shader versions and new options can be easily included with nothing more then a simple driver update. Windows XP can support every pixel shader version and DX10 instruction that has to do with games that Windows Vista can support, just Microsoft refuses to support it.

Microsoft can't say who can use what GPU feature in what OS because GPU hardware simply does not work that way. Microsoft can say what GPU feature you can use in what DirectX version, but if they really try to force it so DX10 only works in Vista, it would be possible it could backfire and make more game developers support OpenGL which can work in any OS. I am sure the people at Microsoft have figured that much out and at least have some plan of action or better incentive to upgrade to Vista and DX10 hardware then what they have been saying so far.

At the basic level, OpenGL and DirectX are both just APIs which can be extended to support whatever you want. But the driver to the GPU needs to implement this. The driver model for Vista has been entirely redone (check this out). To implement something effectively, the API needs to be designed around how the driver model is designed. I'm not aware of what the technical limitations of XP's driver model are but you can't wave your hand and have all these new features magically appear without considering how they would be realised. It doesn't come free, it takes time and engineering and resources.

A big point of the new model is stability. I believe currently (in XP) stability is really the job of the manufacturer's drivers. If the driver stinks, you get blue screens. In Vista, stability is enforced by running the driver in user space which prevents many bad things from happening. So, I would justify Microsoft's decision to only support DX10 on Vista by saying there's no benefit to spending more money to support a platform that isn't as stable as the new one and then trying to sell DX10 to developers on how great the new stability could be.

There are other considerations too. Microsoft would be hitting hardware developers with a double wammy here: they'd have to write new drivers for DX10 on XP along with DX10 on Vista. It may not be a big deal, I don't know but not everything Microsoft does is solely Microsoft's decision alone. (It wasn't Microsoft's decision to remove PDF export support from Office 2007 in the box but some people view it as such).

Topher wrote:extremely rich features

I just got back from a "Strategic Design Review" (read: dog and pony show) at Microsoft's Platform Adoption Center for their new web programming stuff (Atlas, IE7, etc). I must have heard that phrase "extremely rich features" used about twenty times by each speaker. There were about six speakers each day for three days--do the math yourself.

Please remove that phrase from your vocabulary when posting here. If I hear you use that Microsoft-speak one more time, I will NOT be responsible for my actions!

Extremely rich features...barf!

im not seeing a technical reason that would prevent the same WDDM drivers being used for vista and 2k/XP.

Wasn't the entire point of DX that developer's wouldn't have to worry about how the hardware was being handled, that they would not have to deal with drivers?

Topher wrote:Microsoft would be hitting hardware developers with a double wammy here: they'd have to write new drivers for DX10 on XP along with DX10 on Vista.

Microsoft has already given hardware developers a quadruple whammy, DX10 cards aside: Since Windows XP will not be going away anytime soon, vendors now have to write drivers for Windows XP 32 and 64 bit along with Windows Vista 32 and 64 bit. What a headache.

Why the heck did Microsoft bother to have a 32-bit version of Vista anyway? Most all new OEM machines have 64-bit compatible CPUs. And the people who like to be on the bleeding edge with technology will most-likely have 64-bit processors when they upgrade toVista. MS should have pushed towards 64-bit computing IMHO.

Tropher, do you know the rational for a 32-bit version of Vista?

Repo Man wrote: Tropher, do you know the rational for a 32-bit version of Vista?

Because they are also selling upgrade versions. Apple went out of its way to make sure PowerPC based software ran on the new Intel Macs, Microsoft isn't going to ignore the hordes of 32-bit machines in the business and home sectors just for the sake of the new.

fliptw wrote:im not seeing a technical reason that would prevent the same WDDM drivers being used for vista and 2k/XP.

There are two reasons I know of: 1) to better-protect the kernel from malware, and 2) Digital Rights Management. It's just another step towards the elimination of all fair use, but that's another topic altogether.

From what I understand, Vista is cutting-off nearly all direct access to the hardware. The fancy hardware-accelerated gaming features in the SoundBlaster X-Fi series of cards don't work under Vista because of this. Reading Creative's forums, it is obvious that their users are *not* happy about this.

fliptw wrote:Because they are also selling upgrade versions.

That's the obvious reason--I know that. However, the 32-bit only machines will probably slow to a crawl under Vista. It does not make much sense from a technical standpoint to me.

From what I predict from my cracked crystal ball: I doublt if the folks with 32-bit machines will be rushing to upgrade to Vista. Their first Vista machine will most-likely be a new computer anyway.

I don't know about 32 bit Vista slowing older 32 bit systems to a crawl. Keep in mind I am still using a 32 bit CPU (Athlon XP @ 2.4 GHz). Give Microsoft some credit here, they wouldn't release a version of Vista for 32 bit machines if it didn't run well.

My intention is only when it becomes necessary for some new great game or something will I upgrade to Vista, and most likely I will have to upgrade my computer at the same time so the 32 bit vs 64 bit is moot. However I have no doubts my computer could run the 32 bit version well enough to use it as the primary OS on this computer if I wanted to.

Repo Man wrote:That's the obvious reason--I know that. However, the 32-bit only machines will probably slow to a crawl under Vista. It does not make much sense from a technical standpoint to me.

You're right, it does not make much sense from a technical standpoint. What are you basing your information on?

Repo Man wrote:

Topher wrote:extremely rich features

Please remove that phrase from your vocabulary when posting here. If I hear you use that Microsoft-speak one more time, I will NOT be responsible for my actions!

Extremely rich features...barf!

My apologies. With DX10's hardcode rockin' features, you should be able to get sweet lookin' graphix just like tha foo.

Topher wrote:

Repo Man wrote:That's the obvious reason--I know that. However, the 32-bit only machines will probably slow to a crawl under Vista. It does not make much sense from a technical standpoint to me.

You're right, it does not make much sense from a technical standpoint. What are you basing your information on?

personal experience with Itaniums?

What does supporting an x86 version have to do with supporting an IA64 version? I see more rationale behind dropping a client IA64 build than dropping the 32-bit x86 build.

Topher wrote:My apologies. With DX10's hardcode rockin' features, you should be able to get sweet lookin' graphix just like tha foo.

That page reeks of propaganda. Just looking at it, all of the features on described on that page look to me like simple API extensions that could be added to any driver model. All of those examples have little or nothing to do with DX10 or Vista, and almost everything to do with the power and features of the next gen hardware that actually does the work.

And how do you get at those new features? You have to write a driver that supports them. It doesn't come free when you change the header API.

A big thing with DX10 is that it requires any manufacturer to fully implement it or not support it at all. This means that if you write a DX10 program, it's guarenteed to have all the features implemented no matter what the graphics card. With DX9 or OpenGL, you have no such guarentee. When you write a game, you write a core set of code that you will know will work on all set of cards and then lots of pieces of code for using features that only work on some sets of cards. This stinks and leads to very hard to maintain code. DX10 eases this a lot by enforcing support and eliminating the wide variation in API support. If you want to add something to the API, it doesn't come free.

DirectX is not just for rendering things either. DirectX also integrates with the new sound system in Vista and helps with resource management and window management, two things that OpenGL leaves to the developer. DirectX also interfaces with the new networking capabilities in Vista, these aren't things that can just be back ported to XP. You can argue then that DX10 should just be written for XP without these new features. But there's no need, we already have this and it's called DX9.

So, I don't see how complaints about a new interface that takes advantage of a new architecture only available on a new operating system but isn't available for an older operating system that doesn't support them have any grounds. If you can do all these great things in OpenGL or DX9, then do them. But DX10 takes advantage of the newer technology and makes it easier for the developer to accomplish the same thing but with littler energy and overhead.

Read this, it details what's new and the problems in DX9 that DX10 tries to overcome:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... 10_web.pdf

Topher wrote:And how do you get at those new features? You have to write a driver that supports them. It doesn't come free when you change the header API.

Which is pretty much my point, it is just as possible to write a driver that supports the features in XP as it is to write a driver that supports them in Vista. Only Microsoft is preventing it from happening, there is no computing law that prevents the same features from working in XP.

Actually, all the hardware features are likely to be integrated into a DX9 revision for Windows XP, same features, just under DX9, since I think I recall hearing somewhere that Microsoft intends to continue DX9 development side by side with DX10 for some time. Adding the extension into the API of choice is the only thing that is required for a game developer to use it, it is up to the driver to to handle the hardware support, and I doubt Nvidia or ATI/AMD would make an XP driver that can not use as much of their hardware's capabilities as possible.

Right, but that's like saying \"You can run 64-bit applications on 32-bit machines through virtualization\". Yes you can do it, but it won't be pretty. Supporting features built on a different (driver) architecture will hurt performance.

Agreed, the question is how much would it hurt performance. If it is within 5-10% at most it should still be usable even if it isn't optimal.

Topher wrote:What does supporting an x86 version have to do with supporting an IA64 version? I see more rationale behind dropping a client IA64 build than dropping the 32-bit x86 build.

Itaniums ran 32-bit code really, really slow.

fliptw wrote:

Topher wrote:What does supporting an x86 version have to do with supporting an IA64 version? I see more rationale behind dropping a client IA64 build than dropping the 32-bit x86 build.

Itaniums ran 32-bit code really, really slow.

Hence why most end-user 64-bit systems are x86-64?

Must .. not .. throw .. more .. feul .. on .. fire.

Ah the heck with it

http://www.theregister.com/2006/10/29/m ... _analysis/

Ouch.