The true cost of Vista

A lot of hysteria combined with a lot of out of date information.

Are you not at all aprehensive about vista. Any concerns?

i mean wasnt it supposed to be a completely new OS built from the ground up featuring a radical new file system (winFS), new security, pc to pc sync, scripting shell, new visuals etc when all that remains is basically a version of XP with aero and DX10, effectively XP SP3. and even then not everybody can run aero

So what is the story regarding playback of purchased HD DVD and blue ray movies via 32 bit vista now?

I am talking about os upgrades here so the hardware is irrelevant
i know where you are coming from though

in any case you can get a mac mini for £399 (albeit without monitor) but still comparable to a dell at that price range

Specifications
* 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo
* 512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x256MB
* 60GB Serial ATA drive
* Mac OS X

also you can upgrade the mac os again next time and the time after that at the same low upgrade cost

Yes, you are correct that the majority of people will buy a new machine, in most cases its more cost effective, however you are still missing the point.

there are some people around who after having bought a dell pc a year ago will walk in to dixons and buy vista at that incredible upgrade price and then find out their system isnt really good enough. Thats when it becomes expensive

now lets apply that situation to me, i have a family of 5

suppose i walk in to apple store and bought 5 mac minis @£399 each total £1995
6 months later i want to upgrade all machines to OSX leopard ~£139 approx
total cost for hardware and latest OS for all 5 = £2134

now instead do the same to 5 dells @ £399 each total £1995
when vista comes out i want to upgrade all machines to ultimate

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show [...] =SW-046-MS

above lists the upgrade as £235 * 5 = £1175
total cost of hardware and to upgrade all 5 dells to vista = £3170

thats over £1000 difference. i could buy another couple of pcs or mac minis for that.

the reason i went for the ultimate was because its the version with all the features just as os x has all features enabled.

Actually most of the dells bought in the past year are equipped with intel graphics, i know i use one at work as does everybody else i know. i dont think its good enough to run aero. now if someone did buy an upgrade they would be miffed to find that one of the main selling points of the OS wouldnt work well!!.
that wasnt actually my point but that it just costs so much for the upgrade surely you must concede that one. woulnt it be nice if ms sold a family upgrade licence for that same £235??

i didnt mean upgrade every 6 months i used it as an example and picked a key upgrade path in the near future for both systems. nobody in their right mind would upgrade as often as apple releases updates, i would say every 2-3 years is sufficient. and then that still is loads cheaper than shown in my previous example.

no you dont get monitors with the minis but i was comparing them to dells also without monitors so it was relative.

why dont you have a look at apple shop and see for yourself

Do you have a HD drive or Blue Ray drive?

Gutman's article is not outdated if anything he is spot on about the DRM measures.

I suggest you read some of the footnotes but you have to be an electronics engineer to understand most of it.

For example, ATI has backed up everything Gutman has written in his piece about the challenges of DRM and Trusted Computing.

I suggest you go over to the Creative Vista forum and read about the driver issues they are dealing with. Do not believe me read Creative's own article discussing the challenges they face with the new driver models:
Audio in Windows Vista
http://forums.creative.com/creativ [...] ge.id=1694

I have a creative sound card and not only does it cause BSOD repeatedly, the audio is pcm only and sounds terrible. Of course I am using Beta drivers but Creative has not released any drivers that are stable yet.

According to what I have read, the only people that are getting decent sound are the ones using audio chipsets embedded in the motherboards.

My NVIDIA graphics drivers are also terrible, they may be unified but they definitely not ready for prime time. The DVD support on my NVIDIA 7 series card is grainy and it is not stable. Vista ver 97.46

What concerns me most is that in the EULA you authorize MS to scan your hardisk with impunity and it calls home to report on your computing activities.

Creative is notorious for bad drivers... long before Vista. If you look deeper, you'll see a lot of people having issues with their cards in XP as well. (Noise distortion, etc.) I finally pulled out my Audigy 2 and went with onboard because the wife kept complaining about the sound issues. I tried absolutely every suggestion there was... all to no avail.

I'd suggest that Creative stop blaming everyone else for their driver issues. It's easy to point the nasty finger at MS because they are a big, fat target. However, Creative's driver issues go back a lot farther than Vista... so they need to take a good look at themselves.

Zoron

I will agree with your comments about Creative’s past history as I started out with the AWE32 and know about their buggy drivers.

But to say it what is happening in VISTA is Creative’s problem is being too simplistic. MS is forcing hardware manufacturers to conform to the new AACS system or be forced out of the business of making hardware for any MS based OS.

Just for the record, MS did not finalize the audio specifications until November leaving manufacturers little time to write drivers. I read this on the MS website by the Audio Engineer head at MS in Redmond. They continually revised the driver specification right up until RTM

ATI has repeatedly commented on these strong arm tactics. MS is trying to increase their Monopoly control over the computer industry using DRM as a business model. Vista requires a Hardware Functionality Scan HFS which is going to turn a lot of computer hardware into paper weights because they cannot comply with the new standard for HFS. Just go to the Video Card and Audio sites and see all the hardware that is not going to be supported in VISTA.

Gutman talks about tilt bits in his article and I have personally had VISTA crash numerous times because to this wonderful new feature that MS has implemented and my hardware is supposed to be VISTA compliant.

For us consumers it means higher prices and we are being forced to buy hardware that will be compromised by design to comply to AACS standards that MS is going to try and force down our throats.

Do you not see a problem with MS telling everyone which kind of hardware we can buy that will work in the new OS?

Do you see any warning labels about this in all the hype that MS using to promote VISTA? This is much worse than the Intel fiasco that tried to ID all of our CPU chips.

I used to think that people that commented on MS being a monopoly were nuts however with VISTA I am joining the MS is a evil monopoly group. One company has no right to dictate what we do with our computers right down to what we can purchase that will run on it.

I have not even started talking about the new spying they are doing while you are connected to the internet… that is for another discussion.

The reason i'm still using windows is mainly because of Games, if developers would all support Games on Linux i would happily switch asap. i mean what else is there to want on linux, it has everything including a full office suite of apps (OpenOffice) to get you started, and it doesnt cost you anything.

why can't we just use OpenGL, theres nothing wrong with it. i actually prefer using it when i have a choice, such as in FarCry. i believe it gives better performance.

More hysteria.

No, I haven't tested it with an HD-DVD or a BluRay drive - I haven't bought either yet. The support for these will come from 3rd parties - do you truly believe that the corporate forces behind both formats will not allow HD playback on 32 bit and only 64 bit? Can you explain why?

From any other source, anything in HD plays more than fine already right now. Serenity looks amazing.

You're complaining about something which is hardly available which doesn't play because a 3rd party hasn't yet released software for an operating system which hasn't yet been publically released.

Stop whining about things you truly have no idea about.

Once again Microsoft's Response:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/ [...] swers.aspx

Did you even read the link? DRM is not being rammed down your throat most of the DRM features of Vista were implemented in some form in XP.

And in reponse to your coments:

1. Vista has no mechanism to render hardware useless the only thing it can do is revoke the right to pass secured content to the driver all other funtions remain intact.

2. Degraded content only applies if the signal chain is unsecured the decision to implement this is left up to the content providers

3. In my opinion Microsoft did not cave in to DRM but rather wants to prove it can provide a secure channel to get a stranglehold on digital distribution like iTunes currently has

4. The average consumer probably won't even know or care about DRM on a windows machine most people don't use them play movies they have a little box under their TV to do that and most of the protection applies to Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies which are currently very rare and therefore currently not a huge issue for the average consumer

Read his recent blog post he clearly states that a revoked driver means that the device will not be passed premium content but will not be otherwise affected

Edit. Can a moderator or someone merge the 3 threads on vista's content protection so there isn't 3 debates at once?

I do not mean to be flippant but you believe him?

Do you really think he would make a statement which would effect the 500 million roll out next week if it was true.

I trust Peter Gutman and many others that have studied this back and forth for the last 2 years and the his power point presentation made to industry insiders that says it will.

Whether they will risk alienating the owners of the hardware is another matter but the revocation of keys and drivers does exist.

I read the discussion with 20 questions and most of the content protection documents that were cited in Peter Gutman's article that are posted on microsoft.com.

The reason I have a hard time with his statement is that it is 180 degrees from the presentation he gave at Win HEC talking to Hardware Manufacturers about the DRM measures that will be implemented in Vista.

There are 5 documents about content protection on their site saying that driver revocation results in hardware shutdown until a new driver is released through Windows Update.

IMHO-David Marsh is being slick on this issue because of the legal liability that would result if they actually were dumb enough to disable millions of Graphics or Sound cards.

In the last content protection article posted, they did re-word driver revocation by saying there would be a simultaneous release of a new certified driver if revocation was necessary.

I just finished listening to the security now broadcast with Leo La Porte and Steve Gibson. They were contacted by MS about the same issue after the Gutman broadcast last week and they said MS is now saying they will only disable premium content.

Gibson and La Porte say the only way we will know is when they actually do it because all the code is secret. In addition, they said it was odd for the same reasons I list above.

This whole DRM protection racket is going to blow up in Microsoft’s face. For example, the real pirates that make money off copying movies are not going to be stopped. They can copy HD-DVD or Blu Ray discs using bit by bit copying techniques without this DRM stopping them or from PC users that will be able to play those commercially duplicated discs on their PC’s.

One has to wonder who they are trying to stop with this madness if the real threat to their content will not be affected with all of the DRM protection in Vista.

I understand the confusion but Microsoft could never have seriously thougth they could get away with revoking driver and turning hardware into paper weights. I think the far more likely scenario is that Microsoft has always intended that "driver revocation" = "no premium content for driver"

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/sof [...] 33781.html

I missed something with the link...