VISTA bytes!

[Character]

Interesting info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6319845.stm

[thefool]

This scares me :/

I think I'll just wait a bit till the mad customers get vista changed...

[DoubleDutch]

No problems with Vista here.

Tried it on a 1.3 Ghz machine with 768MB - works fine. About 50% faster than XP. Doesn't allow Aero...

Also tried it on a 3.4Ghz machine with 512MB ram and an oldish gfx card, also works about 50% faster than XP (nippier) and allows the Aero desktop. Nice

I don't personally know anyone who has had any problems that were not fixed by the online driver update system.

Pity really 'cause I was getting ready to really slag it off and pull Vista apart!


Note: Both were new installs, not updates.

[Character]

Sounds good. Thanks for the info.
But I will wait and see, for a while ...

[Brice Manuel]

Change mine to a would never buy Vista. My XP disc broke, so I could no longer upgrade, I would have to buy the full version of Vista. With the prices, that ain't going to happen!

I will stick with XP and start moving to Linux.

[DoubleDutch]

If your XP disc broke you just need to ask Microsoft for another. The disc is virtually free - your payng for a licence to use it.

Alternatively, just download XP using a torrent site and use your own key. You should be breaking no laws.

[SFSxOI]

This scares me :/

I think I'll just wait a bit till the mad customers get vista changed...

Actually that article is a little,,,, not deceptive but not fully explainatory either.

See the part in the article where is says "He noted that Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on most computer monitors. " ...see where it says .."most computer monitors", the use of the word "most". The DRM in Vista affects the capability of hardware in relation to the built in media stuff in Vista, not the OS it's self as Vista only channels the content for DRM and not changes or affect it, its the hardware support for the most part that does that...so it doesn't really or fully affect hardware that doesn't support DRM except with the built in media stuff (media player, etc...) that comes with Vista. In context with todays world, if your not using a LCD monitor or a more recent video card (made in about the last two years), if you use a Vid card that was not made in the last two years and an CRT monitor not made in the last two years you will be able to play back DRM content just fine with third party utilities, or in a lot of cases with the media stuff built into Vista depending on what the media is. Of course there is a lot more to it then this, but these are the basics.

Lets tag these items as 'Non-DRM' and DRM-Compliant for a minute, I play back DRM content just fine with no noticible degradation with Non-DRM complaint hardware. Besides, the degradation is not degradation as you might think about it as in fuzzy video for example. The degradation is more like the difference between colors at 16 bit and 32 bit, sort of, where for the most pratical part of about 99.999999% of the world most people would never notice the difference, its more like degrading it to the point of what you see now on a CRT televison screen for non-DRM DVD movies you view with a DVD player now. So in the overall scheme its not a degradation that really matters to about 99.999999999% of the world.

Also see the part where it says "...30 checks each second", those don't happen if you don't use any DRM-Compliant hardware.

Its not just in Vista the DRM thing is going to occur. The media industry has plans to totally disable their media from even starting up if an OS does not have DRM built in, this includes Linux as well (if it doesn't support DRM).

Now look at it from a practical perspective...when did a computer become a 'Media Center' anyway? If I want to play back a DVD movie I use a DVD player, I don't run into the computer room or office if i want to watch a DVD. So in context with the whole DRM thing and computers...get a DVD player and play back the DVD on it.

Am I for or against DRM? I'm totally against. Is DRM wrong? yes it is. Do I object to it even if I never notice the degradation? yes I do. Is it something thats going to keep me from using the Vista OS as an OS instead of an entertainment center? no its not.

I think MS caved in a little too soon on the DRM thing. I think if MS had just said 'NO!' to the media companies, who have been wanting to get their claws into the home computer market for so long that they have wet dreams over it, I think the media companies would have just said 'OK" and we wouldn't even have DRM today. The media companies could not aford to alienate computers users in a market they want to get their clawns into to begin with. So basically by MS not saying 'NO' they have given the media industry their entrance to the computer world. DRM is something the media industry is forcing the computer world to adopt when if MS would have just said 'NO' we wouldn't be seeing these posts and articles today.

Follow a few basic guidelines, like having hardware that Vista can use and supports natively out of the box (thats the big clue its self...if Vista will support it out of the box then you are on the right road), and you will find that Vista will perform just as well or better then XP did, heck, in my view even better and faster.