Experiences with Windows Vista

[thatguy]

edit--> oops, didn't realize reyfer already linked the article on the last page.

not sure how many of you really care about issues of DRM (or will be investing money in HDCP hardware and content), but for anyone who is interested, give this a read:
www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

vista is adding unnecessary overhead in the encryption of HD signals (from, for instance, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD videos), in an effort to prevent illegal use of the signal (for copying, etc). in order to do this, vista will require additional cpu cycles to process the encryption and decryption. furthermore, vista will require additional certification of hardware, so that in the case of video cards, the HD signal isn't being sent to an unauthorized chip where it can then be ripped. in this regard, even though GPUs are already released as HDCP-"schema"-compliant, they have not been properly authorized under vista, and most likely will be denied access to the encrypted HD signals.

the article compares microsoft and HD video to apple with iTunes, where content publishers will be forced into complying with microsoft's (or apple's) rules, or else not be able to sell their content to windows (or iTunes) users. in short, the approach microsoft is taking with vista to ensure DRM comes at the cost of the consumer: either with the performance impact from the lost cycles due to encryption/decryption, or with the additional cost of specialized hardware that does exactly the same as what lesser/cheaper hardware does with non-DRM'd content.

makes you wonder about those "minimum" system requirements, whether the new features really justify new hardware, or if the extra requirements are to pre-emptively support the security overhead. of course, if you have no (short term) plan to adopt Blue-Ray or HD-DVD (or any other HDCP-related signal transmission), then this is all moot. but considering that a number of people are willing to adopt vista (citing vista's "new features", how they will supposedly remedy XP's problems), i for one agree with the prediction of digital-content monopoly that apple/iTunes holds on music.




as far as my experience with vista goes, i got in on the beta run and gave it a go. i was not impressed in any way, be it interface, performance, features, or anything else. just fyi: i am no longer an avid gamer, so my computing applications are not strictly performance/graphics intensive. i run nlite builds of XP corp for my XP installs, and on my home server i have win2k3 running half a dozen basic networking services. as i see it, in order for microsoft to be able to target a large audience (to support a wide range of users and hardware), it has to have an all-inclusive package of windows--hence the idea that all vista DVDs will be vista ultimate, but only certain things will be installed/accessible given proper keys/activation. i have found this approach to be somewhat of the downfall to XP: if you install a whole bunch of services in an effort to provide the greatest amount of compatability among applications, games, users, etc--inevitabily there will be services that are left unused by the user--which are then exploited. with nlite, i trim the fat of XP which i dont use (ie: messenger & co., plus pre-configured security levels, etc), such that upon format/install, XP is running exactly everything i need it to run, nothing less and nothing more. (compare nlite as the opposite linux, where you build your install from the ground up, ie: compile, tailored as you need). of course, not everyone knows what every component in windows is doing, so they have no idea whether they can cut it out or not... and yet, this will be a similar problem under vista, since it will be unrolled as an image with all services installed. the unix-like least-permissions model is nice, but preliminary reviews have already indicated them as being flawed. (the "authorize" dialog is simply "yes" or "no", and uninitiated users wont know which to click... inevitably clicking yes). of course, there's the vlite project (vista equivalent of nlite), so i look forward to that.

basically, my two cents: vista is a step up from XP... and also two steps sideways. there are certainly improvements and new features that resolve problems in XP, but my prediction is that after vista gets a large adoption, those two steps sideways will reveal themselves as problematic ("off course"), and that step forward won't be so impressive anymore.

[frblckstr1]

^ A few things are not entirely correct in the above post.

HDCP is hardware, no overhead for HDTV/HDCP when its available, just pump the bit stream thru from the DVD to the videocard/TV. The overhead is mainly for the downgrading to 480i on your screen (maybe because newer video cards will do this in hardware anyway and newer LCD screens will be HDCP compliant even on DVI e.g. see the new 30" HP display)
DRM is something the movie companies require not Microsoft, you can fault Microsoft for implementing it but thats about it.

There is a huge performance difference (in a possitive way) between Vista beta's and the RTM.
The tests Microsoft had someone do on some labtop/desktop systems reflect what I have seen 'in real life' for now.

About the only thing people will need 'new' is probably a videocard/screen, most normal hardware bought in the last year will work.
Was anyone able to buy a *new* system with less then a 1GHz CPU in the last year?
(not counting the UMPC's)

Anyway, not going to Vista for my home systems yet.

[Intosia]

I tried it at laptop (IBM Thinkpad T42) i must say i didnt dislike it I like the graphics. The only think is that i is kinda of a memory hog... i ran it with 750MB ram but i think 2GB is a real requirement is you want to run games and stuff...

[trickraca]

im running vista rc1 32 bit right now on my desktop and the only problem ive had so far is recovering from sleep or standby.. when i converted from xp i only had to install 2 drivers...my printer and my sound card... it read everything else...i give it two thumbs up for now..