Windows XP forum: Is Vista going to be the new Windows ME?

A gaming PC you can buld for $1,500 with DirectX 10 Graphics, lower is Do You Really Need Vista? 10 reasons not to upgrade to Windows Vista!
I can name 5 I have seen. But this is Windows XP forum so I won't.
Darrell L.

Bob

Some time back I added a new Zoom serial modem to my XP unit.
At the time I had to install a new driver.
The driver was unsigned and everyone Zoom,cnet and others said no problem go ahead and use it.
I did and it is still working fine.
Will the Vista driver situation be the same or will no drivers be available due to the fee that the vendors have to pay.

Ray

I heard that the 32bit Vista like XP will warn and prompt to run.

Anyone out there know for sure?

You can use unsigned drivers in Vista, but if a driver isn't signed, the DRM model kicks in and shuts down parts of the operating system. An unsigned video driver might be prohibited from playing back DVDs for example, even if that DVD is of home movies and unencrypted. It's sort of like adding teeth to the warning message that shows up in XP if you try to install unsigned drivers.

There are a lot of things about Vista that are rather off-putting. Only the 64-bit version will be able to use the new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD releases at full resolution, and only if using an encrypted HDMI cable. So all 32-bit users are left out, and even people with 64-bit CPUs will have to likely upgrade video cards.

Part of the DRM model involved Microsoft having to remove some of the fault tolerance of the entire operating system. In an effort to try and prevent people from tapping encrypted video/audio signals, the operating system is set to shut down if it detects what's called a "tilt value". This has unintended consequences, making the operating system less resilient to various forms of network attacks.

There's the ongoing squabble between Microsoft and some of the big anti-virus firms. Norton users probably won't notice anything out of the ordinary with the rapid decline of that brand, but users of Norton and McAfee products may have to suffer through some teething problems early on.

Then there's the fact that aside from Aero, virtually every promised feature that made Vista a worthwhile upgrade, got chucked overboard a long time ago.

WinFS went to the wayside a long time ago. The promise of rewriting all of the usermode code to use the .NET Framework was quickly abandoned. Aero is sort of a pale shell of what it was supposed to be. The list goes on.

I'm all for Microsoft trying new things, even if for little more than the sake of trying them. It's good to shake things up now and again, but Vista isn't doing any of that. It's a product of Microsoft's complete sellout/cave-in to the music and movie industry and their unreasonable expectations. Anyone with half a brain can figure out the entertainment industry doesn't really care about piracy, they know as well as the next person that online piracy helps sales of CDs and DVDs, they care that they don't have absolute control over the distribution path anymore, and can't squeeze every last cent out of customers.

I for one plan on buying a Mac for my next system. And if down the road Apple too follows suit like Microsoft has, there's always Linux or FreeBSD. These days, Richard Stallman seems less like a raving lunatic hermit as he has for the past 20 years or so, and more like a prophet, who foretold that greed would cast its ugly shadow over computer users far and wide, choking users and crushing them with oppression, leaving only a few small bastions of hope and freedom for people to flee to.

What I really fear though, is the rather apathetic nature of the general public. I fear that they will simply accept all of these new restrictions, and it will only embolden Microsoft to try even more. One would have thought that Americans would have revolted in large numbers at the shredding of the Constitution and everything this country was founded for by the current Presidential administration, yet there's been little more than a weak whimper. I can't help but wonder, and fear, if the same won't happen with Vista.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for me for one post.

I'm not intending to launch into a fresh diatribe regarding US politics. I could have just as easily compared it to how the Germans simply allowed Hitler to steadily go further off the deep end, until it was too late for them to do much about it. Just figured a more contemporary example would work better, and the whole Hitler comparison thing has been done to death many times over.

There's very little subjective about it. Facts are objective by definition, and I'm stating facts. If I were stating a subjective opinion, I would have said whether it was a good or bad thing that people were doing what I pointed out. You seem to be the one itching to add the subjective element to my objective observation. Which you're free to do, just over in the Speakeasy forum, lest you violate your own precepts about this not being the proper forum (in both senses of the word).

Whatever the case, I think we all take your meaning, and the subject can be dropped.

Whatever the case, I think we all take your meaning, and the subject can be dropped.

IOW: Take your own hint.

For the reasons mentioned in this thread and others, I have personally put off any thought of "upgrading" to Vista until the species is examined more closely. I wonder what other surprises we may find?

I have been looking at notebooks over the past month and Vista has pushed me to a Mac (just haven't pulled the trigger yet).

The other thing I wonder is if the XP development team is going to neglect XP to the point where Vista becomes an easier pill to swallow. Maybe SP3 for XP and other helpful patches and goodies will remain vaporware until Vista gains a certain market share?

If Microsoft ever needs my help, I'm just going to tell them press F6.

I am using Ubuntu 32 & 64bit versions.

Easy to use, installs easy and has the VMWare player so I don't need a dual boot.

No more plolitcal stuff on SE.

I'm not tech savvy enough to address the inner workings of Vista and cannot speak as eloquently as the other posters but as a user that's been using the OS on a test machine since the first beta was offered last summer I can say for certain that i am not at all happy with the bloated features that are at least in the beta's. For my personnel views i like XP much better and most likely will never change to vista. Well, I guess one can never say never but at least not in the foreseeable future.

Hi ,
It is very fortunate that enlightened people participate in this forum and most of us reap the benefits of their experience. Bob has been a blessing for a long time now Jackson Dougless' contribution has added a definite dimension to healthy caution. Wait and see!
I look forward to more information with my money firmly in my zipped pocket. I feel encouraged by his suggestion of looking at Apple 10.4
Shafiq

Ford and GM were big but they never had a real monopoly. The MSFT monopoly is unique. No other market demands "a standard" as strongly as the computer software market does. In software, the need for interoperability is so strong that the customer is willing to put up with the other things the monopoly does.

There *are* neutral standards bodies in computer software. ANSI, ISO, the Web Consortium, IEEE. ANSI also standardizes screw threads. The reason they do it is the market requires a standard. Suppose GM really had the same kind of monopoly MSFT has. They could get away with using a special screw thread, and you'd have to buy a GM socket set, and go to GM school to learn to use it, just to do the simplest maintenance on your car.

MSFT will fall. They're holding back the industry, and it won't be held back forever. You can see it in breakouts like the One Laptop Per Child initiative. (Not just a cheap laptop, a fundamentally new platform.) You can see it in smart phones and personal video recorders, which tend to be embedded Linux apps. You can see it in nations whose national governments are showing Windoze the door: PRC, Venezuela, New Zealand, Brazil... Even Massachusetts.

why? I recall something I asked and thought a while back ...

<a href="http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=185076&messageID=2014140#2014140">here</a>

I have dreaded Vista for many reasons and i'm sure most were covered. I swore to switch to Open source instead of going to Vista when I can no longer use XP. I used it before it was beta to the public. Our college received a pre-beta? I suppose I could call it. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. I have to keep up with it,ONLY due to pc repair but will NOT use it. I don't like it. I think it's a step back from XP which was actually looking to a promising future.

Paul

If link doesnt' work: http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=185076&messageID=2014140#2014140