Why you shouldn't touch Vista

[Robert]

Source

 

Better to stick with XP it seems.

 

Internet law professor Michael Geist casts an eye over the fine print in Windows Vista and is concerned at what he finds.

 

Vista, the latest version of Microsoft Windows has made its long awaited consumer debut. It incorporates a new, sleek look and such novelties as better search tools and stronger security.

 

Early reviews have tended to damn the upgrade with faint praise, however, characterising it as the best, most secure version of Windows, yet one that contains few, if any, revolutionary features.

 

While those reviews have focused chiefly on new functions, for the past few months the legal and technical communities have dug into Vista's "fine print".

 

Those communities have raised red flags about Vista's legal terms and conditions as well as the technical limitations built in to the software at the insistence of the motion picture industry.

 

The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own PCs.

 

In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user.

 

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge.

 

During the installation process, users "activate" Vista by associating it with a particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information directly to Microsoft.

 

Even after installation, the legal agreement grants Microsoft the right to revalidate the software or to require users to reactivate it should they make changes to their computer components.

 

For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software".

 

In addition, it sets significant limits on the ability to copy or transfer the software, prohibiting anything more than a single backup copy and setting strict limits on transferring the software to different devices or users.

 

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, a security program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software". The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

 

Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe" even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.

 

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights".

 

For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software".

 

Those technical limitations have proven to be even more controversial than the legal ones.

 

In December 2006, Peter Gutmann, a computer scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand released a paper called "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection".

 

The paper pieced together the technical fine print behind Vista, unraveling numerous limitations in the new software seemingly installed at the direct request of Hollywood.

 

Mr Gutmann focused primarily on the restrictions associated with the ability to play high-definition content from the next-generation Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs (referred to as "premium content"). He noted that Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on most computer monitors.

 

Mr Gutmann's research suggests that consumers will pay more for less with poorer picture quality yet higher costs since Microsoft needed to obtain licenses from third parties in order to access the technology that protects premium content (those license fees were presumably incorporated into Vista's price).

 

Moreover, he calculated that the technological controls would require considerable consumption of computing power with the system conducting 30 checks each second to ensure that there are no attacks on the security of the premium content.

 

Microsoft responded to Mr Gutmann's paper earlier this month, maintaining that content owners demanded the premium content restrictions.

 

Said Microsoft: "If the policies [associated with the premium content] required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."

 

While that may be true, left unsaid is Microsoft's ability to demand a better deal on behalf of its enormous user base or the prospect that users could opt-out of the technical controls.

 

When Microsoft introduced Windows 95 more than a decade ago, it adopted the Rolling Stones Start Me Up as its theme song. As millions of consumers contemplate the company's latest upgrade, the legal and technological restrictions may leave them singing You Can't Always Get What You Want.

 

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.

[Alpha]

I always expected Microsoft to do something like this in the future. One thing is for sure, I'll be using Windows XP for a very long time. And if I absolutely need to use Windows Vista, I'll buy a cheap $300-400 computer just for it. The only person controlling my computer and my information will be me. If worst comes to worst, I'll migrate to Linux.

 

Unfortunately, there will one day be a time when you'll be screwed either path you go. And that's the scary part of the future ... more and more of our rights will be taken away.

 

Most of us won't even notice until it's all gone.

[L.S.D]

i will thanks the hackers/pirates once they crack the Vista. Then I'll use it

[Robert]

One wonders why we have to pay Microsoft for something that appears to be not ours to tamper with, and takes away our rights. They should be paying us!

 

Part of my job is to set up the standard software images for all of the desktops in our company (thousands of them). Defender will NOT be included, and if it can't be removed, then we won't be using Vista. Similarly, I will be attempting to remove or render impotent anything else that I don't like. Again, if it doesn't cooperate, we will say goodbye to Vista.

[CJ Jackson]

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

 

Personally I wouldn't use a OS that gives you less control of my own computer, I want to be able to use SPDIF on everything I watch. I want to watch everything at high resolution.

 

I would recommend PC-BSD on Desktop and FreeBSD for servers, over Windows and GNU/Linux (Linux is just a kernel). Mac OS X is and the only Mac to be based on FreeBSD, that why it so stable compared to the early versions. remember Mac OS 9

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

Say hello to digital communism

 

It was to be expected and they blame it on piracy but of course we all know that the real reason is: to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you. Same thing would go for DRM. They'll design software to enhance your video quality so they can sell it to you and so on.

 

Personally if worse comes to pass I'll have to switch to Linux. Also it is best to not update your Windows XP in the near future, and if you absolutely must, scan them for potential Vista "features".

 

As Gamecop so elloquently put it, the only person who will be controlling my PC will be me.

[ken_cinder]

And this is different to what we knew 4 years ago how?

 

We all knew DRM, sandboxing and HDCP/CP were a reality with "Longhorn" (Now known as Vista). There is NO reason for anyone but the common Joe Idiot to upgrade to Vista. And the ONLY foothold Microsoft has in the rest of the Windows crowd, is DirectX 10.

 

For all you PC gamers out there, I say "Jump ship" and go console only. I am.

[Wizard]

Sadly, I'm not going to jump ship to console only until proper support of keyboard and mouse is intergrated so I can smack talk by typing and not talking to noobs on xbl.

 

DX10 is the main reason to get vista (my reason also), which would only apply to hardcore gamer and enuthist crowd. I'm upgrading my comp to PCI-E this coming april and will see.

 

I don't however, want them to drop support for XP, because I know I will be using it longer before I switch to "revoution" that is known as Vista.

[gymnist1026]

Microsoft is continuing support for the time being...a SP 3 is scheduled (god knows when it will be released...is over due by about 3 years now...)

 

Also, cant you get DX10 as a SDK version? I know you an do that for all the other versions and get around windows...

[Wizard]

What was said that because of different code structure on certain aspecs, DX10 is "linked" too Vista, as noted by various people, including John Carmack.

[Lucandrake]

Fuc.k that. Window's can suck my dick and so can those people taking away our rights for "protection". They are not protecting us to begin with, only making it worse.