Not that this got anything to do with Vista but humans are extremely violent by nature, its just that the average joe isnt aware of this since they werent around during the first and second war where millions after millions of people were slaughtered. You dont even have to go so far back, just look at the iraq civil war. Estimated 700.000 causalties so far and its far from over. It always amused me so when humans are almost always portrayed to be diplomatic and peaceloving in games/series when compared to other fictional races.

I think just about EVERYONE knows that humans are violent deep down. The difference between humans and Drengins is that Drengins are more "expressive". But seriously, I don't think mankind will ever change their ways. For the most part, I think we are careless.

Citizen uglycow (Reply #47):
I beta tested Vista, but I did not get all the info... or maybe I did receive it and ignored because it didn't affect me or maybe I ignored some of the info because MS sent a lot of newsletters and emails.
Regardless, if MS do attempt to lease Windows it will backfire to them with negative PR and possibly class action suits against them.
IT IS A BAD IDEA by definition and if EXECUTED IT WILL BE THE WORST IDEA OF THE CENTURY.
Not to offend bean counters but that sounds like a typical bean counter idea.

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Citizen James Bond 007 (Reply #99):
Lets discuss your statements:

1) "I guess you have not read some of the many problems encountered by people who have problems related to WGA (in Windows XP). And the problems are not because their Windows is pirated. At least some of them are related to WGA wrongly labelling legitimate Windows as pirated."

Ok, I wasn't implying that nobody got a problem with WGA (legitimate user or not). On a OS installed on a considerably large base with different configurations (hardware and software) with different classes of users making changes at different levels, spyware, viruses, worms, bad installers and uninstallers, and so on, a piece of software is BOUND to fail sometime.
There is much hype on news telling the troubles of WGA (or any related technology), but hey, when was the last time you got news about WGA working fine (Just answer yourself: Which of the following will make a news headline: More than 50% of the world population is ok OR 20 bystanders killed by crossfire)

2) About the number of cycles checking for piracy... do you have legitimate objective proof? or it is just a plain complaint about "big brother spying on you"?.
I doubt real spy tactics are hidden inside the system integrity check (Now why LSSAS.EXE changed? Piracy, Virus?). And regardless on how you feel, the EULA forbids MS to collect personal information gathered through activation (the only time you link a license to an end user entity).
If MS does collect personal information by using "spyware software components"/system integrity checks/whatever they violate their own EULA and if they attempt to use that illegally obtained information, any lawyer will be happy to get their day in court against MS.

I must say that for years MS was too permisive with piracy (Does anyone remember the optional "enter the registration code" procedure on Win 3.1X?). Now they are taking more active actions against piracy. Can you blame them?

It is understandable that most people feel that MS is violating their rights, and that may be true. But why are they doing that? You can say shareholders, copyright, profits, ... all true, at the end all of this is happening because LOTS of people violated MS rights TOO MANY TIMES. MS may be a multi billion dollar corp, but they still have rights and they are entitled to defend them, within the law of course.

However this change from MS (et al) happened TOO LATE and is bound to FAIL because people got used to get free goods and no matter how sophisticated a security system is, someone WILL find a way to circunvent every security measure (for fun or for profit). It is not economically feasible to hunt down each and every unlicensed user.

Now, the real solution IMHO is not feasible because of the shareholders: Making software CHEAP, DROPPING the verification/validation schemes and giving users REAL benefits (No lame extra solitaires/demos available for download). SD does good software, with almost no verification scheme and gives LOTS of benefits to their users, that proves that SD is in the right track.

With cheap software more people WILL buy it, and with fewer validation schemes (or none) less complaints about the product will be raised AND MAYBE people will start talking about WHAT THE SOFTWARE IS AND WHAT IT DOES RIGHT OR WRONG and not because COMPANY POLICY.

In MS' case they are doing it worse by allowing illegitimate users to 'upgrade' their software for a minimum price, benefiting pirates more than legitimate users (who pay the software at full price). Using a computer at a cyber coffee I found out that upgrading a pirated Office XP suite costs about 30% of the full product price (And maybe the price is dropping now that 2007 is out).

3) I DO LIKE VISTA, but I WILL NOT UPGRADE FOR THE TIME BEING. And having your opinion shared by others means NOTHING TO ME. I dont care if a billion people think it is a good idea to jump over a cliff I'm still not doing it.

4) About your money, thats up to you. No need to issue threats against SD.

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Citizen: Sevenhertz (Reply #102):

The Sims 2 and lots of 'recent games' DID NOT RUN on Vista Beta or Vista RC and will not run on Vista at all unless new Video Drivers (and sometimes sound drivers) are released.
About Vista being a resource hog, my experience was the opposite, and my computer specs are even lower than yours (My computer does not meet The Sims 2' minimum requirements)
You are entitled to feel that Beta 2 was useless, but remember a Beta is not a finalized product and it is not a good benchmark to test compatibility with software.

"All the negative responses here are valid", there is not a single bit of truth on that statement without proof and your expirence hardly qualifies as proof. You tested a Beta, not Vista. Its like saying "Hey that movie is lame because it has a bad teaser".

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OK PEOPLE LETS TALK ABOUT THE REAL TOPIC: "IS VISTA GOOD FOR GAMING?"

Due such Vista "features" as need to reactivate every 3 months, intentional "destroying" HD resolutions video quality if non HDCP complient hardware and software used and license limitation that you can't use it on your computer after upgrade and many many others ...

I stay with XP ...
May be not forever, I am sure in a year - year and half there will be enough programs "Vista only" that will force me to move but until I absolutely have no choice ...


I believe StarDoc should start another pool to see how users are feel about Vista new "features" .

For those of you complaining about Windows Vista, don't get it! WoW.. isn't that so simple? I hate Hyundais, so i'm not gonna get one. Simple. I'm not gonna around and tell everyone not to get Hyundais or complain about it. I just wont' get one.

Oh and about Vista. It has a lot of cool features that Frogboy pointed out. I won't be getting one till SP1 comes out though.

Well you dont get it then cause this is the main reason why Micro$oft is hated and the market for operative systems is so dreadful; because Micro$oft monopolises the market you really dont have much of a choice. If you want to play games on a computer then you pretty much have to install whatever OS Micro$oft wants you to use, there is no real choice. Linux is neither user friendly or meant for gaming, Mac OS is user friendly but not many game developers support it and if they do its months after the PC release.

For those of you complaining about Windows Vista, don't get it! WoW.. isn't that so simple?
Your argument is meaningless. If it's okay to praise Vista for people who like it, it should be equally okay to post negative comments for people who dislike it.

First of all Hi this is my first post here, I've only been playing GCII for a few weeks.

Anyway I noticed this thread and thought that you guys may want the opinion of someone who's had Vista for a while. I appologise if I've not noticed a previous post along similar lines, I've not read the entire thread.

I've got the Ultimate version as I'm a sucker for getting as many bells and whistles as possible.

Anyway Vista is definitely an improvement over XP, it runs faster and uses your systems power far more intelligently and efficiently than XP. It is also far more secure.

After a few days with Vista I didn't want to go back to XP, but still have to for certain things (disc defragging etc) but this situation should be solved soon.

The drivers that came on the Vista DVD are very good this is certainly one major improvement over XP as you can easily run your computer just using default drivers, the only problem at the moment is soundcards but once the manufacturers actually release drivers they should be fine.

I've not noticed a drop in performance whilst gaming in Vista compared to XP if anything games are running better than they did in XP (for me atleast).

To put this in perspective here's a basic overview of my PC specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
2Gb RAM
256Mb Geforce 7600GT

Just my 2p

This comeing from a developer that started with OS/2? Im shocked!  

I recently decided my fankenstien computer was just too old so I bought a computer that blows it out of the water it has vista and in just the three days i've had it I have hollowed it out and replaced the modem graphics card and ram and I have had NO problems with it. hell the only problem I had was with City of Heroes doing a vanishing act with the game mouse pointer but that was an easy fix. Every game I own from sims (yes the sims) and homeworld (1&2) to City of Heroes (god it's pretty now) and supreme commander work on it

OH and this is my first post here and wanted to add stop pissing in the cheerios it's a new OS yeah and we all hate change (so it seems) but it's coming and the pitchforks and torches ain't going to help

Agreed, Brad. In fact, I'll tackle your ticks one at a time: 1. The benchmarking is broken down into easy to understand categories (with separate ones for desktop and gaming graphics performance). While some GPUs perform better in terms of desktop graphics than gaming graphics (ATI's R3xx, which includes the 9700 and 9800, falls into this category), some perform better in gaming than on the desktop (RV515, also from ATI, is in this group; my X1650 PRO AGP scores a 4.6 in desktop graphics, but a 4.9 in gaming graphics), while some are, of course, overall stars (ATI Radeon HD 3850, their latest and greatest in AGP graphics is in this group), while still others overall stink (such as most onboard/built-in graphics on the motherboard). 2. The Games Explorer doesn't just support Games for Windows-type titles (such as C&C 3), but even games that predate Vista, (such as Guild Wars: Prophecies) as well as casual games and even those included with the operating system (such as Spider Solitaire, Hold 'Em, and Luxor 2: Amun Rising). 3. I have no children, but you can actively have games sort in the Games Explorer by ESRB rating or by performance requirement, or simply in alphabetical order. 4. Not just DirectX 10 (which my GPU doesn't support), but there are features unique to Vista that games can use. I mentioned Luxor 2 earlier (a casual game): there are features unique to the Designed for Windows Vista version that are not available in Windows XP, even on the same hardware (mostly having to do with graphical effects), and I'm referring to hardware not even capable of supporting DirectX 10 at all. The same is true, naturally, of applications that deal with the desktop (such as WindowBlinds 6). 5. Casual and lightweight game performance is improved because the stability of the rest of the operating system is much improved, even over XP. This is true not only of Luxor 2, but of a pair of Stardock's own titles: GalCiv II Gold and Sins of a Solar Empire. (Remember, GalCiv II Gold requires nothing more than Windows 98 or newer, and Sins requires only Windows XP or Vista. However, I had stability issues with GalCiv II in XP (and this was the non-Gold version), while GC II Gold is stable in Vista *on the same hardware*. The only change was the operating system. For that reason, I wouldn't dare even try Sins on XP.)

I can give you one reason why its BAD for gaming - games crash .
Simply games that runs fine under XP - crash.

I do not know is it NVIDIA driver to blame or something else but this one reason beats 1,000 "why it's good" reasons.

i found vista to be fine, as good as xp anyway.

I`ve been using 32 bit vista home premium for a few months now, I like it for the most part. My only problem with it...Vista alway`s seems to be accessing the hard drive or doing something on it`s own. I`ve shut down file indexing, Superfetch, Any non essential service is disabled. It still won`t stop. I`ve tried stardock`s tweak vista trial and didn`t see anything there that might stop it. Maybe in the full version? I`ve seen this same issue all over the internet. If anyone knows how to stop this, I would really appreciate hearing it.

Thnx