Look, there's several types of considerations here -

1. Is getting Vista now a good idea? The answer is an unqualified no; I wouldn't bother getting it until I know for a fact that at least some of the early issues (those mentioned above and those which will only be discovered once people start using it en mass) are resolved.

2. Will getting Vista later be a good idea? Maybe. Depends on what MS actually does to resolve the above-mentioned issues.

3. Is Vista good for gaming? Yes. This has nothing to do with whether it's good for me or you or anyone individual to get it. Vista is set up in such a way that will make gaming more accessible to users. For casual users buying new PCs, they'll get Vista OEM. Because of the reasons Brad mentioned, Vista will make more of those users likely to buy PC games. Thus, this is good for the PC game industry.

In other words, saying that Vista is good for gaming is not the same as saying that Vista is actually good.

I think we should start a boycutt on stores that sell Vista. Get petitions signed and stuff like that. If a large amount of the public went to Walmart and said: "We are not going to shop here anymoer until you stop selling Vista! And heres all our names on paper" And then all those people don't shop at walmart period and invite others not to also. After a month or perhaps a few months you better believe Walmart will start doing comercials about how good they are and finally if that doesn't help they will pull all Vista crap off the shelves.Of course Microsoft will probably be doing a big huge commercial thing also. But if a huge amount of people hold ground then it will get on the news and Walmart will eventually have to relent and not sell Vista. That can be done with any store, not just Walmart.

That would require IMMENSIVE amounts of man power and will. It's really hard to NOT shop at walmart these days. Even though I hate them dearly. "We offer 150 more jobs!" WHOOPDY-DO! You also put about 500 people out of business and force them to work for you. But if the people DID boycott vista, Microsoft would just have another dirty trick up its diabolical sleeve to smite the people with.

Okay. But where's the difference between "you need x GHz and y GB RAM" and "you need x points on the z scale"? I'm pretty sure you'll have to keep telling the users: "Use the latest drivers. Really.".

As to the drivers, most probably. But there are a LOT of people out there who really have no clue what's in their system, or, for example, what "DirectX 9.0c compliant" means or why a GeForce4 MX is inferior to a GeForce3. For those people, the Vista performance rating will be a godsend if it's reasonably predictable from a which-video-cards-equate-to-which-rating standpoint.

Windows V3, V3.1, win 2000, Win 95, Win 98, XP etc - all were deemed by the doomsayers as the end of mankind as we know it, as they demonstrated Microsofts evil intentions. PCs were doomed to fall pray to an operating system so full of holes and obvious failures we may as well pack up the PC, go Apple and be done with it.

Acutally Vista is meant to be more MAC like. I wouldn't have a problem with it if:

#1 It wouldn't cost so much. I can get XP for $100. YOu can do up to three full installs on XP upgrades. I bought the $200 upgrade for XP Prof. and deleated my xp meida center partition and did a complete full install with that. Vista costs lots of money for a version of the operating system that is actually worth getting and you can not do a full install from upgrades.

#2 You can only run programs. For people who get it they will feel and see a very noticable drop on how they can "use" their computers. Forget tweaking stuff. Unless you call a technician. My friend now knows how to edit settings, but he says it is stupidly hard. It doesn't make sense. Unless you just select one general setting among a few that does everything for you based on the selection you choose.

#3 I didn't have a problem with win 98, 2000, or xp comming out. Vista just alters and goes away from everything windows has been, again to be more MAC like. Except Vista wants to control how it is used.

#4 You have only two licenses with a purchase of Vista. When you upgrade your computer's RAM or video card Vista will consider itself on a new computer and you will have to enter a license. If you want a computer you can upgrade over time then you will have to buy new Vista licenses as well as hardware. Do you want to do that? I don't. Might as well buy a new computer after you upgrade once becuase when it was first installed will be counted against using one of the two licenses.


#5 As I stated above in my monsterous post, I don't think it is secure as they say it is.

#6 I like my freedom to use the computer the way I want to.


#7 I actually used to like Microsoft, amazingly.

#4 You have only two licenses with a purchase of Vista. When you upgrade your computer's RAM or video card Vista will consider itself on a new computer and you will have to enter a license. If you want a computer you can upgrade over time then you will have to buy new Vista licenses as well as hardware. Do you want to do that? I don't. Might as well buy a new computer after you upgrade once becuase when it was first installed will be counted against using one of the two licenses.

Does anyone have the straight dope on this one? It was something that really ticked me off when I first heard about it, but I thought that I had heard they had changed that.

But, basically that, the forcing me to upgrade, and the lack of anything that I actually WANTED were the main reasons why I have no desire to purchase Vista.

I realize that the segment of the population that actively changes parts of their computer on a regular basis is fairly small - but just because of that, why should Microsoft tell me that I can't?

Dx10 spells the end of pc gaming, which is precisely what it has been designed to do. Game developers like it because it sets a standard that they can write to. They will no longer have to poll every card manufacturer for specs, and spend time and money in order to make sure the game works with them all. This will allow them to potentially use the time and money spent on these thankless chores to add more, and better content to their games. Lowering costs while offering a superior product for sale is good business. But for the life of me, I can't understand why ATI or Nvidia have signed on to the project. I suppose they are just tired of the constant competition, and have simply given up. Most all of the whizbang graphics in games today came about during their gpu wars; that's all over now. Microsoft will now regulate the implementation of all 3d features, leaving the graphics vendors at their mercy. No new feature will be allowed without Microsoft's permission. What this means is that Gates and crew will be able to throttle performance, in order to more closely match that of....wait for it...X-Box360. Without the superior graphics and performance that a PC can give, gamers will have no incentive to use the much more expensive PC, and instead, migrate to the console. This is what Dx10 is really all about- Microsoft increasing market share, nothing else.

As to the drivers, most probably. But there are a LOT of people out there who really have no clue what's in their system, or, for example, what "DirectX 9.0c compliant" means or why a GeForce4 MX is inferior to a GeForce3. For those people, the Vista performance rating will be a godsend if it's reasonably predictable from a which-video-cards-equate-to-which-rating standpoint.

So your saying the rising generation of consumers are idiots? They have no clue what a computer is and they should be controlled by the operating system.? I have to admit I do know some people who are like that. But to me Vista is just an insult.

Charge you for using your computer?? Where in blazes did you find out about that?

Seriously, I don't know all the fuzz about Vista being bad, wrong and whatever you say.

Most of the "bad things" (WGA, Validation, DRM, etc.) from "big brother" is their attempt to secure their stuff from being pirated. Their DRM schema is basically a
"I don't trust people because people lie, cheat and lie" statement. If you pay for the stuff you will not have any trouble at all (I haven't got any problem with XP's WGA, Validations, etc.)
Altough I find the protection schemas an annoyance at most I fail to see a problem at all except for the cracking/hacking community. If they manage to subvert the "product protection" schemas we will see a new brand of virus/spyware threat.

I beta tested Vista, I used it with no problems on what you call a lower end computer (by today's standards) and found no problems other than driver issues (on Vista's x64 flavour) plus some bugs that were corrected using WindowsUpdate. I know more than half of the bugs are found when the software is in the wild, but that is no different with any other OS or software.

I also fail to validate the idea of Vista being Windows ME Mark II. WinME failed mainly because
a) Microsoft kept two development branches, with Windows 2000 being a better and safer OS at the time. Both branches (Win 9X and Win NT) merged into XP.
and
WinME lacked features found on Windows 2000 and had some features that were too early to be accepted by the consummers. Funny thing about the latter is that most of those features are on XP or XP Media Center.

Now, migrating to Linux... I have used Linux for a long time and let me say this, it needs a long time to mature and find a place in desktop/home computers. Linux still needs a computer savvy user (at least) to configure, reconfigure or run some applications, plus the architecture is still lacking on the graphical side (i.e: Even Copying and Pasting text does not work on all the programs)
Is Linux stable, sure.... but it is not easy to use and usability is a top priority to most average Joes using computers and Mr. Average Joe complains about Blue Screens but will complain a lot more with gracefully recover errors prompting him to reconfigure a kernel module.
Installing is still a nightmare and incompatibilities between kernel versions, installed "packages" and "distros" makes software distribution even more difficult.
To me Linux is only a server OS, and a good one at that (I have only one Windows Server plus lots of Linux one, so don't think I'm a Linux hater or a MS staffer), at this time.

Now the myth about encryption.... it only works by encrypting the hard drive (if and only if you chose to do that). If you work on a file and save it to a floppy/usb/network/email attach/whatever it is saved unencrypted. Even if you move the file into an unencrypted partition on the same computer the file is copied (moved) in its unencrypted form. So Mr double spaced rant... your friend is WRONG about that.

What he is not wrong is the protection built in the system, but there is a reason to do that. Vista protects the system drive contents restricting users to use a sandbox called 'My Documents'. The only files you are not entitled to delete are those critical to your Windows User Account. There are a lot of "undeletable" folders that are in fact junctions (which are links to other folders). Junctions exist to allow backward compatibility. With junctions older software can access files/folders in expected locations which do not exist on Vista (For instance the "C:\Documents and Settings" is a juntion to "C:\Users"). An old app trying to get the "Documents and Settings" folder would fail without junctions, instead the OS transparently redirects the request to the proper folder.

About Memory (and other hardware) upgrades... XP and Vista uses some of the hardware information to validate the license. If that information changes too much (By upgrading 3 or more system components at the same time) you have to re-validate your copy. Worst case scenario you'll need to call Microsoft (Mostly toll-free numbers around the world)

About the user protection, the constant prompting to the user is a nag but that can be easily disabled plus some of the developers are seeing oportunities to improve and control the feature... Hey maybe Stardock can create such utility.

Is Vista more secure for the users, yes. Is more secure for Microsoft, yes. Do they want to make money... who doesn't. Do you have a choice... yes, do not upgrade and quit complaining about something YOU DONT HAVE AND HAVENT USED PROPERLY.

Now to get back on topic...Is Vista good for gaming?
DirectX10 is a plus, no doubt. But DX10 needs a massive addoption by the developers and that is in doubt at this time.

Another good feature that should have been #6 on the list is that Vista has native support for all the newest CPU/Multicore architectures and NUMA (Which affects memory access)

Now, let the flaming and trolling begin (or continue)

Regarding someone accusing me of "shilling".

Like most shills, I start out my shilling by telling people not to buy what I'm allegedly shilling for until specified problems are resolved...

I realize that the article is several sentences long but it was right at the top:

(if you're a gamer, WAIT a little bit until the video driver situation is good or you may find your favorite games don't run well):

With a few dozen words in the article, it was probably easy to miss it.

Regarding someone accusing me of "shilling".

What does "shilling" mean? never heard it used in that sense.

In answer to those you who are looking for more details:

On license transfer:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=158

On program disablement:
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423

On component upgrades:
http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=26119
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061030-8104.html

And a cost analysis that has been making the tech circles:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html


Despite the fact that I find many of these things offensive, the real truth is that this is really a monopoly environment if you are looking for certain types of functionality. Linux isn't consumer ready, Apple and the game consoles are limited subsets. Doesn't mean you have to like it, just that sooner or later you will be stuck living with it...

Acutally Vista is meant to be more MAC like. I wouldn't have a problem with it if:

#4 You have only two licenses with a purchase of Vista. When you upgrade your computer's RAM or video card Vista will consider itself on a new computer and you will have to enter a license. If you want a computer you can upgrade over time then you will have to buy new Vista licenses as well as hardware. Do you want to do that? I don't. Might as well buy a new computer after you upgrade once becuase when it was first installed will be counted against using one of the two licenses.

i agree, Vista is designed to be more Mac-like. all the touted security features are designed to try and catch up to Macs, but your point about its impact on upgraders really gets me. my biggest problem with Macs (besides the way apple designs everything to look like it belongs in a preschool) is the fact that it's very hard to get under the hood, both in terms of hard and soft -ware. it's a pain to upgrade a Mac's hardware, but they're out-of-the-box computers. actually, i'm strongly considering a Mac laptop for work and school.

Without the superior graphics and performance that a PC can give, gamers will have no incentive to use the much more expensive PC, and instead, migrate to the console. This is what Dx10 is really all about- Microsoft increasing market share, nothing else.

now this is a point i've never considered, and i think it's dead-on. this makes me very sad, too, since the PS3 isn't doing so well, and the Wii looks childish. i've been missing my old games of D&D, before the days of this whole technological revolution thing, which is getting kinda stale anyway. well, there's one thing of which i'm pretty sure. no matter what legislation and technological innovation is developed to control and counter what people actually want to do, there will be people out there who come up with ways around it. just look at the recent history of file sharing.

Thank you jmontesi4, for that well reasoned and rational post.

edit: I feel for you Frogboy.

I realize Stardock, a maker of Windows enhancements are kind of forced to use it, but it also puts a conflicting spin on things. Stardock's stance on things like no copy protection on their games and support of programs and games being moddable is in direct contrast to what Vista is representing. The things said in the OP make sense from a game and Windows developer point of view, but to us customers it's another case of losing our rights. A handful of enhancements for games mean little in the overall scheme of what MS is trying to force upon us.

1. "Included, standardized performance benchmarking." - Ha. Theoretical benchmarks prove nothing and help nobody.

2. Games Explorer - bah. Put a menu on your taskbar with shortcuts to all of your games, move it to the far right by your systray. Problem solved.

3. Parental controls - here's an idea, how about parents stop being idiots and oh I dunno actually start paying attention to the content of the games they're buying for their kids? Too hard though right? As if the ESRB knew any better (and they don't, Hot Coffee for the lulz).

4. DirectX10 - so? That whole PMP clusterfark is going to dissuade a lot of people from adopting Vista, so who the hell is going to adopt DX10?

5. "Casual games" - so?

I probably had something meaningful to say, but my train of thought was hijacked, looted, set through a brick wall and blown up.

I will simply say that I am pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple (BAD experiences with those infernal machines).
My incomplete thought on Vista:

I'm scared. Hold me.

#1 Windows Vista comes with included, standardized performance benchmarking.

I bet it will be about as accurate as the current "systeme requirements" system we have now too (that is to say, not at all). In any event, yay,...another way for developers to marginalize and not develop for 90 % of the PCs in existence, further driving the pc gaming industry into oblivion, and sending frustrated consumers into the arms of the wonderful stable technological plateau of the gaming console.

#2 The Games Explorer. This is a thing that lets people easily manage all the games on their machine from a nice big friendly, Media-Center like console (though not nearly as nice yet but I think this is the direction they're taking). So a PC box with Vista could be more easily used as a set-top box for gaming.

Yeah, I was just thinking how hard it was being able to start up my games. You know, clicking on their big fat icons on my desktop, or worse *shudder*...referring to the well oragnized itemized list of all my applications from the start menu. I was thinkuing how much I wanted to pay for some more Bloat in a new version of windows to solve this "problem".

#3 Parental Controls. Games that are Vista compliant include their ESRB rating. If parental controls is enabled, only games with the proper ESRB ratings can be played on the machine (and ones that don't comply get exluded entirely -- it will be interesting to see how this works out).

Yet another way that Vista is overly concerned with what you are doing, what you are watching, what you are playing, and dictating to you how you can or cant do it.

#4 DirectX 10

This and better memory management are the only reasons to buy vista (well, and the fact that M$ will not give you a choice). The fact that Direct X 10, that you will need to play any major game in another year is being tied to, and only available through a specific OS upgrade (unlike previous dx versions), should be legally actionable by any stretch. I only wish I lived in a country where the government had the will to enforce such things. I get jealous every time I hear how France or some other third world country has M$ in court and is not putting up with their B$.

#5 Better casual games. The 3D desktop has the advantage that you can do fancier things in little desktop type games. Plus, Vista comes with several casual games.

Yeah, I care about this....let me just get my wallet.(/sarcasm off) Receptionists everywhere rejoice...solitaire and minesweeper are now 3d.



Jeez Brad...do much Shilling?

shill (shĭl) Pronunciation Key n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle. v. shilled, shill·ing, shills v. intr. To act as a shill. v. tr. To act as a shill for (a deceitful enterprise). To lure (a person) into a swindle.

Hey you!... Yeah you in the Penny Arcade/Ctrl Alt Del shirt! Guess what? Vista wasn't made for you! Lets step outside ourselves for a few minutes. The majority of people using computers are not gamers like us(I own more than my share of web comic shirts). They don't really care about pushing their FPS up or tweaking their CPU usage to get max performance. They want to turn on their computer and do what they want to do without any hassle. Microsoft is catering to them, the large majority of their consumer base.

Of course they are trying to make it "Mac" like. For people new to computers Apple is a much easier system to learn to use. This is a major sticking point Apples has had over MS for years.

Parental controls: If you don't have kids then I don't expect you to care. But, many users do... these are the same users who don't know a CPU from a GPU. They see that MS is trying to help them protect their children and they see that as a good thing.

I've been playing video games for a few years now, long enough to hear that "insert product here" is the end of gaming. Has it happened yet? No. People love to think the end is near and that only they the truly enlightened can see it. The industry is evolving and changing, but in the end change produces innovation, so I fail to see that as a bad thing.

Finally, lay off Brad and SD. He expressed an honest personal opinion. He made his points clearly, even gave a few caveats to his comments. Now think about his prospective, as a developer of windows tools and as a game developer the standardization Vista brings will be a big help to him and others like him.

Everything changes, this just another one... Give it time and another will come around. Bash me if you like, but lets look at the bigger picture and MS will get just a little less evil, and a little more like any other company trying to make and sell better products to survive in a competitive business world.

Without the superior graphics and performance that a PC can give, gamers will have no incentive to use the much more expensive PC, and instead, migrate to the console. This is what Dx10 is really all about- Microsoft increasing market share, nothing else.

True or not, it's not going to happen. PC's have been relatively low in gaming market share for a while now. Since the PS2, the doomsayers have been predicting the end of PC gaming. But it hasn't happened. And despite the standards MS might try and impose, other companies looking for an edge will eventually try and outdo those standards for their own benefit. Just like all the pre-overclocked video cards being sold today, there will be someone or some group who decides it's in their best interest to access the extra performance a PC can provide - either through hardware "adjustments" or through the game software itself. MS wouldn't even be guaranteeing market share in this way - if the PC gamers switched to consoles, MS can't guarantee they'd switch to an Xbox over PS3 or Wii or whatever the next generations are. And they don't have a monopoly on the software companies who produce console games. If Blizzard decided to produce World of Warcraft for the PS3 instead of Xbox, MS would actually LOSE market share overall. If anything, MS would probably try and keep PC gamers rather than set standards that make the Xbox look more appealing - because if the Xbox looks better, so do its competitors.

Microsoft is headed in the wrong direction with Vista far as I am concerned. Every new OS version Microsoft designs is just a bigger resource HOG.

All I have ever wanted from an OS is a basic bare bones platform. I want to be able to customize what is installed on my system. Microsoft never gives users any choice they just go ahead and include a ton of crap that I don't need or want.

If Microsoft actually cared about what users need here is what they should focus on:

1. Security
2. Performance
3. File system management and performance
4. Hardware Compatibility

Forget the flashy AERO interface, its not needed and just a resource drain.

There are plenty of 3rd party programs available for anything else you want to do with your PC and most of these programs are far better than anything Microsoft makes. Firefox and Thunderbird are a couple good examples.

I want my system resources available for my programs of choice, not tied up running OS tasks. Enough bloat-ware how about designing a real OS.

I have only used MS's BS because its really all thats there. Linux and Macs have been given NO support or crossover from the software companies INCLUDING the gaming community.
So until some little guy develops whats existing or creates a product and can compete with MSBS we're stuck..
And as long as we all keep stuffin our money in MSBS's pockets instead of the little guy there's no chance of forcing SOFTware companies to extend their platforms.....

Charge you for using your computer?? Where in blazes did you find out about that?

Microsoft said they would have a solution for low income households to buy computers. You pay a low price for a computer, and then you buy digital time cards that the computer reads to continue using it. After a while or a short period of time, depending on how much time cards you buy the computer is yours and you no longer need to buy time cards. Its just like rent to own, only its been specifically adapted for buy Vista computers a special way. Obviously that's not what everyone who gest Vista is going to do. I never said that. Microsoft said they would be doing that for low income households who want a computer. Since you beta tested Vista and got all the news about it I'm sure you already know about this. But obviously not.

You are evil. Bill Gates thinks he's my nanny.

But it has Solitaire!

Good lord, I think it's become a little too trendy for people to hate Microsoft these past few years. There's nothing wrong with Vista, I've been using it for months on a work computer. I'm going to wait a couple more months before putting it on my home computer to give folks time to make the patches and fixes and drivers necessary for my games to work on it, but it's a perfectly good OS.

Vista is not the second coming when compared to XP SP2, but remember that XP was very shaky and flawed on release; it took SP2 before it was shiny and solid. Compared to the release version of XP, Vista is head and shoulders superior, and hopefully once it's had a service pack under its belt it will shine over the best that XP can provide.

Hey you!... Yeah you in the Penny Arcade/Ctrl Alt Del shirt! Guess what? Vista wasn't made for you! Lets step outside ourselves for a few minutes. The majority of people using computers are not gamers like us(I own more than my share of web comic shirts). They don't really care about pushing their FPS up or tweaking their CPU usage to get max performance. They want to turn on their computer and do what they want to do without any hassle. Microsoft is catering to them, the large majority of their consumer base.

Which doesn't explain why one needs a gaming PC to actually use Windows Aero. Vista Home Basic (which is what the vast majority of integrators will market to "the majority of people using computers") doesn't include Windows Aero.

Unless of course you can justify selling a 3d accelerator with 256MB+ video memory (not shared system memory) AND 2GB of system memory on top of the added cost of Vista Home Premium just to take advantage of Windows Aero in a configuration that (hopefully) isn't as slow as molasses, to a person not interested in such things and only interested in the barebones basics that shouldn't and normally wouldn't cost them much.

There's nothing wrong with Vista,

Do some research on PMP and get back to me on that.