Another FUD-smearing "OMG Vista sux0rz" from the media...

[pjbliverpool]

Well my 2 pennys is that Vista is a superb OS. Smooth as butter, stable, far nicer to work with than XP both in terms of looks and functionality and well, I can't complain at a free media centre :smile:

I have come across one application incompatability so far (having installed several dozen) but as an early adopter I can live with that, It was TOCA RD 2.

I also have a few stability issues but its all connected to games (mostly modded) so im almost certain its more the game and/or graphics driver. Its also only when closing games rather than when playing which is no issue since it doesn't crash the OS, just the app.

 

[Blazkowicz]

run RTM, not RC2, the limit is was introduced for the release versions according to MS. Also the 6200 running just fine at 720p I doubt seriouly, open up sevral windows at once please, and then tell me that 6200 is rendering the 3d Areo Glass fine.

if that's an early, 128bit geforce 6200, then that's quite a capable card and I sure hope vista is not crappy enough to chug on it at the rather mundane 1280x720 resolution.

 

[candle_86]

if that's an early, 128bit geforce 6200, then that's quite a capable card and I sure hope vista is not crappy enough to chug on it at the rather mundane 1280x720 resolution.

normally it wouldnt, but its a 3d enviroment in glass, and it should cause a slowdown on a 4 pipeline card, ive seen it in everybuild so far, with a 9600pro, and a 6200 NV44a AGP card.

 

[Albuquerque]

I dunno, I've got Vista RTM running on an Intel GMA950 with zero dedicated ram and C2D 2.0ghz here at the office. Runs pretty good in my opinion, although I'm sure I wouldn't want to play games on this paltry little video chip.

 

[Frank]

Albuquerque, what is wrong with sticking with XP? It's what I do. I just installed a brand new pc with... XP!

Why would you need Vista, and more ram to run it? It only costs money, and I don't see any gains.

 

[Albuquerque]

Albuquerque, what is wrong with sticking with XP? It's what I do. I just installed a brand new pc with... XP!

Why would you need Vista, and more ram to run it? It only costs money, and I don't see any gains.

Where did I say that anybody needs Vista? Maybe you can point me to that post where I made the unilateral statement where Vista is better than XP in everything? And that everyone needs Vista right now without any exceptions?

Or maybe you missed the part where I stated (several times, in several threads) that my home gaming rig is staying XP because Vista still doesn't have good drivers for my sound card?

There are lots of good reasons to go to Vista, and if you "dont see any gains", then that's a matter of perception and opinion that you're entitled to. I don't agree, and my general opinion is that anyone who doesn't see any gains is either A: entirely single-tasking, B: on some REALLY ancient hardware (>5 years old, pre-ATI 9500 and pre-Pentium 4 and pre-1gb ram) or C: simply glossing over or ignoring what they're truly getting with Vista.

As soon as good sound drivers surface, I'll be putting Vista on my home gaming rig. But I still have never made the claim that Vista is for everyone, or that Vista should be any sort of expectation.

 

[candle_86]

Where did I say that anybody needs Vista? Maybe you can point me to that post where I made the unilateral statement where Vista is better than XP in everything? And that everyone needs Vista right now without any exceptions?

Or maybe you missed the part where I stated (several times, in several threads) that my home gaming rig is staying XP because Vista still doesn't have good drivers for my sound card?

There are lots of good reasons to go to Vista, and if you "dont see any gains", then that's a matter of perception and opinion that you're entitled to. I don't agree, and my general opinion is that anyone who doesn't see any gains is either A: entirely single-tasking, B: on some REALLY ancient hardware (>5 years old, pre-ATI 9500 and pre-Pentium 4 and pre-1gb ram) or C: simply glossing over or ignoring what they're truly getting with Vista.

As soon as good sound drivers surface, I'll be putting Vista on my home gaming rig. But I still have never made the claim that Vista is for everyone, or that Vista should be any sort of expectation.

how much do you know about vista, honestly? I worked with MS on the beta from the early days on this thing and there are alot of bugs to work out. The driver model is brand new, the network stack is new, the GUI is new as long as your in glass, and the mem management system was rewritten, i advise everyone i know to stay off of vista for at least 6 months, and preferably a year so that fixes exists to the sheer number of bugs i know are there. Windows 9x games will crash the computer sometimes because sometimes the excute 16bit code, and vista cant handle the emulation correctly at times, thats a bug right there MS isnt telling anyone.

 

[Graham]

Well. Quite possibly the most irresponsible journalism from the inquirer yet:

http://www.theinq.com/default.aspx?article=37941

Vista activation cracked by brute force...

Effectively, vista license keys can be brute force generated, it will take several hours of your time, but can work.
Now. Any normal reaction to this is that it is the most blatant form of software theft possible. It's not piracy, it actually is stealing the license that someone else has paid real money for. What does the inq say?

If this gets widespread, and I hope it will, people will start activating legit keys that are owned by other people

It won't take long for boxes bought at retail to be activated before they are bought, and the people who plunk down money for the mal^h^h^hsoftware for real get 'you are a filthy pirate' messages. Won't that be a laugh riot at the MS phone banks in Bangalore.

What an utter total f-wit.

 

[ANova]

The inquirer is late with this news, it's already been making the rounds on a number of sites.

MS needs to learn that this stuff will never work; it only becomes an annoyance for the paying consumer, adds to the cost and slows the computer down. It is completely unneeded and serves no purpose other than to make them more money. Those are the facts.

 

[Graham]

Microsoft have every right to protect their investment and business, however what the inq are advocating is that you'll be 'sticking it to the man' if you steal something another consumer has paid real money for. That to me is appalling.

 

[ANova]

It's not stealing from the consumer, MS is obligated to allievate any problems associated with their software, that includes activation. It doesn't cost MS anything to issue a new key aside from the hastle of having to deal with their own now cracked "anti-piracy feature".

 

[Graham]

It's not stealing from the consumer, MS is obligated to allievate any problems associated with their software, that includes activation. It doesn't cost MS anything to issue a new key aside from the hastle of having to deal with their own now cracked "anti-piracy feature".

Well I don't agree. You are using something illegally that another person has paid money for, and thereby preventing them from using it. To me thats pretty clear theft. And it costs microsoft a hell of a lot. They loose a sale to the pirate who is now running the OS and have to spend a good deal of money helping the confused customer.

The problem I have is not so much with microsoft in this case. I expect someone reverse engineered part of the validation algorithm, because otherwise brute forcing it would be pretty hard - it's a huge key, more combinations than a guid.
Where my main problem is, as it relates to this thread, is the inq's attitude of 'hey, lets encorage people to rip it off and let microsoft deal with the problems you'll be causing legitimate customers - it will teach them for trying to make it difficult to pirate their software!'.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think the point is that MS Activation/Authentication is broken to the extent that it doesn't stop piracy, but it does inconvenience legitimate customers, and so ends up being the worst of all worlds.

The next day TheInq issued this retraction (sort of).

 

[candle_86]

not suprising, its because of WGA that hackers are doing this now, and the only way to stop them, the Govt made MS cripple in Vista, the dial home software, that used to be built into the KErnal code and would take an expert hacker to lock out, it could allow MS to disable computers doing this, but the Gov said they cant do that, its stupid. I dont own Windows Vista or Windows XP, i do own Windows 2000 and run it, and i will reinstall Windows Vista RTM when i get my new comp and in july when that experires get a Vista home Premuim or Bussiness ediiton

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It's got nothing to do with the government (heck, they already came out against interfering with people's PCs after the Sony rootkit debacle).

Vista Activation was circumvented very quickly. Using upgrades instead of full versions was found out when MS told people how to do it. The brute force password generator took a little longer. MS knows it can't stop determined pirates, it's just trying to prevent casual piracy and take further steps towards a pay-per-use business model.

Fact is that there are always a minority that pirate whether it's software, movies, music, etc, but there's a couple of things that I think you have to bear in mind.

First, do your anti-piracy measures inconvenience genuine paying customers, such as false WGA positives? Obviously this could be worse with Vista where people effectively have their computers crippled, and can have their genuine keys stolen via a key generator.

Secondly, if you have a solid anti-piracy system, would you make sales to those that would otherwise have pirated? This is a point that has simply never been proved. There is just no way to know what you'd sell if your product was completely tied down and only legitimate copies existed.

Obviously, if you won't sell any more product, and instead you inconvenience true customers while forcing on them a system that can easily be compromised by generating genuine keys, then you're on a hiding to nothing. Your genuine customers will hate you, and you'll be spending money on anti-piracy measures that don't work, all for no additional sales.

 

[Graham]

The next day TheInq issued this retraction (sort of).

I just saw that. It's a different author. Although it's not directly saying so, I think it's good they are effectively saying 'yeah, we got caught up in our own emotions, sorry'. At least thats how I read it.
Good on them.

there is also:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/03/windows-vista-brute-force-keygen-a-hoax/

The whole thing is a bit ugly and a mess.

 

[Albuquerque]

how much do you know about vista, honestly? I worked with MS on the beta from the early days on this thing and there are alot of bugs to work out. The driver model is brand new, the network stack is new, the GUI is new as long as your in glass, and the mem management system was rewritten, i advise everyone i know to stay off of vista for at least 6 months, and preferably a year so that fixes exists to the sheer number of bugs i know are there. Windows 9x games will crash the computer sometimes because sometimes the excute 16bit code, and vista cant handle the emulation correctly at times, thats a bug right there MS isnt telling anyone.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... As for how long, I've been testing since Vista builds were in the 2000's. The company I work for was, for a time, Microsoft's absolute biggest Windows 2000 single-domain structure in the world. I know we've been surpassed since then, but we still have a very strong relationship with them. As such, we get VERY far advanced copies of new OS'es, new software and other such things to test with if/when we request.

Mostly because we send them about a cubic yard of money per month too

As such, I'd say I'm VERY fluent with Vista, and I dont' really agree with your "Everyone needs to stay away for six months" stance. The company I'm with will be deploying Vista to every one of our domestic PC's starting in Q3 of this calendar year; we've been rolling in the appropriate desktop and laptop hardware for the last year in preparation.

The next question is, how much do YOU know about Vista? Why don't you tell me some more about how you know that WOW16 is broken? What true factual evidence do you have to support this wild claim, other than some 16-bit (questionable, authored 10+ years ago) games don't run? Here's a newsflash - a whole lot of Win95 games crash out on XP too. Does that mean XP's WOW16 subsystem is also b0rked and MS is covering it up?

There is a LOT of good stuff in Vista, and we (corporately) are already staritng to see some of it come out in test. And yeah, some of our internally developed stuff is going to need to be rewritten, but you know what? The last time they got a once-over was back when we rolled Win2K, so it's time they get a bit of freshening anyway. Hell, with our new ERP implementation, maybe this will give us some additional leverage to get rid of some of the really nasty old crappy internally-developed software we have.

So, if you want to have a conversation about some of the cool shit (TM) in the new Vista kernel that is worlds better than even XP, then we can certainly have that discussion -- in another thread. In this thread, I'm concentrating on irresponsible journalism as it relates to Vista.

 

[candle_86]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... As for how long, I've been testing since Vista builds were in the 2000's. The company I work for was, for a time, Microsoft's absolute biggest Windows 2000 single-domain structure in the world. I know we've been surpassed since then, but we still have a very strong relationship with them. As such, we get VERY far advanced copies of new OS'es, new software and other such things to test with if/when we request.

Mostly because we send them about a cubic yard of money per month too

As such, I'd say I'm VERY fluent with Vista, and I dont' really agree with your "Everyone needs to stay away for six months" stance. The company I'm with will be deploying Vista to every one of our domestic PC's starting in Q3 of this calendar year; we've been rolling in the appropriate desktop and laptop hardware for the last year in preparation.

The next question is, how much do YOU know about Vista? Why don't you tell me some more about how you know that WOW16 is broken? What true factual evidence do you have to support this wild claim, other than some 16-bit (questionable, authored 10+ years ago) games don't run? Here's a newsflash - a whole lot of Win95 games crash out on XP too. Does that mean XP's WOW16 subsystem is also b0rked and MS is covering it up?

There is a LOT of good stuff in Vista, and we (corporately) are already staritng to see some of it come out in test. And yeah, some of our internally developed stuff is going to need to be rewritten, but you know what? The last time they got a once-over was back when we rolled Win2K, so it's time they get a bit of freshening anyway. Hell, with our new ERP implementation, maybe this will give us some additional leverage to get rid of some of the really nasty old crappy internally-developed software we have.

So, if you want to have a conversation about some of the cool shit (TM) in the new Vista kernel that is worlds better than even XP, then we can certainly have that discussion -- in another thread. In this thread, I'm concentrating on irresponsible journalism as it relates to Vista.

nope games that worked fine on XP wont run on vista

Klingon Acadamey is one of them that i love that wont run, Starfleet Command wont run on vista for very long without a hard lock, civilization II ToT causes a hard lock on the whole system, just some examples of games that will not function on vista correctly that would on XP with no issues at all. Im glad your company is deploying to Vista, but the normal person has no need of Vista, because of flaws in the code, the fact they cant afford the 1000 dollar secruity software to protect it from spyware and virus and the firewalls being as Vistas is all new and untested in reality. Driver support is misrable also, and no one can deny that, just over all XP is still a stronger more stable OS that most will be used to. I felt lost in vista at first and had to reorganize my files to XP organization, because i cant stand half of what vista does, and how the windows toolbar is hidden and you have to actully have to dig around to turn it back on, its a nice OS but its not as stable or refined yet as XP and there is not a single reason for a normal person to use Vista.

 

[Albuquerque]

nope games that worked fine on XP wont run on vista

Klingon Acadamey is one of them that i love that wont run, Starfleet Command wont run on vista for very long without a hard lock, civilization II ToT causes a hard lock on the whole system, just some examples of games that will not function on vista correctly that would on XP with no issues at all.

Wow, there's a surprise. Another post of yours overflowing with factual backing. Weren't you just trying to tell me that WOW16 (aka, if you didn't know, "Windows on Windows 16", aka 16-bit support) was broken in Vista? I'm pretty sure you were, because I quoted you above saying exactly that. And where did you present me any sort of actual logical backing to your claim? That a few games don't work? Here's another newsflash: There is some SHODDY code in your computer alright, and not all of it is in your operating system.

because of flaws in the code, the fact they cant afford the 1000 dollar secruity software to protect it from spyware and virus and the firewalls being as Vistas is all new and untested in reality

What... ARE... you talking about? 1000 dollar security software? In what plane of existance do you live in, exactly, where you need 1000 dollars worth of ANYTHING to secure an operating system? Why don't you show me the list of software that is needed that also tallies up to $1,000 US dollars. In fact, I'd like to see a list of required software that's one QUARTER of that amount...

Driver support is misrable also, and no one can deny that, just over all XP is still a stronger more stable OS that most will be used to.

Driver support is Microsoft's fault how? How long exactly has Vista been in development? I know you can tell me, because you're self-proclaimed Vista knowledgable. So, after 60 months in development (and about 24 months in various alpha and beta build stages) when were the hardware developers of the world going to start building drivers?

Sure, you can argue and say that it's Microsoft's fault that the driver model changed from XP, but you know what? The driver model changed from Win95/98 to Win2K too. And you know why? Because it needed to. There are some ugly nasty things in the NT5 driver model that needed fixing, and since it's been around 6-7 years, it's time for a refresh. If you want some history, Win3.1 drivers didn't work in 95. 95 drivers didn't work in 2000. And now, 2000 drivers don't work in Vista. I think that last jump (2000 -> Vista) is the longest run of driver code-base since Windows started using that concept, so I don't think it's such a big deal. Care to elaborate on why it shouldn't change in your educated mind?

I felt lost in vista at first and had to reorganize my files to XP organization, because i cant stand half of what vista does, and how the windows toolbar is hidden and you have to actully have to dig around to turn it back on

As for being "used to", what exactly are you implying? That somehow the "click on start" mentality changed" That Jane and Jon Dorkus User aren't going to be able to navigate this "new" interface? What changed so radically about the UI that somehow any 40 year old who has EVER used Windows since Win95 will not be able to figure it out in about 60 seconds?

"Where's the control panel? Oh wait, it's right there."

"Where are My Programs? Oh, right where it says ALL PROGRAMS"

"Hey, where are my Documents? Oh, you mean, right there where it says Documents??!?"

How much of this has REALLY changed? And what parts of it were you re-arranging that disturbed you so? And what are you referring to when you say the Windows Toolbar is hidden? What toolbar are you referring to that is also turned on by default in XP?

 

[demonic]

Talking about the brute force.

Vista has apparently been cracked, story here : http://digg.com/microsoft/Vista_cracked_totally_by_Paradox_Microsoft_s_in_trouble_now

I still wont be touching it anyway, pre SP1.

It will be interesting now, how Microsoft counter-acts this.