# Windows 7 - stuff to be concerned about



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

Hey gang, now I know we've had a general Windows 7 thread, but this one is more specifically to share some things that should be of concern to people thinking about moving to it.  Given that Microsoft is very pro-DRM and control, it's important that folks understand what that means, and how it might affect them.

To start, this was posted today at Slashdot about what's being called "Draconian DRM" in Windows 7: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/2259257

Windows 7 starter edition is crippled: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246859/windows-7-a-nonstarter-on-netbooks.html

Performance Benchmarks (Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 beta): http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-windows-7

The Windows 7 Line up - the good, the bad and the ugly: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890

Windows 7 less secure than Vista: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1898&tag=rbxccnbzd1

Granted, there are a lot of positive articles that talk about the interface improvements and tweaks, but this thread is to highlight areas of concern that users should be aware of.  So, if you have some interesting articles or info to share, please do!

Edit:

Adding this article which I found about upgrading to Windows 7 from XP, which is a bit depressing given that XP is still by far the most common platform:

http://www.crn.com/software/214502662


----------



## CAThulu (Feb 17, 2009)

G-OS.  Definately going G-OS when they can run Adobe and my games.

Here's one.  The really, really bad UAC flaw in Windows 7. http://www.aeroxp.org/2009/02/the-real-issue-with-win7-uac/

from the site:


> _If it can be executed and has a exploitable hole, thanks to this flaw in UAC, it can serve as a vector of attack._ This flaw is so ridiculously and utterly *bad* that it brings us right back to the times that people used XP with an unprotected administrative account. This essentially negates any benefit that UAC gives to the user.
> Solution for the end user? Well, like I stated when I opened this post, max out UAC on Windows 7 _the immediate second you finish installing it_ and do not connect Windows 7 to the internet until you do. Yes, you should be that paranoid; this flaw needs to be resolved immediately. If this really is by design, Microsoft screwed up.
> I canâ€™t wait to hear the explanation for this one. I love Windows 7, but when a team closes a report on a critical _demonstrated _security bug as â€œby design,â€ I donâ€™t know what to think.


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 17, 2009)

OMG, I really thought hte guys from microsoft had learned their lesson - so much for that. 
Very nice benchmarks btw. ^^


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> OMG, I really thought hte guys from microsoft had learned their lesson - so much for that.
> Very nice benchmarks btw. ^^



Yeah - I was quite surprised at the file copy times benchmark - I mean Linux always seemed a little faster to me, but wow... what a margin.

And nice find as well CAT.


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Yeah - I was quite surprised at the file copy times benchmark - I mean Linux always seemed a little faster to me, but wow... what a margin.
> 
> And nice find as well CAT.


Not to mention that Ubuntu is definitely NOT known for it's speed when compared to other distros.


----------



## net-cat (Feb 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> To start, this was posted today at Slashdot about what's being called "Draconian DRM" in Windows 7: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/2259257


Unsurprising.



ToeClaws said:


> Windows 7 starter edition is crippled: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246859/windows-7-a-nonstarter-on-netbooks.html


Also unsurprising, as that's how it's been since they started offering Starter Edition with XP.



ToeClaws said:


> Performance Benchmarks (Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 beta): http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-windows-7


lulz



ToeClaws said:


> The Windows 7 Line up - the good, the bad and the ugly: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890


As I've said: "Why sell something to everyone for $199 when some people are willing to $499 for the same thing?"



ToeClaws said:


> Windows 7 less secure than Vista: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1898&tag=rbxccnbzd1


lulz

All that (with the exception of the DRM thing) is fine and manageable for me, though. It's looking like I'll also be giving Windows 7 a pass, but for other reasons.


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> As I've said: "Why sell something to everyone for $199 when some people are willing to $499 for the same thing?"


Einstein ... infinite things ... universe ... you know what I mean. ;-)


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> All that (with the exception of the DRM thing) is fine and manageable for me, though. It's looking like I'll also be giving Windows 7 a pass, but for other reasons.



Mmf... for me, I can't give it a pass because of the DRM stuff - that's going too far.  It crosses an ethical line that I just can't accept.  There are only two reasons I run Windows (three if you count work): Photoshop and Games (and Visio for work).  But at the same time, I'm so against the DRM stuff that I'm willing to let XP be the last OS for Photoshop and games, even if it means I will eventually not be able to run them anymore.  I'd rather do without let some corporation dictate what I can do with *my* hardware.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 17, 2009)

I'd like to start out by saying I'm not trying to defend Microsoft, just to clear up a few things that are more or less FUD here.



> _If it can be executed and has a exploitable hole, thanks to this flaw in UAC, it can serve as a vector of attack._ This flaw is so ridiculously and utterly *bad* that it brings us right back to the times that people used XP with an unprotected administrative account. This essentially negates any benefit that UAC gives to the user.
> Solution for the end user? Well, like I stated when I opened this post, max out UAC on Windows 7 _the immediate second you finish installing it_ and do not connect Windows 7 to the internet until you do. Yes, you should be that paranoid; this flaw needs to be resolved immediately. If this really is by design, Microsoft screwed up.
> I canâ€™t wait to hear the explanation for this one. I love Windows 7, but when a team closes a report on a critical _demonstrated _security bug as â€œby design,â€ I donâ€™t know what to think.


I have to say that this is a little bit of a double-edged sword. Windows, by design, has always allowed quick and easy access to a lot of administrative areas of the computer, and separating those which should take effect system-wide and those which should take effect only for the user (and then making it so that these are either separate or easy for the user to understand) would be a pretty difficult task, especially considering the framework that has already been built. UAC's performance in Vista underscored this quite well, and taking from that experience and user expectations, placing UAC in "Quiet Mode" (which is also available on Vista by way of registry tweaks or using TweakUAC) seems a pretty solid move. Given that administrative accounts shouldn't be used in everyday usage to begin with and user accounts will still get all the UAC elevation prompts, this behaviour is practically identical to the manner in which, for example, Ubuntu uses its gksudo to perform administrative tasks, with the added effect that UAC is actually still enabled in "Quiet Mode" even without the prompts for administrators, providing added protection.

So that was pretty much FUD.



> Draconian DRM


Yeah, but Vista incorporates the same thing. Remember the whole "network performance drops to 10% when playing an MP3" bit? Doesn't make it any nicer, but a lot of the things they're talking about here are already "features" in Vista. Still, things like audio loopback support can be enabled at the driver level, like with my Auzentech X-Fi Prelude's drivers for Vista, and if you use ASIO (which bypasses the kernel wherever possible) or something other than DSound, you'll probably retain your audio quality. So for people who actually need that sort of thing, they're already using the workaround (ASIO is very popular for professional use since its goal is to minimize latency in audio playback/recording, with the added effect of skipping any software/kernel processing, thus giving the cleanest signal). It's very possible, too, that the audio drivers being used were coded incorrectly, especially in the case of onboard audio. Downsampling and upsampling in software (especially in "realtime") is a nightmare for audio quality (ask any Soundblaster Live! user), and those beta drivers could have had a stopgap implementation of it.

And as for the Photoshop bit, that's probably more to do with Photoshop, as I doubt Windows 7 has a vast database of checksums for each and every program's files. And if it does, then _wow_. I'd like to point out that "Local Settings" doesn't exist in Vista OR Windows 7 (it's there for compatibility purposes), and it's actually located in the Appdata\Local folder of your user folder. These guys are just idiots.



> Windows 7 starter edition is crippled


"Starter Edition" isn't like XP Home or Vista Basic, and in fact, both of those OSes have had these Starter Editions. The Starter Edition is meant for developing countries and areas where computer resources are at a premium and competition is fierce between Microsoft and alternative operating systems like any number of distributions of Linux. It's meant to be a cost-effective way to run Windows, and typical browsing/e-mail/word processing usage wouldn't typically exceed the limitations imposed by Starter Edition.



> Performance Benchmarks (Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 beta)


Windows XP seems to be missing from those benchmarks, which is really the most important benchmark here. In comparisons against Windows XP, Windows 7 tends to meet or exceed XP's performance points in practically every area (save hard drive performance, interestingly), which is what most users will care most about. This article, while not incorrect, is definitely skewed by bias toward Ubuntu, being a Linux blog.

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-7264-view-Windows-7-vs-Windows-Xp-review.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3187
http://ttcshelbyville.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/windows-xp-vs-windows-vista-vs-windows-7/



> The Windows 7 Line up - the good, the bad and the ugly


I'm not sure why having more choice in feature sets available is a bad thing, but sure. The worst thing to come out of this is that the Ultimate edition of Vista happened to be $100 more for an OEM copy than the Professional version of XP, but there are a number of things in the Ultimate edition that most people will find aren't necessary, and I myself run Home Premium with all the features I've come to love in XP Professional, save for domain membership (which I couldn't give a damn about). Just one usage scenario, sure, but for most people out there, Home Premium probably is all they'll need, and what's more, RDP can be made to work on it, too, just like XP Media Center Edition (except with a little more work).



> Windows 7 less secure than Vista


It's more than a little idiotic that Microsoft decided to allow programs to automatically elevate themselves or automatically change UAC settings. I'm guessing there's more to it than is currently known (like creating a white-list as you go ("Remember my settings for this program" checkbox or something) for applications that are allowed to do this), or at least, I'm hoping.


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

Nice additions Runefox!  And yes, the draconian DRM is already there in Vista - basically just being continued into Windows 7.  On a personal side-note, that's also why I will not run Vista.

Agreed that the benchmarks article really should have shown the XP stuff as well since XP is the most common desktop OS right now.  I thought it was disappointing that they didn't show it.  The links you have there do help paint a bit of a picture though of where XP stands.  I think since most users will be making the choice to go from XP to Windows 7 (or ditch Windows), it's better to see the comparison of what they have vs. what they'll be getting.

Oh, important reminder about benchmarks though for those reading this to learn about Windows 7 - remember that benchmarks are run off of a clean install with no tweaking done to the system, and no extra software such as anti-virus running.  On an actual system, the numbers can vary considerably in either direction because of such factors.  XP, for example, is pretty slow and crappy out of the box compared to how well it can run when tweaked out and stripped down to a more Windows 2000-like state.  It's almost guaranteed that users will be able to do similar to Windows 7, and you can certainly tweak Vista quite a bit as well.  Even with non-Windows OS's, tweaking and tuning can make some notable differences in performance, so remember to always read a benchmark as more of an "in the neighbour" sort of figure instead of an exact measure of performance.


----------



## net-cat (Feb 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Mmf... for me, I can't give it a pass because of the DRM stuff - that's going too far.



Oh, sorry. When I said "giving it a pass" I meant "passing it up." As I've said before, it still has the problems that prevent me from using Vista, all the other changes are incremental, and I won't be able to get student pricing on it. The DRM is just another layer on the shit cake.

Quite frankly, Windows 7 is shaping up to be Windows Vista Second Edition. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. By all accounts, Windows 98 Second Edition was far better than Windows 98.) In fact, I'd wager that the only reason they aren't calling it that is that the Vista brand it so horribly tainted in the market place that it'd basically guarantee another flop. (That and Vista Second Edition Business Edition would be weird.)


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Oh, sorry. When I said "giving it a pass" I meant "passing it up." As I've said before, it still has the problems that prevent me from using Vista, all the other changes are incremental, and I won't be able to get student pricing on it. The DRM is just another layer on the shit cake.



*laughs* Now that would make a good t-shirt "DRM is just another layer on the shit cake."  I'd wear it proudly. :mrgreen:



net-cat said:


> Quite frankly, Windows 7 is shaping up to be Windows Vista Second Edition. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. By all accounts, Windows 98 Second Edition was far better than Windows 98.) In fact, I'd wager that the only reason they aren't calling it that is that the Vista brand it so horribly tainted in the market place that it'd basically guarantee another flop. (That and Vista Second Edition Business Edition would be weird.)



Heh, interesting point - and you're probably right.  It's rather like the modern equivilant to making a Windows Millennium Second Edition... only, they had the sense to give up and move on with WinMe. :/


----------



## AlexInsane (Feb 17, 2009)

Wow, Windows 7 is going to be WORSE than the shitty OS it was meant to replace?

Jesus Christ. What the hell are they doing over there? Do they have manatees or brain-dead children saying how the OS is going to be configured or what?


----------



## net-cat (Feb 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> *laughs* Now that would make a good t-shirt "DRM is just another layer on the shit cake."  I'd wear it proudly. :mrgreen:


Cafepress, local printer or even iron-on inkjet prints are your friend!





ToeClaws said:


> Heh, interesting point - and you're probably right.  It's rather like the modern equivilant to making a Windows Millennium Second Edition... only, they had the sense to give up and move on with WinMe. :/


I wouldn't go so far as to compare Vista to Millennium. Millennium was a rush release tacked on top of the already overextended Win9x line that was on its way out anyway. (2000 was supposed to be what XP ended up being. That's why the tried to make 2000 and Millennium look similar. Though the were smart enough to not try to pass it off as "2000 Home Edition.") Windows NT, on the other hand, was and continues to be a solid platform. "Moving on," as you suggest, from the Windows NT platform would not serve them very well. Especially since it doesn't address the underlying problems. (That is: Their shell people suck at what they do, corporate politics and their interests often don't align with that of their customers.)


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I wouldn't go so far as to compare Vista to Millennium...<snip>



I didn't mean it as a technical comparison so much as a comparison in popularity.  WinMe was the first really big failure the company had since Windows 3.0.  Vista has been their next biggest flop, so in that sense, it's very similar.  From a technical standpoint, WinMe made no sense.  They had brought out 2000, which most geeks figured would be the much needed death knell for the 9x DOS-based Windows family, yet, out comes WinMe a few months later and even more shocking, Microsoft throws their marketing weight behind it, trying to convince home users it's the best choice. >_<

To me, Windows 2000 was the closest they ever came to a good version of Windows - it was stable, fast, and well... I don't really want to use "secure" in the same sentence as Windows but it was at least more secure than anything else they had previously made.  XP, to me, was an unnecessary and bloated tweak to the 2000 kernel, but from a marketing standpoint, they did it because 2000 had really not been pushed hard and had very little desktop market penetration.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 17, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Wow, Windows 7 is going to be WORSE than the shitty OS it was meant to replace?


Actually, no. Read my post.


----------



## lilEmber (Feb 17, 2009)

Runefox kinda hit it all on the head, personally Windows 7 (once released fully and out for a month or so) is what I will be getting; upgrading from Vista Premium x64 to Windows 7 Premium x64. :3


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 17, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> Runefox kinda hit it all on the head, personally Windows 7 (once released fully and out for a month or so) is what I will be getting; upgrading from Vista Premium x64 to Windows 7 Premium x64. :3



Yeah basically that's it in a nutshell: If you're a Vista user, you'll be better off upgrading to Windows 7.  In fact, with most Vista licenses, you'll be able to do it for free.  Windows 7 is, simply put, better than Vista.

If you are an XP user, you will likely be disappointed by it almost as much (but not quite) as with Vista.  If you want to stick with Windows though, you won't have much choice because eventually XP will not be supported any more.  

If you don't need to stick to Windows, then ah... don't.  There's plenty of other OS's out there.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 17, 2009)

Yup, pretty much. I recommend Ubuntu for first-timers for switching to *NIX, Gentoo/Sabayan for power users who don't mind getting their hands dirty and want a good learning experience, and if you're already a veteran, then you know what your favourite flavour is already.

As for Mac OS... Bleh. Whatever.


----------



## Aurali (Feb 17, 2009)

Hrm. good reads.


----------



## Eevee (Feb 17, 2009)

I saw that /. article this morning.  Did you happen to read the comments?

It's an unsourced story from Some Guy having computer problems and blaming them on "DRM" -- with no details of what he was doing or whether the same thing happened on other versions of Windows.

I see a lot of "Vista has DRM rah rah" complaining, but after all this time it still eludes me exactly what sort of DRM people think Vista has.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 17, 2009)

It boiled down to "MY HACKED VERSION OF PHOTOSHOP CS4 STOPPED WORKING AND MY LOCAL SETTINGS FOLDER DOESN'T WORK AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE LOOPBACK SO I USED MY MICROPHONE AND THE SOUND IS BAD SO IT MUST ALL BE DRM".

Seriously, the guy who submitted that is a nitwit. I mean, "Local Settings"? Come on, that folder hasn't even really existed since Vista.

As for Vista's DRM, from what I recall, there was an uproar over network performance while playing audio files, but I'm not sure what caused that, exactly. Obviously speculated to be DRM. As far as I know, the only real DRM included in Vista (which is also included in XP) is SecuROM.


----------



## Koda (Feb 17, 2009)

Before deciding to put the nail in the coffin of windows 7 we should realize: The consumer world HASN'T seen a finished Windows 7 yet. They saw a beta.

More than likely, the benchmarks were performed against the beta 7.

Before I choose to upgrade (when it hasn't even been released) I'll wait around a while to see how they go. Vista isn't bad, and it supports every feature of my current computer, and is 64bit. When my technology needs change, that's when my OS will :3

Btw, does Linux have a suite for doing video editing, for like making DVDs and stuff? I've only seen *useable* software for Windows and Mac.

I did notice the weird delete delay thing.. I think it has something to do with shadow copies.. which really _really_ bugs me. Why can't I turn it off


----------



## Internet Police Chief (Feb 17, 2009)

First of all, it's a beta.

Second, if it isn't broke don't fix it. I'm not upgrading from XP to anything until I absolutely must.


----------



## AlexInsane (Feb 17, 2009)

Attorney At Lawl said:


> First of all, it's a beta.
> 
> Second, if it isn't broke don't fix it. I'm not upgrading from XP to anything until I absolutely must.



Dude, Windows has a long standing history of producing broken OS's. The best you could hope for was to exchange one for another and hope it had something that made it worth hanging onto.

Windows products have always sucked when they came out, but they usually get better over time. It's still comparing two logs of shit, but maybe one of them smell slightly less fragrant than the other one does.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 17, 2009)

> Btw, does Linux have a suite for doing video editing, for like making DVDs and stuff? I've only seen *useable* software for Windows and Mac.


Yeah, but it isn't very powerful at the moment (AFAICT) and I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.



> Second, if it isn't broke don't fix it. I'm not upgrading from XP to anything until I absolutely must.


Well, that's what a lot of people (including me) said about Windows 98SE when 2k/XP were released. You have to realize that at this point, XP is almost a decade old. While that's fine, and we're still using the same underlying technology, we'll soon start to see things that require Vista/Win7, such as DirectX 10/11 games (DX10 games are currently using what's basically a DX9 rendering pipeline, which retains compatibility with older systems and overall decreases performance. The DX10 effects we see today are bolted onto that, and we're not seeing what DX10 actually is right now), and we'll likely see a host of poorly-coded applications that expect to have the Aeroglass interface and UAC present on the system, too. Also, while it's totally stupid, we'll also see more and more software that "requires" Vista by way of an installer check, just like a lot of things that require XP today "won't run" on 2k, even when technically compatible.

So, it might not be totally realistic to continue to run XP for too much longer from a user standpoint, given the current way things are going. Then again, Microsoft may be trying too hard to push Vista/Win7 after having XP flood the market for a decade and a half.


----------



## Eevee (Feb 18, 2009)

Attorney At Lawl said:


> Second, if it isn't broke don't fix it.


I wish people would stop trying to apply this to software upgrades

what does 'broke' mean to you?  inferior functionality?  weakening support from third-party developers?  no longer receiving security updates?

I don't personally care if you stay with XP and would honestly rather you not give microsoft more money, but holding this attitude in general in the IT world can be frustrating to everyone else and inefficient or dangerous for you


----------



## CAThulu (Feb 18, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> *laughs* Now that would make a good t-shirt "DRM is just another layer on the shit cake."  I'd wear it proudly. :mrgreen:



Careful...Your birthday IS coming up, you know :grin:


----------



## Internet Police Chief (Feb 18, 2009)

Eevee said:


> what does 'broke' mean to you?  inferior functionality?  weakening support from third-party developers?  no longer receiving security updates?



Just about everything on the market still works
I have no serious problems when running the OS
Doesn't suck my resources dry

XP applies to all of those, Vista doesn't, and Windows 7 probably won't. That's what I consider "broke".


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 18, 2009)

Eevee said:


> I see a lot of "Vista has DRM rah rah" complaining, but after all this time it still eludes me exactly what sort of DRM people think Vista has.



I tend to look at it from a higher vantage point: Does it have ANY form of DRM? 

Yes: Then I won't touch it.

No: Okay, then let's see if the other stats are worth considering it.

DRM of any kind, for me anyway, is an instant disqualification in an OS.  I don't care who makes it or how good it might be - if it tries to tell me what I can and can't do with my hardware, then it's not even going to be considered.  Now some people don't care about it - that's fine, but for me personally, I will not let an OS have that level of control.



Runefox said:


> Well, that's what a lot of people (including me) said about Windows 98SE when 2k/XP were released. You have to realize that at this point, XP is almost a decade old. While that's fine, and we're still using the same underlying technology, we'll soon start to see things that require Vista/Win7, such as DirectX 10/11 games (DX10 games are currently using what's basically a DX9 rendering pipeline, which retains compatibility with older systems and overall decreases performance. The DX10 effects we see today are bolted onto that, and we're not seeing what DX10 actually is right now), and we'll likely see a host of poorly-coded applications that expect to have the Aeroglass interface and UAC present on the system, too. Also, while it's totally stupid, we'll also see more and more software that "requires" Vista by way of an installer check, just like a lot of things that require XP today "won't run" on 2k, even when technically compatible.
> 
> So, it might not be totally realistic to continue to run XP for too much longer from a user standpoint, given the current way things are going. Then again, Microsoft may be trying too hard to push Vista/Win7 after having XP flood the market for a decade and a half.



*nods* Microsoft have really become their own worst enemy.  A lot of people were really mad when they didn't make DX10 for XP, but they knew full well if they did, then there would be absolutely no reason for anyone to want to upgrade to a newer Windows.  This has caused more trouble than they thought though - more than 2/3 of the market still use XP, possibly an even higher percentage in the gaming market, and companies that make PC games want to make something for the majority, not the minority.  They're reluctant to go full DX10 because they know that most of the market would then be unable to play the game.

Anyways, you can continue to run XP until April 8th, 2014 when all support for XP will cease.  That means no more security updates or fixes.  Now ah... if you're insane, you can keep running it if you want, but running a dead OS is dangerous since the security holes will keep getting discovered, and there will be no fixes for them.  In fact, April 14th of this year will see main support cease for XP (IE, no "new" software will be made for it, only security fixes from this point on).

Runefox is right - eventually, like it or not, everyone using XP will have to move to something else.  In operating system terms, XP is already a relic, and even if by some insane miracle they kept supporting it, you're not using your hardware to it's fullest potential.  



CAThulu said:


> Careful...Your birthday IS coming up, you know :grin:



Oi... don't remind me. >_<


----------



## Eevee (Feb 18, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> I tend to look at it from a higher vantage point: Does it have ANY form of DRM?


ok so what DRM does vista contain?  as far as I'm aware it only contains _support_ for playing certain DRM streams, which otherwise would simply not function.


----------



## net-cat (Feb 18, 2009)

Actually, it's Vista x64 and that whole "required driver signing" debacle.

If they had made that optional to end users, I wouldn't have had an issue with them forcing it on OEMs. (OEMs write some utterly horrid drivers. And they usually don't get them signed. It's a quality control issue. If an OEM puts a driver on their system that crashes every two hours, it reflects badly on Microsoft. Especially since they'll likely just tell the end user that it's a Windows issue.)

However, they made it required for end users and have actively sought to prevent them from disabling it. This is so they can market x64 as a "Secure Media Platform" for content providers.


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 18, 2009)

Eevee said:


> ok so what DRM does vista contain?  as far as I'm aware it only contains _support_ for playing certain DRM streams, which otherwise would simply not function.



It has various DRM technologies, some of which can be found in XP via Media Player 11, but also adds some new ones.   One is High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, another is Protected Video Path and then Image Constraint Token.  If Microsoft is following along their timeline plans, these have not actually been activated yet - they were planning to turn them on in 2010.

Like I said before, I don't care how much or how little is in there; it's the fact they are putting something into their OS the prevents my hardware from doing what it can normally do on the basis that their OS is smart enough to know what I should and shouldn't be able to do.  That just really bothers me - it's not Microsoft's business what people do with Windows after they buy it!

Why can DRM be bad? Well, plenty of articles out there on that:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/10/microsoft-vista-drm-tech-security-cz_bs_0212vista.html

http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/06/19/why_drm_is_bad_for.htm

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

http://killfreedom.blogspot.com/2007/03/steve-jobs-drm-is-bad-for-consumers.html


----------



## net-cat (Feb 18, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> it's not Microsoft's business what people do with Windows after they buy it!


You don't buy Windows. You license it. And that license can impose limits on use.

That's the theory, anyway. They've worked really hard to make sure that that never actually goes to court...


----------



## CAThulu (Feb 18, 2009)

From Forbes:


> To be fair, just last week Steve Jobs publicly  came out against DRM for music. It's a reasonable business position, now that Apple controls the online music distribution market. But Jobs never mentioned movies, and he is the largest single shareholder in Disney. Talk is cheap. _The real question is would he actually allow iTunes Music Store purchases to play on Microsoft or Sony players, or is this just a clever way of deflecting blame to the--already hated--music labels_.



The fact that Steve Jobs did this with Apple, then appologizing about how bad a move that was illustrates how much this trick is going to suck.  They won't be able to negotiate prices to release content on Vista or Windows 7 and it's either going to cause a major headache for the movie industry, or for microsoft.  Because Apple isnt' as widely used as windows, Microsoft may actually get away with DRM, espeically if they also try to control music and gaming.  Sending games through Steam accounts are going to be a hassle with this.  Anyone not using their preferred format are going to be screwed where the sun don't shine.


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 18, 2009)

net-cat said:


> You don't buy Windows. You license it. And that license can impose limits on use.
> 
> That's the theory, anyway. They've worked really hard to make sure that that never actually goes to court...



*chuckles* Yep.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 18, 2009)

> Actually, it's Vista x64 and that whole "required driver signing" debacle.


A simple F8 startup option will disable that, and there are many tools out there to permanently disable it. It's been a while since I've actually used Microsoft's silly excuse for a startup manager (I prefer Autoruns), but msconfig I believe also allows you to permanently disable driver signing.

One thing that WILL definitely work without any utilities is popping open a command prompt and typing "*bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS*". Not user-friendly, but hey, it works.


----------



## Aurali (Feb 18, 2009)

net-cat said:


> You don't buy Windows. You license it. And that license can impose limits on use.
> 
> That's the theory, anyway. They've worked really hard to make sure that that never actually goes to court...



I'm gonna try to paraphrase the Windows for dummies thing I read when I was 9 >.> been a while since it existed for me.

"You didn't purchase windows, you just purchased the rights to use the software on the disk. Microsoft still owns it, and can revoke the right any anytime"


----------



## Arshes Nei (Feb 19, 2009)

Sooner or later people will need to upgrade but most of the technology is more "faster/bigger" versus more innovative at this time (in terms of the consumer market for a PC). So I think technology has hit a plateau in a sense and that's why portables have become the thing. Meaning your phone can play mp3s mapquest, touch sensitive. I know that they are making more touch sensitive laptops 

A gamer of course wanting new games would need to upgrade more. A person doing graphics applications, it's not too necessary to get the latest version, if we illustrate we just need a hard round brush and possibly a blender for digital (though ability to customize brushes and textures/papers help as well as image adjustments)  We just may need more swapfile depending on how large the illustration is. 

So I may end up doing an upgrade late in the game, I've found my workflow just fine with older versions of programs I purchased for cheap and can do what I need to do.


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 19, 2009)

Make that _later_ Arshes, seriously. ;-)
If I'd get my copy of Win7 (I repeat: IF!!!), I would wait for the first SP, and even then I'd wait a few weeks to see if the SP causes more harm than it fixes (like the first versions of the SP3 for Win XP).


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 19, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> Make that _later_ Arshes, seriously. ;-)
> If I'd get my copy of Win7 (I repeat: IF!!!), I would wait for the first SP, and even then I'd wait a few weeks to see if the SP causes more harm than it fixes (like the first versions of the SP3 for Win XP).



Arr... yes, ALWAYS wait for the first Service Pack with a M$ product. >_<  Their past track records even show that sometimes they don't get it right until two or three service packs.  But the first one is always a much-needed tweak to the product that was often rushed into production.


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 19, 2009)

Correct. Early adopters == beta testers.


----------



## SnowFox (Feb 19, 2009)

If I ever use windows 7 it'll either be on someone else's computer or I'll have stolen it. I pretty much learnt how to use computers while using XP and I feel like I almost know it inside out, so using anything else just makes me feel like I don't have full control. When I'm eventually forced off XP I'll change to Ubuntu probably.



Arshes Nei said:


> Sooner or later people will need to upgrade but most of the technology is more "faster/bigger"



I've never known a newer version of anything work faster than the previous one, especially if it's windows. I never really noticed how stuff has got slower and slower over time until I got hold of an old laptop running windows 95. OMG it was so fast I was almost aroused by it. 15 seconds to boot up to a fully usable desktop and shutting down was virtually instantaneous, as was starting up most applications.
It really annoys me how people just accept their computer being so slow. My brother got a brand new pc, quad core, 4GB RAM, vista 64bit, etc. It's sooo painfully slow yet he just accepts it, that would piss me off so much. I'm not sure how much of it is vista and how much of it is the norton 360 5 minute trial, or the endless GB's of shitware on it. grrrrrrrrrrrrr


----------



## Eevee (Feb 19, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> It has various DRM technologies, some of which can be found in XP via Media Player 11, but also adds some new ones.   One is High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, another is Protected Video Path and then Image Constraint Token.


that's not DRM in windows; it is _support for DRM-laden files_ in windows.  do you refuse to buy music players because they _are capable of playing_ files from iTunes or the Zune store or Real or whoever?

I mean, if you do, that's fine, but don't try to spin this like _windows_ is preventing you from doing something.  that's part of the license agreement with whoever owns the format.  if windows would happily let you rip an HDCP stream, microsoft would be fucked.  be angry at the media industry for creating this crap in the first place.



ToeClaws said:


> Like I said before, I don't care how much or how little is in there; it's the fact they are putting something into their OS the prevents my hardware from doing what it can normally do on the basis that their OS is smart enough to know what I should and shouldn't be able to do.


they're preventing you from doing something on the basis that money money money money.

without this "DRM" included, the OS would "prevent" your hardware from playing certain content _period_.



if only more people would stop bitching about windows and then buying it anyway.


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 19, 2009)

Eevee, you're only partly correct in that yes, it's not the OS itself that enforces DRM, but rather it's various media playing or decoding software.  Where you're not quite correct though is that without it, you couldn't play things.  

There is a difference between being able to read/decode DRM-laiden content, and being able to deny the playing of that content based on the interpreted viability of that content.  I want an program to be able to read any media I put into it, but I don't want it to go one extra step further and then decide that, though it can technically play the media, it won't because it feels I don't have a right to watch it.

And you have exposed the other side of the coin here in that DRM should be fought against outside of the OS too - in that people should refuse to purchase media that's got DRM protecting the files in the first place.

But... even more than just the playing of media thing, where it also bothers me is that it disables basic hardware functionality, like recording a waveform currently playing on the sound card.  That's pretty basic, and again, it something the hardware is quite capable of doing, so I take issue with the OS using it's various application layers to stop that when that's none of the OS's business.

If you don't feel the same, that's cool - everyone's welcome to their own opinion on the matter.  For those that don't understand, they can read the stuff in this thread and at least learn the two sides of the coin. 



SnowFox said:


> I never really noticed how stuff has got slower and slower over time until I got hold of an old laptop running windows 95. OMG it was so fast I was almost aroused by it. 15 seconds to boot up to a fully usable desktop and shutting down was virtually instantaneous, as was starting up most applications.
> It really annoys me how people just accept their computer being so slow. My brother got a brand new pc, quad core, 4GB RAM, vista 64bit, etc. It's sooo painfully slow yet he just accepts it, that would piss me off so much. I'm not sure how much of it is vista and how much of it is the norton 360 5 minute trial, or the endless GB's of shitware on it. grrrrrrrrrrrrr



I know!  A few years ago when I was working in downtown Toronto, I had this ancient 286 20MHz laptop from 1988.  It had 1 Meg of RAM, and a 20M hard drive.  On it, I installed Caldera DOS 7.0, and I used to use it as a quick way of getting into a terminal program to log into the Cisco 7609 routers and Catalyst switches.  That thing could go from off to booted up and into the terminal in about 13 seconds!  The other laptop, which at the time was a modern Pentium III 500, took about 3 minutes to boot into NT 4.0.  When you had to fire up a terminal FAST and get working on a problem, that old laptop was phenominal.  

But if you like seeing that kinda awesome efficiency in a modern sense SnowFox, try Puppy Linux.  You will be very pleasantly surprised.  Right WarMock? :mrgreen:


----------



## Runefox (Feb 19, 2009)

I started my computer experience on MS-DOS 5 or 6, DOSSHELL, and Windows 3.1, mostly through my early school years (my family wasn't much for getting a computer, so all of my experience came from school). My first home PC had a Pentium 166 processor and 32MB of EDO SIMM RAM, blazing fast for its day. Running Windows 95, I was able to crank the settings up to max on virtually everything I ran without any problems, and the only thing it lacked was a then-unheard of 3D accelerator card. It was pretty much the benchmark by which I judge all computers to this day.

The problem isn't really fundamentally lying in the operating systems of today, but rather in their programming and the programming of the applications that run on them. The assumption is that there is a lot of CPU horsepower to work with and a lot of RAM to work with (and if not, swap space), and so a lot of lazy shortcuts are taken where before a lot of optimization was taking place. The way companies look at software releases nowadays is pretty much exactly what's already been said - Early adopters are beta testers. Even in the gaming world, games like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC were released in what can only be described as a pre-beta state, a rushed code job to meet a deadline.

Windows 95 was coded to run well on hardware like a Pentium 75MHz chip (though a 486 was originally recommended), and coded to run on something as low-end (even for the day) as a 386. For all intents and purposes, it achieves more in its memory footprint and overall system requirements than later revisions can do with multiple orders of magnitude more memory and processing power. It wasn't spectacular, however. Crashes were rampant and reliance on DOS made it particularly unstable, especially when dealing with hardware without proper support for Windows. Its capabilities to take advantage of faster hardware are also very low, and there was talk during the time that Win9x as a whole wouldn't really run with over 512MB of memory - And that anything more than 64MB was usually wasted by memory leaks (which made it necessary for most systems to be shut down/rebooted at least once per day). In essence, Win9x was built from the ground up for the hardware of the day, in stark contrast with Windows Vista, which was built from the ground up for the hardware of tomorrow - Without much extra to show for it.

The NT kernel, the basis for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7, turned out to be a lot more successful without the influence of DOS, and versions up to Windows 2000 tended to be extremely good at managing system resources without much wastage. Windows XP was the first time an operating system was really slower since the transition from 3.1 to 95, and required a much heftier system to perform than even its older sibling, Windows 2000, required a year earlier. In fact, many people (myself included) had come to the conclusion that Windows 9x was simply better for many tasks (which it was at the time, especially for gaming). It's ironic that today, we regard Windows XP as a reliable, speedy old workhorse, given the initial criticism and hostility it gained with consumers due to its hardware requirements and other issues in comparison to older versions of Windows.

In actuality, at least in my books, Windows 2000 stands as the pinnacle of stability and speed as far as Windows goes. Lighter than XP and just as compatible, it came without a lot of the features that gained Windows XP ire - No activation, no themes, no Windows firewall, no security center (which came much later), and generally required half the amount of memory and processing power as with Windows XP. One thing that didn't work very well was wireless ethernet, which only made a breakthrough into the mainstream several years later - But which also normally comes with manufacturer-provided software to deal with this, even today.

Anyway, if you _really_ wanted to see efficiency, you'd take a look at BeOS.


----------



## Hakar Kerarmor (Feb 20, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> I've never known a newer version of anything work faster than the previous one, especially if it's windows. I never really noticed how stuff has got slower and slower over time until I got hold of an old laptop running windows 95. OMG it was so fast I was almost aroused by it. 15 seconds to boot up to a fully usable desktop and shutting down was virtually instantaneous, as was starting up most applications.
> It really annoys me how people just accept their computer being so slow. My brother got a brand new pc, quad core, 4GB RAM, vista 64bit, etc. It's sooo painfully slow yet he just accepts it, that would piss me off so much. I'm not sure how much of it is vista and how much of it is the norton 360 5 minute trial, or the endless GB's of shitware on it. grrrrrrrrrrrrr



Oh man, stop making me pine for AmigaOS.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 20, 2009)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Oh man, stop making me pine for AmigaOS.


You mean Workbench.


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 20, 2009)

Runefox said:


> I started my computer experience...<historical info snip>



Excellent summation of things.   Though you were lucky - my first PC was a 286 12MHz... and ah... GUIs were not happy on that.   Agreed with 2000 though - as I mentioned earlier, that's about as good as Windows got.

Interesting additional tidbit of info - the NT kernel originally started lift as a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft.  Both sides had their own ideas of what was best though, and after a while things got sour and the companies cancelled the project and went their separate ways in 1990, each taking what they had so far built with them.  Microsoft continued work on it and eventually released the product as NT 3.1, the first 32 bit Windows.  

IBM's half of the work appeared as OS/2, and later as OS/2 Warp 3.0 *looks back at the shrink-wrapped box on his museum shelf*, which was an awesome OS.  Also 32 bit, OS/2 Warp was much better product, and quite possibly one of the best OS's ever written.  Unfortunately for IBM, they didn't market it well at all, and vendor/driver support for it was terrible - well behind Microsoft and Windows.  As a result, the last version of OS/2 Warp was 4.0 1996.

Microsoft's half of the work lives on today in the NT kernel, which is a direct descendant of the OS/2 project begun in the 1980's.  Pretty crazy.



Runefox said:


> Anyway, if you _really_ wanted to see efficiency, you'd take a look at BeOS.



Yes!!  That was an amazing OS for it's time.  And not sure if you're ware or not, but it is being resurrected: http://www.haiku-os.org/ :mrgreen:


----------



## Eevee (Feb 20, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> There is a difference between being able to read/decode DRM-laiden content, and being able to deny the playing of that content based on the interpreted viability of that content.


no, there isn't.  microsoft *legally CANNOT* let you do certain things with DRM'd content.  there is no "decrypt this stream and save it to an avi" middle ground.  that is _forbidden_ by the people who control the format.



ToeClaws said:


> That's pretty basic, and again, it something the hardware is quite capable of doing, so I take issue with the OS using it's various application layers to stop that when that's none of the OS's business.


it is an integral part of the format itself to prevent you from doing these things.  _there is no middle ground._


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 20, 2009)

Eevee said:


> no, there isn't.  microsoft *legally CANNOT* let you do certain things with DRM'd content.  there is no "decrypt this stream and save it to an avi" middle ground.  that is _forbidden_ by the people who control the format.
> 
> it is an integral part of the format itself to prevent you from doing these things.  _there is no middle ground._



For some of the content, yes, but that's also because Microsoft caved instead of laughing in the face of media companies like they should of.  Makes me wonder if there was some sorta kickback.  The Forbes article I linked earlier in the thread mentioned that part:



> It's all complete nonsense. Microsoft could have easily told the entertainment industry that it was not going to deliberately cripple its operating system, take it or leave it. With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go?



Fortunately, most companies are not pursuing DRM, and eventually, there will be open-source codec hacks to get around it in cases where there's no middle ground.  But as I was saying, it's not just the media issue - it's crippling certain functions of hardware too that is unacceptable to me.


----------



## Eevee (Feb 20, 2009)

which do you think 95% of users are going to see as more *crippled*?

"I can play this Blu-Ray disk, but you can't rip it to an avi"?
or "I can't play this Blu-Ray disk at all"?


----------



## WarMocK (Feb 20, 2009)

Eevee said:


> which do you think 95% of users are going to see as more *crippled*?
> 
> "I can play this Blu-Ray disk, but you can't rip it to an avi"?
> or "I can't play this Blu-Ray disk at all"?


Obviously the first, if you look at the statistics about sold BDs. People barely buy them, either because they see no reason for throwing out extra cash for useless features, or because they can't make "backup copies" for their friends (or their central media server). ;-)


----------



## Aurali (Feb 20, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> because they can't make "backup copies" for their friends (or their central media server). ;-)



They always find a way.. always.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 21, 2009)

Eevee said:


> which do you think 95% of users are going to see as more *crippled*?
> 
> "I can play this Blu-Ray disk, but you can't rip it to an avi"?
> or "I can't play this Blu-Ray disk at all"?


See, this shouldn't even apply to me. As a Canadian, I pay heavy levis on all my writable media for the very purpose of being legally able to create a backup of anything within the motion picture/music domain and do what I want with it barring public display and sale of said backups. The whole concept of DRM actually pretty much goes against Canadian laws as they are right now, which pisses me right the hell off, because nobody's doing anything about it. As far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't even be allowed to sell the shit so long as DRM is attached to it here. I guess that's what we get for electing politicians who are in bed with American business.

So in this case, I speak for all of Canada when I say the first is more fundamentally annoying, and the second shouldn't even be a concern.


----------



## Koda (Feb 21, 2009)

*shrug* Whats the point of ripping a Blu-Ray to an AVI anyway? You're better off saving time and just going from a DVD, considering filespace vs quality is your limiting factor. I don't imagine someone would want to just store 5GB of DVD VOB files on their computer, and likely wont want to store 25GB of BD video. And if you like those 1.5GB Xvid movies, _regardless of the quality of the source_, your end product will be exactly the same, given equal file-sizes. So just go rent your favorites at block buster and do whatever you want with them... They won't fully switch to Blu Ray for probably a year or 2 anyway.

As far as encryption goes, ANY encrypt-decrypt sequence is crackable. To borrow a quote from my favorite movie "buried within the message itself is the key to decoding it." Because the player can't write back to the playing medium, the playing medium has to have some way of telling the hardware how to read it. They figured this out by hacking firmware on DVD players, and they've done it with EVERY encryption scheme thus far released by bluray. The only way the Bluray execs try to stay ahead is to come out with newer encryptions, and then have vendors release firmware updates to the player hardware (which is the stupidest god damned thing I ever heard of).

One form of very secure encryption is WPA2. There is no way to 'calculate' what a packet's encryption key is because there are actually 2 keys being xor'd around. The server never knows what the client's key is, and the client never knows what the server's is. (This is why XOR is so awesome)

```
Example packet passing with WPA2:
Internet Packet comes to your router. 
Your router generates a key and encrypts (XORs) the packet with its key. 
Router sends the client the packet. 
Client XORs the packet with a key it created. 
Client returns the doubly encrypted packet to the router. 
Router XORs the packet again, removing its encryption, (but it is still encrypted by the client's key). 
Router sends the packet back to the client.
Client then XORs the packet with the client key, thereby removing the encryption.
```

At no point in this transaction do the machines transmit their keys, letting an interloper 'sniff' the key and be able to eaves drop. However, this style of encryption only works when you can freely modify the encrypted data. You cant do that on WORM-type media. Now, you can certainly sit there and try every possible key, but that is just a serious waste of time.

I'll laugh when they start selling players that can, and you can like.. only watch a movie a certain number of times before you can't anymore or something.. XD


I bought Iron Man on Blu Ray the other day, and I remember reading the package and it said something like "oh, you may have to update your bluray player to play this film." Or "Some Features may not be avaliable on all players" .. what kind of shitty ladder scheme is that? /rhetorical


----------



## Runefox (Feb 21, 2009)

> I bought Iron Man on Blu Ray the other day, and I remember reading the package and it said something like "oh, you may have to update your bluray player to play this film." Or "Some Features may not be avaliable on all players" .. what kind of shitty ladder scheme is that? /rhetorical


In an effort to get to market faster and to spread its influence, Sony allowed certain manufacturers to reduce their specs to a lower specification during the initial days of the format. This worked during the format war, and all was good - Until the newer players started coming out with more features and better specifications, which never should have happened. Take a look at the Blu-Ray profiles. The players they're talking about specifically would be the ones defined as "Grace Period", or Profile 1.0. As you can see, they were little more than glorified DVD players, and will function pretty much like that, too. The other profiles, Profile 1.1 and Profile 2.0, mandate minimums in storage capacity, audio/video decoders, and VFS compatibility. Profile 1.1 is the current standard fare, while Profile 2.0 ("BD-Live") is what the higher-end devices (including the Playstation 3) fall under.

It's a shitty system, but it contributed to Blu-Ray's winning of the format wars. HD-DVD had a much more structured and rigid system set up, but it suffered logistically for it in the beginning, which allowed Blu-Ray to take the lead.


----------



## Eevee (Feb 21, 2009)

Runefox said:


> So in this case, I speak for all of Canada when I say the first is more fundamentally annoying, and the second shouldn't even be a concern.


oh it is all a load of crap in any country really, but I think getting all hot and bothered at Microsoft over this (and then giving them money anyway like so many have done) is completely missing the point.


----------



## Runefox (Feb 21, 2009)

Eevee said:


> oh it is all a load of crap in any country really, but I think getting all hot and bothered at Microsoft over this (and then giving them money anyway like so many have done) is completely missing the point.


Well, yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement with you there. While it's not exactly the same thing, it's kind of like getting angry with GM for installing governors in their vehicles. It's misdirected completely. The MAFIAA (lulz Slashdotism) are the real culprits here.


----------



## Aestuo (Feb 21, 2009)

I support your dislike of DRM, Toeclaws.  I mostly oppose it because of its impact on the PC gaming industry.  PC Gaming Magazine has, I think, almost a whole issue devoted to anti-DRM.  I hate DRM because it can limit the number of installs you can have for a certain game, and in some instances to play via LAN, you need two separate copies of the game.  This makes no sense to me, for if I buy a game, I should be able to install it on _both_ of my computers and have them play against eachother over LAN.  I miss the days of PC gaming where that was possible, and even the days where you did not need the CD except for the install.  It was more fun back then.  XD

I know that EA uses a lot of DRM and such very frequently in their "Anti-piracy" crusade, but it is actually encouraging more piracy rather than deterring it.  Also, it does not even serve its purpose, for there were hacked copies of Spore on the Internet a few days after Spore was released, and Spore _has_ DRM.

This is rather funny.  I have read that some people just download a cracked version of their game without the DRM, and then send EA the money for the game.  So, techically, they are not really commiting piracy, are they?  XD   I thought that this was some fun DRM trivia worth sharing.


----------



## Hakar Kerarmor (Feb 22, 2009)

Runefox said:


> You mean Workbench.



Now I'm pining even more!
Remember when your OS fit on a single floppy?


----------



## Aurali (Feb 22, 2009)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Now I'm pining even more!
> Remember when your OS fit on a single floppy?



I remember when your OS was in the the application itself >.>


----------



## ToeClaws (Feb 25, 2009)

Saw this article from Slashdot today... not good news considering most enterprise folks are still running XP:

http://www.crn.com/software/214502662


----------



## CAThulu (Feb 25, 2009)

*whistles*  Wow.  Considering that a lot of retail companies still run Windows XP, this is going to be a REAL headache for corporations if they don't fix this.  And a costly one.   Stores lose business the longer the systems are down and in this economy it's hard enough for a store to turn a buck.  Well, thank gods this is only the beta and they're not going to release 7 as is...or are they? *cue ominous music here*


----------

