Interesting article re Vista, comments?

Jay_t · 6 Mar 2007 at 14:40

Linkage

I am trying a copy of vista ultimate 64 on a spare hard drive and have not been that impressed personally. Whilst its very pretty and well set out, the lack of a HAL (audigy 2 and DTT 3500 speakers in the bin), lack of gameport support, (gravis exterminator gamepad in the bin), requirement for all 64 bit drivers to be signed (kills off the chance of open source drivers for older hardware!!), is far from ideal.

The copy protection and content protection mechanisms will only affect legitimate users. Others who don't use a serial & use a small app to freeze the timer will not be affected by windows copy protection. Furthermore, people who download their HD content from a torrent site will enjoy the media in its full glory, whilst legitimate users will have to put up with reduced quality.

Its easy to bash Microsoft, and this is not intended to be just another "have a pop at MS" thread. However, I can't help but feeling that this new OS is more for the benefit of the media companies than us users.

Gas Panic! · 6 Mar 2007 at 14:58

I thought Vista only reduced the quality of High-Def DVDs, not downloaded files?

the-void · 6 Mar 2007 at 15:28

Whilst I am no fan of Vista at the moment. That article is a pile of BS.

http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/ro...a-doesn-t-add-drm-to-unprotected-content.aspx

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=429#

FOR THE RECORD: "Vista DRM simply gives you the choice of playing back DRMed content and it does not prevent you from playing back non-DRMed content." It also doesn't add DRM to your unprotected content. PERIOD.

Jay_t · 6 Mar 2007 at 15:32

Rivey said:
I thought Vista only reduced the quality of High-Def DVDs, not downloaded files?

Indeed, but downloaded (cracked) high - def DVDs are illegal. Is this not ironic when illegally obtained media shows at a higher quality than legally obtained media.

the-void said:
FOR THE RECORD: "Vista DRM simply gives you the choice of playing back DRMed content and it does not prevent you from playing back non-DRMed content." It also doesn't add DRM to your unprotected content. PERIOD.

Certainly a very good point, thank heavens for that

modo77 · 6 Mar 2007 at 15:37

The creative drivers are out this week. That should hopefully improve things, they've taken long enough to get them out. So they better be decent.

Jay_t · 6 Mar 2007 at 16:35

modo77 said:
The creative drivers are out this week. That should hopefully improve things, they've taken long enough to get them out. So they better be decent.

Isn't that for X-fi only though? I was under the impression that the alchemy software to replace the missing HAL only supports the X-Fi and NOT the Audigy range. Direct sound will not work with the Audigy, which is a giant V sign from creative to the huge amount of people who have an Audigy card. OCUk still sell the Audigy, so its not as if it has been dead and buried for years.

Combat squirrel · 6 Mar 2007 at 16:49

Also vista installs non signed drivers fine :confused:

no idea where that rumor started, so in theory 3rd party drivers should b fine

Jay_t · 6 Mar 2007 at 17:53

Combat squirrel said:
Also vista installs non signed drivers fine no idea where that rumor started, so in theory 3rd party drivers should b fine

Isn't that just the 32 bit version?

Energize · 6 Mar 2007 at 18:42

the-void said:
FOR THE RECORD: "Vista DRM simply gives you the choice of playing back DRMed content and it does not prevent you from playing back non-DRMed content." It also doesn't add DRM to your unprotected content. PERIOD.

Depends how you look at it really, considering you can get "special" hd devices which don't use hdcp.