Don't wait for Vista SP1, pleads Microsoft

Mark:

High Impact issues being addressed in SP1? I would expect nothing less! Are they meant to fix the low impact ones first?

A high impact issue is not automatically a high risk to the end user. Risk is measured by impact, probability and scope of the issue.

Dan, "without knowing what's included in the fact-rich program" there's no basis for this article.

Gmos:

I found the article to be quite informative on a number of points.

Seems to be a tacit acknowledgement by MS that Vista has serious flaws, that they were well know prior to release, and that MS therefore has a major PR and credibility problem - not helped by such cloak-and-dagger secrecy provisions. This is reflected in the, less than expected, uptake of Vista in the market.

Above all, it demonstrates that the corporation has subordinated quality and security in favour of marketing and profit.

Thankyou Dan, your article broadened my understanding of Microsoft and Vista.

Mark:

Have you seen the paper that Dan is commenting on in this article? If not, how can you state that the flaws are serious or otherwise?

As for cloak and dagger secrecy, they've published a paper, Dan is just miffed because he can't comment on it due to a non-disclosure agreement!

Gmos:

Hmm, by that logic I can't believe any newspaper acticle that doesn't include all its primary sources - that would be bulky! (Imagine someone reporting on the IR laws, and having to include 1000s of pages of primary material so that average readers can judge the journalism)

I think I can trust an IT journalist from a reputable publication. And I can use common sense to gage an article against a background of similar articles regarding MS and Vista in news media and internet forums.

Mark:

You may trust an IT journalist with obvious bias. From my review of multiple sources, the vast majority of issues with Vista are due to old hardware. Microsoft is not forcing these users to upgrade.

Neil:

Mark, do you work for microsoft? This article is based first on the fact that Vista sales are not what Microsoft wants and articulates the only known public information Microsoft is providing which is nothing more than "nothing here to see...move along" approach; something an IT professional's job is to be leary of. What ever happened to releasing a product that works and improving on it, obviously something or this WOULD BE a non issue!!!

tin:

It would be nicer if they dealt with the known high impact issues BEFORE they released the product.

Unhappy About Vista:

I got a machine with Vista. I'll say one thing - it boots and runs fine so far, and even though it is a laptop, I'll admit that it runs generally fast enough.

But, the troubles with it are:

1. It's difficult to set up anything - so many steps, and yet so little that the user can actually control. It seems that everyone else has control over the computer but me. It is frightening to think of it as secure when the controls any power user would want are scattered all around, while there are back doors for every web bug and who knows what that exist.

2. Advertising SPAM! That's right! It gives spam nicely from all kinds of vendors, like little time bombs, nicely partnered with the OEM (Sony) and with a great theater for them created by MS. What to watch commercials and get harassed to upgrade or buy products that you have supposedly un-installed? Well, welcome to the new Vista experience.

3. SILLY security - it asks all the time if I want to do things to set the computer up, etc. - but then a simple okay does the trick. What good is that?

4. All the old concepts that help one control the computer...you know, copy files, delete files, you name it - most of the productivity interface features are left out - features that used to exist in Windows.

5. Not so great looking itself - even after trimming it down, but then the "classic" is a crummy mix of the old classic and the new 3D stuff - so that of course looks horrible and still doesn't work like classic. At least the menu is usable after making it classic.

6. I have used Windows since it was an add-on, and even DOS before that. I have dozens of computers - most with XP lately. They work great.

Frankly, Macs don't excite me much, and Linux, while great for a server isn't all good either, I can tell you one thing - the most compelling reason to buy a Mac (if you are a home user) is Windows Vista. Vista will end up selling more Macs and inspiring more Linux installations than anything ever published.

If MS comes out with a stripped down, clean, optimized and locked down XP for business and power users, and if they made it faster and more bug free yet without adding more user interface or trial software on top - they could call it "Windows eXPert 2007" and save their company's future.

On the bright side, I just noticed that a local retailer is still selling XP XP2 retail! Now to find out if my snazzy new Laptop will run it.

What would happen to Vista if Mac allowed people to run their OS on a PC??? Hmmm.

When people call Vista a steaming pile of poo, I can understand why.

I'm a PC and Unix user. If MS doesn't clean up their act, I may go the Mac way in spite of their silly commercials.

Smoked:

That`s right, Mircosoft will promise you the world, you just buy Vista, once you have paid and can`t get it working, well, F**k you, we have your money and we don`t care about you any more, well at least untill we release a new product, then you should "trust" us again.

Vitaly:

EXACTLY!!!

Beggars belief:

Oh no, Microsoft is becoming one of those software companies that shuffles along the street with a scabby face and says, "excuse me sir, I was wondering if you could spare a couple of dollars... I just need to buy a subway ticket..."

How did it come to this? I went to Redmond once and it was all like, would you like a coffee sir, and step this way and be entertained by our gorgeous ex-model can I do anything for you, and I mean anything, corporate sales girl.

I told Microsoft not to get involved with those cool kids doing the 3D GUIs because no good could come of it, but did they listen... noooo...

JohnDoe:

Other OS's got the 3D desktop working long before MS's Aero crap. For example, Beryl on most recent Linux distro's is what, a 5MB download, and takes about 15MB's of RAM? When something like Beryl uses few resources as that, and provides eye-candy such as virtual desktops mapped to a 3D cube - the hell why can't MS get it right? I mean, Aero has LESS eye-candy and as we all know, takes MORE resources...

Mark:

Don't like the GUI? Turn it off.

Gmos:

Mark, again you seem to miss the point. The statement is not about a preference for or against using any particular 3D Gui - we all know how to turn these things on or off !! The statement is regarding the QUALITY of product, and how this reflects on the CREDIBILITY of MS.

Mark:

Actually I was responding directly to the comment by Beggars Belief regarding his personal view that Microsoft should not have gotten into the 3D GUI marketspace. In which case he can turn it off. Other people find the 3D interface useful.

DanielC:

... an operating system that can be remotely disabled by the vendor and requires connecting to the vendor every 180 days (subject to vendor change).

Deployment Blockers := IT Administrators responsible for avoiding outages.

High Impact Issues := Operating system with built in time-bomb

Bearded One:

Long story, but we had no choice, and needed to buy a few laptops with Vista.
Printer drivers are a problem - we had to work around that, because all the new server based drivers had warnings about XP compatibility (all ±1 year old printers, mind you!) and I am not going to risk the other couple of hundred PC's in the network. The existing drivers just did not work!
All our standard, drops into any XP PC in 10 minutes, software (like Sophos, Lotus Notes) either needed new downloads or setting tweaks, including MS Office 2003.

Our conclusion: we will learn to have XP Pro and Vista in co-existence until the XP Pro dies out in the normal replacement cycle.

Vista is great on one new PC, a major pain in a company network. Don't do it unless you have to!

Phil S:

I don't see what Microsoft has done wrong here. Under pressure from people like yourself they brought out Vista on schedule and now they are working full steam ahead on adding features and correcting minor issues in the release code.

I myself have not experienced a single issue with Vista. It came preinstalled on my Toshiba and works FINE.

Don't you think it is a GOOD thing that Microsoft is getting out there and providing additional information to their retailers? Increased sales is GOOD for the industry.

Get a clue, Linux weiner.

Jacques:

Phil S (if that is your real name, more likely it's Steve B or Bill G), that's pretty funny, only I don't see how this is anything resembling FUD, let alone something called "Linux FUD". I guess there is such a thing, but normally FUD is something slung out by major corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Dell, IBM, Sony, et al. This ain't fud, this is complaining about an bloated, buggy OS. Now go back to your fanboy hole.

Oh, and BTW, "i before e, except after c ...", wiener.

Gabe L:

First of all, Vista didn't come out on schedule. Which is fine, since schedules often need to be moved out. It happens.
Second, these aren't "minor issues". High impact does not indicate "minor issues". It indicates major issues. With the shifting schedule, when they were aware they were going to miss release by christmas they should have delayed further. Why did they not? In a word, Longhorn.
Third, you may have not experienced any issues with Vista, but I have experienced plenty. Driver issues galore. I have spent hours upon hours trying to get two printers workign with Vista. Oh yes, they work perfectly fine with XP. I need to go back to the office and figure out why the scanner won't work (with Vista. That's right, it works perfectly fine with XP). Or how about Vista not working with networks with a hidden SSID? How about that not being documented, or that not being apparent at all in Vista? Vista is a steaming pile of crap, and although I'm looking to buy a new laptop I'm waiting until Leopard is released, so I can buy a Mac (first one) and run XP.
As for the note regarding providing information did you even read TFA? It says "Despite the "fact-rich" materials being designed for both "partners and customers", the link supplied by Microsoft goes to a website which is available only to computer makers who are prepared to sign up to a non-disclosure agreement." If you don't understand why that's annoying for customers, and bad for partners who might not want to sign the NDA then discussion with you is pointless.
Try posting again when you start doing more than using MSOffice and surfing AOL, you moron.

Mark2:

Shows how much you know about I.T. Phil S.

The reason corporations aren't changing over is due to application and driver issues.

Lets look at my company for example. Our accounting and project management database has a web interface that loads ActiveX controls. Windows XP SP2 with Internet Explorer 6 works fine. Heck, our database's developers even got a patch out to update Windows XP SP2 so that when you get the Internet Explorer 7 update, that our application will work.

Vista... no go. Won't work. So, you're telling me that I'm supposed to make a switch to an operating system that won't work? Ludicrous!

And take this example from a small 250+ employee firm. Put that on a scale of a company that can afford to have software testing teams, security advisors, deployment teams, etc... I'm just me. I'm I.T. (pun intended) and I have 16 offices all over the US. We just APPEAR to have one issue. But, I'm sure I'll find plenty more if we ever HAVE TO BUY Vista. Besides having Engineers stuck in the 70s that have no idea about what email is to begin with, and then asking them to switch to a whole new way of using windows!?! They'll quit before they'll learn a new operating system.

Just some insight to your ignorant statement.

Mark2:

Oh... just to add something...

Half the company is still sitting on older Dell L300's. White Dell boxes that are running Windows 2000 have MAYBE 512MB of RAM with a Pentium III processor.

I'll run Vista on that real good!

Sure I'll just blow $100,000 on new computers. Not a problem! Whatever.

I've got Vista as a dual boot on my home system which is pretty much a top of the line system.

X6800 Core 2 Duo
8800GTX graphics (DX10/9 card)
2GB DDR2 Corsair XMS-8500D
680i Motherboard
X-Fi sound card
16x DVD-RAM Drive
2x 74GB Raptor 10K rpm HDDs (mirrored) - XP OS
2x 120GB Barracuda 7.2K rpm HDDs (mirrored) - Vista Business OS
1x 400GB Barracuda 7.2K rpm HDD - Data storage

I tell you what... that system shows a severe performance drop compared to XP.

And I'm sure as hell NOT ever buying that type of a system for a corporate workstation. I don't have the $6,000 to pay dell for an XPS system of that magnitude for every one of my employees.

icamp:

2x 74GB Raptor 10K rpm HDDs (mirrored) - XP OS
2x 120GB Barracuda 7.2K rpm HDDs (mirrored) - Vista Business OS
1x 400GB Barracuda 7.2K rpm HDD - Data storage

Interesting that for Windows you are mirroring the OS, but your data drive is not mirrored!

Mark:

Has Microsoft told you that you have to uninstall 2000 and XP and install Vista? I am guessing no. Fact is you can still run Win 3.51 if you wanted.

You're not making sense here at all, of course you wouldn't run the latest OS on ancient hardware. You wouldn't run 2000 on a 386. Same deal here.

The same pains were experienced when XP came out, lack of driver support, performace issues, etc, etc. New OSs always push the limits of the current hardware when they are released. However, within a year the hardware catches up and the expensive top of the line system today is suddenly mainstream. Happened to XP, will happen to Vista.

DeononXP:

However, within a year the hardware catches up and the expensive top of the line system today is suddenly mainstream. Happened to XP, will happen to Vista.- And this is why we waited a year to move to XP as we will also wait a year to move to Vista.

bubba:

Phil S said: "Under pressure from people like yourself they brought out Vista on schedule . . ." FULL STOP! LOL! OK, no need to go further you have demonstrated that you don't have a clue with this comment. VISTA was on schedule?!!!!

tin:

A) Dan Warne does not influence MS release dates. In fact most IT journalists would have expected the delays given MS's past.

B) You bought a laptop with Vista pre-installed and haven't had an issue... That makes you some kind of Vista deployment expert? There are serious show stopping issues for large organisations in Vista.

C) Show me this additional info that's available for retailers... As Dan said, it's hidden unless you sign up as a system builder, which is not what most retailers and customers are (re-read the article to figure out why I mention customers).

D) What is a Linux weiner? Some kind of penguin sausage? And what's it need a clue for?

dogStar1000:

As general tone of the other comments suggest your pro-MS views are increasingly in the minority.

Haven't you ever wondered why?

Think a little more about why Vista's a bad idea for you, other computer users and society in general.

It represents nothing but mass control through mediocrity and false promises - quite Blairite now I come to think of it.

Dave:

Vista was announced in 2001 (as "Longhorn") with expected ship in late 2003. Not until 2005 did it even reach beta testers. It's not even remotely accurate to say Vista was released on schedule. They just changed the name to fool clowns like you, and it obviously worked. Now they are re-using the code name Longhorn for Server 2008.

Please, keep posting, it's amusing to watch you fail.

Anonymous Coward:

(quote)
Under pressure from people like yourself they brought out Vista on schedule
(end quote)

I feel like shouting "Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!". HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Visduh was brought out on schedule? What planet are you living on buddy?

As for the close-to-unanimous decisions of BIG business (and also many small to medium ones) not to run with VisDuh, this is primarily a matter of sensibility. OS change = HUGE expenditure. What do they expect to GAIN from this change? Well, the short answer is: NOTHING. Hmm... I'm a tightwad trying to make the biggest profit possible - I think I'll throw some money out the window. For the really big businesses you're talking of potential losses of tens of thousands of dollars each hour when things go bad; industry is waiting for Average Joe to test Vista and for MS to fix problems which are guaranteed to come up (SP1) before industry invests resources in TESTING VisDuh for suitability in their systems. This testing process can take many months so don't expect the release of SP1 to equal an immediate huge sales to business. Once the testing has confirmed that business can go on as usual while changes are rolled out, then the negotiations of fees come in (could be another few months), and finally the rollout (usually months to >1 year). Businesses are here to make a PROFIT, not to buy Bill Gates a few more mansions. Business absolutely couldn't care less if Microsoft didn't exist tomorrow as long as it didn't have a negative effect on their own operations. That's business sense - it's got absolutely nothing to do with any love or hate of Microsoft and absolutely nothing to do with the Linux-lovers.

indallas:

I've run vista ultimate since the go live date. It is a steaming pile of junk... I have applications crash daily (developers fault?).

It takes a minimum of 2 gigs of memory and around 2.5ghz system with a good video card to even consider. At this point, I've not used any of the added features enough to justify what I have.

Take my advice.. WAIT!

opensource=win:

I don't believe you when you say that you're running Vista.
In the past I've been extremely critical of M$ and it's products/practices. Vista enticed me simply because it was new, and I have plenty of money to throw around for testing and such.

So.. I purchased the upgrade DVD of Vista Ultimate, and did a full install trick with it.

I have a whole ONE GIG of ram, an X2 4200+ and a crappy 7600GS video card that cost me 110 dollars on pricewatch.

I run it on full effects and I even installed the 64bit version, and not a damn thing has gone wrong, and it runs smooth as butter.

The one problem I had was the install failed like 4 times before finally staying, but it turns out that it was because I have a P.O.S. DVD OEM SATA burner drive that cost me 35 dollars on sale, and it kept missing tracks or something. (probably the reason it was on sale!!)

Vista is not bad, I'd even go as far as to say I'm enjoying it. Don't get me wrong, they really need to shape up, but they've got most of the PC market using their system, that has GOT to be somewhat difficult, right?

System specs:
~Abit AN9 32x Mobo
~1gig 6400 DDR2 patriot ram
~AMD x2 4200+
~Geforce 7600gs w/256MB vram
~Creative X-fi Fatal1ty Xtreme gamer card w/alchemy installed
~74gb 10,000rpm SATA raptor drive
~250gb 7,400rpm WD SATA2 drive

Vista 64bit Ultimate edition, full installed from an upgrade key.

Working beautifully.

Nathan M:

@opensource-win

Are you just ignorant or stupid? Since when does an OS need 1GB of ram. Do you know how insanely stupid that is? running the same thing on freebsd, linux whatever takes around 200MB via gnome and beryl. A operating system should NOT take a full 2005/2006 computer system just to run.

Anonymouse:

Indeed. I've had Vista pre-installed on my Toshiba laptop which isn't really that high-specced (Intel GFX, 1Gb RAM(512x2), 100gb 5400rpm HD, Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz)... and the only problem I've had was the Toshiba software installer which ran on first boot.

Apart from GTA:San Andreas not having good quality graphics (hey, I have Intel graphics, I expect that) I've had only minor problems which a simple fix did not resolve.

Of course, I know that not all systems will work beautifully, but stop saying Vista is a bug-ridden pile of crap that no PC should run. It's not true.

shavenlunatic:

you should replace "WAIT!" with "AVOID!"

Mark:

If you knew anything about Vista, you would know that it utilises as much ram as possible to minimise hard disk reads. As for the requirement for a good graphics card, go back to a classic XP like GUI and that requirement goes away. If you have old hardware, you can't expect blazing performance from the latest OS or to utilise features that your old hardware does not have.

J P:

" As for the requirement for a good graphics card, go back to a classic XP like GUI and that requirement goes away. If you have old hardware, you can't expect blazing performance from the latest OS or to utilise features that your old hardware does not have."


Mark, I must respectfully disagree.

I have a five year old PowerBook G4 (roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4) with a Radeon Mobility 7800 and 1GB of RAM that runs Mac OS X Tiger great - 3D Aqua interface and all. (For those not familiar with the Mac, Tiger is the latest released version of OS X.) Would anyone fathom ever trying to load Vista on a Pentium 4 box?

I had zero driver issues when I upgraded to Tiger, I have zero problems with viruses and malware, and I can run all of the latest and greatest programs with nary a hiccup. (Sure, video encoding and stuff like that takes longer than if I was running a new MacBook with a Core Duo, but that's to be expected.)

But if Apple can make seamless upgrades to their OS - and do so in the most minimal hardware footprint - then why can't Microsoft? After all, the guys in Redmond had over five years, thousands of developers, and a pile of cash to throw at this thing.

Mark:

Simple answer, expanded hardware set. Apples have always enjoyed a tight level of control over the hardware present in each Mac. The humble PC is a different story with hundreds of manufacturers releasing different components of varying maturity. A Microsoft OS has to deal with this whilst attempting (with varying success) to protect the user from dodgy drivers. This requires an overhead.

Anonymous Coward:

An 8-year old x86 machine running Debian Etch with KDE; it acts as a fileserver to 8 people, does number crunching, and still has a low CPU load most of the time. It's much more responsive than the 3-year old x86 machine here with WinDosXP on it. The 1 hour per week I struggle with XP to fill in my timesheet is the most stressful hour of the entire week. I pity the folks who only know WinDos - they have no clue how inferior that system is to good ol' "outdated, obsolete, non-innovative" (Baldmer and Gates' words) UNIX.

By the way, anyone notice how MS doesn't seem to be trumpeting their High-Performance Computing product? Isn't it beating the pants off those obsolete UNIX and Linux clusters? Or have they answered the age-old question: what is the sound of 200 computers rebooting? (I only use 200 because it's the largest HPC-WinDos deployment that I saw advertised.)

Anonymuff:

Microsoft is the best promotion for Linux on the desktop yet. Thanks Microsoft! You're highlighting to people that there are other, easier, options available and that they don't need to persist with your buggy rubbish.

I expect an upsurge of companies will start using Linux on the desktop... I would be highly surprised if 25% of companies weren't running LOTD by the end of this year.

Lol Xor:

LOLOOL!!! "Fact rich program" -- what idiot marketer wrote that statement. They seriously need to implement a PR jargon muzzle over their marketing and PR people.

Honestly, seriously, they should have a heuristic jargon filtering program that runs over all their company statements and replaces the bullshit with what they really mean.

"Microsoft today launched a last ditch attempt to try to pressure people to buy its buggy OS ..."

Jerry Gartner:

Microsoft themselves were propagating the fact that most businesses won't deploy any form of Vista until SP1. Apparently, they've retracted that view. Consumers shouldn't be encouraged to adopt something that is going to frustrate, confuse, and cost more. The MS business model is truly about the sale. Even coding is dictated by marketing, it seems. For more about my experience with Vista Business and how it may effect small business see this article.

nix:

You have to sign an NDA before reading the promotional materials stating why you should upgrade. Sounds a little fishy to me. Reasons not to upgrade:

1) Driver issues (IE specifically video and auido cards).

2) Requires new hardware.

3) DRM baked into the system. I don't pirate movies or music but I also don't like being treated like a criminal. Also, I don't like the idea of having MS remove my right to "Fair Use".

4) SP1 was planned even before Vista was released. How about releasing code when it is ready; instead of having users paying good money to be beta testers for years. Same thing happend on XP until SP2 was released. I will give credit where it is due. SP2 on XP did make the system solid; but the YEARS prior to the release had much to be desired.

5) MS has a bad habbit of dropping products when a new version comes out:
5a) NT left a hundred patches that a user had to collect manually if a reinstall was needed. Eventually the patches were removed, so the user had to track them down manually.
5b) W2k, left users hanging after 2002/2003. XP was MS' new baby and only security fixes were put into place. New hardware support was removed from 2000. Excuse me, I bought 2000 and you dropped a chunk of support. Don't forget most business were using 2000 at the time. Newer hardware needed XP so MS left business with a mixed and match environment; or a forced upgrade. How nice was that.
5c) W2K: The first roll up for W2K broke several systems due to lack of testing and had to be re-released. Yep, great support there or is it horrid support followed by forced upgrades.

PS: I could go back to the old DOS days and cite numerous examples but I believe that my point has been made with the above points.

Now we should upgrade for what reason? They cannot tell us until we sign an NDA. Sounds fair to me .

Dewey1384:

"SP1 was planned even before Vista was released. How about releasing code when it is ready; instead of having users paying good money to be beta testers for years. Same thing happend on XP until SP2 was released. I will give credit where it is due. SP2 on XP did make the system solid; but the YEARS prior to the release had much to be desired."

Would you buy a car if the manufacturer said; "We have an upgraded engine for your new car, but it's not ready yet - buy it now and we'll give you the engine when it's ready for free."

MS has repeatedly sold software and made the public beta testers. I have made it my personal policy not to install any OS until SP2 has been released!

The real reason Vista isn't selling - there is no business case for the purchase. XP works fine, is stable. What does Vista give you? A requirement to purchase more hardware. In the past, there were reasons to upgrade (stability, security, etc.) not today. MS needs to stop putting demands on its customers (hardware upgrades) and start again producing something that is BENEFICIAL to it's potential customers. Come MS get it together - it's not always about YOUR latest and "greatest" and just because it's new don't make it better. In MS case most often, new is BAD, very, very BAD. The old expression still applies, Intel speeds them up and MS slows them down.

henke54:

Minasi also shared plenty of serious insights, such as noting that Microsoft’s main competitor for Vista is not Linux or Apple OS X, but Windows XP SP2 (the newest version of Vista’s predecessor, Windows XP, released in 2004.) He also observed, “I don’t know anyone who is excited about supporting Vista.”
http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=2266

MightyGrim:

MS should bundle 2 gigs of RAM with Vista and more people would buy it.

Anonymous For A Reason:

Because I want you to know that you choke on Vista. I've been a loyal customer and developer for years, but I'm sick and tired of hearing stories like the Ernie Ball one (geez, I bet you wish that would finally go away! never...), many instances of BSA crap (which you funded), your funding of SCO (didja think we wouldn't notice?), your strong arming of partners like Dell, and all of the "incentive" you've been providing users to use Vista by tightening up Windows Genuine Advantage to the point where around 40% of the detections are false positives.

You may think that your company is going in the right direction, that it has the correct priorities, etc. but there are many professionals like me who are fed up with your self-serving ways. I don't know that you can really change anyone's mind at this point because it would require such a huge cultural change for you, and really, would your own shareholders even let you go down that road anyway?

Good luck.

Anonymous 1:

End Microsoft once and for all...

ScienceMikey:

I find it interesting that no one has posted links to two of the best articles on the clear and ever-present problems with WinVista. Both are "fact rich" in ways that any MS shill campaign could never be-- let's see "Phil S" and "Mark" refute these.

First up: Peter Gutmann's article, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.

Next, Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You by Bruce Schneier.

Both Bruce and Mr. Gutmann have pretty good track records in this area and the articles are both excellent, informative reads.

Maybe if MS had spent less time and resources on DRM (in a so-called business OS?) and 3D eye candy and more on a robust driver framework they wouldn't have to substitute "paid opinion" for "facts."

-- Mikey

ScienceMikey:

Whoops, dropped a quote on the Bruce S. article:

Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You

-- Mikey