This Thread Is About Vista, Please Comment About Your Likes And Dislikes And Problems About Vista

Microsoft plays up plan to knobble non-genuine Vista


http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39314
Genuine disadvantages

By INQUIRER newsdesk: Tuesday 01 May 2007, 16:08
IF YOU'RE A Microsoft Gold Partner why should you offer Your Customers Genuine Windows Vista?

Here's why: "New technology in genuine Windows Vista detects and will alter the user experience on non-genuine versions by disabling enhanced features and restricting non-security downloads and updates. "

At least that's what Microsft is selling its colour-coded partners in its latest newsletter.

It's all here. µ
https://partner.microsoft.com/us/licensing/40029548



Reduced PC Functionality
The new Software Protection Platform, built into Windows Vista, makes the user experience noticeably different between a genuine version and non-genuine version of Windows Vista. When it detects a non-genuine version of Windows Vista installed on a PC, the Software Protection Platform will disable key features of Windows Vista, including the desktop, Start menu, and task bar. Windows Vista functionality will be restricted to the default Web browser for one-hour periods.

 

Don't get caught in the Vista upgrade trap
Lack of proper planning could cost you a lot more than the OS licensing

May 03, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A reader wrote in after my column "Hands On: My Adventures Getting Vista Up and Running" and asked what the total cost of a Vista deployment/upgrade would be.

He noted, as I found, that the costs could go beyond operating system licensing to include new software and hardware. To address his question, I spoke with David Cottingham, a Vista specialist at technology and services provider CDW Inc.

CDW recently conducted a survey of 761 IT decision-makers, asking if and when they plan to adopt Vista. More than 85% said they expect to adopt Vista, with 20% saying they aim to deploy it by the end of 2007.

Cottingham says Vista in many cases will require "a major forklift upgrade." Therefore, he recommends that IT departments that aren't in the budgeting or testing phase start this process now.

"Vista, more than anything else, is about having a good plan," he says. Here are six questions to consider as you venture into Vista.

1. Are your vendors and application developers ready for Vista?

Top of mind as companies start down the Vista path should be where their application vendors stand with Vista compatibility. While Microsoft offers compatibility information for mainstream applications, Cottingham says now is the time for IT to speak with security and custom applications vendors to ensure that they are going to support Vista in a timely fashion. "You want to find out if your partners are ready for this change," he says.

In fact, in the CDW survey, 26% of respondents said they were worried that there would not be compatibility for Vista with their current security and antivirus software vendors. Another 10% said they were concerned that they would need to make a bigger investment in new licensing.
Cottingham acknowledges that in some cases, you will need to budget for application development or licensing to get your mission-critical applications to be Vista-compatible.

2. What is the state of your laptops and desktops?

You'll want to consider the PC upgrades you'll need. "You want to future-proof yourself. Make sure that the incremental hardware purchases you're making now will work for widespread Vista adoption," Cottingham says.

As a general rule, he says IT departments should plan that desktops and notebooks older than 18 to 24 months will not be migrated to Vista. "The normal replacement cycle for a notebook is 36 months, so it's not cost-effective to go back and retrofit that machine," he says.

In the CDW survey, 51% of the respondents said that at least half of their organization's hardware will require upgrading or replacement to become Vista compatible.

Microsoft's Vista page and CDW's both have tools to test whether PCs are Vista-compliant or Vista-capable. You'll be able to establish baseline requirements in terms of CPU, memory and even graphics cards necessary to optimally run Vista.

3. What is the state of your enterprise at large?

What applications, hardware and peripherals are in use throughout your organization? Are they Vista-ready? Chances are some aren't, and this is a good time to budget for replacements. "If there is no longer a driver for your user's old multifunction printer, this might be a good time to replace it," Cottingham says.

Organizations should do an inventory check of in-house and remote resources. Part of this can be done automatically using asset management tools that check computers as they come onto the network. IT departments should also send out a survey to users asking them what programs, PCs, printers, fax machines, routers, etc. they use at home.

"You want to get a sense of what's out there and what you'll have to support," Cottingham says.

4. How well-versed are your users?

A portion of your Vista budget should include training. However, it's impossible to know what your training needs will be without first seeing how users interact with the new operating system. Cottingham recommends creating a pilot group made up of a cross-section of users across all departments. This group should include both experienced and rookie users, as well as in-house, remote and mobile workers. Seeing what obstacles they run into will help you plot out training and help desk budgets.

5. Are you standardized?
Cottingham says this is the best time for companies to streamline their support of gear and applications and create configuration guidelines. By narrowing down the number of platforms, applications and devices that are supported, IT can cut help desk costs dramatically. Standardization also helps users who are struggling to figure out what remote or home-office setups they should purchase.

Streamlining acceptable operating system and application configurations will go a long way toward keeping the cost of Vista upgrades in check. If you limit the feature sets that are turned on in the operating system as well as what applications can be loaded, you can lower the overall CPU and memory requirements.

"You don't have to turn on every bell and whistle that Vista has to offer," Cottingham says. Trimming the size of the operating system by turning off some features enables you to make do with the CPU and memory you already have on some machines. "Take time to really test-drive Vista to determine the feature sets you'll need," he says.

He also recommends using the information you gather from your automated inventory and user survey to determine what applications and devices are in common use and add those to your Vista compatibility check. "This is your chance to get in front of these applications before deployment," he says. IT groups can also figure out what applications can be phased out or retired.

6. What's your plan to avoid a technology pileup?

A final part of your budget should be allocated for the recovery and disposal of older gear. "Make sure you have a plan for bringing PCs back to IT and protecting company information," Cottingham says. All hard drives and storage devices should be centrally backed up and then wiped clean before disposal.

He adds that companies should consider a recycling program. "The last thing you want are stacks and stacks of notebooks, desktops and other equipment. You need to take care of those items in a responsible way."

Sandra Gittlen is a freelance technology editor near Boston. Former events editor and writer at Network World, she developed and hosted the magazine's technology road shows. She is also the former managing editor of Network World's popular networking site, Fusion. She has won several industry awards for her reporting, including the American Society of Business Publication Editors' prestigious Gold Award. She can be reached at sgittlen@charter.net.
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http://www.computerworld.com/action...icleBasic&articleId=9018483&source=rss_news50

 

i have vista ultimate and love it....

 

I actually feel the same way. I don't know why people bag it all the time. The firewall is great i don't even need another.

 

Vista Movie studios drm system draining laptop batteries, patience

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

"It's a little scary," said John Wozniak, a distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering department, referring to the work HP needed to do on making Windows Vista more suitable for notebooks.

Vista, while touted as having improved power management capabilities that would make it easier for users to extend battery life, isn't to some living up to that promise. The main culprit appears to be the Aero Glass interface, a spiffy new user interface that makes Vista more pleasing to the eye with transparent windows and animated transitions when moving from one application to another.

When Aero is turned off, battery life is equal to or better than Windows XP systems. But with it turned on, battery life suffers compared with Windows XP.

link to total article
http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-6181366.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news

 

May 4, 2007 2:55 PM
Whoa, The Vista Logo Does Matter

Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox

Last night, I went out to the local Circuit City looking for an external TV tuner/DVR. I had a model in mind, but bought something different because of the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo.

As I blogged on Wednesday, I'm moving back to full-time Windows Vista now that there is a compatible third-party VPN for accessing my corporate network. I'm partway through the transition, mainly working on the Vista machine but using RSS, e-mail and some other stuff still on the other computer.

My test machine—Lenovo ThinkPad T60p, with 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 100GB hard drive, 15.4-inch widescreen display, 256MB ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 graphics processor and multi-DVD recorder—:doesn't have a TV tuner for use with Vista Media Center. I set out to buy the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-USB2. I've used this WinTV model before with excellent results.

However, I instead bought the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick. I wasn't swayed by PCTV's HD programming support, lower cost or smaller size. The WinTV is a real performer and trusted brand. I had no experience with PCTV, but chose the product because of the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo.

vistacertified.jpgI've used Vista enough to have developed low tolerance for compatibility problems. PCTV had everything I needed in the box, while WinTV would have meant downloading a driver and software; fingers crossed, maybe it would work.
The Pinnacle product deserved the logo. Software and driver smoothly installed; overall experience was excellent.

Third-party products may be the main reason for gripes about Windows Vista. People rightly expect stuff to work, but so much of it doesn't. Some advice: The channel should do more to promote products that are known to work with Vista—and work well at that. Microsoft should play favorites, by promoting partners' Vista certified products.

Keyword TV
I work out of a home office and have a strong personal policy against watching television during work hours. The distraction is too great. I do make exceptions for disastrous events, like the recent shooting at Virginia Tech or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. However after hours, if still working, I will put on TV channel IMF (International Music Feed) in a small window. The selection of videos is excellent.

TV would have more significance if there was more integration with the way I do other things. The TiVo recording concept is handy, but it stops way short of the Web lifestyle. At a time of ubiquitous search or keywording, TV is so 1950s. But what if television could go 21st century, so that end users could record programming based on keywords rather than time segments?

Programs broadcast close captioning or anti-copying protection. Why not keywords? I recently watched the Mundo Secreto music video "Poe As Mãos No Ar" on IMF. The song is in Portuguese, so I have no idea what it's about. I like the tune and would want to record the video. But I don't have time to screen videos on IMF. Keywording could make it possible to record the song automatically. I could set a keyword search, for say the band's name, and have the DVR record the video next time it airs.

The same concept could be applied to news and informational programing. My daughter is home schooled, and it's a major pain to do keyword searches on the Fios TV program guide looking for educational shows. Better: Set keywords that record shows whenever there is a match.

Better still: A Vista sidebar widget that would prompt for newly recorded programs based on the keyword searches.

Even better: Integration between Microsoft IPTV and Media Center products.

Pre-tagged content would be more searchable, too. That way end users could find the stuff they recorded.

Commenters, what would you like to see more from Microsoft and its partners around digital content?
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/whoa_the_vista_logo_does_matter.html

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39430

If you thought Nvidia Me II (Vista) drivers really worked....

Memowatch: ....think again

By Charlie Demerjian: Sunday 06 May 2007, 08:00
EVERY ONCE IN in a while, you get one of those documents that make companies really cringe when it gets out.

In this case, the reviewers guide for the NV 8600GTS. Check out the part entitled "Vista Driver Install Process - Please Read - VERY IMPORTANT", it is priceless.

Working drivers my ass.

On a related note, the 7-series XP drivers have now celebrated the six month milestone without an update. I guess those past customers no longer matter.

In any case, take it away Nvidia, only names and contact info has been cut. µ

Dear GeForce 8600 GTS Reviewer:

This letter is accompanying the GeForce 8600 GTS/GT review kit on the press Extranet.

You will also be able to obtain the GeForce 8600 GTS/GT Reviewer's Guide, driver, Release Notes, InterVideo WinDVD 8 for PureVideo HD testing under Vista, and a “BenchmarkFiles zip” file on the Extranet.

Please be sure to use these new drivers for your GeForce 8600 GTS reviews.

Here are the proper drivers to use for different GeForce boards:

Windows Vista Drivers
We recommend v158.14 for all GPUs (GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series)

Windows XP Drivers
We recommend v158.16 for GeForce 8600/8500 GPUs
We recommend v97.94 for GeForce 8800 GPUs
We recommend v93.71 for GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs

We have made many improvements in the new Vista driver compared to our prior drivers -- 100.65 and 101.41 -- and even compared a beta driver version 101.70, which unfortunately was leaked on the Web a few weeks ago.

Vista Driver Install Process - Please Read - VERY IMPORTANT

1) You MUST first manually uninstall your older driver before installing the new drivers listed above.
2) To perform uninstall under Vista, please use the Vista Control Panel/Programs and Features/NVIDIA Drivers/Remove NVIDIA Display Driver method.
3) Install 158.14 driver.
4) Uninstall 158.14 driver.
5) Reinstall 158.14 driver.

We apologize for these redundant steps, but we must ensure a clean driver install, and the uninstall processes of older drivers may leave driver remnants that can cause problems if you just uninstall the old driver and install 158.14. By running the 158.14 uninstall process in step 4, you are ensuring a proper uninstall before installing 158.14 in step 5, which is a final clean install. During installation of 158.14 in step 3 and in step 5 you may experience some monitor flickering, display going black, or pauses in the installer progress bar. These occur as the driver is loading and detecting the connected displays. Do not hit cancel during the driver install.

If you do not first uninstall your older driver using step 1, and you install the 158.14 driver over the top an existing driver, you may experience various blackscreen flashes that could last up to a minute or more before the driver installs, or you could experience a blackscreen that does not recover, especially under Vista, and you must boot into Safe Mode to remove the older driver, and then install the new driver. Again, we expect these issues to be fixed in the final end user driver.

NVIDIA is working to improve this installation process on Windows Vista and we expect to have a fix for the end user driver to properly uninstall older driver remnants during the FIRST install of the Vista driver (a revision newer than 158.14).

We plan to ship you a new driver with installation procedure fixes before your reviews are posted on April 17, 2007.

SLI Performance under Vista
While we have increased the number of applications that scale with SLI under Vista, we are still working on providing higher performance scaling between single and SLI configurations, and we expect better scaling in future drivers. You should see some applications scaling well.
We do have SLI problems with some applications, and you should refer to the Release Notes for details.

Please be careful when benchmarking the following games with 4xAA:
• Battlefield 2
• Battlefield 2142
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2 Lost Coast
• Sin Episodes

Our Rel-100 series drivers added CSAA support to DirectX by exposing all antialiasing modes up to 16xQ to the game developer. This has caused the above applications to select 16xAA when 4xAA is set in the game.

To obtain correct performance results for 4xAA in these games, select “Enhance the application setting” and “4xAA” in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Go into the game, select “4xAA” then run the benchmark.

Thanks and please do not hesitate to contact [cut] or [cut] if any technical problems or questions.

[Contact info cut]

 

Intel and Dell not yet ready for Vista, but AMD is
Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:14 pm



Intel is reported to be waiting for Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 before rolling out Windows Vista on a broad scale inside the company. And it sounds like Dell also is planning on waiting for SP1 before doing an internal deployment.

(Microsoft brass foolishly continue to hedge about when — and even if — Microsoft will deliver a Vista SP1 release. But the word is Vista SP1 is on tap for this fall or winter.)

Meanwhile, however, another of Microsoft's primary Vista partners, AMD, isn't going to wait.

During a May 4 Web conference with selected bloggers and Microsoft Featured Community leaders, Henri Richard, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer said that AMD froze last week a gold image of Vista for internal deployment.

By this summer, AMD is expecting to roll out Vista on 1,000 employee machines, Richard said. While 1,000 might sound like a relatively small number, given that AMD has 16,000 employees total, the 1,000 represents a "very high percentage" of those who use PCs on a daily basis.

While he was quite bullish about Vista, Richard also expressed frustration with the number and the compatibility of drivers with Windows Vista.

"Why are some of the OEMs waiting so long to develop drivers for Vista?" Richard asked rhetorically, in response to one of the chat participant's questions on Vista driver compatibility. "It doesn't take rocket science to see that Vista is here to stay."

Syste, peripheral and software communities need to get onboard the train or be left behind, Richard concluded.

Question for you early Vista deployers (or wannabe deployers): Any particular drivers you're still awaiting that are hampering you and your company's ability to move to the latest Windows release?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=422

 

Vista: 5 Months Later
Written by Thom Holwerda on 2007-05-08 13:19:34 UTC
Months go, I reviewed Windows Vista, and concluded: "All in all, I am impressed by Windows Vista [...]. Windows Vista is better than XP, and definitely more than just an improved look as many say." After 5 months of usage, it is time to put that statement into perspective.

Hardware Requirements

First and foremost, I want to address the issue of hardware requirements. The laptop on which I originally reviewed Vista was a fairly new one; not extravagant in any way (Intel Pentium M 1.73Ghz, 768MB DDR2-RAM, Ati Radeon x300 with 128Mb of (dedicated) RAM), but certainly well capable of running Windows Vista. Realising not everyone has such a machine sitting around to try Vista on, I wanted to try Vista out on my very old desktop machine. This machine has an AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor, 768MB of pc133 SD-RAM, an nVIDIA Geforce 6200 with 128MB of RAM, and a 40GB IDE hard drive. Microsoft NL was so kind as to provide OSNews with a review copy of Windows Vista Ultimate for the purposes of this review.

As I had anticipated, this desktop machine was anything but capable of running Vista. It 'ran' alright, but that was about al you could say. It took ages to load applications, Explorer was slow, and boot times were nothing to write home about. The installation process also took hours to complete.

What intrigues me the most is the the fact that when Vista was still in development, it ran much faster on that same machine; in fact, it was usable [the video in that post is gone, sadly]. Where in the laptop Vista's performance improved significantly during the transitions from the release candidate stages to final, this does not seem to be the case on this piece of very low-end hardware.

I can now say that if you want to run Vista comfortably, try to get your hardware up to par with roughly what is in my laptop. While this certainly is not a low-end machine, it is also not as high-end as some people want you to believe. Still, Apple seems to be doing a much better job in the hardware requirements department, and Microsoft can definitely learn a thing or two (or, 25) from their friends in Cupertino.

It is important to note that Ubuntu's performance in combination with Beryl was not exactly stellar either on the desktop machine. All the effects had a delay and were jittery. Note that I have yet to try running Beryl 0.2-final (I only ran the test versions of 0.2) on this machine.

Annoyances

Annoyances are those things that need time to actually manifest themselves. After only a week or so of usage, it is very difficult to identify those things that will drive you nuts, and that is one of the main reasons why I wanted to write this follow-up.

The first annoyance is one I did already note in my first review: the time it takes for Vista to reconnect to my wireless network after waking from sleep. It may take up to 30-40 seconds before it reconnects, and this is far too long in my book. OSX does it in a few seconds, while Ubuntu 7.04 (ndiswrapper/bcm4318) needs about 5-10 seconds. Some may call this whining, but I regularly need to find something quickly on the internet before I leave for work or university, and then these 30 seconds may mean the difference between catching or missing that train.

The second annoyance evolves around copying small files. As many have already noted on the internet, removing something as small as a shortcut file may take tens of seconds, which is of course ridiculous. Therefore, some have concluded that Vista is slow on disk I/O, but I have observed something different: the actual deletion of the small file take less than a second; what is taking Vista so long is the creation of the progress window and the calculation of how much time is remaining. Hopefully something Microsoft can solve in a service pack.

Thirdly, what is up with the "Windows has blocked startup programs" notification balloon? No matter what I do, it keeps popping up after a reboot. There is no logical method of turning it off, and I don't even know what it does, since all startup programs it lists are actually running! So what is it blocking?

User Account Control

Contrary to popular belief, User Account Control is not an annoyance. As I have noted many times before, you will only encounter UAC when you change system settings, or are accessing files or locations which do not belong to you; in other words, when you are installing applications which are not yet adapted to the new, stricter UAC (which equals just about any application out there). In my day-to-day usage, I rarely, if ever, encounter UAC.

Some have noted that UAC's habit of 'taking over your screen' is an annoyance. What these people generally do not realise is that this is not a bug, it's a feature, as they say. UAC prompts live in something called 'secure desktop mode'; this prevents spoofing of the dialog, presumably making UAC more secure (you can turn secure desktop mode off, but this is not advisable from a security point of view). Interestingly, the gksudo in Ubuntu also takes over your screen (but it does not live in a secure desktop mode). As an added annoyance, the gksudo dialog in Ubuntu will also take over your screen when it originates from a minimised or infocused window; this will not happen in Vista.

Comparing Vista to Its Competition

With all the recent developments concerning Ubuntu and Dell, as well as the increased awareness of Apple among ordinary users, comparing Vista to its competition has become more relevant than it ever was.

Comparing Vista to Leopard, it is interesting to see that Vista actually already implements the biggest user-visible change coming in Leopard: Time Machine. On top of that, it does not only implement it, it does it in a cleaner way. In order for Time Machine to work, you need a second hard drive or partition to back up to; without this, Time Machine will not work. In other words, Time Machine does not allow you to go back to previous revisions of files if you do not own a second (external) hard drive.

Vista, on the other hand, has something called 'Previous Versions' (an implementation of Volume Shadow Copy). In the properties dialog of any file/directory, there is a new tab called 'Previous Versions', which will allow you to revert back to any previous revision of that specific file/directory (Previous Versions saves around one revision a day). No additional hard drives required. The interface certainly is not as flashy as Leopard's, but the implementation itself is much cleaner than the crude one in Leopard. The downside is that PV is only available in Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Another big feature in Leopard will be full resolution independence. Vista's resolution independence is not 'full', so on this point, Leopard will certainly be an improvement over Vista.

When it comes to Tiger, Vista does some things better. For instance, User Account Control is more advanced than the implementation of sudo in OSX, but obviously it is important to note that Windows actually needs this. OSX, on the other hand, has had far (far!) less security issues than Windows, so it does not require something as advanced as UAC.

However, there are also things Tiger does better: most importantly, Spotlight feels a lot faster than Vista's instant search, even when comparing my aging Cube to that much faster laptop! Other than that, Flip3D is fairly useless compared to the utterly brilliant Expose (seriously. Thank you, Apple, for Expose).

Ubuntu 7.04 is an interesting competitor to Vista, especially because Ubuntu has an advantage Vista will never be able to fight: it is free. Free as in, you don't have to pay EUR 500 for the full monty. This advantage alone justifies going with Ubuntu instead of Vista. As for the other features, Ubuntu can definitely be made on par with Vista, but sadly, it still requires some googling and handywork to get it that way. As an example, take the restricted drivers manager: it is a really nice utility, but nowhere does it warn the user that you actually need to manually activate the restricted repositories before this utility works. You can click the 'activate' button behind the Ati driver a million times, but it will not warn you that it will not work.

To me, the two biggest disadvantages to Vista are its price, and the many versions to choose from. Vista Ultimate is ridiculously expensive, especially when you take into account that while it has increased in out-of-the-box functionality over XP, it still is fairly meager compared to especially Linux distributions.

Conclusion

After 5 months of usage, the only conclusion I can draw is that Vista certainly is not as bad as many make it out to be. It has its faults, surely, but as long as you stick to switching to Vista when you want to replace your computer, there is little in the form of showstopper bugs.

The most interesting thing about using Vista on a day-to-day basis is the fact that you discover new features almost every day. A few weeks ago, I found out that Vista can actually resize its own system partition on the fly, without needing a reboot, in less than a minute's time! After this, I could easily install Ubuntu 7.04 alongside of it. You discover these little touches very often, and that only confirms my feeling that Vista has indeed a whole lot more to offer than just a pretty face and UAC.

In other words, I stick by the conclusion presented in my previous review. "All in all, I am impressed by Windows Vista [...]. Windows Vista is better than XP, and definitely more than just an improved look as many say."
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17870/Vista-5-Months-Later

 

Someone got angry at me, as the red print seemed to indicate. But that is all right. I am annoyed at Microsoft, and Windows, and Vista, and not at anyone who, like me, may miss the proper thread.
Does it take the heat off Microsoft for having given birth to a turkey, by slamming me? Maybe. I believed the hype. Tried, first, the 64 bit premium, expending vast sums, and when that did not satisfy, tried the 32 bit ultimate,incurring the expenditure of further vast sums, for the same kind of letdown.
At least, XP is still stable. Maybe there will be changes to Vista in the foreseeable future. But all I can see, is another new crop of con artists bent on seeing how much money I have left.

 

Gates: 40 million Vista copies sold


update LOS ANGELES--Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million copies of Windows Vista so far, Bill Gates told a crowd of hardware developers Tuesday.

That's more than the total install base of Windows' largest competitors, Gates quipped as he began his keynote at the Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.

"As of last week, we've (sold) nearly 40 million copies," Gates said. "That's twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release we had."

Confirming news that had already leaked on its Web site, Microsoft also announced Windows Server 2008 as the official name of Windows Server "Longhorn," which is due to be finalized later this year.

In announcing the Windows Server 2008 moniker, Gates poked a little fun at his company's penchant for less-than-dynamic product names.

"We've been working hard thinking about it," Gates said. "We played around with a couple different ideas, but what we are going to go with is...Windows Server 2008. We know it's a surprise for us to pick something so straightforward."

Gates also announced several new partners for its Windows Home Server product, including Gateway and Medion. Microsoft has already said that HP will have home servers based on the technology later this year.

"This will come out in the fall," Gates said. He also said that smaller computer makers, known as system builders, will also be able to build products based on Windows Home Server. Microsoft has positioned the product as a central repository for media such as photos, movies and music as well as a more seamless way to back up PCs in the home.

Microsoft also announced the results of a study it commissioned IDC to do that found for every dollar Microsoft makes off Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, other technology companies will take in an additional $18. IDC also found other companies will sell more than $120 billion in products and services around the two Microsoft operating systems.
http://news.com.com/Gates+40+million+Vista+copies+sold/2100-1016_3-6183890.html?tag=nefd.top

 

Vista comments huh? Three letters you need to know.
W
T
H

W = Why did it take so long to program this monstrosity of an OS
T = This = tehSuck! It's garbage. It's a joke MS considers it an improvement
H = Hell. As in, if you can get around it locking you out for using anything that might bypass DRM, it might be worth something. But since M$ isn't going to allow that, you as a user can Go To Hell.

So there you go. Vista = WTH. I won't ever use it, and any app that is so killer that requires an OS upgrade? Well i'll just have to use Linux so I can run the app through VMware.

xhardc0re will never, ever use Windows Vista. Because Vista = WTH

 

No end in sight for Vista's Long Goodbye


May 15, 2007 - 6:26 AM - by Digital Dave
Yea, I hate to say it but I spent Saturday and Sunday getting XP64 back on my home system.

Seven weeks ago, when we first reported Vista was causing many machines to stall indefinitely while deleting, copying and moving files, we were sure the problem was caused by a bug that would be fixed relatively quickly. After all, Vista is Microsoft's flagship product. It's also an operating system. And everyone knows deleting, copying and moving files are among the most basic tasks any operating system can set out to do.

Now we don't know what to think. Vista's Long Goodbye, as we've come to call this bizarre phenomenon, continues unabated.

theregister.co.uk

No end in sight for Vista's Long Goodbye
Looking for yet another reason to hold off buying Vista? Read on
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco �¨ More by this author
Published Tuesday 15th May 2007 00:49 GMT

Seven weeks ago, when we first reported Vista was causing many machines to stall indefinitely while deleting, copying and moving files, we were sure the problem was caused by a bug that would be fixed relatively quickly. After all, Vista is Microsoft's flagship product. It's also an operating system. And everyone knows deleting, copying and moving files are among the most basic tasks any operating system can set out to do.

Now we don't know what to think. Vista's Long Goodbye, as we've come to call this bizarre phenomenon, continues unabated. No amount of diagnosing by the untold number of confounded sysadmins sheds any light on the problem's cause, and Microsoft has yet to acknowledge its full extent.

"I just wanted to say...that I have tried everything...in this section..till yesterday (May 13 2007) and none of it worked," a user who goes by the name SR_1976 posted today in a Microsoft TechNet forum discussing the glitch. "I have tried my best to work with Vista ....did not work...so, gone back to XP...and all my problems are gone. Vista was more stable than XP (for me...)and does have some good features...but enough is enough.." (The discussion, by the way, is the longest TechNet thread we've ever seen.)

Another posting made today relates the experience of a certain groden, who spent four hours trying to copy 3.8GB of data off a Windows 2003 server using a Sony Vaio with 2GB of RAM. It took him a couple of minutes to copy the same files using a similar set up that was running XP.

To recap, an untold number of Vista users are unable to delete, copy and move files without interminable waits, in which the OS appears to be calculating the time the job will take. While most vexing for people working with files on a remote server, the glitch is also present when working with local files. Microsoft issued a hotfix, but it appears it was designed to repair a problem other than the one at hand. Or at least we hope, because it sure hasn't fixed Vista's Long Goodbye.

We asked Microsoft for an interview with a product manager who could shed some light on the difficulty that's vexing so many of the company's most important customers. What we got was an emailed statement that gave no new information. It read:

Finding the root cause of issues like this and identifying a solution is of the utmost priority for Microsoft. That said, crafting a fix and fully testing it - to be sure we are not introducing other problems - takes time. This is why Microsoft makes hot fixes available, and while we understand that hot fixes are not a perfect solution, they can help people get by while we perfect the long term solution. We will keep you updated with specific plans to this issue as soon as we have confirmation.

Microsoft's inability to fix a defect in such a basic feature has led to its share of conspiracy theories that would be quickly dismissed as kooky, were it not for the company's steadfast refusal to provide any details about what's causing the problem. The top contender: The inability to copy files without stalling isn't a bug at all, but rather the result of a digital rights management feature designed to protect Hollywood (even if the rest of us have to cuss our way through four hours deleting a few gigs worth of crap).

To prove the point, one user found the problem went away when he ran an XP Pro Virtual Machine that was running on top of Vista. Mysteriously, it took him about eight seconds to delete the 23GB of files he wanted to get rid of. Using Vista on the same machine took him more than 25 minutes.

Hmm, maybe the DRM conspiracists are right after all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/15/vistas_long_goodbye_continues/

 

hmmm...conspiracy theory. Anyone tried using DeCSS plus on a Vista machine with their legally purchased DVD? That would be interesting, to see if Windows would spontaneously lock up on the file. Ahhh better not i don't want anyone's computer exploding or sending a kill signal from Redmond, WA. LOL

 

Is Vista One Step Ahead?


Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox

I couldn't tell if Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was being passive, subtle or a disorganized speaker. But he half made an allusion yesterday that aptly sums up Microsoft's perspective on the state of Windows Vista.

Very early on in his WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) keynote, Bill Gates put up a slide referring back to the year 1992. He said:

"Here we've got a picture going back, and 1992 graphics interface was a very controversial thing. People thought, gee, this is too slow, too hard to develop the software, and, in a sense, they were right. The hardware actually wasn't ready. Graphics interface was a case where we got out in front, and made sure that developers, and tools, and hardware came along."

The key phrase is "got out in front" of software developers and hardware manufacturers. Gates continued:

"But by 1995, with Windows 95, the investments that we had all made in that graphics approach really started to pay off, and the breadth and richness of the applications that came out of that were far better than the character-mode applications, and that's a foundation we've had to build on ever since that time. In fact, that's the foundation that gave us the critical mass of machines for the Internet connectivity, and Web sites could really explode."

I disagree that Microsoft's investment in graphical interfaces led to the explosion of the Web. Tim Berners-Lee's first Web server and browser predates the release of Windows 3.1, in early 1992. But that topic is digression. Windows 95 also jumped ahead of developers, because Microsoft moved from a 16-bit to pseudo-32-bit operating system.

Gates didn't mention Windows Vista in context of Windows 3.1 and the GUI. But the unsaid was said by implication, in context of his whole keynote: Vista is one, or even a couple, steps ahead of current hardware and software development. I have to agree.

There's no secret where Microsoft was headed. During its 2003 developer conference, Microsoft brought out Vista, then code-name Longhorn, for demonstration. The features that were clearly already far along—mainly the WinFX components—made the final cut. There was always going to be a new graphics subsystem that would increase capabilities but also put new demands on hardware and require software changes.

In a speech given at the conference, Gates also made clear Windows Longhorn hardware design goals, by explaining what the company expected the 2006 PC configuration to be:

4-6GHz processor
2GB+ memory
1TB hard drive
Graphics processor 3X today's performance
1GB Ethernet, 54Mbps wireless networking

I would say that Microsoft hit the targets set in 2003, but software developers and hardware manufacturers haven't quite caught up. That's a message Microsoft needs to get out to its hardware partners this week at WinHEC and in October to its developers.

In my experience, most Vista problems are a result of insufficient computing power or incompatible software applications or drivers. I resolved the former by moving to the lovely Lenovo ThinkPad T60p. Vista still is a dog getting out of the gate, meaning slow bootup or wakeup, but she's a gallant race horse once moving.

Microsoft built Vista for the future, which is a commendable, even if risky, approach. It's partners are playing catch up—and many are bound to make decisions that will turn that "Wow" into "What?"

The May 15 New Yorker has a wonderful profile of esteemed Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg. The recounted exchange between Mossberg and representatives of Samsung and Sprint is a textbook case of what's wrong with the technology industry. The hardware goals—of giving little and extending more by making the consumer buy more—are shortsighted. There is in the approach no vision or understanding about the emotion people attaching to things.

Microsoft makes plenty of mistakes, but the company also is constrained by what its partners are willing to do, what they won't do or what they do wrong.

I remember when HP put VGA rather than DVI graphics cards in Media Center PCs that would be connected to DVI-capable flat-panel monitors. The analog VGA simply didn't carry the same visual bang as the digital DVI. But the whole point of a Media Center PC is the visual and audio experience. HP chose to trim margins in the wrong place.

It's easy to knock Vista because the experience isn't that much better than Windows XP. But the foundation for the Wow is there. The applications are not, and even there Microsoft shares blame with its partners. Windows Live Messenger should be a showcase for Windows Presentation Foundation and other .NET Framework capabilities. Yahoo showed off a real Vista instant messenger in January. It's now May. Where the hell is it?

With so few truly Vista applications available, shouldn't there be great opportunity for those developers that get their products out in front of the rest?

Vista's most obvious benefit is the visual experience, and this is analogous to GUI advancements in the early 1990s. Vista is one step—or two—ahead of applications and many PC configurations. It's long past time for Microsoft partners to catch up.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/is_vista_one_step_ahead.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

 

Pirates release fully cracked Vista install

Ultimate hacked out-of-the-box

By Dean Pullen: Thursday 17 May 2007, 10:06
DISCUSSING PIRATED software is still fairly taboo within the press, but sometimes a scene release is worthy of note, despite the influx of staunch anti-piracy e-mails that will flood our in-box. Don't forget, we don't support piracy, we're only reporting the news.

A widely available release, located at the usual pirate havens, from a scene group entitled 'NoPE' (which doesn't appear to have released much else) has quickly become the most highly sought-after asset of eye-patched, peg-legged, shoulder-mounted-parrot pirate types.

Vista has been leaked in every conceivable form and in all its various releases and flavours, but has still remained difficult to crack for the average swashbuckling black-beard.

Various timer programs forcing the activation to hold off indefinitely and other cracks haven't come close to the efficiency of the recent OEM BIOS emulation tool-kit that has floated about - but which is significantly more difficult to use that a 'normal' crack or serial.

The NoPE release has a major key difference to other previous pirated copies of Vista - it is completely cracked, the product appears activated, updates work, and no key needs to be entered, straight from the installation media without any effort on the part of the pirate.

We presume that the hackers have managed to replace the Vista image on the DVD, with the pre-cracked version. Microsoft moved to an image-based install with Microsoft Vista, as opposed to the usual convoluted set up process.

Several readers have reported it working perfectly.

It's taken a few months since the launch of Windows Vista, but the product now seems to be successfully cracked, and even simpler to install than previous leaked copies of WindowsXP - which always required a serial.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft's new anti-piracy measures, coupled with Windows Update, will be able to counter-measure this new release, even so, now the pirates have found a method to install pre-cracked versions on the installation media, Microsoft will have a significant fight on its hands to keep Vista piracy-free. µ

See Also
Gates claims 40 million Vista sales a success
Vista MSDN RTM impresses
Vista is leaked
Microsoft Vista is still a mess
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39679

 

May 17th, 2007
Vista Service Pack 1: It lives




With all the Microsoft-created confusion out there around when — and even whether — the company plans to deliver the first service pack (SP) for Windows Vista, it’s nice to see some concrete proof that Vista SP1 does exist.

The WinFuture.de folks managed to grab a quick snapshot of a machine running a build of Vista SP1 during one of the Rally talks at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles this week. Plain as day, it says: “Windows Build 6001 Service Pack 1, v113.”)

I also saw a PowerPoint slide mentioning the existence of Vista SP1 during a WinHEC chalk talk on “The Future of Input” at this week’s show. (The context: A shim for the kernel-mode driver foundation version of the digitizer driver will ship as a Windows Driver Kit sample in Vista SP1. That was it.)

Given all the mumbo-jumbo coming from the Windows brass lately about SP1, I actually was starting to wonder whether Microsoft might to try to go without one and just use Automatic Update and Windows Update Services to roll out all of the Vista fixes and updates.

I asked Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry before the Vista SP1 screen-shot sighting this week whether he thought Microsoft might try to do away with client service packs, starting with Vista. Cherry’s response:

“It appears that a number of people within Microsoft think that the full fledged service pack is no longer needed, because Windows Update provides a mechanism to get fixes to customers. Because everyone can download the fixes they need as soon as they are released, there is less need have rollups or service packs.

“The only thing keeping me thinking they would do a service pack was to formalize the delivering of the PatchGuard API (application programming interface) to the software vendors who need it.

“Key to keep in mind when discussing Service Packs–I can find nothing that obligates Microsoft to produce any. Any killing them kills the ‘wait for SP1 mindset.’”

Now we just need an SP1 date, beyond the “simultaneous with Longhorn Server” one that Microsoft execs provided last year. Anyone got any updated SP1 timing info to share?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=447

 

Vista License Sales in Context


Joe Wilcox


Microsoft's sales figure of nearly 40 million Vista licenses is impressive. But it's no sign of surefire success. Yet. The PC market is much larger today than in 2001, diminishing comparisons to Windows XP license shipments.

On Tuesday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates claimed that Vista's adoption rate is about "twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP." Maybe so, but it's off a much larger base.

As the chart below indicates, IDC preliminary data on first quarter 2007 worldwide PC shipments is 58.9 million units. Q1 would be the first after Vista shipped, if counting the Vista holiday coupon program and business release on Nov. 30, 2006. Microsoft shipped Windows XP in late October 2001—nearly five years to the day the Vista coupon program started—with PC shipments of 34.4 million in the quarter that followed.

Q1 PC shipments following Windows releases

In evaluating Microsoft's 40 million license figure, "Another important point here is the size of the PC market, which is much bigger," said Loren Loverde, program director for IDC's Worldwide PC and Mobile Phone Trackers.

Caveat: The comparisons aren't clean, because Microsoft's 40 million figure is for sales through last week. In late March, Microsoft made the audacious claim of 20 million Vista licenses sold in February. So the real number of Vista licenses sold during the first quarter is somewhere between the two figures. Since Gates said "nearly 40 million," I'll split the difference at 30 million licenses.

If Microsoft sold 30 million licenses during first quarter and manufacturers shipped around 59 million PCs, doesn't that work out to about half of the computers going out with Vista?

I wouldn't call that a flop, by any means, as some Microsoft Watch commenters might presume is the point. OEMs can still license Windows XP and fastest PC growth is in markets where Vista antipiracy mechanisms and shipments of lower-horsepower computers could affect shipments of the newer Windows.

Yesterday, HP announced robust earnings, in part because of strong PC sales. During a fiscal second quarter conference call yesterday HP CEO Mark Hurd cautiously praised Vista's contribution to earnings.

"I think any story out there that people want to tell about Vista, they can tell," he said, "Right now, I can tell you it has been good for us."

But HP reported year-over-year PC sales growth of about 24 percent, or about twice worldwide PC sales growth. Whatever HP is doing right, it's more than just Vista. I don't doubt Vista contributed something, but HP's success in context of Dell's troubles suggest other factors at work.

I still think that second 20 million of Vista sales—from March 1 through early May—is sign of increasing momentum. If Microsoft wasn't so hung up on XP comparisons as the benchmark, it could really demonstrate that Vista sales are increasing.

The first 20 million figure really represented four months of sales, and that could have been positive data because Microsoft protected its customers' holiday investments. For free! Instead of making that point, Microsoft got carried away with making comparisons back to XP.

I say, let Vista sales stand on their own. Past comparisons don't work, because mitigating factors—size of the PC market, for starters—have changed.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/cont...ales_in_context.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

 

Vista - Operating system is already proving to be vulnerable.
May 17, 2007 - 9:14 AM - by Digital Dave
More bad news....

In late March, when security researchers stumbled upon drive-by download attacks exploiting yet another serious Windows hole, they had an eye-opening surprise: The vulnerability--caused by the way Windows handled animated cursor (.ani) files--didn't affect just Windows XP. It also hit Vista, Microsoft's new security-centric operating system.

pcworld.com

n late March, when security researchers stumbled upon drive-by download attacks exploiting yet another serious Windows hole, they had an eye-opening surprise: The vulnerability--caused by the way Windows handled animated cursor (.ani) files--didn't affect just Windows XP. It also hit Vista, Microsoft's new security-centric operating system.

Security experts still proclaim Vista a major improvement over previous Windows versions, and readily say that its important new safety features--including an improved firewall, a "Protected Mode" for Internet Explorer, and User Account Control--make it much more resistant to the most common forms of spyware and malware.

However, this latest flaw (now fixed) is a major black eye for Microsoft; along with two other critical security patches issued for Vista in its first three months on shelves, the problem has tarnished Vista's security sheen (see "Vista's Vulnerabilities" for details). The new OS may be safer, but its users must still be on their guard.

Nagging Defense

User Account Control (UAC) has the best of intentions behind it. According to Microsoft's own estimates, a whopping 95 percent of all pre-Vista Windows users perform everyday tasks logged in with Administrator credentials that let them make any kind of system changes--but that also allow malicious hackers to hijack a PC easily. By default, UAC requires a password for such tasks, keeping users--or malware--from haphazardly changing sensitive parts of the OS.

But UAC is its own worst enemy. Its frequent pop-up prompts seriously annoy many users, particularly during setup of a new machine. The prompts appear less often after about ten days of heavy use, but some early adopters have never made it that far.

"These alerts just kept popping up constantly and unnecessarily," says Sergio E. Yáñez, a Vista user who works as a vice president at a New York bank. "I would try to move a file between folders and have to deal with these prompts. Very, very annoying."

Like many other people, Yáñez responded by turning off UAC completely. In his case, he had to turn it back on to run some older games that required additional user rights, but the fear within security circles is that many irritated users will disable UAC and leave it off, or else get into the habit of clicking 'Allow' at every prompt, defeating the purpose entirely.

"The average user will be programmed to click 'Allow' for everything," says Roger Thompson, chief technical officer for security vendor Exploit Prevention Labs.
Unneeded Access?

Also, security researcher Joanna Rutkowska says that UAC has a design weakness in that it requires giving all program installations full system access whether they need it or not. (Rutkowska's report is on her blogging site.) Microsoft says that it included the potential weakness to ensure a smooth user experience, and it has not announced any plans to change UAC's design.
Click here to view full-size image.

A second major addition to Vista's security arsenal is Windows Defender, an antispyware tool that is available at no cost for XP and is baked into Vista's guts. Though not meant to be a full antivirus utility, it can easily scan for spyware applications that suck up system resources and bombard you with pop-up advertising. Defender also offers additional protection when you download files via Internet Explorer 7.

A great idea. But in independent tests performed by the AV-Test security lab (AV-Test.org), Defender detected only 65 percent of 14,517 adware and spyware samples in an on-demand scan. By comparison, detection rates for eight antivirus programs with built-in antispyware ran between 73 and 99 percent for the same test sample.

"Windows Defender is not very good in my eyes. Most, if not all, stand-alone and integrated antispyware solutions are performing a lot better," says Andreas Marx, CEO of AV-Test in Germany.

A Better Firewall
Click here to view full-size image.

Vista's improved firewall is another story. It offers the ability to block both inbound and outbound connections (XP's firewall blocks only incoming traffic). Outbound filtering provides a second layer of defense in blocking sophisticated forms of malware that make invisible connections from your system to remote hacker-controlled servers--but as with many forms of secondary protection, deciding which apps should and shouldn't be blocked takes some technical know-how. For that reason, Microsoft turned it off by default. But even without outbound filtering, the firewall "is better than good enough," says Ed Bott, coauthor of Windows Vista Inside Out.

"It blocks all unsolicited incoming connections and is almost invisible in operation," he says. And advanced users can configure outbound filtering for additional protection, while nontechnical users--who would be just as likely to break something as to prevent an attack, Bott says--are not forced to set up any rules for outbound filtering.

The Vista firewall passed most tests in AV-Test's analysis. However, it was not able to filter incoming mail attachments, as some firewalls do. Also, it failed a large percentage of so-called leaktests, which use a specially crafted program to see whether a firewall will block outbound connection attempts.

Still, many security companies and researchers, including AV-Test's Marx, argue that since these programs are artificial (as opposed to the real malware thrown at antivirus products), they may not provide accurate assessments of a firewall's abilities.
A Route for Incursions

The Vista firewall, along with many others, may do a good job at blocking outside attempts to infiltrate your computer. But Internet programs must go through the firewall to browse a Web page, access your e-mail, or carry on an IM chat--and this itself creates an avenue for attack.

Because Internet Explorer opens up the door to your PC and has such a huge user base, the browser is constantly under seige. To improve IE 7's defenses, the Windows Vista version of the browser by default runs in Protected Mode, preventing IE--or any successful Internet attack that hijacks it--from changing sensitive parts of the operating system. This defense tactic has already been successful against current attacks that target holes such as the animated cursor flaw.

Besides these up-front defenses, Vista also includes a number of back-end protections. PatchGuard attempts to block rootkits, which can hide virus infections. A technique called Address Space Layout Randomization makes it harder for malware to find and infect running processes. Finally, several changes to the kernel, the heart of any operating system, increase its resistance to hacker attacks.

Human (In)Security

But while Vista is safer than XP, experts expect online thugs to quickly look for ways to circumvent Vista's protections. One increasingly common method is to use social-engineering tactics to target the person, not the PC.

"People will still execute that file to see Paris Hilton's next video," says Thompson of Exploit Prevention Labs. Social-engineering techniques that send malware in the guise of a game or a sexy video exploit people's curiosity or ignorance to get them to click a tainted link or attachment. If someone clicks, the malware has already evaded half of their computer's automated defenses, including the firewall. "Vista is an improvement," says Thompson, "but it's not the end of the malware industry. Not by a long shot."

Another potential end run around Vista's defenses is to attack programs rather than the operating system. Media players such as the Adobe Flash player and Apple's QuickTime have suffered recent attacks as hackers discover and exploit serious software vulnerabilities--with poisoned online movie files, for example. To keep your machine safe, patching your programs has become just as important as fixing the operating system they run on.

"The applications are sitting on every desktop, and they all have known vulnerabilities," says Andrew Jaquith, a security analyst in The Yankee Group's Enabling Technologies Enterprise division.

For PC users, the message is clear: Though Vista may make things more difficult for crooks, it is far from impregnable. You will still need to apply patches to close the inevitable holes.

And finally, you must still use the same type of antivirus protection that you needed with XP. (For our review of antivirus programs available for Vista, see "Virus Stoppers.")
Vista's Vulnerabilities

To date, three serious holes have been found--and patched--in Vista, as follows:

* Animated cursors: A flaw in animated cursor code used by Windows 2000 SP4 through Vista. With a poisoned .ani, .cur, or .ico file, remote attackers can create a buffer overflow, overwhelming a program with more data than it can handle and allowing takeover of a victim's PC. Fixed with Microsoft's critical MS07-017 patch.
* Malware Protection Engine: A critical vulnerability in all versions of Windows using the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, built into Vista's baked-in Windows Defender anti-spyware and the Microsoft OneCare antivirus program. The flaw can force the engine to execute attack code when it scans a hacked PDF file. Fixed in Microsoft's critical MS07-010 patch.
* CSRSS privilege escalation: A vulnerability in the Windows Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem's (CSRSS) error handling could allow an attacker to make an end run around Vista's UAC (User Account Control) protections. Fixed in Microsoft's critical MS07-021 patch.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131167-page,1/article.html

 

May 20, 2007 5:30 PM
How Does Windows Vista Rate?


Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox

Uh, Oh. This weekend, I went out to local computer stores to see how Vista rated PCs for sale. Not very well.

The expedition really started two weeks ago, when my sister shopped for a new notebook, and used the Windows Experience Index as a guide.

A week before my sister's return to Guatemala, her Sony VAIO VGNS-S160's hard drive drove into oblivion. Because of the age of the Sony laptop and the risk hard drive replacement might lead to problems not easily resolved in Central America, she decided to get a new computer.

Last October, she bought a MacBook at my suggestion. After eight months of testing Vista, I couldn't recommend buying another Windows PC. Besides, with Apple's Boot Camp software, she had the option of Windows XP, if really needed. It wasn't. The Mac OS X Citrix client gets her into the corporate network of her part-time American employer. Native Mac softeare satisfied her other computing needs.

This next computer would have to run Windows, because her husband doesn't like the Mac version of Excel and he was perfectly happy using XP. One Mac was enough for the couple. She planned to buy a XP notebook, but I recommended Vista, instead. Much had changed since October.

I suggested that she look for a model with a Windows Experience Index of at least 4.0. As Nick White, a Windows product manager, explained on the Windows Vista Team blog last year: "The scale is useful when comparing hardware components and when comparing whole PCs."

She was in Vermont, at the time of her purchase, and had limited computer retail choices of Best Buy and Circuit City. Inside the stores, notebook after notebook chalked up a Windows Experience Index of around 3.0. The Sony model she bought rated a 3.3.

Windows Experience Index


Back when I was an analyst, I had several long conversations with Microsoft about the rating mechanism. I liked Windows Experience Index as a single measure, but not mixed with four different Windows versions—Basic, Business, Premium and Ultimate. I strongly urged Microsoft to either choose the different versions or the rating system, but not both. I expressed concerns about notebooks and someone buying Vista Ultimate and expecting the ultimate but getting a computer with a rating of 2.0 or 3.0. How ultimate is that?

My retail store expedition really stunned, regardless of my earlier misgivings about Windows Experience Index. To be fair, Microsoft's OEM channel is bigger part of the problem that I observed.

I first checked a honking 17-inch Sony multimedia notebook, which sold for a surprising $1,599. A year earlier, a big Sonly laptop like this one would have sold for nearly twice as much. I opened the Vista Welcome Center expecting a Windows Experience Index of 4.0 or better. Instead, the Sony honker rated a 3.1. Huh? Turns out the VAIO shipped with only 64MB dedicated graphics memory, using shared system memory to fill in for the rest.

Technically, the graphics adapter met the DirectX and WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) requirements for Vista and the Aero user interface. But Microsoft's rating system includes word "experience" for a reason. The lowest-rating hardware component determines the overall score. Sony's graphics accelerator rated an OK-but-not-great 3.1. Since Vista's most obvious benefit is the visual experience, the OEM shaved margins in the wrong place, particularly when all other components rated at least 4.0.

I surveyed computer after computer, even several desktop PCs, with Windows Experience Index ratings falling between 2.1 and 3.3. In every case, graphics hardware dragged down the scores. Again, I contend graphics is the wrong place to shave margins. In my Vista testing, there is noticeable performance benefits on computers with 256MB dedicated graphics compared to those with 64MB or 128MB discreet graphics and shared memory for the remainder. More importantly, at some time in the future there will be more applications tapping into Aero and Windows Presentation Foundation—and that's when customers are going to feel the graphics pinch.

While pricey, Best Buy had one notebook that rated above 4.0—the Pavilion v9260nr, for $1,999 at the store in Bowie, Md. It was the first Vista computer I've seen for sale where the graphics accelerator wasn't the lowest-rated component. The hard drive brought the score down to 4.5 (the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics rated a 4.6). The HP notebook, with 17-inch display, 2GB SDRM, 200GB hard drive and TV tuner, came with Vista Ultimate 64-bit. It's one really honking portable.

Consumers shouldn't have to spend two grand to get the ultimate Vista machine. But they should expect—and get—more from a $1,500 or $1,600 notebook. That Sony model, VAIO VGN-AR320E, looks loaded for bear with Best Buy advertised graphics of 335MB. But how many consumers or small business owners are going to know to look—as I did—and see that only 64MB is dedicated graphics?

This might all seem nitpicky, but some OEMs cut corners on graphics with XP Media Center, too. There is a trend.

If the experience is supposed to be visual, the graphics hardware should deliver the performance. In almost every PCs I checked, Windows Experience Index rated graphics substantially lower than any other component.

Maybe it's time for some PC manufacturers and retailers to rethink their Vista hardware strategy.