Is is like all the DRM in every game I buy at the moment ? Is it like the DRM on HDMI connections ? Or the DRM on DVD's ? Or like Macrovision they used to put on VHS tapes to stop you copying them ?

If so what exactly is the purpose of the DRM that Vista is infested with ? does it only allow you to unplug your mouse 5 times before making you buy a new one ?

I just don't understand the statement that vista has more DRM? How, where, for what purpose, surely XP must have it too or the digital content your trying to use would not work…..

If you want to run a modern PC you need Vista 64 -
Want more than 4gb of RAM – Vista 64
Want to use your new fancy graphics card with 1Gb of Ram on board – Vista 64 – otherwise bye bye to some of your system memory
Want to play a DX10 game (Farcry 2 runs faster in DX10 mode BTW) – Vista 32 or 64 but you'd be a moron to get 32.

What amazes me is people talking about install sizes – 750Gb HDD is £65
More amazing is the people who look in task manager and complain that Vista is using their memory. It's called superfetch, it preloads frequently used programs to speed up app launch and yes it works and yes it unloads it if it needs more RAM for a particular app. Also you can buy 4gb of RAM for about £35….

Here's a tip for anyone complaining of boot time – go into your BIOS and make sure S3 or STR is set for the power management. Turn off wake up on mouse / USB. Go into the power management properties in the control panel and change the power button mode to sleep. Say hello to instant on and it uses as much power as your RAM requires. i.e. not much. Typing this on a 3 year old (nearly) vista 64 install.

BTW – I got my start as a UNIX/Java/Perl/Apache developer. There is no way I would ever go back. Yes, they have their strengths and Microsoft does copy from them (PowerShell), but I think Microsoft still has an incredibly talented pool of minds creating innovative products for both developers and end users.

Walter: Sadly most large shops work on a 5year’ish cycle. So its often one OS upgrade maybe every 5 years (how long after a OS comes out before all the computers are able to run it?). I know of business that only moved to XP from 2000 2years ago.

Have a read of http://port25.technet.com/

1. It requires as much memory as basic computers come with these days (1 gigabyte)
2. It has a new driver model that requires new drivers to be written (and most have)
3. It asks me to click “Allow” whenever a program need administrator access.
4. It’s different to XP.

Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will have very similar system requirements as Vista, it will have the same driver model that will require Vista-era drivers, and it will still have User Account Control. And, of course, it will be different to XP. Am I missing something? Why are people waiting enthusiastically for Windows 7?

That’s the case for our company (1000s of PCs in our case), but it will be years before we’ve upgraded all the boxes to the point where they could comfortably support Vista, and honestly there is no compelling reason to upgrade hardware for the OS… it doesn’t allow us to do anything we can’t already do.

We currently have no time frame to move to Vista. I spoke with a coworker at my previous employer (another Fortune 500, with 1000s of PCs) and they are in the same place.

From a business perspective Vista really didn’t bring anything to the table. I’ve seen some people argue security, but I can only assume those are small shops that aren’t able to lockdown their XP installs well enough. We’ve never had that problem.

Microsoft is still too focused on destroying other OSes, instead of improving their own OS.

I will bet you that, once again, corporate bureaucracy will ruin this version of Windows just like it did with Vista.

Windows had an interesting experimental OS in the works. I think it was called Midori. From the sounds of it, this was the way to go. If they went with that I think they’d have a winner.

Windows XP in a corp enviroment is way different to a non domain enviroment. For a start its way more secure as you would expect your uses to be runing as a non-admin user. This alone makes it more secure.

For businesses with 100+ PC’s i know know of a couple that are runing Vista at the moment. Most are waiting untill all there hardware is up above the sweet spot so that they don’t have to support a mixed enviroment.

Razor512: Have you ever run XP 64bit? Its a nightmare. Driver support is limited to the minimum. Its unstable and i hate it with a passion. (i had to support a half dozen clients running it as they needed 8gb+ of RAM). (They have all been moved to Vista 64bit by now).

You can from a root shell apt-get update and apt-get install synaptic

or use smxi script makes the install setup for hardware easier

while windows xp was slower than windows 98 and other older versions of windows, windows xp was inherently faster as it supported multiple CPU cores and also supported more memory

but windows xp 32 bit and vista 32 bit have the same amount of memory support , same cpu support, and overall the same hardware support, the only thing that changed is the system requirements being higher due to the extra bloat

and don’t say any thing about vista needing a high end system to run fast. I am not saying vista is slow, I am saying that on the same hardware xp will be faster

other than eye candy and a few UI changes, vista has almost nothing new and most users will never even use any of the new vista features

windows vista 64 bit and windows xp 64 bit also have the same hardware support

the only new feature that is noticeable to the users is direct x 10 (currently a few groups are working on porting it to windows xp )

and with linux, it would be more popular if it was easier for the average user to use. in the time it takes to install a .tar.gz file through command line in linux, i can install probably 5-6 programs in windows because while the linux user is busy typing away commands, I am just double clicking on my installers.

the reason why windows has thr largest market share was because it was able to avoid the command line use (in windows command line is completely optional unlike Linux where it is needed to do basic things thats only 1 or 2 clicks away in windows

a long time ago when every OS was command line based. only a few people used computers, many found it complicated, others found it frustrating but once Microsoft came out with windows and a GUI, it suddenly became popular and everyone wanted a computer

the general public hates command line, and compared to linux or even the mac OS, windows has the least requirements for command line