Reader Comments

"With Vista, it seems like the Plus packs are gone, and replaced by Ultimate Extras, which are only available to those who fork out for the most expensive Vista version available. Is anyone else upset about this?" Unlike the people in denial here, I have already forseen that Microsoft is going to be pushing as many people as possible to buy/upgrade_to the Ultimate Edition. Little bells and whistles like the Motion Desktop or the increased functionality of Ultimate versus the lesser editions are going to be the carrot that makes people use MS's handy "Anytime Upgrade" system. Watch as all the people who buy the lesser version of Vista upgrade to Ultimate because shortcuts in the final build of the OS will say "You can't do this yet because you have the lesser edition. Upgrade to Ultimate easily by inserting your Vista CD, grabbing your wallet, and clicking here." A precursor for this is back when Office first started installing shortcuts for features you chose not to install. You try to activate the shortcut and Office says "hey, let's install this feature." Vista will work the same, except this time, you'll have to pay. I expect all the extras to be Ultimate-only downloads, except for small security items like Defender, since they need people to still actually use their OS. PowerToys and Plus! packs have become premium items now. Sorry fanboys. Hey, let's hope Microsoft includes making/mounting disk images as part of the OS this time around... oh wait, they haven't.... better download that XP power toy to mount them... oh wait, the XP one won't work on Vista. Wonk wonk wonk. Get used to being fleeced by Microsoft. Buy Ultimate Edition. Buy your OneCare subscription. Still get viruses, spyware, attacks from webpages and still need to run registry cleaners, spyware scans, defraggers (unless you leave your PC on to autodefrag in Vista), and all that other nonsense.

IE7's downloads are mostly from IE enthusiasts, tech enthusiasts, IT pros looking to test web apps, and Firefox users who are curious. In all cases, (# of downloads) != (# of IE7 users). The only marketshare IE7 is going to gain is the same amount of marketshare lost by IE6-on-XP and IE6-on-Win2K3. Especially once they release it as a critical update. Yeah, a few Firefox users may switch back to IE, until they get another web-induced virus to teach them a lesson.

I've agreed with DVD Jon's work all along until this one. He crossed the line when he decided to make money with his hacks. Yes, I understand people eventually need to make money or receive compensation for their work, but you can't be a hacker going after "the man" (DRM systems) and try to make money off of your hacks at the same time. There's a huge difference from having a PayPal tip jar and selling licenses. You can't be a philanthropist hacker and a businessman at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. Apple's going to sue DVD Jon and his lawyers (and possibly also any of his licensees) into oblivion.

Firefox 1.5 has probably done the most damage to Firefox 2.0's luster. When comparing 1.0 to 2.0 there's a definite difference, but 1.5 was a powerful-enough upgrade that makes the gap from 1.5 to 2.0 look more like a GUI change + broken extensions. Here's hoping the Firefox team hires a few graphic artists to clean up Firefox for 3.0.

I'm a little worried about Microsofts pricing scheme for Vista. I don't really know what upgrades you get when you pay more but its almost like their trying to make up lost revenue by not releasing in the past 5 years. This will look really bad. @pple Manages to get away with it because they release more frequently but i guess its still cheaper if you do the math.

Fedora 6 looks pretty solid. The test machine I installed it on had all its hardware detected and the programs I tinkered with worked well. It's promising. Unfortunately, it's still not ready for home consumers. Even XP and Vista do a better job. And I'm not talking about software availability, either. Maybe in 20 years, when the first generation of Graphic artists that have used computer-assisted drawing tools begin to retire and are in need of a hobby, they can lend their talents to improve the Linux interface so that grandmothers can operate the system. Perfect too, they'll likely be grandparents themselves. lol

@Vandil You can't be a philanthropist and a business man at the same time? How many philanthropists do you know that *aren't* business men? The ones that first jump into my mind are Bill Gates, Ted Turner, John Rockefeller and Warren Buffet. Hmmm... seems they're all rich American business men. Your anger is misplaced; you should just be honest and declare war on DVD Jon for his affront to the almighty iBrand. In fact, his efforts towards iTunes deserve even more praise than his efforts toward WMA, if simply for the fact that this will affect more people. He wrote ingenious software that serves both a legal and a desperately needed service. Who is Apple to dictate how artists can protect their content. Artists hold the copyright to their intellectual property, not Apple, and by insisting on a unilateral protection scheme, Apple is arguably abusing it's monopoly position to override the rights of copyright holders. And last time I checked, lawyers don't get sued because their clients do. We probably wouldn't have any lawyers if that were the case.

Wow convienet! In all cases, (# of downloads) != (# of IE7 users). I must intuit In all cases, (# of downloads) != (# of FF users). The logic has to work both ways if your side wishes to use the type number Vandil/Preston/Bonch I think the numbers from last month showing the increase of IE users on the web itself, supports this number. Add this IE-Addon and IE7 is close to perfect.... http://www.ieforge.com/InlineSearch/HomePage

And to follow up on your "sue into oblivion" comment; Apple has no cause of action against DVD Jon. Copyright holders may suffer damages, if his software were to be used to deprive them of licence fees that they are owed, but what would Apple lose? "Oh, please your honor, we were having such a profitable time dictating the terms and extent of other people's copyright, and DVD Jon came along and we made slightly less money! You can see this from our perspective right?"

Motion Desktop is essentially Active Desktop, and I since it's part of the $400 Vista Ultimate, nobody will use it except pirates. As an aside, all those claims by Windows fans that OS X is too expensive are now officially dead. $250 for XP Pro? $400 for Vista Ultimate? Microsoft has billions in the bank, and they're still charging you an arm and a leg for the full package. OS X Leopard will include everything, including 32-bit AND 64-bit support, for only $120. That's cheaper than Vista Home Basic!

@fczajka "I must intuit In all cases, (# of downloads) != (# of FF users). The logic has to work both ways if your side wishes to use the type number Vandil" Indeed. The # of Firefox downloads is not a count of how many firefox users there actually are. I did not say that was not the case. Likewise the # of Mac OS X installations is not a count of how many Safari users there actually are. Rinse and repeat for Konqueror, Mozilla, Lynx, Opera, ad nauseam.

"OS X Leopard will include everything, including 32-bit AND 64-bit support, for only $120. That's cheaper than Vista Home Basic!" Exactly. You can take any Leopard-capable Mac with a blank hard disk, and install a full copy of Leopard on it. It's an entire OS, not a "service pack" like others suggest. Same goes for Tiger, Panther, and the like. Besides, when was the last time a Window "service pack" added 200 new features to the Windows OS, new versions of all bundled applications, and new bundled applications? Hmm? And for $120 it's all there. No lesser edition, tiered nonsense. And certainly no WGA spyware and activations.

I think DRM is a bad thing. And I can say that as an iPod+iTunes user who purchases items from the iTunes Store. And I think DVD Jon is right to reveal that DRM can be easily thwarted by his disassemblies and hacks. Be it DeCSS, WMA- or FairPlay- killing stuff, I'm alright with that. But it's when he turns it into a business is when he looks like just another greedy hacker. That's too bad.

Check it out: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/acer_slams_vista_home_basic/ Acer, a popular OEM, is even saying that the lesser editions of Vista (in this case Home Basic) is a piece of crap. No Aero. No Media Center. No remote. No one's going to want to run it, they're going want to upgrade$$$$$. Mossberg also warns people about Home Basic: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20061026.html Yeah, you might get it for free if you buy an XP machine for the holidays, but the Home Basic version of Vista sucks. And he also warns that upgrading from one MS OS to another is sometimes a huge problem.... And isn't Vista's RTM currently delayed by "catastrophic" upgrade-from-XP issues. Vista is going to be such a train wreck. And despite UAC and PatchGuard, Vista's still going to need anti-virus, anti-spyware, regular defragging, regular updating, registry cleaning, spyware scans, and all sorts of preventative maintenance just to "use" a computer. Looks more like the computer is using you.

Simple Capitalism 101. Keep the customer wanting more, more, more. Dell knows it. HP knows it. Acer knows it. etc, etc, etc... How do you think MS has amassed all that wealth? Please, don 't be so foolish.

I think it's pretty obvious Microsoft is fleecing customers with the incredibly high Vista prices and draconian EULA restrictions. It's sour icing on the stale cake that is Longhorn. I really don't know how anyone could defend it. Microsoft has billions of dollars; they don't need to be charging this much for something that barely comes close to where competitors like Mac OS X Tiger were in April of 2005 (2002 if you want to talk about hardware compositing).

"Microsoft has billions of dollars; they don't need to be charging this much for something that barely comes close to where competitors like Mac OS X Tiger were in April of 2005" I'm guessing they need all the revenue they can to keep "brand name", marketplace takeover projects going. Microsoft is giving away Virtual PC & Server for free just to establish market lockdown for their VM products. They're losing hundreds of dollars on each Xbox/Xbox360 console that's made just to have a console market. They're investing millions in a Halo (Xbox mascot) movie Hollywood has abandoned to shore up their Xbox brand name. They're also charing a premium for Vista to make insurance money: after Vista ships, both Allchin and Gates will leave the company. How innovate will Microsoft be then with Mr. "Developers, developers, developers, developers.." at the helm by himself?

DVD John's licensing idea would work great if you did it different than real networks. Instead of trying to sell songs to play on the ipod, sell the idea of transfering songs out of the ipod and into the MP3 format used for players such as the Zune. If done on the cheap (since hey, you have already bought the songs), this would be a great way for Microsoft to provide a vehicle to migrate ipod users locked into the itunes format (of which I am one, having bought some 100 songs over the years). What would be the cost? Perhaps nothing to us end users. MS could provide a free tool for Zune users to migrate itunes songs into the Zune format for say, the first 30 days of ownership of a zune or whatever. -d

As tdonahue_nj infers, it is the basic economic concept of supply and demand. If Windows sales do suffer because of high prices, they will reduce the price or introduce further features to stay competitive. Simple market forces, nothing that is shady or fleecing about it. Just because MS has billions of dollars does not mean anything. They can charge whatever the market will bear. They are in business to make money. In the same vein, since you crow about how great Apple is, why don't they open up FairPlay to competitors? Since iTunes and the iPod are so great according to iPeople, it shouldn't affect them much. They also have billions of dollars. Why don't they just outright replace faded Macbooks, since they are so great? Or how about replaceable batteries for iPods? Simple economics. Apple also wants to make money. And besides, very few people will buy the retail versions of Vista, a point that seems to be lost among Mac fans. Apple may have one version, but they also don't cover the corporate market. MS can tailor versions of Windows based on what features they need/want. Most people will not upsell themselves from say, Home Basic to Ultimate. Most people will buy the Home Basic or Home Premium versions. And let's be a little honest about something, vandil. Apple is very broad when they discuss these new "features". Such as a Calculator widget, export bookmarks from Safari, HTML message creation and ACL's. It is more valuable deal with quality rather than quantity.

Locking content to devices is a shady practise to begin with. I loath the idea no matter who impliments it, be it Apple or Microsoft or whoever. This is the sole reason I refuse to buy music from online stores like Urge and iTunes. I'll buy the CDs, rip them and transfer them to my player all by myself, thank you very much. Could you imagine the stink if Sony Music decided to release CDs that only played in Sony CD players? Wow. Kudos to DVD Jon for his work. I should be able to buy a song from iTunes and bring it onto my m:robe without issue. Same thing with the Urge store and/or whatever Microsoft is going to use for the Zune. If DVD Jon wants to license this idea and the tech to do so, then so be it and power to him. I'd rather give him my money opposed to giving it to Apple/Microsoft/Recording Companies.

@tOM275 "And last time I checked, lawyers don't get sued because their clients do. We probably wouldn't have any lawyers if that were the case." WOW! What a concept. "Sue the lawyres" Let's give it a try. Oh wait...you need a lawyer to sue a lawyer. Drat!

Can we get something straight once and for all? DRM WAS NOT APPLE'S IDEA. The record labels insisted on DRM when Apple asked to sell their songs. Apple, therefore, released Fairplay - a scheme that the record companies didn't even like because they thought it allowed too much! And if you think that Apple is sitting around saying, "Man, the only thing that keeps people buying iPods is Fairplay, we certainly can't open that standard up!" You are DEAD wrong. I've said this before: The reason Apple does not open Fairplay for other music vendors is because if they did, Apple would lose control of the user experience. Suddenly, you might run into trouble getting Rhapsody to sync correctly with your iPod. Or the interface at Napster would be unintuitive and decidedly un-Apple like. Fairplay ensures that the iPod + iTunes combo stays easy to use. It does NOT ensure that people keep buying iPods. Come on folks, the web is littered with those studies that say every iPod owner has just a handful of songs from iTunes. NO ONE IS FREAKING LOCKED INTO THE iPOD BY FORCE. They buy iPods because they're easy to use, cool, and from Apple! Fairplay does NOT lock people into the iPod. It wouldn't even exist if the record companies weren't greedy bas******.

And before you call me an Apple fanboy, let me say: If DVD Jon wants to crack Fairplay, be my guest. It will certainly not hinder iPod sales, for the reason I've stated above: every iPod owner has just a handful of Fairplay-encoded songs. Moreover, as people use other services like Napster or Rhapsody to interface with the iPod, I think they'll finally appreciate how freaking easy iTunes makes it. Automatic syncing with your entire library, auto-updating TV shows and removing the ones you watched from the device, downloading the latest podcasts and deleting the old ones... all done simply by plugging the iPod in to iTunes. It's like your power bill: you can gripe about Duke Energy's monopoly on power when you see the bill, but go a few days without electricity after a major storm and you'll be a whole lot more appreciative.

Also, concerning motion desktop: I can't believe you guys have to shell out $400 for that. There's a free widget at Apple.com that lets me play any screensaver or DVD movie on my desktop. It's really cool when you use the "Cosmos" screensaver... Saturn, Jupiter, and galaxies flying by behind my work. But hey, MS has to recoup development costs somehow!

"Motion Desktop is essentially Active Desktop" Hardly. I'd say a better comparison is Sidebar/Gadgets/Widgets: that's essentially Active Desktop. Motion Desktop is an evolution of the "wallpaper" feature of Windows, allowing you to use moving images instead of still pictures. Related note: Remember how many years it took Mac OS to support full-screen wallpapers? For so long, you were limited to small patterns that could be tiled.

Last one, promise: I've also said this before, but I really admire Apple for not licensing Fairplay. They could makes LOADS of money from doing so. And, at the same time, they wouldn't be jeopardizing the iPod monopoly. If anything, they'd be helping it because they would shut up all the morons who go around talking about how Fairplay locks people into Apple. But they don't do it. For the same reason they don't license OS X to other OEM's: For Apple, the user experience comes ahead of the bottom line. By keeping the iPod tied to iTunes, Apple can make sure the device stays completely easy to use. By keeping OS X tied to Apple hardware, they can make sure users never face the plethora of blue screens and garbage drivers that Windows users do. In short, Apple could make a lot more money by opening Fairplay. That the company sacrifices this chance in order to make my experience better says a lot. I'm a fan.

bdk: If you notice, Captian Caps Lock, I slammed Apple, Microsoft, the Record Companies and whoever employs DRM. You need to chill. Sit down, have a drink. Apple locks the iPod to iTunes. MS will be locking the Zune to the ... uhh... Zune Store? Fact of the matter is no matter how much easier iTunes may be from, say, Napster people should be allowed to make that choice on their own. As for this: "The reason Apple does not open Fairplay for other music vendors is because if they did, Apple would lose control of the user experience." Bull. Why do users even have to switch from iTunes? Why can't they design iTunes to import songs from other stores? iPod owner goes to Urge, buys and downloads a song. Exports it into iTunes syncs it to the iPod ... ... and vice versa: non-iPod owner buys a song from iTunes, Exports it into WPM11 and syncs it to their Creative player? See how it could work? The whole idea of a player only being able to play content downloaded from a certain program/store is just plain silly ... no matter what company uses this model. They're basically telling people where they can and cannot shop.

Followup: I believe 99% of Apple's focus on user experience over profits comes from Steve Jobs. I think if any run-of-the-mill Wharton-educated idiot CEO were at the helm of Apple, he would probably have licensed OS X out to Dell, opened Fairplay, and god-knows what else. And that's not just speculation. It's what happened when John Sculley and Gil Amelio were at the helm. Sculley licensed the Mac GUI to Microsoft in exchange for a few years of office exclusivity. Amelio authorized Mac clones. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Exactly what you would expect from a "professional" businessman. Steve comes back and the clones stop. The products get sexy again, and Apple starts taking off. The reason I say this is to encourage doctors everywhere to make an immortality drug for Steve Jobs. I truly do fear what will happen when his retirement eventually comes. If he turns the reins over to any professional CEO, we're screwed. I can only hope he realizes what a mistake it was to do that the first time. Find someone whose real passion is making great products, not kissing Wall Street's a**.

Sticknick: "Captain Caps Lock" - that almost made me spit iced tea all over my keyboard. haha, thanks for the laugh! :) You do give an excellent response. And I know you'll disagree with what I say, but the reason iTunes doesn't add an "import from other store" feature is that it's just fundamentally un-Apple. It's complicated, hard to use, and out of Apple's control. Those three things are like breaking the 10 commandments of Apple. Moreover, for that to work, Apple would have to strip the DRM from the songs that users downloaded at, say, Zune. Which means Apple would have to license Zune's DRM scheme! Expensive, and stupid - especially since only 1% of music in users' libraries is encoded with DRM. The bottom line is that the process would create headaches for users. And that is NOT Apple's style. And I apologize if you thought I was attacking you. Someone on page 1 made the argument that Fairplay is locking people into iTunes and the iPod, and I find that argument completely baseless. Apple doesn't need to lock people into their platform. It's the best one out there, so people choose it of their own free will.

iTunes allows you to burn a playlist of purchased music to Audio CD. Then you can rip that Audio CD in whatever application you desire to the format necessary for your non-iPod music player. In fact, iTunes will even allow you to rip the Audio CD tracks back into unprotected MP3s and AACs if you want. So any iTune you buy is actually usable on any media device you own, including non-Apple devices. But let's look at subscription services. Looks like there's no global policy.. some songs allow burning, others don't, even if you pay for the song. Bummer. In fact, I'll let you choose any 17 songs from the iTunes Store and I guarantee you 100% that you can convert those tracks to MP3s for use on other devices. Now let me choose any 17 songs from a WMA-based music store and see if you can do the same. That's right, you can't! DRM is bad. Apple's DRM is the least annoying if you own a CD-RW disc. And opening FairPlay allows third-parties to come up with crappy hardware and software services that will tarnish the Apple reputation of providing a solid user experience. Think of it this way: Third-party drivers for Windows are almost always the cause of a BSOD. If you use the MS-signed drivers, you don't get a BSOD from the same device. Third-party access to the iPod+iTunes ecosystem would be the nightmare people already experience with [won't]PlaysForSure and the upcoming Zune MarketPlace (which, what a shock, isn't compatible with PlaysForSure purchases).

"And despite UAC and PatchGuard, Vista's still going to need anti-virus, anti-spyware, regular defragging, regular updating, registry cleaning, spyware scans, and all sorts of preventative maintenance just to "use" a computer." Wow. What a load of BS. On my XP machine, I've never used anti-spyware, registry cleaners, and I can't remember the last time I defragged. I do have antivirus installed, only because it is required by my employer in order to connect by VPN. "Vista's still going to need" implies that XP needs it, which it doesn't.

bdk: "that almost made me spit iced tea all over my keyboard. haha, thanks for the laugh!" Hey, no prob! I never have bought into the whole "experience" deal. One of the reasons I decided against Apple was the fact that they offer very little in the way of customization. I like my options in hardware and software to be open. To each their own, though right? It acutally pains me to see all mp3 players being locked in to some kind of store. Microsoft had the chance to do it right by allowing a whole pile of players to sync with WMP11 and then offer a good choice of digital stores ... then they announce they're going to lock the Zune? Ahhhh - tripped at the finish line. "...Apple would have to license Zune's DRM scheme! Expensive, and stupid - especially since only 1% of music in users' libraries is encoded with DRM. The bottom line is that the process would create headaches for users. And that is NOT Apple's style." DVD Jon has done all the work. They could license his tech to do it. So could MS. Of course the chances of this happening are around negative ten ;-)

@PatriotB6007: ""Vista's still going to need" implies that XP needs it, which it doesn't." Load. Of. Crap. XP absolutely does need antivirus software and antispyware software. How do I know? How about the fact that the Windows Security Center yells at you if you don't install any? How about the fact Microsoft is selling its own antivirus software? How about the experiences of millions upon millions of IT engineers who have wasted weekends trying to fix broken Windows installations? How about Microsoft developers who have admitted that Windows suffers from a gradual slowdown over time, requiring an eventual re-install due to defragmentation of the filesystem and the registry, as well as other factors? What about the millions who suffer from infections on their Windows-based PCs? Why does XP take regular snapshots of its system files in the event you need to revert to a previous state if it's so stable? This has nothing to do with OS preference; it's just an absolute fact that Windows requires a lot of expensive maintenance and protection from its vulnerabilities. It's disingenuous of you to claim otherwise. No wonder 51% of the computers purchased at Harvard are Macs: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515324 This goes with half the computers at Princeton also being Macs. When it comes down to serious work that needs to get done, people choose Macs. Windows is for the lowest common denominator of user.

"Load. Of. Crap. XP absolutely does need antivirus software and antispyware software. How do I know? How about the fact that the Windows Security Center yells at you if you don't install any?" Firat off, Security Center knows NOTHING about antispyware software; secondly, it CAN be shut off so it never alerts you. "It's disingenuous of you to claim otherwise." Just as disingenuous as you to claim Macs are the end-all, be-all of computing. My friend is a musician and he has told me himself, his Dual G5 has crashed running ProTools.

"Why does XP take regular snapshots of its system files in the event you need to revert to a previous state if it's so stable?" Why then does OS X need Time Machine? From the Apple site: "You back up your system regularly, right? Well, you would. If you had a better way to do it. With Mac OS X Leopard and Time Machine, not only can you back up and preserve everything on your Mac — including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents — without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you’ve ever backed up." Keen!

"How about Microsoft developers who have admitted that Windows suffers from a gradual slowdown over time, requiring an eventual re-install due to defragmentation of the filesystem and the registry, as well as other factors?" I'm interested in which Microsoft developers "admitted" this. Have a source, by any chance? Of course not, bonch never has any sources. Defragmentation could cause slight slowdowns over time, that's why there's a disk defragmenter. But it would probably not slow it down to the point where you would notice it. The main way that files get fragmented is when you create a large file without knowing how large the file will end up needing to be. Say you're recording video into an mpeg file on your hard drive. The recording software probably doesn't know how big of a file it'll need (it isn't psychic enough to know when you'll hit the Stop button), so it opens a file, writes out to it, and periodically it'll run out of "continugous" space to write into, so it'll create a fragment. This type of thing can result in hundreds or thousands of fragments. So maybe playing that video would be slow. That's why there's defragmenters. I'm also curious about your claims of registry fragmentation. Care to give any details?

"With Vista, it seems as if the Plus! packs are gone, replaced by Ultimate Extras, which are available only to users who fork out money for the most expensive Vista version. Does this development upset anyone else?" No, it doesn't upset me one bit. In fact, this is standard practice...everywhere. You offer someone an incentive to purchase a more expensive product. If that incentive works, they'll sell more of their expensive product. It makes sense to me. If I don't care for the incentives, I won't buy the more expensive product (or, at least, I won't buy it for that reason).

I don't think anyone can claim that backing up is a bad idea. Despite the way they look, Macs are indeed NOT from the 24th century. They contain hard drives made by 3rd parties and can and do occasionally fail. That's no fault of Apple's, just like the bad hard drive in a Dell is no fault of Microsoft's. Windows XP, Vista, OS X, Linux, the computer system on Star Trek... they should all be backed up. That's just good common sense.

@sticknick "Why then does OS X need Time Machine?" Because hard disks can fail at any time? Because computer users have a tendency to accidentially overwrite or delete an important file? Because sometimes you want to revisit that file you worked on months ago and long-since deleted? Those are all valid reasons and, what a shock, those are the main scenarios used by Apple to show how Time Machine will work for most Mac users. Apple never mentioned that Time Machine was made for system crashes. Sure, it would also be useful for that scenario, but, truth is, most Mac users would never encounter such a thing unless they were experimenting with FOSS in the Terminal to change the OS's hidden preference files. Once again, the Windows zealot FUD is debunked.

"Third-party drivers for Windows are almost always the cause of a BSOD. If you use the MS-signed drivers, you don't get a BSOD from the same device." vandil: I must correct you there. Most of the hardware drivers on the Windows CD/DVD or on the Microsoft/Windows Update site ARE written by third-parties - by the manufacturer of the hardware. The only drivers that aren't are written for legacy support by Microsoft, an example being the Intel 440BX chipset drivers for XP . Intel stopped updating their driver, so Microsoft did and included it in the CD. The stipulation of having the driver on the CD, is that redundant functionality, such as custom control panels have to stripped out because Microsoft wants to streamline the OOBE (out-of-box-experience) and not confuse the end-user. For video drivers, unnecessary features are also stripped, such as OpenGL support (which lost the performance and feature race to Direct3D long ago). The driver will also say "Published by Microsoft", even though it was developed by the hardware manufacturer, which is not the same thing. Hardware manufacturers have to write their own drivers, and they sign them themselves using the HCL/WHQL testing and driver submission program, the same way that system builders test their computer systems in order to attach the "Designed for Windows XP" logo sticker. The process is mostly automated, and has its benefits, like having the driver posted on the Windows Update site and also having the product listed in the Windows Marketplace. For the user, if they choose to get the driver from the hardware manufacturer's website, they only need to look to see if it has the letters WHQL. Some companies *ahem* Creative *ahem* don't always sign their drivers "because the do their own testing and certify the drivers to work themselves", which is a bad practise, I'll admit.

bdk: I know why it's there - but with bonch poking fun at system restore, one has to ask these things, no? vandil: "Windows zealot FUD" heh. How about some "Computer Industry as a Whole FUD" then? Apple doesn't have to hint. Time Machine will be there for the same reason system restore exists in XP and Shadow Copy exists in Server 2003 and will exist in Vista: s h i t happens. Even though Apple and Microsoft give good reasons for automated backup, they never actually come out and admit that another reason automated backup exists is just in case the OS melts due to a Kernel Panic (Mac), bad, third party drivers (both), or a virus (Windows), everyone knows that it is a possible scenerio. Sure, users will write over or delete files. Yes hard drives can fail. This is completely plausible on both platforms. We've all seen it happen and have had it happen to us. But to come out and say that Windows employs an automated backup simply because of the instability of the OS and Apple will be employing one because of the instability of third party hardware (notice how I shied away from saying "the instability of the users". Isn' that awesome!) is simply nonsense. With both Mac and PC, Hardware is hardware. With both Mac and PC, Users are users. With both OS X and Windows, software is software. In short, computers are computers. Backup is always a good idea. Automated backup is even better; no matter the platform. End of story.

One should note, however, that System Restore is NOT designed to backup user files, only system files, in the event that a system configuration change adversely affects Windows. It is NOT a general file backup utility. Windows Backup is there for that (and can also be scheduled). Windows Vista Business and Ultimate add in "CompletePC" restore functionality which can back up a restore set to CD/DVD (does it have network restore anyone?). Windows Live OneCare ALSO has a more user-friendly file backup to CD/DVD or automaticaly to USB, 1394 or network drive, but it's features aren't as advanced. For home users it's quite sufficient and easy. Personally, I like Windows Vista's Backup (which is very similar to XP's actually), but until Windows Vista comes out, I'm using Second Copy 2000 in XP to synchronize my complete user folder under "Documents and Settings" to an external SATA drive. The program comes with Apricorn EZ Bus drives and enclosures (which is how I got it) and it runs in low-priority mode so it can backup huge amounts of data fast, without impacting system performance 1 bit. Good program. Apricorn also includes complete drive backup software too, but I don't use it. If a hard drive dies on me, it's usually because I've had it for more than a couple years and means it's time to upgrade my system since I try not to keep them for more than 2 years, so reinstalling Windows on a new system is not a big turn-off nor is it a hassle for me. Apricorn drive enclosures are top notch too. I can't comment on their drives though, since I never used them. I mostly use Maxtor Maxline 3 series drives in their enclosures for their 5 year warranty, 16MB cache, and are designed for 24/7 operation in an enterprise. How can you argue with that kind of quality and reliability?

I wanted to post something here that's completely irrelevant but I thought was awesome when I found it. For anybody that is deploying shared computers that may not be on a domain or using Group Policy, Microsoft released a really neeto tool called Shared Computer Toolkit. I never knew this existed, and found that editing system policies manually to be a real pain in the rump. It makes it easy for setting up a completely restorative drive partition for a shared environment with oodles of easy-to-configure system restrictions. The program can be found here: microsoft.com/sharedaccess There's two demo's on the site: an overview of the program, and a complete installation tutorial. The tutorial even goes through re-partitioning the system using PartitionMagic. Anyway, Shared Computer Toolkit looks AWESOME, and best of all - IT'S FREE!! Creating a cost-effective basic web terminal or kiosk system for your clients couldn't be easier!

"One should note, however, that System Restore is NOT designed to backup user files, only system files, in the event that a system configuration change adversely affects Windows." True, but there have been a couple of times that I have completley hosed my system by installing some strange, pre-alpha software and system restore has saved my ***. Most of my stuff is still there - up until a point, that is ;-) Then again, all of my important stuff is backed up on a seperate drive. I have been playing with the Previous Versions in Vista and I love it. It is nice to see that OS X is getting something like this as well. It will save the end users of both platforms lots of time as opposed to having to resort to manually backing up files. "There's two demo's on the site: an overview of the program, and a complete installation tutorial. The tutorial even goes through re-partitioning the system using PartitionMagic." Man, I love this bit - PartitonMagic is a godsend of a program. I have never, ever seen a program that is so intuative and time saving when it comes to dealing with hard drive partitions and files sytems. I honestly don't know how I would have managed to research all the flavours of linux/unix and Windows as much as I have without PM. The fact that MS is showing this over their own (kinda useless, imho) disk managment dialogue is, to me anyway, a very, very cool thing. Thumbs up.

"PartitonMagic is a godsend of a program." Agreed. I have used it when testing Vista and XP side by side. It is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. @Waethorn - thanks for the link! I can see how this would be useful for computers in public settings. @sticknick "own (kinda useless, imho) disk managment dialogue..." Actually, you can do quite a bit with the disk management snap in, including reassigning drive letters to a folder. For instance, say you purchase a computer with a 16-in-1 disk reader. Consequently, when you open Windows Explorer, each disk reader shows up as a separate drive, i.e. I:, J:, K:, L:, M:, etc. This can get annoying. With the disk management dialog, you can reassign the drive letters to show up in a folder like C:\CardReader\ so they do not clog up the initial Windows explorer view. See http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/12/27/332704.aspx for details. Regarding partitioning and formatting, though, the disk management tools is useless.

In Windows Vista, you can now shrink volumes to as low as about half their size (seems to be the low limit anyway, regardless of how much is actually used). Of course, extending them into unpartitioned space is still left over from XP too. This is helpful for those of you that decide to multi-boot after the optimal decision time has already passed (during setup). Nate: I prefer folder mounting for hard drives too. On my desktop, I have 2x250GB Maxline 3 SATA drive in an Intel Matrix RAID array. I created a RAID-1 partition of 80GBs for Windows, Apps, and important data, so that even if one hard drive fails, I can get access to Windows, and even work on my data. The rest of the drives were turned into one big RAID-0 partition for speed. About 150GB's was sub-partitioned (logically, in Windows) for a volume mounted under the folder C:\Program Files\Games for my complete enjoyment. Another 150GB's was mounted under C:\Stuff and used for a general dumping ground. The rest (about 14GB, give or take) was used to create a dedicated FAT32 drive letter (D:) and I moved my Windows swapfile there, off of C:. It's pretty quick loading those games, yet my vitals stay nice and secure, and my swapfile is cozy and constantly unfragmented in it's own comfortable FAT32 space. Gotta love Matrix RAID.

"I've been testing Vista on a 512MB machine and it's been painful at best." I'd like to see some proof of that. Specifically, the rest of that machine. I've got, 512MB 1.7GHz P4 Moble 32MB (thats right only 32) VRAM on GF440 Go graphics. Vista runs smooth and fine. I can't play games and I can't run Aero. Both I would expect be due to ancient graphcics acceleration. I'm not saying Vista couldn't run faster, only that I don't say its struggling like XP would with 128MB. I do believe vista might run into trouble with only 256MB, and also that with my 512MB system, larger programs do have noticably longer load times and search isn't as smooth. I don't really see where 'painful at best' comes from. Aside from the fact that my system is a 5 year old laptop and therefore gets the "what in the hell is this crap" from the device manager, Vista has been fine on it. And I feel sure if I castrated one of my desktops down to 512MB and left in the other more modern components, the affects would be minor. The only devistating affect 512MB makes is you are killed in gaming performance. But hey, when I look at performance in windows XP, some games I play use 700+MB of RAM (not including swap space). So I really wouldn't fault the OS for that.

"I'd rather give him my money opposed to giving it to Apple/Microsoft/Recording Companies." Yes, heaven forbid you should compensate the people who produce and distribute the product you buy. That would be HORRIBLE!

"heaven forbid you should compensate the people who produce and distribute the product you buy" Ever seen the obscene profit they get for a CD versus what the artist who wrote it gets?

"Yes, heaven forbid you should compensate the people who produce and distribute the product you buy. That would be HORRIBLE" I buy the artists CDs from the artist when they come to town. The artists make a little more profit that way. Or I'll order them from the artists website, or though my local CD store. So don't give me that "Please!! Won't Someone Think of the Artists!!" crap. I refuse to buy music from Wal-Mart, HMV and the like and I flat out refuse to let the RIAA, Microsoft and Apple tell me what player I can and can't play my purchased music on. I'm sorry, I don't buy into the RIAA's crap. Not one bit. The Big Record Companies are only out to further the careers of The Big Record Companies. And they'll destroy artists lives to do it. I know I can't boycott them 100%, but the less money I have to give them the better.

Funny how Canada's biggest studio and label, Nettwerk, is no longer filing for RIAA association and has slammed the RIAA on numerous occasions. Let that be a lesson to the huge American labels - the rest of the world doesn't care about your bullplop. Nettwerk now has their own internet music store too, and they use non-DRM'ed MP3's, not because they think that intellectual property has to be respected, but because they refuse to take sides in the fight, and their artists come first. I don't really give a crap about DRM as it has not affected me one bit, but the lack of a DRM standard is what infuriates me. DRM in some form or another is here to stay, but there needs to be a common ground for it. If the RIAA (or preferably someone better) would do their job and step in and start a governing body to regulate DRM standards, then it might be a more pleasant world boys and girls. It might be a good job for the BSA's Canadian affiliate, CAAST - The Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft - because they not only handle business software, but also consumer software and software intellectual property rights. Why couldn't music downloads fall under "software"?

"Ever seen the obscene profit they get for a CD versus what the artist who wrote it gets?" Ever seen the contract the artist willingly signed?

"Ever seen the contract the artist willingly signed?" Yeah, it goes something like... Sign with us and we'll give you the scraps from our table. Don't sign with us, and we're going to sqweep you into obscurity. This is a lose-lose situation for the artist.