Reader Comments

In any case, I'm just gonna wait for it to be on MSDNAA and download it for free.

Is there a time limit on the two license offer for ultimate buyers?

The backlash from SKU overload will be evident when the next-gen Windows [goofy name here] is released with Home and Pro versions only. Basic, Premium, Business, and Ultimate ... give me a freakin' break!!

My head hurts!

Marketing people need to do something. I wish Microsoft would spend as much time on giving us reasons to give them our money as they spend finding ways to take our money.

There really only needs to be one version. I use XP pro at home. It works fine and my pc is no great shakes. All the different versions seem to be a way to make more money for MS. I guess being the richest man in the world is not good enough. There must be something higher than #1.

Be careful, Paul. You'll incur the wrath of "Waethorn" and the Windows Faithful who will say such things as: "the iPeople are having such a problem with the pretty basic naming conventions, let's put it in terms that even those people that wear turtlenecks (which seemingly cuts off the blood to their brain) will understand" "it just goes to show how little the Mac fanboys (or iPeople as bmnbmn refers to them) really understand what's going on." Or perhaps they'll tell you that you just don't understand the concept of "choice": Spoke "Waethorn": "obviously the concept of choice is completely lost on the Mac community." Sharky: "There are three Home editions of which one is for low end PCs. That leaves two for regular computers. How confusing is that? This is all silly." and "Just because Apple offers no choice doesn't mean that MS shouldn't either." and "You guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill" sticknick: "It's not that hard to comprehend" bmnbmn: "Since MS builds software for hardware that is sometimes very cheap, having this choice is quite good actually." will84: "If anyone here seriously thinks the Vista version scheme is insurmountably complicated, whoever you work for is in seriously bad shape." "patriotB6007": As I"ve posted before, Microsoft's choice to provide multiple versions of Windows is a good thing, because it provides consumer choice. Seriously, Paul. I think you're out of touch with the Microsoft apologists that frequent this site.

"sticknick: "It's not that hard to comprehend" lotsa - you must have dug way back to find that quote from me. You obviously have overlooked the whole past week where I've been complaining about the product versions AND the Upgrade silliness. From here: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/94893/94893.html "Holy crap. They should just roll it into one big OS, charge $299 for it and get over it. This is stupid. sticknick January 18, 2007" I am becoming so frustrated at the whole Vista deal that it's not funny. We have the lame marketing; seriously guys, "Wow?" ... WOW? What the f*ck kind of marketing campaign is "the Wow Starts Now"? Sounds like a radio ad for a used car lot. We have the plethora of "choices" Paul just outlined - and has anyone noticed that when MS *first* showed the product editions it was pretty simple - yet it got more confusing as time went on? I could go on, but I'm not going to. Vista is here and the feeling it's leaving me with is a fuzzy headed "Wha?" kind of deal. I'm not sure I really care anymore.

And, for the record, yes - I am siding with the Mac people on this one. After having beta tested B2 and RC1 *and* having a couple of Vista boxes here in the office to play with since the middle of December, there is nothing in Vista; NOT ONE DAMN THING, that makes me want to upgrade from XP. And lotsa: you can quote me on that anytime.

lotsamystuff - really you only have to worry about three as a user walking into a store: Basic, Premium, and Ultimate. Some stores are carrying Business. Thats bad enough, but normally you will never see Starter or Enterprise. there really should just be three versions: Home (ie: premium), Business and Ultimate. Enterprise should be thought of as a licensing issue.

The majority of the apologist are Mac users. I have no problems complaining about micosoft. Complaints to microsoft is what makes them better. When you say awesome to everything Apple does they will always stay the same.

lotsa, you are so right. i couldn't have said it better myself. Windows fanbois will accept the multitude of Vista versions because they're so happy just to get a new version of Windows after more than half a decade of waiting. All that waiting for a knock-off of Aqua and knock-offs of Mac OSX applications and features, some of which have been in OSX since 2001... you know, when XP came out. heh. And speaking of the multutide of Vista editions, I'll remind the Vista defenders that there are THREE editions of Mac OS X: 1. Mac OS X Tiger (single computer) 2. Mac OS X Tiger Family Pack (same disk as single computer, but you have a license to install OSX on up to five Macs in your household) 3. Mac OS X Tiger Server That's it. And each edition is the "Ultimate" edition i.e. having all of the features.

"Mac OS X Tiger Server" Are you kidding? Why would you get a kitten for a server?

When you distll everything down, there really is just 6 versions, which is really not that difficult to navigate. Starter - if you're still using an 8086 Basic - If you've got an older system and don't want any of the UI sexiness Premium - The cool UI stuff plus MC features Business - For, well, duh Enterprise - See above Ultimate - For the home user that wants some of the business features such as bitlocker and EFS The N editions are really rather pointless, and only created due to an overzealous court. The real problem is the ways that I can get the above 6 versions.... 64bit/32bit MS has the right idea with one DVD. But they should only have the one DVD, with all 6 versions and the 64/32 bit versions as well. I install, i punch in the key. The installation figures out the version of the OS. The installation looks at my chipset, figures out 64/32. Easy. OEM/Retail/Upgrade This is pure silliness. How about one version - the full (which can do in-place upgrades), with a simple rebate for people who have XP/2000. Every software vendor that has released new versions of their software has been doing it this way since I can remember. Why can't MS do the same?

All snarkiness aside, the confusion is going to keep a lot of people on the fence. "Vista is here and the feeling it's leaving me with is a fuzzy headed "Wha?" kind of deal. I'm not sure I really care anymore." You're not alone, sticknick. It's tax refund time, folks, and I've been fielding questions about "what kind of computer should I buy" from friends and clients alike. Believe it or not ("Waethorn", this will come as a shock to you) I've recommended Vista to those folks who I know won't consider a Mac, and universally, they come back at me with, "I don't want that. I'm comfortable with XP". I had one person tell me she's waiting a year to buy a new PC, because she was so overwhelmed by the options available to her. She bought a flat-screen TV instead. Whatever. With all the technical wisdom in Redmond, I'm sure someone could have come up with a way to make a single version of Windows that allowed for various installation options, either based on the choice of the customer, or a "recommended" option based on a quick scan of their system. But with all the various flavors, upgrade versions, OEM versions, multi-licenses, etc., it's a freakin' nightmare. Only the most deluded Windows Apologist could possibly argue otherwise. As for me and my DELL, we'll be sticking with XP, too. There's simply no compelling reason for me to upgrade. None whatsoever.

Yes yes, it's all tooooooo complicated. Wipe all of it, pull out of Europe and don't offer an N edition and have one single edition. Windows Vista. 400USD. Microsoft the message is clear. People don't want choice, they want to pay the max even if they only need the basics. Squeeze 'em dry. Heh.

"As for me and my DELL, we'll be sticking with XP" that's a larf! how about security, wiseguy?! you for one are always saying that security is lax in XP. oh but OSX is so much more secure than XP, and yet you won't upgrade your XP machine to Vista. ya, that makes a whole lot of sense. or a better question: why the F%#! are you using a PC anyway??! Mac not good enough for you? ;) re: flatscreen TV's that's a moot argument. all the major big-box stores are offering TV's at huge discounts so it's no wonder people are picking these up. back-to-school and Christmas (and US Thanksgiving) are the major selling times for computers. next time losta, bring a little common sense to the table. XP

As biased as Mac users might be againt Vista, at least we have nothing to gain by slamming Vista. OEMs like Waethorn are making money off of each copy of Vista they sell, so they will always make Vista and its plethora of editions sound great and easy so they can potentially make money from their comments. Sorry Waethorn, but your credibility in this is lower than us "iPeople". We have have nothing to gain by commenting for/against Vista. You're just here for the payday.

"that's a larf! how about security, wiseguy?! you for one are always saying that security is lax in XP. oh but OSX is so much more secure than XP, and yet you won't upgrade your XP machine to Vista." Y'all are always saying that, with the right precautions, XP is plenty secure. It's not, of course, but that doesn't stop you from spouting it. I don't use my Windows box to connect to the Internet unless it's absolutely necessary. Since I don't use it for e-mail, and only use Firefox for the occasional browsing I need to do, security really isn't much of an issue. Regardless, I do run Antivirus, Antispyware, and Windows Defender on the XP Machine. Why buy a new and unproven OS to get a (supposedly) more secure machine? And until it's been out for a while and proves itself, the jury is still out on the "security" of Vista anyway. XP was supposed to be a secure OS, and look how that turned out. "ya, that makes a whole lot of sense. or a better question: why the F%#! are you using a PC anyway??! Mac not good enough for you? ;)" Unlike you, "Waethorn", I'm not a religious zealot when it comes to computers. Different machines, different purposes. Not that you need to know, but I bought the PC to encode video in Windows Media format, before Flip4Mac made it possible to do the same on the Mac. I also use the PC for testing CDs and DVDs that will be distributed to my PC-only clients. There are a couple interesting programs that I use on the PC, but really nothing I couldn't live without. It's handy to have for testing purposes, though, and since I do a lot of troubleshooting for my technically-challenged friends and clients, I need to keep somewhat current. The PC is a decent machine, and XP is an interesting if somewhat unexciting Operating System. I wouldn't want to use it on a daily basis, and I find its performance very lacking (particularly when multitasking), but I'll probably always have a PC of some description for use in my business.

"As biased as Mac users might be againt Vista, at least we have nothing to gain by slamming Vista." Oh... so slamming Vista is a hobby for you... what you do on the off time? Wow, I guess Macs are just really for surfing the web. I'd figure with all the commercials, you'd be off making a movie or freebasing while listening to your band's latest mix tape. As for waethorn, what's wrong with someone profiting off of MS? It's not like he's here advertising or anything, just telling his side. Everyone here can become abrasive at times, but does that change credibility? Not really, how much credibility is there on a fairly anonymous comment section of small-scale website? It always amuses me when people take a 'holier than thou' approach when ranting anonymously on the net. So yes, people turn a mighty profit off of Vista. People also turn a mighty profit off of record labels as well. You see them on TV all the time, they oft get drunk and slam a 200,000USD V12 work of art into a large immobile structure, thus blaming the structure for getting in their way, wilst they were in transit to bust a cap in the arse of someone else getting paid a hefty sum for a few hours labor. I guess my question to you is, if a Mac can be used to help a blatant moron make a decent living, why can't Vista be used to help a mildly intelligent fellow make a living?

"re: flatscreen TV's that's a moot argument." Not really. She had her choice of buying a new Vista-ready PC or a flatscreen TV. Given all the confusion and uncertainty surrounding Vista (none of it fueled by my biases, FWIW), she opted for the flatscreen, and will keep using her XP Box for another year or so. She flat out (no pun intended) told me that she didn't want to buy a PC and be stuck with Vista, since it was just too new. I'm not making any judgements about her decision, but I did find it interesting. That's all. It's hardly a "moot point". Microsoft has hardly been able to fuel the kind of excitement for Vista that surrounded, say, Windows '95. Most people (outside of the tech enthusiast community) seem to be responding to their latest effort with a shrug or a yawn of bored indifference.

"The PC is a decent machine, and XP is an interesting if somewhat unexciting Operating System. I wouldn't want to use it on a daily basis, and I find its performance very lacking (particularly when multitasking), but I'll probably always have a PC of some description for use in my business." I can respect that you find performance sluggish. XP needs to stay neat and orderly for things to work quickly in terms of context switching (multitasking). Unless you have multicore, by installing WinDefender, Antivirus, and Antispyware, you have shot yourself in the foot. I use my PC 24/7 on the net and have no active countermeasures against viruses. Performance could never be better. No lagging when opening a shell, application, or utility, and no hiccups when switching from program to program. If you really don't connect to the net except on the rarest of occasion, I would recommend uninstalling all antivirus/spyware on the system, the performance gains outweigh the 'added security'. Norton and the rest of the vendors' products have became so I/O intensive it's embarassing. That's why I have no problem that MS is keeping them out of the loop in Vista. On a modern system at 2000+USD Norton wants 100% CPU for around 30 minutes a day for a system sweep, that's absolutely rediculous. Added with that, that it puts an extra I/O stream on EVERY write to disk you do from then on out 'for protection' and they can forget about it.

will: That's probably good advice. Thanks for the thoughtful post. I do tend to over-protect my PC; In a previous life, I was responsible for handling all the corporate e-mail that came in through the company's website. Despite receiving literally hundreds of e-mails a day, my machine was never hit by a virus and was spyware-clean up to the day I left the company. I was extremely cautious and paranoid about that system, and it paid off...our management was very intolerant with anyone who found a virus on their system (it was a typical "blame the user" scenario). I learned quickly to be careful.

Ugh, Norton. That software is a real performance hog. On a computer I helped fix up recently, Norton was their antivirus of choice, yet it constantly ate 20-30% CPU usage and about 100 MB of RAM. So, I uninstalled Norton and installed AVG Free, Spybot S&D, and Windows Defender, which are all free. With all active security guards on, CPU usage peaked at 3% from these apps and memory usage was only about 10-15 MB. This is why I despise Norton. Well, that, as well as their "pay us $50 a year or else" bull. What sloppy software. The real bugger is that their corporate offering, Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition, is lean and mean, stays out of the way, and works well. Why can't the consumer version match? Oh well, enough ranting...

@lotsa "Microsoft has hardly been able to fuel the kind of excitement for Vista that surrounded, say, Windows '95. Most people (outside of the tech enthusiast community) seem to be responding to their latest effort with a shrug or a yawn of bored indifference." On the whole I agree with you. But I don't think that's really an indictment of Vista. When 95 came out, it was a revolutionary product for Microsoft compared with it's predecessor (despite the fact that my father keeps trying to tell me that Windows 3.11 is the best OS ever written). Vista is much more evolutionary. It's the logical next step from 95|NT4/98|2000/XP. Plus - most people are happy with their XP solutions. If it works, most people want to leave it just the way that it is. Bdkjones (IIRC) made a point a long time ago that a big reason why people complain when moving to a Mac is because it's different from Windows and they resist change. I think Vista falls under that same category - it's change. On top of that, the major features that Vista offers are available from other solutions: Desktop search - there's about 1million vendors who offer a desktop search product Photo gallery - Picasa Contacts - Outlook etc..... If you have solutions for those components, the face lift that Vista offers is probably not worth it. I've moved to Vista because it offers a couple of items that I was really looking forward to (ReadyBoost being the big one - 2G of RAM isn't enough when you're using VPC's). But I'm still storing my contacts in Outlook and still using Picasa for my photos. But I do understand a lot of the indifference. I do believe, though, that once people start using it full time, they'll fee like they're slumming whenever they need to use XP. (As a side note, if Microsoft really wants to make me happy, make their new Contacts folder interroperable with Outlook and give me a reason to move from Picasa. But I digress.)

Vista Premium for me. Whew! That was confusing. I had to choose between Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium. What a waste of time. Instead, I could complain like some others here.

Wow! This was a pretty successful article judging by the number of comments by the bonches and lotsa. Sticknick, if the whole Vista deal and Microsoft are frustrating you so much, why don't you simply switch to a Mac?

Frankly, I don't get it. Why is choice bad? And as I mentioned earlier, at least people shopping on Amazon.com for Vista know what they want. Most of them are going for Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate. I agree it is a little confusing but with XP too you had XP Home, XP Pro, and XP Media Center edition. Hey, but at least this article has provided some fodder for the bonches.

shark47: Don't think I'm not considering it. At the moment my laptop and PC are running just fine so there is no need for me to switch to anything just yet. I will say when one of them dies I may not be replacing it with another Windows machine.

Last post for the day: Vista Home Basic is equivalent to XP Home Vista Home Premium is equivalent to XP MCE Vista Business is equivalent to XP Professional (no Media CEnter) Vista Ultimate is a superset of everything and is a new offering.

Microsoft really never gave us any reason to upgrade to the new version. Why is the ultimate version "ULTIMATE"?!

"Why is the ultimate version "ULTIMATE"?!" Because you pay the ultimate price for it. Duh! ;-)

"Why is the ultimate version "ULTIMATE"?!" Because you pay the ultimate price for it. Duh! ;-)

There are many reasons to upgrade to vista, however, they are not big reasons. There are just a *ton* of small reasons. I use Vista all the time because I am a heavy multitasker, and Vista is a true multi-tasking OS. Last night, I was rendering a CG image, browsing the web, and listening to music. Everything was responsive. The security is excellent. After using UAC for months now, I am quite used to the extra dialog. In fact, I prefer the dialog, because I want to be in control of what is changing my PC. Being able to filter (not sort!) by file type, date, size, artist, etc. within Explorer is invaluable with a folder containing hundreds of files. You can filter by multiple criteria, say you only want to show .zip files that are over 128 mb. You can "stack" the files, for instance by file type, and save those stacks as saved searches. The instant search is _miles_ ahead of any vendor product. I can hit the "Windows" key, type in the first few letters of a program/file/control panel/favorites, and the item I want will be at the top of the list. I press enter, and the program/file will launch. For example, let's say I want to open Excel. Instead of going to "All Programs-Microsoft Office-Microsoft Excel" I can press the "Windows" key, type Excel, and press enter. Or, if I want to open "Device Manager" I just type in "Device" and the device manager will appear at the top. Pressing "Enter" will launch the device manager. Yes, they are little things, but they add up. I can be more productive in Vista than I ever could in XP. Vista starts/shuts down faster than a Mac, doesn't force you to wait until all the icons load in the notification area, stores your frequently used apps in memory (that's why it uses so much on idle!) so they load faster, gets rid of almost all of the annoying balloons, such as "There are wireless networks available!", and makes it simple enough for my mom to diagnose network problems. Highly, highly recommended.

"I can press the "Windows" key, type Excel, and press enter." To be fair, that's how I open all files in windows XP. Just remember the executable name. Try this in XP, Press the start button on your keyboard, then the 'r' key, and type winword and hit enter. If you have firefox, type firefox, want to see version info? winver, want to change startup options, msconfig, the list goes on and on. The only problem I have right now with upgrading is I'm still unsure with MS's DRM stuff. Specifically, I use SPDIF. I would like to hear sound, and SPDIF is not 'managed by Vista' so Vista reserves the right to cut it off. Now I know what MS's response to this has been, something to the effect of, Vista has the ability to do this, but unless an application specifically tells it to do it, it won't. I did have a question about UAC with the retail Vista. I have been using RC1 and RC2, on a dual monitor setup. UAC doesn't 'dim' the screen on my setup, but rather uses a harsh flick to the greyed overtone to the desktop. I.e. instead of getting a subtle greying of the desktop and a popup for UAC, its more like *WAM* DARKER! then a UAC popup. Is that the same in the retail version? I ask because RC1 and RC2 were much more gentle than the Beta ones... which actually blanked out both monitors for a second, giving me the 'oopsie i done raped me video cardie somehow' feeling.

The naming is overwrought, and they have a lot of editions, but I'm sure that is because they listened to their customers. I'm sure that plenty of business users complained that they had to buy the Pro version of XP and wanted something else. In comes Business, and available at retail for smaller businesses. In comes Enterprise, for the enterprise market, and not available at retail. Ultimate is for the enthusiasts, and they will know what they want. Basic is for the non-UI features. The end to all of this is: *** VISTA HOME PREMIUM *** This is what everyone should get that are confused. Confusion ended. And let's not even talk about the N versions. MS would be more than happy to not have to create those versions, but an overzealous EU guaranteed that those extra versions were required. will84@ "how much credibility is there on a fairly anonymous comment section of small-scale website?" Well said. This comment transcends this argument here, and can be used to describe all of the web 2.0 "bloggers" who suddenly think they are real grown up journalists. And quite frankly, there is no credibility on a small-scale website without any proper forum features. Heck, I'm on a BugMeNot account right now. I had been waiting to upgrade, and I just ordered a new Dell with ultimate last night. BTW, Dell only gave me the option of Home Premium or Ultimate, so there is little confusion there. I don't doubt that people will wait. That's fine. MS is going to have SP1 out by the Christmas season, which will be a nice time for a lot of upgraders. I expect only minimal traction this year, just like when XP came out. And lotsa, you forgot to put in the first post what bonch would say. And I have to agree with vandil, Waethorn as of recently has become more belligerent and just as bad as the iPeople.

"Am I forgetting something? Probably. Because if there's a single truth about the new Windows version, it's that Microsoft will stop at nothing to ensure that you get the copy of Vista you so richly deserve". Well they can spin bubbles at me and I will never buy this lousy software.......period. I don't deserve it. What is with Microsoft? Do they really have that daft of people working at that company. You know I was recently reading along as I installed Windows XP Professional on a client's computer and it dawned on me that Microsoft can't even employ proper English in their process.......yep, it is true for lo and behold did appear the word "gotten"...."Have you ever gotten...." Wow, I was astonsihed......but this is but another subtle reflection on a company that simply just doesn't get it and their silly schtick over all the different release versions of Vista is another example of their daftness.

And lotsa, you forgot to put in the first post what bonch would say. And I have to agree with vandil, Waethorn as of recently has become more belligerent and just as bad as the iPeople. Well I think a lot of the dribble and beating dead horses is about the old and tired Mac and PC debate. This is an argument that bringsd out the worst on both ends and is revealing in how it can show the poor character on both sides.....but usually more so on the Mac side since those egoistics are more prone toward criticism. This, I simply do not fathom because anyone with half a college education knows that OS X is a better software system while the same educated people know that they will be able to do a wider variety of things using Windows. So what is the real beef anyway? Both are proprietary in general and both have pros and cons. Anyway, the debate over this is about as boring as it gets in the IT world these days. You guys are embarrassing yourselves....get over it.....

@will84 yes, you can run programs in XP via the run command, but if you an average computer-illiterate user, the search bar is handy. For instance, I received a call at work from my mom; she could not find a program she needed to run. I told her to use the search function in the start menu, and she found the program. About the Vista DRM issue, Vista will _not_ do anything to any output, including SPDIF unless the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray specifically tells it to. There is a lot of FUD going around about this DRM issue. I read an article on one of the Microsoft developer blogs, which says that the DRM only goes into effect if the content providers enable it, which no vendor is doing today. Here is the link: http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/2006/12/31/windows_vista_drm_nonsense I doubt the content providers will *ever* enable the draconian content protection, because so many people use SPDIF, component output, etc. Imagine the outcry if people inserted an HD-DVD and the player displayed the picture in low-res, and the audio was cut off. To summarize, I wouldn't worry about the output if I were you. SPDIF will work just fine, on all media, HD or otherwise, unless the content providers prohibit it (which will probably be never). What may be an issue is your audio card manufacturer. Creative is a prime example; as of today, they *still* don't have a stable, high quality audio driver. If your card *does* have a good driver, I would highly recommend going to Vista. If you have a Creative card, I would wait until better drivers are released.

Also, in the article I posted, the author details that *if* the content providers enable the content protection, if the OS does not provide an adequate level of security against copy protection (like Linux, OS X, or XP), the video will not play or will play in low res. Period. Apple will have to implement something similar to Vista's DRM scheme, and so will Linux (if it is possible to do such a thing on an open-source platform).

@will84 Regarding the UAC, to me, the screen is instantly greyed out. Sometimes if you have a lot of apps running, the screen *briefly* blanks out, but it isn't bad. I agree that MS could have implemented it in a more eye-pleasing way. I expect in Windows Vienna (or whatever it is called), that the UAC will be more elegant.

@treeorc, you should follow your own advice.

the UAC will blacken the screen before it goes grey depending on your video card and video acceleration features - Microsoft. XP

my translation of that is that it depends on how well your video card driver is written too. btw: looks like we're throttled back in speed again. likely it's the ad servers that are slowing the site down.... XP

regarding Creative: you might want to read this about Creative, Windows Vista, DirectX, and EAX. http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html doesn't seem to be a big deal for the majority of customers. most consumers don't know what EAX is - only gamers really do - and gamers that want the best sound experience will purchase a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi, so it really doesn't matter that much IMO. new games that come out that want to have hardware EAX effects will opt for OpenAL library support anyway, and of course will only work with hardware on Sound Blaster cards. when using OpenAL, non-Creative cards will do EAX in software, which isn't a big loss with the speed of new CPU's. the new Vista sound engine is better optimized than XP's anyway. Microsoft opted to go this way because of Creative's own lack of licensing out EAX Advanced HD (EAX3/4/5) to other sound chip vendors (there really aren't any other sound CARD makers on the market anymore) and also 3rd-party hardware vendors weren't utilizing hardware optimizations when EAX was turned on anyway. i'd say it's Creative's own fault for not licensing out EAX Advanced HD technology to 3rd-parties. they could've allowed a more mature adoption of the technology instead of closing it off to their own hardware. with Intel HD Audio chipsets covering the more than the basics for most consumers, there are less and less people buying Creative's dedicated sound cards. now the whole plan has turned around and bitten them in the a$$. to conclude and make a long story short, this is likely why Creative has so many problems with drivers and keeping up with release dates. i, for one, like my Creative SB X-Fi and woudln't give it up, but Creative's future sound card business seems to be mired in the muck. XP

"Creative's future sound card business seems to be mired in the muck." I attribute this to the amazing quality mobo chipset makers started putting into their onboard audio. Since purchasing my first nForce2 based board, years ago, I refuse to go back to Creative. Why bother when you can buy a whole new mobo with 5.1 and 7.1 audio that is comparable to Creative for less money than a dedicated sound card?

bmnbmn: now now now, what kind of gum are you chewing?

After having beta tested B2 and RC1 *and* having a couple of Vista boxes here in the office to play with since the middle of December, there is nothing in Vista; NOT ONE DAMN THING, that makes me want to upgrade from XP. .....sticknick perfect...couldn't have said it any better.....

@sticknick It does matter if you want *really* high-end audio. Creative can do some things with their sound cards that no one else can. @Waethorn-Yes, I know about the fiasco with Creative and OpenAL. I also don't see why they can't release a simple driver that takes advantage of Vista's new, improved audio stack, and leave out EAX. They could work on the EAX part *after* releasing a stable, working driver. I would rather have a stable driver than a buggy one with EAX enabled.

Have fun trying to use what you purchase: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=37734

"Have fun trying to use what you purchase" Indeed. Why can't Microsoft just give out replacement keys over the phone? Surely they have a database full of keys specific to this promotion. It's also going to be amusing to watch Vista Ultimate purchasers: If XP's promise of getting lots of extra Visual Styles was any indicator (only Royale (Tablet) and Zune styles were released in 5 years of XP), I won't be surprised if almost zero "Ultimate Extras" will come out during Vista's heyday. The prominent first-level "Ultimate Extras" shortcut in "Computer" will just sit there and mock Ultimate owners for the next 5 years. LOL.

NateB2 "It does matter if you want *really* high-end audio. Creative can do some things with their sound cards that no one else can." I do need high end audio sometimes; mostly for recording... but I get it from my m:audio USB unit :-) I've always found Creative kind of a 50/50 deal. Awesome hardware, but their software rivals NortonAV for hogging system resources.

"The prominent first-level "Ultimate Extras" shortcut in "Computer" will just sit there and mock Ultimate owners for the next 5 years. LOL." They should sh*tcan the Ultimate Extras altogether. I mean the Plus Packs of the past have been nothing but a waste of time and so far the Ultimate Extras are living up to that legacy. Chuggy video desktop? Texas Hold Em? A photo editor/organizer that should have been wrapped up in Windows Photo Gallery? Whooo!!! Hold me back!!

Creatrive works fine for home recording, gaming, etcetera; and produces a decent surround spectrum.......but for professional recording of high calibur at the digital and even analog levels, one would need to go way beyond their product......oh and by the way, the Creative software I run on my Media Center doesn't use that much of the system......when testing Vista I had a lot of problems with Creative though.....

actually, with the SNR that the Audigy 2 ZS and X-Fi series produce, they make a very cost-effective alternative to some of the over-priced professional cards. plus the fact that they have ASIO driver support makes them a welcome addition to any inexpensive PC studio setup. there used to be an Audigy 4 Pro with an external breakout box, albeit it likely meant "pro-sumer" and not "professional", but it did have higher quality codecs than the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, which had very similar features. likely the X-Fi Elite Pro has usurped it's position as the highest quality consumer card. the processing horsepower of the X-Fi chip makes a huge world of difference when dealing with an ungodly number of audio streams in real-time. don't forget that Creative also has their E-MU line of cards and devices. they're pretty nice, and i've worked with some of them before in Cubase VST and Cakewalk Sonar. they're often overlooked in the marketplace. i like what they offer for the price, over the cost-inflated M-Audio products. so far for me, the X-Fi beta drivers that Creative currently has are working good for general use. they are much better than the previous ones anyway. my gaming experience hasn't changed at all from XP either. i don't see any speed impact from switching to Vista, and game benchmarks seems to be at least on par. something i did notice was my 3DMark05 score has actually risen some, but i haven't run it for 6 months or so, and that could just be for the fact that i didn't have the same video drivers back then. my hardware didn't change tho. XP

If you want _really_ 'high end' audio, just get the signal out of your PC as fast as you can, keeping it in the digital domain for as much of the trip as you can. Then you can take the signal to a nice h/a amplifier and do whatever you need to do from there. I'm not saying X-Fi is sub-par, but Creative dropped the ball on the vista drivers. I'd expect certain features to not work, but I don't expect the audio to be crackly, and CPU at 100%. The main problem with X-Fi and other PC audio devices is the output terminations. My speakers use 8GA dual-conductor wire... I havn't seen any PC audio device that has a termination that fits that heh. @Nate Thanks for info on UAC... and yeah, I had resolved myself about the SPDIF stuff earlier, MS's response of supported-but-not-default is acceptable. It still does pain me that I've got 600US of viewsonic monitors that don't support HDCP though. But it is true, no OS will run a HDDVD/BluRay signal through a non HDCP line.

"I don't expect the audio to be crackly, and CPU at 100%" ? mine's running fine! i can stream 32 audio streams through Cakewalk without capping 20% usage on my Core Duo 1.66GHz notebook. do you have the latest drivers installed?? XP