Why vista will suck!

[dirio49]

Sorry for the long post, just thought it was interesting :)



A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
===================================================

Peter Gutmann, pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Last updated 23 December 2006

Executive Summary
-----------------

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to
provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data
from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs
considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical
support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not
only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the
protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever
come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for
example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document
analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral
damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

Executive Executive Summary
---------------------------

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the
longest suicide note in history.

Introduction
------------

This document looks purely at the cost of the technical portions of Vista's
content protection. The political issues (under the heading of DRM) have been
examined in exhaustive detail elsewhere and won't be commented on further,
unless it's relevant to the cost analysis. However, one important point that
must be kept in mind when reading this document is that in order to work,
Vista's content protection must be able to violate the laws of physics,
something that's unlikely to happen no matter how much the content industry
wishes it were possible. This conundrum is displayed over and over again in
the Windows content-protection specs, with manufacturers being given no hard-
and-fast guidelines but instead being instructed that they need to display as
much dedication as possible to the party line. The documentation is peppered
with sentences like:

"It is recommended that a graphics manufacturer go beyond the strict letter
of the specification and provide additional content-protection features,
because this demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content".

This is an exceedingly strange way to write technical specifications, but is
dictated by the fact that what the spec is trying to achieve is fundamentally
impossible. Readers should keep this requirement to display appropriate
levels of dedication in mind when reading the following analysis [Note A].

Disabling of Functionality
--------------------------

Vista's content protection mechanism only allows protected content to be sent
over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in.
Currently the most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF
(Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format). Most newer audio cards, for example,
feature TOSlink digital optical output for high-quality sound reproduction,
and even the latest crop of motherboards with integrated audio provide at
least coax (and often optical) digital output. Since S/PDIF doesn't provide
any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing
protected content. In other words if you've invested a pile of money into a
high-end audio setup fed from a digital output, you won't be able to use it
with protected content. Similarly, component (YPbPr) video will be disabled
by Vista's content protection, so the same applies to a high-end video setup
fed from component video.

Indirect Disabling of Functionality
-----------------------------------

As well as overt disabling of functionality, there's also covert disabling of
functionality. For example PC voice communications rely on automatic echo
cancellation (AEC) in order to work. AEC requires feeding back a sample of
the audio mix into the echo cancellation subsystem, but with Vista's content
protection this isn't permitted any more because this might allow access to
premium content. What is permitted is a highly-degraded form of feedback that
might possibly still sort-of be enough for some sort of minimal echo
cancellation purposes.

The requirement to disable audio and video output plays havoc with standard
system operations, because the security policy used is a so-called "system
high" policy: The overall sensitivity level is that of the most sensitive data
present in the system. So the instant any audio derived from premium content
appears on your system, signal degradation and disabling of outputs will
occur. What makes this particularly entertaining is the fact that the
downgrading/disabling is dynamic, so if the premium-content signal is
intermittent or varies (for example music that fades out), various outputs and
output quality will fade in and out, or turn on and off, in sync. Normally
this behaviour would be a trigger for reinstalling device drivers or even a
warranty return of the affected hardware, but in this case it's just a signal
that everything is functioning as intended.

Decreased Playback Quality
--------------------------

Alongside the all-or-nothing approach of disabling output, Vista requires that
any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality
that passes through it. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades
the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the
original spec, but with a significant loss in quality. So if you're using an
expensive new LCD display fed from a high-quality DVI signal on your video
card and there's protected content present, the picture you're going to see
will be, as the spec puts it, "slightly fuzzy", a bit like a 10-year-old CRT
monitor that you picked up for $2 at a yard sale. In fact the spec
specifically still allows for old VGA analog outputs, but even that's only
because disallowing them would upset too many existing owners of analog
monitors. In the future even analog VGA output will probably have to be
disabled. The only thing that seems to be explicitly allowed is the extremely
low-quality TV-out, provided that Macrovision is applied to it.

The same deliberate degrading of playback quality applies to audio, with the
audio being downgraded to sound (from the spec) "fuzzy with less detail".

Amusingly, the Vista content protection docs say that it'll be left to
graphics chip manufacturers to differentiate their product based on
(deliberately degraded) video quality. This seems a bit like breaking the
legs of Olympic athletes and then rating them based on how fast they can
hobble on crutches.

Beyond the obvious playback-quality implications of deliberately degraded
output, this measure can have serious repercussions in applications where
high-quality reproduction of content is vital. For example the field of
medical imaging either bans outright or strongly frowns on any form of lossy
compression because artifacts introduced by the compression process can cause
mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening. Consider a
medical IT worker who's using a medical imaging PC while listening to
audio/video played back by the computer (the CDROM drives installed in
workplace PCs inevitably spend most of their working lives playing music or
MP3 CDs to drown out workplace noise). If there's any premium content present
in there, the image will be subtly altered by Vista's content protection,
potentially creating exactly the life-threatening situation that the medical
industry has worked so hard to avoid. The scary thing is that there's no easy
way around this - Vista will silently modify displayed content under certain
(almost impossible-to-predict in advance) situations discernable only to
Vista's built-in content-protection subsystem.

Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support
-------------------------------------------

In order to prevent the creation of hardware emulators of protected output
devices, Vista requires a Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) that can be used
to uniquely fingerprint a hardware device to ensure that it's (probably)
genuine. In order to do this, the driver on the host PC performs an operation
in the hardware (for example rendering 3D content in a graphics card) that
produces a result that's unique to that device type.

In order for this to work, the spec requires that the operational details of
the device be kept confidential. Obviously anyone who knows enough about the
workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver for it
(for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non-Windows OS)
will also know enough to fake the HFS process. The only way to protect the
HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the device
beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other
products.

[dirio49]

Elimination of Unified Drivers
------------------------------

The HFS process has another cost involved with it. Most hardware vendors have
(thankfully) moved to unified driver models instead of the plethora of
individual drivers that abounded some years ago. Since HFS requires unique
identification and handling of not just each device type (for example each
graphics chip) but each variant of each device type (for example each stepping
of each graphics chip) to handle the situation where a problem is found with
one variation of a device, it's no longer possible to create one-size-fits-all
drivers for an entire range of devices like the current
Catalyst/Detonator/ForceWare drivers. Every little variation of every device
type out there must now be individually accommodated in custom code in order
for the HFS process to be fully effective.

If a graphics chip is integrated directly into the motherboard and there's no
easy access to the device bus then the need for bus encryption (see
"Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption" below) is removed. Because the
encryption requirement is so onerous, it's quite possible that this means of
providing graphics capabilities will suddenly become more popular after the
release of Vista. However, this leads to a problem: It's no longer possible
to tell if a graphics chip is situated on a plug-in card or attached to the
motherboard, since as far as the system is concerned they're both just devices
sitting on the AGP/PCIe bus. The solution to this problem is to make the two
deliberately incompatible, so that HFS can detect a chip on a plug-in card vs.
one on the motherboard. Again, this does nothing more than increase costs and
driver complexity.

Further problems occur with audio drivers. To the system, HDMI audio looks
like S/PDIF, a deliberate design decision to make handling of drivers easier.
In order to provide the ability to disable output, it's necessary to make HDMI
codecs deliberately incompatible with S/PDIF codecs, despite the fact that
they were specifically designed to appear identical in order to ease driver
support and reduce development costs.

Denial-of-Service via Driver Revocation
---------------------------------------

Once a weakness is found in a particular driver or device, that driver will
have its signature revoked by Microsoft, which means that it will cease to
function (details on this are a bit vague here, presumably some minimum
functionality like generic 640x480 VGA support will still be available in
order for the system to boot). This means that a report of a compromise of a
particular driver or device will cause all support for that device worldwide
to be turned off until a fix can be found. Again, details are sketchy, but if
it's a device problem then presumably the device turns into a paperweight once
it's revoked. If it's an older device for which the vendor isn't interested
in rewriting their drivers (and in the fast-moving hardware market most
devices enter "legacy" status within a year of two of their replacement models
becoming available), all devices of that type worldwide become permanently
unusable.

The threat of driver revocation is the ultimate nuclear option, the crack of
the commissars' pistols reminding the faithful of their duty [Note B]. The
exact details of the hammer that vendors will be hit with is buried in
confidential licensing agreements, but I've heard mention of multimillion
dollar fines and embargoes on further shipment of devices alongside the driver
revocation mentioned above.

Decreased System Reliability
----------------------------

"Drivers must be extra-robust. Requires additional driver development to
isolate and protect sensitive code paths" -- ATI.

Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software
drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual. For
example if there are unusual voltage fluctuations, maybe some jitter on bus
signals, a slightly funny return code from a function call, a device register
that doesn't contain quite the value that was expected, or anything similar, a
tilt bit gets set. Such occurrences aren't too uncommon in a typical computer
(for example starting up or plugging in a bus-powered device may cause a small
glitch in power supply voltages, or drivers may not quite manage device state
as precisely as they think). Previously this was no problem - the system was
designed with a bit of resilience, and things will function as normal. In
other words small variances in performance are a normal part of system
functioning. Furthermore, the degree of variance can differ widely across
systems, with some handling large changes in system parameters and others only
small ones. One very obvious way to observe this is what happens when a bunch
of PCs get hit by a momentary power outage. Effects will vary from powering
down, to various types of crash, to nothing at all, all triggered by exactly
the same external event.

With the introduction of tilt bits, all of this designed-in resilience is
gone. Every little (normally unnoticeable) glitch is suddenly surfaced
because it could be a sign of a hack attack. The effect that this will have
on system reliability should require no further explanation.

Content-protection "features" like tilt bits also have worrying denial-of-
service (DoS) implications. It's probably a good thing that modern malware is
created by programmers with the commercial interests of the phishing and spam
industries in mind rather than just creating as much havoc as possible. With
the number of easily-accessible grenade pins that Vista's content protection
provides, any piece of malware that decides to pull a few of them will cause
considerable damage. The homeland security implications of this seem quite
serious, since a tiny, easily-hidden piece of malware would be enough to
render a machine unusable, while the very nature of Vista's content protection
would make it almost impossible to determine why the denial-of-service is
occurring. Furthermore, the malware authors, who are taking advantage of
"content-protection" features, would be protected by the DMCA against any
attempts to reverse-engineer or disable the content-protection "features" that
they're abusing.

Even without deliberate abuse by malware, the homeland security implications
of an external agent being empowered to turn off your IT infrastructure in
response to a content leak discovered in some chipset that you coincidentally
happen to be using is a serious concern for potential Vista users. Non-US
governments are already nervous enough about using a US-supplied operating
system without having this remote DoS capability built into the operating
system. And like the medical-image-degradation issue, you won't find out
about this until it's too late, turning Vista PCs into ticking time bombs if
the revocation functionality is ever employed.

Increased Hardware Costs
------------------------

"Cannot go to market until it works to specification... potentially more
respins of hardware" -- ATI.

"This increases motherboard design costs, increases lead times, and reduces
OEM configuration flexibility. This cost is passed on to purchasers of
multimedia PCs and may delay availability of high-performance platforms" --
ATI.

Vista includes various requirements for "robustness" in which the content
industry, through "hardware robustness rules", dictates design requirements to
hardware manufacturers. For example, only certain layouts of a board are
allowed in order to make it harder for outsiders to access parts of the board.
Possibly for the first time ever, computer design is being dictated not by
electronic design rules, physical layout requirements, and thermal issues, but
by the wishes of the content industry. Apart from the massive headache that
this poses to device manufacturers, it also imposes additional increased costs
beyond the ones incurred simply by having to lay out board designs in a
suboptimal manner. Video card manufacturers typically produce a one-size-
fits-all design (often a minimally-altered copy of the chipset vendor's
reference design), and then populate different classes and price levels of
cards in different ways. For example a low-end card will have low-cost,
minimal or absent TV-out encoders, DVI circuitry, RAMDACs, and various other
add-ons used to differentiate budget from premium video cards. You can see
this on the cheaper cards by observing the unpopulated bond pads on circuit
boards, and gamers and the like will be familiar with cut-a-trace/resolder-a-
resistor sidegrades of video cards. Vista's content-protection requirements
eliminate this one-size-fits-all design, banning the use of separate TV-out
encoders, DVI circuitry, RAMDACs, and other discretionary add-ons. Everything
has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary
accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn't
just a high-cost card with components omitted, and conversely a high-cost card
isn't just a low-cost card with additional discretionary components added,
each one has to be a completely custom design created to ensure that no signal
on the board is accessible.

This extends beyond simple board design all the way down to chip design.
Instead of adding an external DVI chip, it now has to be integrated into the
graphics chip, along with any other functionality normally supplied by an
external chip. So instead of varying video card cost based on optional
components, the chipset vendor now has to integrate everything into a one-
size-fits-all premium-featured graphics chip, even if all the user wants is a
budget card for their kids' PC.

Increased Cost due to Requirement to License Unnecessary Third-party IP
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"We've taken on more legal costs in copyright protection in the last six to
eight months than we have in any previous engagement. Each legal contract
sets a new precedent, and each new one builds on the previous one" -- ATI.

Protecting all of this precious premium content requires a lot of additional
technology. Unfortunately much of this is owned by third parties and requires
additional licensing. For example HDCP for HDMI is owned by Intel, so in
order to send a signal over HDMI you have to pay royalties to Intel, even
though you could do exactly the same thing for free over DVI. Similarly,
since even AES-128 on a modern CPU isn't fast enough to encrypt high-bandwidth
content, companies are required to license the Intel-owned Cascaded Cipher, an
AES-128-based transform that's designed to offer a generally similar level of
security but with less processing overhead.

The need to obtain unnecessary technology licenses extends beyond basic
hardware IP. In order to demonstrate their commitment to the cause, Microsoft
have recommended as part of their "robustness rules" that vendors license
third-party code obfuscation tools to provide virus-like stealth capabilities
for their device drivers in order to make it difficult to interfere with their
operations or reverse-engineer them. Vendors like Cloakware and Arxan have
actually added "robustness solutions" web pages to their sites in anticipation
of this lucrative market. This must be a nightmare for device vendors, for
whom it's already enough of a task getting fully functional drivers deployed
without having to deal with adding stealth-virus-like technology on top of the
basic driver functionality.

Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption
------------------------------------

"Since [encryption] uses CPU cycles, an OEM may have to bump the speed grade
on the CPU to maintain equivalent multimedia performance. This cost is
passed on to purchasers of multimedia PCs" -- ATI.

In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication
flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content to video
cards has to be encrypted with AES-128. This requirement for cryptography
extends beyond basic content encryption to encompass not just data flowing
over various buses but also command and control data flowing between software
components. For example communications between user-mode and kernel-mode
components are authenticated with OMAC message authentication-code tags, at
considerable cost to both ends of the connection.

[dirio49]

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the
underlying hardware every 30ms to ensure that everything appears kosher. This
means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted
drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that... nothing
continues to happen. In addition to this polling, further device-specific
polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video
frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are
still as they should be [Note C].

On-board graphics create an additional problem in that blocks of precious
content will end up stored in system memory, from where they could be paged to
disk. In order to avoid this, Vista tags such pages with a special protection
bit indicating that they need to be encrypted before being paged out and
decrypted again after being paged in. Vista doesn't provide any other
pagefile encryption, and will quite happily page banking PINs, credit card
details, private, personal data, and other sensitive information, in
plaintext. The content-protection requirements make it fairly clear that in
Microsoft's eyes a frame of premium content is worth more than (say) a user's
medical records or their banking PIN.

In addition to the CPU costs, the desire to render data inaccessible at any
level means that video decompression can't be done in the CPU any more, since
there isn't sufficient CPU power available to both decompress the video and
encrypt the resulting uncompressed data stream to the video card. As a
result, much of the decompression has to be integrated into the graphics chip.
At a minimum this includes IDCT, MPEG motion compensation, and the Windows
Media VC-1 codec (which is also DCT-based, so support via an IDCT core is
fairly easy). As a corollary to the "Increased Hardware Costs" problem above,
this means that you can't ship a low-end graphics chip without video codec
support any more.

The inability to perform decoding in software also means that any premium-
content compression scheme not supported by the graphics hardware can't be
implemented. If things like the Ogg video codec ever eventuate and get used
for premium content, they had better be done using something like Windows
Media VC-1 or they'll be a non-starter under Vista or Vista-approved hardware.
This is particularly troubling for the high-quality digital cinema (D-Cinema)
specification, which uses Motion JPEG2000 (MJ2K) because standard MPEG and
equivalents don't provide sufficient image quality. Since JPEG2000 uses
wavelet-based compression rather than MPEG's DCT-based compression, and
wavelet-based compression isn't on the hardware codec list, it's not possible
to play back D-Cinema premium content (the moribund Ogg Tarkin codec also used
wavelet-based compression). Because *all* D-Cinema content will (presumably)
be premium content, the result is no playback at all until the hardware
support appears in PCs at some indeterminate point in the future. Compare
this to the situation with MPEG video, where early software codecs like the
XingMPEG en/decoder practically created the market for PC video. Today, thanks
to Vista's content protection, the opening up of new markets in this manner
would be impossible.

The high-end graphics and audio market are dominated entirely by gamers, who
will do anything to gain the tiniest bit of extra performance, like buying
Bigfoot Networks' $250 "Killer NIC" ethernet card in the hope that it'll help
reduce their network latency by a few milliseconds. These are people buying
$500-$1000 graphics and sound cards for which one single sale brings the
device vendors more than the few cents they get from the video/audio portion
of an entire roomful of integrated-graphics-and-sound PCs. I wonder how this
market segment will react to knowing that their top-of-the-line hardware is
being hamstrung by all of the content-protection "features" that Vista hogties
it with?

Unnecessary Device Resource Consumption
---------------------------------------

"Compliance rules require [content] to be encrypted. This requires
additional encryption/decryption logic thus adding to VPU costs. This cost
is passed on to all consumers" -- ATI.

As part of the bus-protection scheme, devices are required to implement
AES-128 encryption in order to receive content from Vista. This has to be
done via a hardware decryption engine on the graphics chip, which would
typically be implemented by throwing away a rendering pipeline or two to make
room for the AES engine.

Establishing the AES key with the device hardware requires further
cryptographic overhead, in this case a 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
In programmable devices this can be done (with considerable effort) in the
device (for example in programmable shader hardware), or more simply by
throwing out a few more rendering pipelines and implementing a public-key-
cryptography engine in the freed-up space.

Needless to say, the need to develop, test, and integrate encryption engines
into audio/video devices will only add to their cost, as covered in "Increased
Hardware Costs" above, and the fact that their losing precious performance in
order to accommodate Vista's content protection will make gamers less than
happy.

[dirio49]

Final Thoughts
--------------

"No amount of coordination will be successful unless it's designed with the
needs of the customer in mind. Microsoft believes that a good user
experience is a requirement for adoption" -- Microsoft.

"The PC industry is committed to providing content protection on the PC, but
nothing comes for free. These costs are passed on to the consumer" -- ATI.

At the end of all this, the question remains: Why is Microsoft going to this
much trouble? Ask most people what they picture when you use the term
"premium media player" and they'll respond with "A PVR" or "A DVD player" and
not "A Windows PC". So why go to this much effort to try and turn the PC into
something that it's not?

In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an analysis of the anti-competitive
nature of Apple's iTunes copy-restriction system ("Apple's Copy Protection
Isn't Just Bad For Consumers, It's Bad For Business", Cory Doctorow,
Information Week, 31 July 2006). The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft
would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and
ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy
protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution
channel. In the same way that Apple has managed to acquire a monopolistic
lock-in on their music distribution channel (an example being the Motorola
ROKR fiasco, which was so crippled by Apple-imposed restrictions that it was
dead the moment it appeared), so Microsoft will totally control the premium-
content distribution channel. Not only will they be able to lock out any
competitors, but because they will then represent the only available
distribution channel they'll be able to dictate terms back to the content
providers whose needs they are nominally serving in the same way that Apple
has already dictated terms back to the music industry: Play by Apple's rules,
or we won't carry your content. The result will be a technologically enforced
monopoly that makes their current de-facto Windows monopoly seem like a velvet
glove in comparison.

Overall, Vista's content-protection functionality seems like an astonishingly
short-sighted piece of engineering, concentrating entirely on content
protection with no consideration given to the enormous repercussions of the
measures employed. It's something like the PC equivalent of the (hastily
dropped) proposal mooted in Europe to put RFID tags into high-value banknotes
as an anti-counterfeiting measure, completely ignoring the fact that the major
users of this technology would end up being criminals who would use it to
remotely identify the most lucrative robbery targets.

The worst thing about all of this is that there's no escape. Hardware
manufacturers will have to drink the kool-aid (and the reference to mass
suicide here is deliberate [Note D]) in order to work with Vista: "There is no
requirement to sign the [content-protection] license; but without a
certificate, no premium content will be passed to the driver". Of course as a
device manufacturer you can choose to opt out, if you don't mind your device
only ever being able to display low-quality, fuzzy, blurry video and audio
when premium content is present, while your competitors don't have this
(artificially-created) problem.

As a user, there is simply no escape. Whether you use Windows Vista, Windows
XP, Windows 95, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, Solaris (on x86), or almost any other
OS, Windows content protection will make your hardware more expensive, less
reliable, more difficult to program for, more difficult to support, more
vulnerable to hostile code, and with more compatibility problems.

Here's an offer to Microsoft: If we, the consumers, promise to never, ever,
ever buy a single HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc containing any precious premium
content [Note E], will you in exchange withhold this poison from the computer
industry? Please?

Acknowledgements
----------------

This document was put together with input from various sources, including a
number that requested that I keep their contributions anonymous (in some cases
I've simplified or rewritten some details to ensure that the original,
potentially traceable wording of non-public requirements docs isn't used).
Because it wasn't always possible to go back to the sources and verify exact
details, it's possible that there may be some inaccuracies present, which I'm
sure I'll hear about fairly quickly. No doubt Microsoft (who won't want a
view of Vista as being broken by design to take root) will also provide their
spin on the details.

In addition to the material present here, I'd be interested in getting further
input both from people at Microsoft involved in implementing the content
protection measures and from device vendors who are required to implement the
hardware and driver software measures. I know from the Microsoft sources that
contributed that many of them care deeply about providing the best possible
audio/video user experience for Vista users and are quite distressed about
having to spend time implementing large amounts of anti-functionality when
it's already hard enough to get things running smoothly without the
intentional crippling. I'm always open to further input, and will keep all
contributions confidential unless you give me permission to repeat something.
If you want to encrypt things, my PGP key is linked from my home page,
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001.

Sources
-------

Because this writeup started out as a private discussion in email, a number of
the sources used were non-public. The best public sources that I know of are:

"Output Content Protection and Windows Vista",
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx, from WHDC.

"Windows Longhorn Output Content Protection",
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05006_WinHEC05.ppt,
from WinHEC.

"How to Implement Windows Vista Content Output Protection",
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/9/5b97017b-e28a-4bae-ba48-174cf47d23cd/MED038_WH06.ppt,
from WinHEC.

"Protected Media Path and Driver Interoperability Requirements",
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05005_WinHEC05.ppt,
from WinHEC.

An excellent analysis from one of the hardware vendors involved in this comes
from ATI, in the form of "Digital Media Content Protection",
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05002_WinHEC05.ppt,
from WinHEC. This points out (in the form of PowerPoint bullet-points) the
manifold problems associated with Vista's content-protection measures, with
repeated mention of increased development costs, degraded performance and the
phrase "increased costs passed on to consumers" pervading the entire
presentation like a mantra.

(Note that the crypto requirements have changed since some of the information
above was published, for example SHA-1 has been deprecated in favour of
SHA-256 and SHA-512, and public keys seem to be uniformly set at 2048 bits in
place of the mixture of 1024-bit and 2048-bit mentioned in the presentations).

In addition there have been quite a few writeups on this (although not going
into as much detail as this document) in magazines both online and in print,
one example being PC World's feature article "Will your PC run Windows
Vista?", http://www.pcw.co.uk/articles/print/2154785, which covers this in the
appropriately-titled section "Multimedia in chains". Audience reactions at
WinHEC are covered in "Longhorn: tough trail to PC digital media" published in
EE Times (http://www.eetimes.com/issue/fp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=162100180),
unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to read this but you may be able to
find accessible cached copies using your favourite search engine.

Footnotes
---------

Note A: I'll make a prediction at this point that, given that it's trying to
do the impossible, the Vista content protection will take less than a day to
bypass if the bypass mechanism is something like a driver bug or a simple
security hole that applies only to one piece of code (and can therefore be
quickly patched), and less than a week to comprehensively bypass in a
driver/hardware-independent manner. This doesn't mean it'll be broken the day
or week that it appears, but simply that once a sufficiently skilled attacker
is motivated to bypass the protection, it'll take them less than a day or a
week to do so.

Note B: I see some impressive class-action suits to follow if this revocation
mechanism is ever applied. Perhaps Microsoft or the content providers will
buy everyone who owns a device that inadvertently leaks content and is then
disabled by the revocation process replacement hardware for their system.
Some contributors have commented that they can't see the revocation system
ever being used because the consumer backlash would be too enormous, but then
the legal backlash from not going ahead could be equally extreme. For anyone
who's read "Guns of August", the situation seems a bit like pre-WWI Europe
with people sitting on step 1 of enormously complex battle plans that can't be
backed out of once triggered, no matter how obvious it is that going ahead
with them is a bad idea. Driver revocation is a lose/lose situation for
Microsoft, they're in for some serious pain whether they do or they don't.
Their lawyers must have been asleep when they let themselves get painted into
this particular corner.

An entirely different DoS problem that applies more to HDMI-enabled devices in
general has already surfaced in the form of, uhh, "DVI amplifiers", which take
as input an HDMI signal and output a DVI signal, amplifying it in the process.
Oh, and as a side-effect they just happen to remove the HDCP protection.
These devices are relatively simple to design and build using off-the-shelf
HDMI chips (I know of hardware hackers who have built their own protection-
strippers using chip samples obtained from chip vendors. If you have the
right credentials you can even get hardware evaluation boards designed for
testing and development that do this sort of thing).

Now assume that the "DVI amplifier" manufacturer buys a truckload of HDMI
chips (they'll want to get as many as they can in one go because they probably
won't be able to go back and buy more when the chip vendor discovers what
they're being used for). Since this is a rogue device, it can be revoked...
alongside hundreds of thousands or even millions of other consumer devices
that use the same chip. Engadget have a good overview of this scenario at
http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/21/the-clicker-hdcps-shiny-red-button/.

Note C: We already have multiple reports from Vista reviewers of playback
problems with video and audio content, with video frames dropped and audio
stuttering even on high-end systems. Time will tell whether this problem is
due to immature drivers, or has been caused by the overhead imposed by Vista's
content protection mechanisms interfering with playback.

Note D: The "kool-aid" reference may be slightly unfamiliar to non-US readers,
it's a reference to the 1978 Jonestown mass-suicide in which Jim Jones'
followers drank Flavor Aid laced with poison in order to demonstrate their
dedication to the cause. In popular usage the term "kool-aid" is substituted
for Flavor Aid because it has more brand recognition.

Note E: If I do ever want to play back premium content, I'll wait a few years
and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows
PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to
find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs.

A reductio ad absurdem solution to the "premium-content problem", proposed by
a Slashdot reader, is to add support to Windows Vista for a black-box hardware
component that accepts as input encrypted compressed premium content and
produces as output encrypted (or otherwise protected) decoded premium content.
In other words, move the entire mass of hardware, driver, and software
protection into a dedicated black box that's only used in media PCs where it's
(arguably) required.

Now compare this add-on black box to the canonical Chinese-made $50 media
player. Why would anyone buy the black box (which will almost certainly cost
more than $50) when they can buy a complete dedicated media play that does the
same thing and more?

[Guest]

Next time, please just post the source link.

[dirio49]

Sorry, :o .
Now I know for next time. :)

[wmansir]

My FUD waders only go up to my knees, I think I need hip waders for this article.

[foxyshadis]

Next time, please just post the source link.

Merlin already did yesterday, anyway: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=119731

[zambelli]

FYI, Dave Marsh of Microsoft posted a detailed rebuttal to that document here:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx

I'm posting this just as an FYI, not advocating either side of the argument, so please don't send your comments on either article to me. :)

[unmei]

Thanks zambelli - i knew the posted article but probably wouldn't have stumbled over the answer you linked by myself anytime soon.

[JohnnyMalaria]

For many people who will use Vista, these DRM issues are meaningless.

I, for one, couldn't care less about using my PC as the hub of a home entertainment system, let alone be concerned about whether I can watch HD on an HD display.

If I should ever get an HD TV (most unlikely until they are the only option), I'd get a HD DVD player to watch movies, not my PC. And, guess what, that HD DVD player will have a whole bunch of DRM controls, too.

A computer is a tool. That's all. Because one facet of that tool may make some tasks harder than others, doesn't mean the whole toolbox will suck.

IMHO, the University of Auckland should discipline that "researcher" for "publishing" such a biased and sensationalist "article".

[Jim Ford]

My FUD waders only go up to my knees, I think I need hip waders for this article.

Very, very droll! Well worth wading through the previous postings to get to this!

Jim Ford

[dragongodz]

shouldnt this really be in the "pc hardware and software" section ?

IMHO, the University of Auckland should discipline that "researcher" for "publishing" such a biased and sensationalist "article".
hmmm and what should MS do to Dave Marsh then for replying with a spin and wrong information reply then ?

Will Windows Vista content protection features increase CPU resource consumption?

Yes. However, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality.
spin. this is not additional functionality for consumers but business, ie. protected content providers. even if you do not use any protected content your cpu consumption is still going to be increased by the check process sitting in the background running anyway.

Will the Windows Vista content protection board robustness recommendations increase the cost of graphics cards and reduce the number of build options?

Everything was moving to be integrated on the one chip anyway and this is independent of content protection recommendations. Given that cost (particularly chip cost) is most heavily influenced by volume, it is actually better to avoid making things optional through the use of external chips. It is a happy side effect that this technology trend also reduces the number of vulnerable tracks on the board.
spin and/or wrong information. ATI have already said it will increase cost.

i would suggest people also read the comments after the rebuttal. yes theres a lot and some are plain silly but there are ones that take apart the rebuttal aswell showing where its wrong.

[wmansir]

The only thing that interests me is if Vista's DRM impacts other processes when no protected content is present. Does anyone have any PROOF of that?

[KoD]

If you're reading the "Output Content Protection and Windows Vista" from WHDC (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/AVstream.mspx), it says that Vista will chose the most restrictive policy amongst those that it has to conform to at one moment. So, if you're playing one of your encodes with 6ch AC3 through S/PDIF and you feel the urge to put a HDVD disc in, Vista will suddenly switch S/PDIF to 2ch stereo. Same thing goes if you're watching some internet video or any other non "premium content" and you suddenly have to play "premium content" in paralel. The restrictions imposed by the "premium content" playback get enforced even on the non-premium content playback. More inside.

[Die*wrek*show]

Does anyone know if any drm or related features were included in xp's sp2?

[Doom9]

hmmm and what should MS do to Dave Marsh then for replying with a spin and wrong information reply then ?give him a medal for sugarcoating what is essentially letting down your pants and bending over? Microsoft isn't exactly known for playing nice, but instead of telling the MPAA on how movies are to be played on their operating system, they re-engineered the whole thing to conform to the MPAA's wishes. If only Microsoft were as accomodating in other areas (source code? sure go ahead and sure you can use it to create custom windows builds.... full API documentation (remember the EU ruling), etc.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd have liked to see the MPAA's reaction if Microsoft flat out refused to change Windows in any way for media playback. After all, HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs play just fine in XP, so those additional mechanisms are all but a necessity, let alone a necessary evil - the MPAA might have rattled their saber, but in the end they'd have to accept the inevitable.. being locked out from millions of machines simply is not an option.

[Sharktooth]

Absolutely. And i think they wouldnt even sell HD media at all with the current standalone players prices...

[hsoftwaremaster]

Vista indeed sucks, 15 GB of free desk space for an operating system? come on Always remember the meaning of "operating system": A thin THIN light weight environment for you programs to run on. A hosting environment not a beast to eat all my resources!

I'll stick with XP with SP 2

[foxyshadis]

Vista indeed sucks, 15 GB of free desk space for an operating system? come on Always remember the meaning of "operating system": A thin THIN light weight environment for you programs to run on. A hosting environment not a beast to eat all my resources!

I'll stick with XP with SP 2

True, and you can't really get much thinner or lighter than DOS 2.0. What, you aren't using that? Oh, then you might want to be a little more cogent in your arguments in the future.

[wmansir]

I don't think MS has as much sway with the media companies as people think. In the consumer electronics marketplace they are a small player trying to grow, far from a dominate force. If you look at only Media Center PCs (that are actually used as media centers, not just sold with XP MCE or Vista Premium), then it is an incredibly small install base. In the digital music arena, Apple is undisputed king with $2+ Billion in established revenue, yet even they are not bold enough to lay down an ultimatum on DRM. Jobs recent suggestion to abolish DRM seemed designed more to distract from and defend it's Fairplay monopoly than put forth a serious proposal.

If Vista didn't support HDCP then I'll grant that it just might give some companies added pause before they switch the ICT flag on. Given the current situation they will still get plenty of blowback from the millions without full HDCP support in their living rooms now. But I very much doubt it would make them abandon HDCP all together.

[Isochroma]

Here are the performance numbers:

Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown (http://isochroma.com/Testfiles/Misc/doom9/Vista/Windows%20XP%20vs.%20Vista%20-%20The%20Benchmark%20Rundown.htm)

25% speed loss for video compression.

[hsoftwaremaster]

True, and you can't really get much thinner or lighter than DOS 2.0. What, you aren't using that? Oh, then you might want to be a little more cogent in your arguments in the future.

If Dos2.0 can support the software I run today, Yes I would love to use it :)

[zambelli]

Here are the performance numbers:
Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown (http://isochroma.com/Testfiles/Misc/doom9/Vista/Windows%20XP%20vs.%20Vista%20-%20The%20Benchmark%20Rundown.htm)
25% speed loss for video compression.
... in their particular benchmark, which, you'll notice, includes MPEG-2 decoding as a part of the "video compression" test. I already questioned the methodology of that particular benchmark. If they want to benchmark "video compression", they should be using an uncompressed source, not transcoding from one format to another because that includes a slew of components in the process that aren't really targeted by the benchmark.

In my experience with WMV encoding, Vista is about 1-2% slower on the same hardware with the same encoding software, though I've also seen it go faster in a few tests.

[celtic_druid]

Most people would be encoding from DVD or TS sources though which would be MPEG-2. How many people compress from raw sources? I would imagine that the point of such tests is to perform tasks that readers perform.

[zambelli]

Most people would be encoding from DVD or TS sources though which would be MPEG-2. How many people compress from raw sources? I would imagine that the point of such tests is to perform tasks that readers perform.
Then it can't be called simply "encoding". "Transcoding" would be a more appropriate title. Transcoding consists of decoding + encoding. Their benchmark description only mentions the encoder software, but doesn't indicate what MPEG-2 decoder they used. Theoretically the bottleneck could've been in the MPEG-2 decoding part of the process, so it's unfair to say "encoding is slower" if they never took decoding out of the equation to prove that.

[celtic_druid]

If they are testing AutoGK, then the conclusion is that encoding a DVD with AutoGK is slower under Vista than XP. Who cares if you are actually transcoding or if it was the MPEG-2 decoder that was the cause (could also be AVISynth). The fact remains that as a consumer, using AutoGK is slower under Vista (according to that article).

My concern would be with the length of the source. A 182 MB VOB can't have been very long.

If you really need your PC to finish huge encoding, transcoding or rendering
Remember the audio encoding was from a PCM source.

So what is it exactly which you object? Just the "Xvid 1.2 Video Encoding" title?

So please do test encoding a raw source with xvidencraw and see if there really is any speed difference. But at the end of the day, I can't see it makes any difference. Decode to raw under XP, reboot to Vista and encode?

[zambelli]

So what is it exactly which you object? Just the "Xvid 1.2 Video Encoding" title?
I'm objecting to the fact that they're not disclosing other details of their test setup, such as which MPEG-2 decoder they're using. Was it even the same decoder? We don't know. How can we trust the benchmark if only half of it is known?

So please do test encoding a raw source with xvidencraw and see if there really is any speed difference. But at the end of the day, I can't see it makes any difference. Decode to raw under XP, reboot to Vista and encode?
Would it make a difference if it turned out that 2 entirely different MPEG-2 decoders were used in their benchmarks? Of course it would. I'm not saying that's the case - I'm merely saying that the video benchmarks should be taken with a big grain of salt because half of the benchmark process is completely unknown.

If you can point me to a particular build of XviD you'd like me to test, I can certainly kick off a few encoding jobs on any of my test machines - they're all dual boot XP-Vista.

[celtic_druid]

AutoGK uses dgdecode, so this would be the same setup on both machines. Main Concept's encoder I guess is dshow based? Maybe it always uses their MPEG-2 decoder? Otherwise I guess there could have been different decoders used.

I guess if you wanted to test, then xvidcore from: http://tirnanog.fate.jp/mirror/XviD/xvid.cvs.head.MTK.2006.12.20.7z with squid_80's encraw build. Benching VfW encoding would I guess also be worthwhile.

http://tirnanog.fate.jp/mirror/XviD/xvid.cvs.head.MTK.2006.12.08.7z
would have been the exact build used in the test though. You could also just install AutoGK.

As I said the thing that worries me about their test is that they were using only 2min sources. For a source that short you would need to run it multiple times. With a full length source things would average out more.

There is also an older 64bit build if you wanted to test XP x64 vs. Vista x64.

[Manao]

Theoretically the bottleneck could've been in the MPEG-2 decoding part of the process, so it's unfair to say "encoding is slower"A raw video has a much higher probability of been the bottleneck, whatever the OS, so I don't see your point. If you really want to test encoding only, you must use the fastest possible source. And most often than none, the fastest available source is a mpeg2 file, because the bandwidth required for uncompressed video is too much.

If the mpeg2 decoders were different, indeed your point would be valid. Otherwise, it is not.

[foxyshadis]

It could just as easily by DXVA enabled on XP and disabled on Vista in the beta drivers. Who knows, you'll never find out unless you email and ask for more details on the methodology.

[zambelli]

It could just as easily by DXVA enabled on XP and disabled on Vista in the beta drivers. Who knows, you'll never find out unless you email and ask for more details on the methodology.
Actually, DXVA decoding can only be used when rendering the video to VMR or EVR. You couldn't use it in a decoder-to-encoder pipeline.

[Isochroma]

Your statement is giving me some awful ideas zambelli! Maybe it could!

All we need to do is, after the frame has been sent to the gfx. card for rendering, read back its framebuffer memory using the agp/pcie bus, and voila! juicy hardware-decoded frames in main memory.

Thus the title of this thread is really pertinent: Vista will have to suck, that is: vista will have to suck hardware-decoded frames back thru the agp/pcie bus to be able to equal the speed of XP in decode.

[zambelli]

Thus the title of this thread is really pertinent: Vista will have to suck, that is: vista will have to suck hardware-decoded frames back thru the agp/pcie bus to be able to equal the speed of XP in decode.
Who says decoding is slower on Vista?

[migrena]

Theoretically the bottleneck could've been in the MPEG-2 decoding part of the process
actually it was you who said that slower encoding speeds in that test may be caused by slower decoding
if the reason of such decreased encoding speed is not decoder then its true that encoding is slower
if the former is true then the question is why there is such difference in decoding between xp and vista with the same decoder? or do we need specially designed decoders to be able to get at least comparable decoding speeds?

[zambelli]

if the former is true then the question is why there is such difference in decoding between xp and vista with the same decoder? or do we need specially designed decoders to be able to get at least comparable decoding speeds?
The decoding could be slower for a number of reasons, the simplest one being that they used a different DShow decoder on XP than Vista. :) My point is that we don't know because they didn't tell us about that part.

[zambelli]

I guess if you wanted to test, then xvidcore from: http://tirnanog.fate.jp/mirror/XviD/xvid.cvs.head.MTK.2006.12.20.7z with squid_80's encraw build. Benching VfW encoding would I guess also be worthwhile.
Thanks. I went ahead and did exactly that. Here are the results:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=955067#post955067

As I said the thing that worries me about their test is that they were using only 2min sources. For a source that short you would need to run it multiple times. With a full length source things would average out more.
Yeah, I agree that longer sources would've made for a more authoritative benchmark. I ran my test on a 1 minute long 720p source, knowing that will take at least 4 minutes to encode.

[celtic_druid]

As I said though AutoGK would mean that dgdecode was the MPEG-2 decoder and it would be the same version used in both cases.

A 1 minute source is even worse. For that you would need to run it say 3 times.

What I think would be best is to run AutoGK on a full DVD source and see if there is any significant time difference between the two OS'.

[zambelli]

As I said though AutoGK would mean that dgdecode was the MPEG-2 decoder and it would be the same version used in both cases.

A 1 minute source is even worse. For that you would need to run it say 3 times.

What I think would be best is to run AutoGK on a full DVD source and see if there is any significant time difference between the two OS'.
I just repeated the test with 20-minute long MPEG-2 source and DGDecode. The result was the same as the first time around:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=955509#post955509

[wmansir]

I really don't buy the 25% slower number, but unfortunately my upgrade to Vista was in large part due to a concurrent CPU/MB upgrade. In reinstalling XP (multiple times) I found it couldn't import my MS Dynamic Disk RAID due to a system error, something Vista did without any issues.

[shevegen]

25% sounds too much?
Then what do you expect?

I mean... for having vista on a faster, better machine, I'd think it would be supernatural that it goes faster.
But why would XP perform better than Vista anyway, other than that its some
weird "design choices" that seems to imply "buy a faster machine dude!"?

[zambelli]

25% sounds too much?
Then what do you expect?
Well, yeah, it does in the context of encoding. Encoding is a fairly closed process, very CPU intensive, with very little interaction with the OS once it gets going. It wouldn't make sense that it would be 25% slower in itself, unless serious changes were made in elementary OS operations such as memory management.
There are certainly applications that will be slower on Vista than on XP for one reason or another: depending on legacy APIs that are now emulated (i.e. DirectSound) or shimmed, performing operations that are now handled differently beneath the covers, performing operations that involve many OS components, etc. But video encoding - that's mostly just math functions and memory allocation - shouldn't be all that affected.

[Manao]

The same is true for decoding. Yet, you blame the decoding part for being the reason of the slowdown. You say the filter may be different, but you know it's not likely - or rather, you didn't do the simple test that would clear the issue once and for all ( diretshowsource + avisynth ).

So, though decoding/encoding is mostly number crunching, at the moment, what we can say is that something that has nothing to do with the decoding/encoding part is slowing thing down. And that's disturbing because 25% slowdown for something as heavily CPU intensive as a decoding/encoding is insane.

[zambelli]

The same is true for decoding. Yet, you blame the decoding part for being the reason of the slowdown. You say the filter may be different, but you know it's not likely - or rather, you didn't do the simple test that would clear the issue once and for all ( diretshowsource + avisynth ).
I didn't blame it on decoding - I merely concluded that it's not in the encoding part. So far I've only proven that encoding alone is not slower on Vista. I'll run the DirectShow decoding test if I have time next week, but if you have any objections to the way I'm performing tests, you're more than free to run your own tests. That's exactly what I did when I looked at TH's article and thought there was something flawed in their test setup. I'm not looking to prove either OS is faster than the other - I'm just trying to shed light on what seemed to me an erroneous benchmark.

[wmansir]

25% sounds too much?
Then what do you expect?

I mean... for having vista on a faster, better machine, I'd think it would be supernatural that it goes faster.
But why would XP perform better than Vista anyway, other than that its some
weird "design choices" that seems to imply "buy a faster machine dude!"?

I went from a 2Ghz Tbred to a 2.66 Ghz Pentium D. From all the benchmarks I read before the upgrade I expected my encoding speed to just about double. If my hardware gave me about a 2x increase, but Vista had a 20-25% performance penalty than I shouldn't have come close to a 2x speed increase after my hardware/OS upgrade, but 2x is almost exactly what I got. That's why I think a 25% decrease sounds too large.

Of course the only way to really tell is if I boot into XP and run tests on the same hardware. I'll probably give it a try when I get some free time.

Also, I'm not really a big cheerleader for Vista. It's a worthy upgrade mostly for stability and security reasons, but it's not anything amazing like MS and others would have people think. Honestly, if it wasn't for my RAID issue I would have stuck with XP at least until most of the HW Driver and software compatibility issues were worked out.

[Manao]

you're more than free to run your own testsI don't have Vista, so I definitely can't test.
if you have any objections to the way I'm performing testsYour tests are valid - well, not the one with the raw video file, but at least it was good to know that Vista doesn't slow down disk accesses.

But your tests don't explain what is happening. They only concluded that Vista allows to crunch numbers as efficiently as XP.

There's a lot more to encoding than crunching numbers. Encoders - well 'professionnal' ( nero/mainconcept like ) encoders - aren't made around the model of ffmpeg/mencoder/x264. They heavily rely on DirectShow. And thus DirectShow performance must be accounted for when doing encoding tests.

Personnally, from all the tests that were done ( TH's and your's ), I can only conclude that DirectShow perfomance has dropped. And not just by 25%, because, as you said, encoding is mostly a number crunching operation, and DirectShow doesn't have a lot of opportunities to slow that down.

I don't have the means to prove the contrary, but you have. Seeing how you defended Vista against unwarranted attacks previously, will you defend it now, or accept my conclusion ?

[migrena]

could it be that TH used different (older) build of vista? some unfixed bugs in older versions might be the reson

or maybe "Media Foundation Protected Pipeline" gets in the way in TH tests like in this (http://www.miraesoft.com/karel/2006/12/25/cost-analysis-of-windows-vista-content-protection/#comment-1255) case? (from Peter Gutmann article)

[jeffy]

could it be that TH used different (older) build of vista? some unfixed bugs in older versions might be the reson

or maybe "Media Foundation Protected Pipeline" gets in the way in TH tests like in this (http://www.miraesoft.com/karel/2006/12/25/cost-analysis-of-windows-vista-content-protection/#comment-1255) case? (from Peter Gutmann article)
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page3.html
OS Windows Vista Enterprise, Build 6000.16386.061101-2205

[JohnnyMalaria]

Personnally, from all the tests that were done ( TH's and your's ), I can only conclude that DirectShow perfomance has dropped. And not just by 25%, because, as you said, encoding is mostly a number crunching operation, and DirectShow doesn't have a lot of opportunities to slow that down.

I don't have the means to prove the contrary, but you have. Seeing how you defended Vista against unwarranted attacks previously, will you defend it now, or accept my conclusion ?

I don't accept your conclusion :p

One of our apps is built around DirectShow. Some early head-to-head benchmarking for XP Pro SP2 vs. Vista Ultimate (32-bit RTM) yielded about a 7% performance reduction for Vista. BUT, Aero was active and, looking at Task Manager, Aero was using about 5% of the CPU. (The more windows you have open, the more Aero has to do.)

I will be running more tests soon with Aero disabled (like for TH's tests).

I haven't seen anything to suggest that DirectShow itself performs worse on Vista. However, DirectShow apps that also provide audio playback WILL suffer on Vista unless the app is Vista-aware and permits non-DirectSound audio rendering. (DirectSound on Vista is wholly software based - no hardware acceleration - it imposes a significant performance penalty.....)

[ron spencer]

actually windows 2000 smokes em all....put that on a dual core 3.4 ghz for just video encoding and/or digitial editing and it is sooooooo fast, the way an OS should be; no overhead, no Aeroeo (whatever it is) nonsense. Just speed speed speed.....

[zambelli]

I don't have the means to prove the contrary, but you have. Seeing how you defended Vista against unwarranted attacks previously, will you defend it now, or accept my conclusion ?
Well, this is not so much about defending Vista as it's about me looking at the TH benchmark and thinking, "Wait, that doesn't make sense."

I'll try to run some DShow decoding tests when I have time again, but if anyone else has a dualboot XP/Vista setup, I'd highly encourage them to try the same.

or maybe "Media Foundation Protected Pipeline" gets in the way in TH tests like in this case? (from Peter Gutmann article)
Highly unlikely, considering that neither apps used in the benchmark use Media Foundation. Remember, MF is a new API - you'd have to rewrite your app in order to use it - it doesn't just automatically kick in.
Even WMP in Vista only uses MF for WMV/WMA playback. Everything else still goes through DirectShow.

[GrofLuigi]

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
===================================================

Peter Gutmann, pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html


Last updated 18 February 2007

Noticed it's html now (with many links), includes reply to Microsoft's reply, and few other things are updated as far as I can see.

Sorry, the forum wouldn't let me post in the other (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=119731) topic.

GL

[jeffy]

Feb 12, 2007 IDG UK, MacWorld:
"Vista not playing nice with gamers"
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/02/12/vistagames/index.php

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia has released a processor for DirectX 10, the GeForce 8800. The drivers for the GeForce 8800, however, remain in beta and are not WHQL-certified.

Still true as of today: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_100.64.html
Windows Vista 32-bit

ForceWare Release 100
Version: 100.64
Release Date: February 13, 2007
Beta Driver




“Our [quality assurance staffers] didn’t expect there to be an extraordinary number of bugs, but people are hammering pretty hard on Vista, and there are obviously some parts that we missed,” said Daniel Vivoli, senior vice president for marketing at Nvidia.


While pointing out that other vendors such as mouse and keyboard maker Logitech International SA, sound card maker Creative Technology and Cisco Systems, as well as its wireless print server subsidary, Cisco-Linksys, have also gotten complaints for malfunctioning Vista drivers, Vivoli acknowledged that Nvidia deserves the criticism it is receiving.

Plus IDG:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128961-c,games/article.html

Can someone please comment on malfunctioning drivers even for Logitech and Creative? Any personal experience?

[migrena]

Highly unlikely, considering that neither apps used in the benchmark use Media Foundation. Remember, MF is a new API - you'd have to rewrite your app in order to use it - it doesn't just automatically kick in.
Even WMP in Vista only uses MF for WMV/WMA playback. Everything else still goes through DirectShow.i will repeat - there are reports of mf running even when there is no "premium content" present, or not closing after "premium content" was removed from system
as i see it the "premium content" detection mechanism is not perfect and some actions may trigger/not trigger closing mf, th team could (accidently or not) do sth like that

i also dont have vista so i can't run any tests...

actually windows 2000 smokes em all....put that on a dual core 3.4 ghz for just video encoding and/or digitial editing and it is sooooooo fast, the way an OS should be; no overhead, no Aeroeo (whatever it is) nonsense. Just speed speed speed.....well im happy win2k user but using non-x64 system these days is not an option, thats why i'm planning moving to x64 platform soon... but opinions about vista doesnt really encourage me to buy it

[Bathrone]

Try using Vista and Windows update!!! Many reports about people getting their systems hosed with Via chipset upgrades. And now, this happened to me:

Vista and windows update needs alot of improvement. I got the shits with all the other reports about problems with Vista/Windows Update when it effected me as well so I decided to call MS tech support about this problem cos I figured if they are wasting my time with this crap I will call them and get them to fix it. Afterall, I paid for the retail licence and I'm going to make use of the support that comes with it.

Two and half hours on the phone!! All to remove a bodgy keyboard driver install called Key Maestro!

Heres the rundown:
1. Key Meastro was an optional install published through windows update to upgrade my keyboard driver so I figured it was correct for my hardware as windows update does the scan and recommends things to upgrade. And lets face it, its a freaking keyboard driver what can go wrong and worst case I can rollback it anyway.

2. When I saw how dodgy this Key Meastro crud was I went to uninstall it. However its not listed in installed updates or installed programs so there is no normal method for uninstalling it. And it does appear in windows update history as being successfully installed, as well as infesting my system with its dodgy code in Program Files, drivers, startup executable on the kernel etcetc

3. I saw a remove program in Files\KMaestro and when I executed that even with admin priveldge the thing appeared to hang, reported to not be responding and then after sometime I closed it leading to vista going through its problem process with submitting to MS.

4. Then I manually deleted the Program Files\KMaestro but upon rebooting the bloody thing came back from somewhere else on storage and reinstalled itself!!!

5. I got rid of the Files\KMaestro files again but then had an access denied error trying to delete the driverstore repository where this bloody thing was also stored.

6. All throughout this process the support monkey doesnt know what to do and I keep being put on hold while he talks to someone else about what to do. It was during one of these on hold sessions that the not responding driver remove process actually came alive again from apparently no cpu or disk activity and reported that the uninstall had finished and all I had to do was to reboot.

7. Upon reboot Vista has now picked up the same stupid driver from the driver store repository that I have no proveledge to delete!

8. Then the support monkey has the idea to do a system restore so I boot from DVD and find that I dont have any system restores before the date of the keymaestro install.

9. At this point my growing frustration was tipped over the edge when the support monkey started claiming this was a third party product blah blah blah. I said, look pal, Windows Update does a scan of my hardware and after making a determination of the current state of my hardware and the software revisions installed it then provides recommendations on what to upgrade. Hasnt MS done any testing on this bogus bit of software? Why release a driver that cant be uninstalled? And more to the point, as I have a MS Internet keyboard why the hell doesnt windows update point me to the MS intellitype driver instead of some two bit bodgy crud that doesnt work? And how did this crap bit of software ever get digitally signed as ok? He tried to argue windows update was for things like upgrading internet explorer 6 to 7 and third party things are optional and its up to the user to decide. So I reinforced my fair belief that windows update should indicate the correct driver to install, especially on Microsoft's own hardware for christs sake or if thats all too hard dont include any uncertain third party stuff on windows update because it creates the impression its been through the MS certification process. The stupid tool just gave me this spiel about feedback and talking to his supervisor.

10. So then I was in the emergency command console, but for some reason I couldnt access the driver store from the system32 directory. The support monkey had obviously enough by this point but I refused to get off the phone unless it was fixed. Eventually it occured to me as I had partitioned by storage up and had kept XP Pro I was actually hitting the XP install and the emergency command console drive letter mapping was all wrong. When I finally got into the vista partition I was able to delete the driver store repository from the HDD free of the access restrictions in other modes.

11. Then I installed the MS intellitype driver and all was good.

One problem remains however - the windows update history reports that I have successfully installed the Key Maestro driver update.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The stupid tool just gave me this spiel about feedback and talking to his supervisor.


With that kind of attitude towards someone who is trying to help via telephone, you deserve problems....

[dragongodz]

With that kind of attitude towards someone who is trying to help via telephone
so you wouldnt start to feel frustrated after spending two and a half hours on the phone, being put on hold constantly, only to end up being told "its not really our fault you installed it anyway" ? oh come on not even your fanboyism could be that ridiculous.

the fact is windows update should not be telling you anything you can install, optional or not, that MS isnt willing to backup/support and has been tested.

you deserve problems
and thats got to be one of the most stupid and plain insulting responses i have read for a long time. if thats the type of rubbish you are going to post then go and post it elsewhere.

[migrena]

i wonder what is the official ms statment about winupdate installing 3rd party software that is not supported by ms
i mean without big flashy red blinking information about this...

[JohnnyMalaria]

and thats got to be one of the most stupid and plain insulting responses i have read for a long time. if thats the type of rubbish you are going to post then go and post it elsewhere.

You're right and I apologise for the statement.

It was a too-quick reaction to something I see a lot - treating support staff and shop workers as morons. Like most of us, they are just trying to do their jobs to pay their bills. It's not *their* fault that their company's product has issues. By all means be frustrated with the company, but don't be personally abusive.

[Bathrone]

Johnny I can understand your point of view however I think honestly if you met me personally you would see that I make a careful point to maintain professional relations, and it really does take alot for me to reach the point where I'm extremely frustrated / having a go at someone both in my personal and professional life.

I do think the support staff member was stupid - he had me going through diagnostic stuff that were totally unrelated to my specific problem and he was dismissive of my point about what is clearly a major flaw in windows update being itts giving drivers that are wrong and are unsupported. He wasnt equipped to deal with the issue and after being on the phone for two and a half hours - most of which was on hold - I hope you can see my point of view.

Mate I would be the first one to acknowledge genuine help and if I had of gotten it my responses on forums like this one would have been much different.

However that said in no way do I think Microsoft as a company is stupid. I acknowledge some excellent help I have gotten from insightful posts like Zambelli and BenWaggoner on this forum. Generally their products keep getting better and better - just not in this case at this time.

[wmansir]

I finally got around to running some tests.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/706/chartws4.gif

On average Vista was 4% slower, but that's including the unusual case of 2 instances of Procoder running. It's a dual core system and ProCoder is mutlithreaded, but it still runs a little faster with 2 instances in XP. In Vista I reran the test twice and the process that took 168 minutes in XP took 188 and then 198.

[Manao]

I finally got around to running some testsToo bad nobody did the directshow tests :(

Anyway, your tests show once again that when it comes to simply crunching numbers, Vista isn't that slow.

[dragongodz]

On average Vista was 4% slower
so lets set the way back machine to the first page of this thread.

quoting wmansir
The only thing that interests me is if Vista's DRM impacts other processes when no protected content is present. Does anyone have any PROOF of that?

which was after my post containing
even if you do not use any protected content your cpu consumption is still going to be increased by the check process sitting in the background running anyway.

i think you have proven yourself that vistas extra processes or design is using extra cpu cycles. even dave marsh admitted it, though he gave the spin of "extra functionality".

your tests show once again that when it comes to simply crunching numbers, Vista isn't that slow.
define "that slow". the point is it is slower and this is, as you point out, just crunching numbers.

Too bad nobody did the directshow tests
yes it would be interesting to see how much speed difference there is with the changes to directshow/directaudio etc.

[zambelli]

i think you have proven yourself that vistas extra processes or design is using extra cpu cycles. even dave marsh admitted it, though he gave the spin of "extra functionality".
Wow. Talk about a leap of logic. Based on his tests alone you have concluded that the 4% performance difference is due to DRM and other "check processes sitting in the background running"? Was there a process utilization chart that you got but nobody else did? Until somebody provides a data breakdown by process, thread and module - I really don't see how you can jump to that conclusion.

[dragongodz]

Wow. Talk about a leap of logic.
WOW. talk about not even reading what you quote.

i said
vistas extra processes or design is using extra cpu cycles.
i did NOT say
the 4% performance difference is due to DRM and other "check processes sitting in the background running"
so please do not try and put words in my mouth that i did not say.

Until somebody provides a data breakdown by process, thread and module
of course until somebody does a breakdown nobody can say how much of what is using what. however to say that a process running in the background is using totally zero cpu constantly is foolish. so it is just as ridiculous for you to try and have a go at suggesting its not any particular process that is at least a part of the slowdown.

the point is that either extra processes, whatever they may be including DRM related, or even similar processes that may have had design changes for vista are slowing it down with those tests. if the drm processes are running at that time then of course i would include them as being a part of it but that does not mean i say they are the totality of it.

[HeadBangeR77]

the point is that either extra processes, whatever they may be including DRM related, or even similar processes that may have had design changes for vista are slowing it down with those tests. if the drm processes are running at that time then of course i would include them as being a part of it but that does not mean i say they are the totality of it.
I must agree in general. I can't see any complicated philosophy behind those figures. For me the thing is rather easy and reminds of graphic cards' benchmarking in the old days. ;) Me thinks the same logic applies here: kill every possible background process, disable everything including anti-virus and firewall, turn off every unneeded system service off, defragment your HDD, reboot, check the processes again, wait a while and benchmark. The more free memory, the less background processes, the better (as a rule).

That's why Win2k was faster than XP at least in the beginning, because it was derived of all those bells & whistles that XP has (even if you turn them off, it's still not the same). Also the slightest change, like graphic card drivers, can influence many different applications (e.g ATI's old Control Panel vs. Catalyst-The-Big-Cow-Control-Centre), and I'm not talking about damned 3D Marks here. Still, it's usually just a few percent (usually less than 5%) - some freaks however would kill for those small improvement.

Now the people with dual-boot XP/Vista OSes should install the same software (if it's possible at all), try to disable every unneeded process (what could be OS-depending), and than benchmark for pure numbers crunching.

just my 2 cents ;)
HDBR77

[zambelli]

WOW. talk about not even reading what you quote.
...
so please do not try and put words in my mouth that i did not say.
I didn't make up your words. You referenced Dave Marsh's blog which was on the subject of DRM in Vista. His blog said:

Will Windows Vista content protection features increase CPU resource consumption?
Yes. However, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality.
You then said:
i think you have proven yourself that vistas extra processes or design is using extra cpu cycles. even dave marsh admitted it, though he gave the spin of "extra functionality".

It seems clearly implied that you were refering to the processes of the protected path, otherwise I'm not sure why you would've mentioned his blog post.

however to say that a process running in the background is using totally zero cpu constantly is foolish. so it is just as ridiculous for you to try and have a go at suggesting its not any particular process that is at least a part of the slowdown.
I'm not saying it's not a particular process slowing it down! It might be DWM.exe (Aero) for all we know. However, what I AM saying is that it's highly unlikely it's anything DRM related that's slowing down this Vista scenario because the DirectShow MPEG-->XviD transcoding doesn't even touch the protected path!

[Shinigami-Sama]

Zambelli
I'd always though MSPaint never touched anything security related, but there was a hotfix in XP that patched a security hole that a remote used gain control over the system
so I wouldn't say 'it doesn't touch' I'd have to say 'it shouldn't touch'

[HeadBangeR77]

I'm not saying it's not a particular process slowing it down! It might be DWM.exe (Aero) for all we know. However, what I AM saying is that it's highly unlikely it's anything DRM related that's slowing down this Vista scenario because the DirectShow MPEG-->XviD transcoding doesn't even touch the protected path!
If it's the Aero thingy, then, like I said, people should disable /kill /turn off everything they can before benchmarking, which will make the two OSes more similar to each other in terms processes running in the background and free memory. If some of those just can't be turned off, well, it's OS dependency then, yet such an approach would be more fair imho if we want to compare e.g. memory management or changes in the core itself. This would be pure number-crunching, and would exclude some factors as being the cause of the mentioned slow-down.

[dragongodz]

However, what I AM saying is that it's highly unlikely it's anything DRM related that's slowing down this Vista scenario because the DirectShow MPEG-->XviD transcoding doesn't even touch the protected path!
false logic. a process does not have to be in use by the programs used for the test to be using cpu cycles. so your guessing that any running process, whether drm related or not, has no effect is wrong.

It seems clearly implied that you were refering to the processes of the protected path, otherwise I'm not sure why you would've mentioned his blog post.
mentioned as 1, i repeat so you do not misunderstand - 1, of the possible processes contributing, repeat again - contributing to the speed difference. as i already agreed how much can not be determined of any process without much more fine detailed testing of them.
at no point did i say drm related processes are responsible for the TOTAL 4% speed difference which is what you did say i said(see my quote of you in my previous post).

infact i said
extra processes, whatever they may be including DRM related, or even similar processes that may have had design changes for vista are slowing it down with those tests. if the drm processes are running at that time then of course i would include them as being a part of it but that does not mean i say they are the totality of it.
note the bold parts.

i dont think i can say it clearer than that. so either you choose to understand what i really said or not. either way i am not going to bother wasting my time constantly repeating myself.

[foxyshadis]

Using 500 cycles a few times a second to say "no, I have nothing to do, go on to the next thread" isn't going to register even a blip in performance with a dual multi-ghz monster. You could start up a thousand idling background processes that do nothing but chill out, and your encode speed might drop .1% on the outside. Now if there's any memory contention, then that could cause problems.

But I agree, for an operating system that was touted as having an improved, more efficient scheduler, minor drops in most performance marks is pretty unconvincing.

[dragongodz]

You could start up a thousand idling background processes that do nothing but chill out, and your encode speed might drop .1% on the outside.
and you could have 1 process that reduces your encode speed to half. it all depends on what the process is doing and how many cycles its taking to do it. let me know when you find where MS has said how much each process run in xp or vista actually take and how much impact that can have. because other wise we can only go by the evidence we have and that isnt .1% difference but 4% with wmansirs test.

again that doesnt mean any particular process is the total of that but rather its all processes together. also consider that its just as possible that some similar processes from xp may be faster(sped up/optimised etc) in thier vista form. we have no idea what effect the processes are having individually(would require multiple high accuracy tests to make sure to catch your .1% instances) but rather the totality demonstrated by the test.

its is pretty safe to say that new processes, not running on xp but present on vista, add to any speed loss no matter how small that contribution may be.

[AHelpingHand]

I think I'll do like many people will, wait for Vista Sp2 :)

[Kurtnoise]

http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/96498

[JohnnyMalaria]

You'd have to be pretty stupid to open any attachment at all from someone you don't know.

You can also achieve the same effect with XP and Vista if configured "out of the box". By default, both OSes hide extensions for known file types. So, create a file called Foo.jpg.exe and it will appear as Foo.jpg. The vast majority of users don't bother to enable showing extensions.

I guess Microsoft and the "other operating systems*" vendors will just have to tell writers of right-to-left languages to go to hell because some people are too stupid or blissfully ignorant to follow some basic security rules.

*Mac OS X - guess that must suck, too.

[Sharktooth]

it's still a potential security problem XP users dont have.
i mean, dumb users are dumb users... but still there's no way in vista to disable the unicode extentions in filenames, so even by mistake, those malicious files can compromise the system while on XP it is clear they are suspicious...
also the average user will just think vista is more secure than XP so he will pay even less attention to those kind of things...

[anti]

The system is only as secure as its least secure part, in which case, this generally would happen to be the user.

Like Sharktooth said, a dumb user is a dumb user. Regardless of the operating system, nix/xp/vista, if a less informed individual is behind the wheel you're more likely to crash.

Though with nix it's less likely to happen since it requires a bit more foresight to just jump into. Akin to having a novice drive a car, but someone experienced drive a transport truck.

[kumi]

You don't have to be dumb, anyone can fall prey to that trick. Unless you're going to examine each and every filename for the bug^H^H^Hfeature before opening, and who the hell has time for that?

[Shinigami-Sama]

I haven't even heard of that exploit yet...
then again I can keep track of nearly every file on my workstations...

[Sharktooth]

M$ should have called Vista "the most INSECURE windows OS"...
they arent just able to make things the correct way... except for documentation...

[toytown]

M$ should have called Vista "the most INSECURE windows OS"

Why? Theres been less secure versions of windows in the past, if your going to post absolute dribble, then back it up.

they arent just able to make things the correct way

Which is why most of the worlds computing population is on a windows based system. Because its been programmed completely wrong............

[Sharktooth]

Why? Theres been less secure versions of windows in the past, if your going to post absolute dribble, then back it up.
Coz it was hacked even before it got released. Coz it shows new and critical security flaws that were not present in previous windows versions. Coz it makes the user pay less attention to security coz he thinks the OS "have to be secure" coz the abundance of (useless) pseudo security related crap. coz of: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6316253.stm , etc...
Also, have a look here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=116701&highlight=EULA+button
It's a very long thread... so, good reading...

Which is why most of the worlds computing population is on a windows based system. Because its been programmed completely wrong............
Ppl is like sheeps... and M$ knows that. Instauration of a monopoly is just a consequence.
The progessive annihilation of individuality makes ppl think as a unique entity... Ppl acts like sheeps...

[foxyshadis]

Coz it was hacked even before it got released. Coz it shows new and critical security flaws that were not present in previous windows versions. Coz it makes the user pay less attention to security coz he thinks the OS "have to be secure" coz the abundance of (useless) pseudo security related crap.

Which of those don't apply to older releases of Windows again? (Aside from pre-release hacking, since pre-2000 releases weren't given to the public.)

[JohnnyMalaria]

Ppl is like sheeps... and M$ knows that. Instauration of a monopoly is just a consequence.
The progessive annihilation of individuality makes ppl think as a unique entity... Ppl acts like sheeps...

So who or what is shepherding you? :p

Perhaps we should all just go out and write our own individual operating systems. But we'd have to build our own processors (can't have the Intel shepherd sway us). :rolleyes:

[Kurtnoise]

Funny (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9785337-7.html?tag=nefd.only)...

Personally, I'm not against vista (or Windows more generally). Linux has also some cons...I used to use both and I'm more or less fine with them but I've some skills. Hoping that end users will have more advices or more choices in the future about this. That's all I want.

[Sharktooth]

Which of those don't apply to older releases of Windows again? (Aside from pre-release hacking, since pre-2000 releases weren't given to the public.)
one example is the recent security issue with unicode extensions in file names...

[HyperHacker]

You'd have to be pretty stupid to open any attachment at all from someone you don't know.hey i can't get aacskeys to work it shows a bunch of numbers here's a screenshot (http://nasty.file.here)

I don't recall seeing the part where it said the file has to be attached to an email.

[foxyshadis]

one example is the recent security issue with unicode extensions in file names...

No, no, no, no.

Every new version of windows has introduced new attack vectors while handling old ones better. That was your big gripe, right? The fact that they're all old now doesn't mean they weren't new then. It's practically a fact of life, even if it's a very disappointing one, and why a lot of people don't upgrade permanently for a year or two. (XP's unicode support led to a lot of spoofing problems with trojans, even if they couldn't hide the executableness this way it did open the door to the IDN problem.)

Anyway, seriously, why do you care so much that other people use XP instead of Vista? No one's asking you to install it or claiming it's invulnerable, just better against XP's threats.

[JohnnyMalaria]

hey i can't get aacskeys to work it shows a bunch of numbers here's a screenshot (http://nasty.file.here)

I don't recall seeing the part where it said the file has to be attached to an email.

I think you're being a bit anal :)

This is yet another example of supposedly harmless files, such as documents, images, mp3 files or even playlists, potentially carrying damaging code that exploits holes in the associated software, and users should avoid files, even of these types, that come from unknown or untrustworthy sources.

Opening an attachment is one example that I happened to mention to illustrate the need for vigilence by the end user/recipient.

I'll phrase it differently:

You'd have to be monumentally stupid to click on a link in a document from an untrusted source without seeing what the link really is - i.e., unobsfucated or have a very good reason to assume it is safe.

[Shinigami-Sama]

I think you're being a bit anal :)



Opening an attachment is one example that I happened to mention to illustrate the need for vigilence by the end user/recipient.

I'll phrase it differently:

You'd have to be monumentally stupid to click on a link in a document from an untrusted source without seeing what the link really is - i.e., unobsfucated or have a very good reason to assume it is safe.

I know people that don't know that little status bar exists, and that it shows the url of the link they're going to click
I also know the ones that open links from they're great aunt jane without thinking about - oh wait she uses IE5 doesn't own a virus scaner or other scanners, now little johny is bugged

I do agree though
software vendors, open and not need to start adding little things to make the users more aware of what they're doing

[R3Z]

You'd have to be monumentally stupid to click on a link in a document from an untrusted source without seeing what the link really is - i.e., unobsfucated or have a very good reason to assume it is safe.

Nah, its M$'s fault. Everything is their fault.

Linux doesnt have patches or security threats, neither does OSX.

People dont use what works for them, they are just sheep who steep to using shite software because they have no brains.

Back to reality, its a shame viruses exist - but you need to take care and responsibility for your own actions. I totally agree with you.

[deuce2]

Why Microsoft must abandon Vista. This guy bashes it from several angles including the dreaded DRM issue :devil:. http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9785337-17.html

[foxyshadis]

It's not that interesting, it just repeats the points made in this thread and a thousand others. (As do the comments, pro and con.) Then again, that's pretty much the level of insight cnet regularly offers.

[R3Z]

Why Microsoft must abandon Vista. This guy bashes it from several angles including the dreaded DRM issue :devil:. http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9785337-17.html

From the bs article;
With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around.

:rolleyes:

So OSX is "hot on its tail" but it cant compete ?

While i dont use vista, i have tested it extensively in a workplace evaluation fo a 10,000+ user plus environment. My biggest issues are performance out of the box and user familiarity with the UI.

[HyperHacker]

You'd have to be monumentally stupid to click on a link in a document from an untrusted source without seeing what the link really is - i.e., unobsfucated or have a very good reason to assume it is safe.Do you really check the status bar every time you click a link in your browser? And that's only one way you might get such a file.

I know people that don't know that little status bar exists, and that it shows the url of the link they're going to clickThere's also this problem (http://somereallyfreakinglonghugepath.thatwillfilluptheentirestatusbar.andmakeyouunabletoseethefilename/becausethetexttakesuptoomuchspace/lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala/gfjkhdfkjghfdhgkjdshghjgfdajftdjagfjesygfruyesgfjesgjygtgyratiuy76458756gfdfgdsfhdhgdshdgss/download_the_file.php?sid=487432985698456874368746587658768746&dt=57645&foo=bar&answer=42&file=nasty.file.here), or (obviously not here) using Javascript to change the status bar text.

[Sharktooth]

@HyperHacker: eheh... when someone doesnt want to see, he's more blind than a blind... it's useless to discuss with those ppl about something they continue to ignore.

[Revgen]

Why Microsoft must abandon Vista. This guy bashes it from several angles including the dreaded DRM issue :devil:. http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9785337-17.html

Great blog entry.

I only started Windows XP when my Dad and I found a cheap XP Pro Corporate version at a computer show that allowed us to install to multiple computers without having to activate. I will unfortunately, be upgrading to Vista since I'm a computer tech and need to use it to learn and help those who have it installed.

[zambelli]

Great blog entry.

I only started Windows XP when my Dad and I found a cheap XP Pro Corporate version at a computer show that allowed us to install to multiple computers without having to activate. I will unfortunately, be upgrading to Vista since I'm a computer tech and need to use it to learn and help those who have it installed.
Great? The guy barely checked his facts. I had a sneaky feeling that blog post would end up on this thread. It's full of inaccuracies and FUD, but this one was my favorite:

One significant problem that I have with Vista is its inclusion of new DRM, specifically the company's decision to install Protected Video Path. To prevent a person from copying (or in most cases, backing up) a movie, the operating system provides process isolation and if an unverified component is in use, the operating system shuts down DRM content. For the first time on any operating system, we're not even allowed to backup our favorite movies? Come on.
Before I point out how that entire paragraph is one giant lie, let's do a quick show of hands instead:

How many of you have been blocked from ripping DVDs by Vista's Protected Media Path?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Do you really check the status bar every time you click a link in your browser? And that's only one way you might get such a file.

No I don't and that isn't being hypocritical since I said "or have a very good reason to assume it is safe."

[JohnnyMalaria]

Why Microsoft must abandon Vista. This guy bashes it from several angles including the dreaded DRM issue :devil:. http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9785337-17.html

What a shite blog. Nothing new to say. No different than the ramblings from Jan/Feb of this year.

[zambelli]

What a shite blog. Nothing new to say. No different than the ramblings from Jan/Feb of this year.
What's strange is that the "Protected Media Path stops you from copying your movies" is such an outrageously false claim, yet incredible easy to disprove - all one has to do is try ripping a DVD to know it still works just the same as on XP... And still, everyone just gulps up his claim like it's an undeniable truth.

I should try blogging too: "The sun is not a star! It's actually just a CGI animation in the sky!". Maybe I'd be hailed as the new astronomy pioneer? :rolleyes:

[Revgen]

Great? The guy barely checked his facts. I had a sneaky feeling that blog post would end up on this thread. It's full of inaccuracies and FUD, but this one was my favorite:


Before I point out how that entire paragraph is one giant lie, let's do a quick show of hands instead:

How many of you have been blocked from ripping DVDs by Vista's Protected Media Path?

I wasn't interested in that part. The part that I concurred with was how expensive the OS is and how little it adds compared to Windows XP to be worth what they are charging for it. With Windows XP, people at least were attracted to the NT environment that was more stable and less prone to crashing compared to Windows 98 despite the activation crap they had to go through.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Not many people will pay the full retail price. Either they will upgrade from XP or they will buy a new PC that already has it.

That blog offers nothing new to say on the issue. A waste of space and of my time. I wish my employer would pay me to regurgitate subjective gibberish every few months.

[Sharktooth]

is so "subjective" that dell and other OEMs are offering XP as a replacement for vista since M$ doesnt do it (business and enterprise editions apart)... and it's so "subjective" that this offer was forced by hundreds of thousands of consumer requests
so at the end, ppl started to use his own brain instead of another part of the body... and what you claim "subjective" is becoming "objective"...

[JohnnyMalaria]

He's putting his opinion on the state of the situation. That's SUBJECTIVE.

Presenting hard numbers including the volume of complaints from customers - that's OBJECTIVE.

Presenting MS' original forecasts for Vista sales vs. actual - that's OBJECTIVE.

Comparing the share price of MS vs. FTSE100, S&P500 etc - that's OBJECTIVE.

Rehashing the same old bollocks over and over again - that's A WASTE OF TIME.

The points you make are valid. MS have dropped one big time with Vista. I don't like it. I much prefer XP.

The way HE states it is nothing more than amateurish tabloid sensationalism. He'd be better off being the editor for The Sun or The Star in the UK.

:):mad::devil::confused::p:rolleyes::cool::eek:

[zambelli]

The points you make are valid. MS have dropped one big time with Vista. I don't like it. I much prefer XP.

The way HE states it is nothing more than amateurish tabloid sensationalism. He'd be better off being the editor for The Sun or The Star in the UK.
Agreed. Valid cases can be made for why Vista isn't as successful as XP was this far into its release - but that blog is not one of them, and the DRM point in particular is a perfect example of FUD.

Extremist points of view are, well, pointless (pun intended).

[Gerard V]

So, despite the rhetoric, and the extreme points of view, is it a valid point that MS may have shot itself in the foot with Vista to a degree? I think so. I will try to be objective.

While it is true that many new PCs will ship with Vista, there are few compelling reasons for most ordinary users and businesses to upgrade unless buying a new PC. Apart from the eye-candy, what functionality does Vista really offer that is of sufficient benefit to the majority of business or home users to make them bear the pain of an unforced upgrade?

And there is real pain involved in the significant hardware upgrades necessary, and currently limited and unstable driver and application certifications with Vista. This is not unique to Vista, but it is a real issue. Most people and most business will wait for stability.

There is also a real business impact from the bad press and the FUD mentioned earlier. MS will almost certainly fix the majority of issues, and after a while hardware will catch up and the extra burden of Vista over XP etc. will not be too important. But in the meanwhile MS has handed a degree of legitimacy and support to MAC OS/X and various Linux & BSD Distros, and these are having a good run.

Perhaps the MAC/*nix market will soon be big enough to attract ports of the majority of serious commercial software that presently limits use of anything but Windows in many contexts. Will MS close the door before that happens or is it too late? We need to wait to find out.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I (almost) completely agree.

My own experience with the stability issue is that it is stable on my machine - 1 BSOD since Nov 2006 due to a soundcard that can't even work with XP. But I so wanted it to!

Some apps may be ported to *nix fairly painlessly. Others though - especially multimedia intensive - would require a major rewrite due to the fundamental frameworks within Windows that just don't exist elsewhere. It's bad enough getting major Windows apps ported to 64-bit Windows.

Re certification, I started on the route to Vista certification but, after a lot of time and effort, decided not to proceed. There are some requirements that I just could not agree with and that would definitely aggravate the users. Microsoft actually phoned me to find out how I am getting on (!) and if I was planning to get certified (the software, not me). I explained the reasons as to why not.

One of the things I had to do was to get a Digital Certificate from Verisign so that I can sign my products. That was worthwhile and every component gets signed.

[Bathrone]

For me I like how Vista is substantially more secure than XP, and I like Directx10. Its the best operating system MS has every written for desktop computers. Thats not to say its perfect, but its certainly better than XP ever was.

Since Sharktooth et al carried on so much about *nix I figured I would take a long hard look at *nix. My particular Linux distro I have enjoyed the collaboration (Ive reported over 21 bugs) and getting into it as a geek hobby but its by no means as reliable or easy to use as Vista. If its not bugs in gnome during install its poor graphics driver bugs or lots of app level bugs. Somehow people will unfairly criticise MS for being the giant evil assimilator and cause of all the worlds wrongs when in Linux bugs are accepted cos we all pretend were cool geeks. Thats not even beginning to consider the problems Ive had with no printer drivers, no mobile phone driver and all the rest on Linux.

Im getting a kick out of Linux and will continue to be involved in the linux community with it but its certainly not a here and now replacement for Vista.

[Sharktooth]

not all linux distros have the same HW support... and not all linux distros are experimental or unstable... however the only responsibles for not making drivers for linux are the hardware manufacturers. Also i dont know why ppl still use gnome when there are better WMs/DEs.
Another point is "the ease of use". M$ made the users dumb idiots that does not even know what's inide a computer. When it crashes most users blame something or someone when the problem is elsewhere... in the worst cases they dont even have a clue of what they're talking about... (an example are the tons of discarded bug reports about MeGUI...)
So, the ease of use comes at a cost... a huge cost.
In the real world, you need know what you're doing and not just push the button and hope it goes the right way unless you're a dumbass or an automa.
however if you want to compare something to windows, compare stable distros like suse, debian and so on.
Also i disagree on the Vista security over XP. UAC is a USER ACCESS control... it does prevent the user to do some damage, but it does not prevent programs to do the same or worse damages... It's not a security measure but just a user restriction measure. Other security features were just exploited and bypassed (including UAC) so it's hard for me (and some others...) to understand why Vista is more secure than XP.
That said, Vista has nothing appetible over XP (except DX10 - by M$ choice!) because it has less performance, more memory and CPU hogging due to useless programs/services/tasks (windows defender? LOL) running in background, new bugs, added incompatibility, an impossible to read EULA and way more user restrictions.

[Shinigami-Sama]

For me I like how Vista is substantially more secure than XP, and I like Directx10. Its the best operating system MS has every written for desktop computers. Thats not to say its perfect, but its certainly better than XP ever was.

Since Sharktooth et al carried on so much about *nix I figured I would take a long hard look at *nix. My particular Linux distro I have enjoyed the collaboration (Ive reported over 21 bugs) and getting into it as a geek hobby but its by no means as reliable or easy to use as Vista. If its not bugs in gnome during install its poor graphics driver bugs or lots of app level bugs. Somehow people will unfairly criticise MS for being the giant evil assimilator and cause of all the worlds wrongs when in Linux bugs are accepted cos we all pretend were cool geeks. Thats not even beginning to consider the problems Ive had with no printer drivers, no mobile phone driver and all the rest on Linux.

Im getting a kick out of Linux and will continue to be involved in the linux community with it but its certainly not a here and now replacement for Vista.

the only reason that its more secure right now is that its new and the exploits haven't been found yet give it till SP1 and it'll be as insecure as XP is

remember windows 98 was the more secure than 95, its like comparing a brand new building to an older one, the new one more secure because no-one knows hallways as good as they do for the old building

also KDE > Gnome imo

[int 21h]

Yea, geez, Vista has nothing worthwhile :-(


ASLR (http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2006/05/26/address-space-layout-randomization-in-windows-vista.aspx)
Mandatory Integrity Control (http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2006/08/18/Why-Vista_3F00_-Mandatory-Integrity-Control-_2800_MIC_2900_-_2800_Security_2C00_-Stability_2C00_-System-Integrity_2900_.aspx)
The ability, in a corporate or .edu environment, to use NAP (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/bb545879.aspx)
Code integrity features for kernel level drivers and files
Windows Service hardening, along with changes to many of the services to run them as something other than System


Is Vista more secure than XP? Yes, without a doubt. Saying that Vista is only secure momentarily because it has just come out is pretty naive. If you don't think blackhats are on MSDN or fiddling with the leaked betas, or worse case, trying out the CTPs... :rolleyes:

This is the same thing that people said about IIS 6 when it came out, "Oh, just wait, people will find a ton of vulnerabilities with it!" During the lifespan of IIS 6, it has had... what.. 3 vulnerabilities? All of relatively small risk. Hmm, how many vulnerabilities has Apache had during the same time frame?

If you want to lambast someone about security, start looking towards the 14 year olds developing web applications in their bedroom because 95% of the vulnerabilities coming to light right now are web-based in nature. Or how about the PHP developers? They "patch" the same security flaws three or four times, and then when they finally get it right, they regress at the next major patch level and expose the same, or a very similar flaw all over again.

[JeffAlso]

I have to comment on this
Is Vista more secure than XP? Yes, without a doubt.
Perhaps it is, perhaps not. The answer to this can only be vetted over time. There is a very real concern that tilt-bits and other recent introductions exposes the OS to an entirely new catagory of DOS attacks. To say anything is without a doubt concerning security indicates you have no understanding of the subject matter.

During the lifespan of IIS 6, it has had... what.. 3 vulnerabilities?
Go here, search for IIS: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls
It appears the numbers used in your argument are incorrect.

how many vulnerabilities has Apache had during the same time frame?
Apache is a web server, and Vista is an operating system. The nature, likelyhood, and severity of vulnerabilities varies drastically between these products. No accurate conclusions can be made from comparing these disparate product types.

If you want to lambast someone about security, start looking towards the 14 year olds developing web applications in their bedroom because 95% of the vulnerabilities coming to light right now are web-based in nature
The impact of an amateur web developer exposing a vulnerability in his hobby-site cannot be compared to the impact of tens of millions of internet-connected machines with a potential platform vulnerability.

What is it with people these days making arguments absent any facts, and drawing conclusions from nonsensical comparisons? Has everyone gone in to politics without telling me or something, geez...

[foxyshadis]

IIS is not IE. IIS is the windows web server, so the comparison is valid. (Although some of apache's vulnerabilities have been in - go figure - the php and cgi modules and outside ssl library.)

[JeffAlso]

IIS is not IE. IIS is the windows web server, so the comparison is valid. (Although some of apache's vulnerabilities have been in - go figure - the php and cgi modules and outside ssl library.)
I stand corrected. I looked up IE rather than IIS. Post is corrected. Thank you.

[int 21h]

I have to comment on this
Perhaps it is, perhaps not. The answer to this can only be vetted over time. There is a very real concern that tilt-bits and other recent introductions exposes the OS to an entirely new catagory of DOS attacks. To say anything is without a doubt concerning security indicates you have no understanding of the subject matter.


There are many things you can say without a doubt with regards to security. These features will, without a doubt, contribute to making Vista more secure than XP. Just as Windows 2003 x64 (and XP x64 for that matter) is more secure than XP x32.


Go here, search for IIS: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls
It appears the numbers used in your argument are incorrect.


Uhm, that search will bring up vulnerabilities for IIS 4, IIS 5, and IIS 6. There are 5 vulnerabilities listed at NVD (http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?startrow=1) and Secunia has 3 vulnerabilities listed (http://secunia.com/graph/?type=adv&period=all&prod=1438).


Apache is a web server, and Vista is an operating system. The nature, likelyhood, and severity of vulnerabilities varies drastically between these products. No accurate conclusions can be made from comparing these disparate product types.


I was actually comparing the FUD regarding Vista with the FUD regarding IIS.


The impact of an amateur web developer exposing a vulnerability in his hobby-site cannot be compared to the impact of tens of millions of internet-connected machines with a potential platform vulnerability.


It isn't the one hobby-site that is the problem, it is the amateur developer who then decides to share his creation.

Pindorama (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/26026), PicoFlat (http://secwatch.org/advisories/1019239/), PhpStats (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/25674),TikiWiki (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/26006), CMS Made Simple (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/25997), Design Stride Merchant Shop (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/26046), LightBlog (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/25990), and finally, here is a nice PHP one (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/25498/info) (to lend credence to my previous example of PHP).

Let's see, what would I rather have for nefarious purposes, an owned workstation... even a thousand owned workstations, or a rack of webhosts... hmm... hard choice.


What is it with people these days making arguments absent any facts, and drawing conclusions from nonsensical comparisons? Has everyone gone in to politics without telling me or something, geez...

Hmm.. Hi pot, this is kettle.

[GrofLuigi]

More code = more bugs = more vulnerabilities.

GL

[burfadel]

Microsoft just stuffed up through corporate greed. They only made a 32 bit version of Vista because they expected everyone to rush out and change over from XP. What they should have done is have vista x64, and bring out a modified SP3 kind of like a release 2 of XP. Then they could have charged a nominal fee (say $30) to update to the new release. This new release should be based on the Server 2003 code like XP x64. However, unlike a normal service pack that doesn't include new versions of WMP, IE etc, they should automatically include that as part of the update, as well as the updates to Directx, Net framework 3 etc etc. Most people with genuine XP would probably buy that! The advantage with this is that updates for the 'new XP' would be the same as server 2003, like the updates for server 2003 x64 and XP x64 (they're the same!). The outcome of this is that the profit from the nominal fee would cover the minimal development cost, as its essentially an updated port from Server 2003 with the other stuff chucked in, it would actually cut down by one the operating systems they need to support for XP, as sp3 would use the server 2003 updates, and sp2 would be covered by the updated (so instead of having updates like in the future for sp2, sp3, server 2003, they can cut out the sp3 update version), and they also cut out support for Vista 32 bit because it wouldn't exist. This would represent a very large saving for Microsoft, as well as better operating system options for the consumer. Development on updates for Vista x64 would also be quicker because the support can be rediverted from the scrapping of 2 system versions, and the consumer would benefit from much better Vista (let alone better development from day one because of the need not to make Vista 32 bit).

The truth be told, Sp2 for XP SHOULD have been udpated to the Server 2003 core, Microsoft would have saved a lot of money by doing so and it may have prevented a small loss from people being sick of Xp's reliability (server 2003 is much more reliable) and switching to Linux.

The other downside is that without Microsoft pushing for 64 bit operating systems the consumer misses out. A 64 bit version of a programme is faster than its 32 bit version, its not as simple as just having more memory available. 64 bit introduces new, faster instructions so processor intensive applications if programmed correctly can have a 40 percent or more performance boost :)

[Bathrone]

The good thing about the internet is that it gives people a voice. The bad thing about it is that you get countless people with no clue talking about subjects they are actually ignorant about.

Its refreshing to see people like int 21h actually contribute a reasoned and factual set of posts to this thread....which is nothing more than an example the problems of public internet creates.

Just because UAC is all the clueless users who think they know better can see, does not mean thats all thats changed under the hood. Go and read Roger Grimes book on Vista security and you ignorant people might actually begin to comprehend the depths of better security Vista offers over XP.

[4Dude]

For many people who will use Vista, these DRM issues are meaningless.Yes but you shouldnt not want your privacy invaded!!

ON VISTA YOU HAVE ZERO PRIVACY...... And that is something everyone should frown upon. (Even if they have nothing they wanna keep to themselves)

THIS IS ALL ABOUT PRIVACY!!!!!

[Bathrone]

4Dude you claim Vista has privacy issues. Can you explain what those are please? Most countries have various privacy laws and certainly in my country at least there is a whole range of privacy laws that MS are bound by.

DRM is not the same thing as privacy. I dont like DRM and I use tools to assert my fair use rights on Vista.

However, what do you propose MS should have done about patent pools and multimedia IP? Are you suggesting MS should have done a FOSS stunt where they rip off other IP holders stuff without licence? Or should MS have not met the terms the IP holders dictated when implementing the IP holders technology and broken the law that way?

[burfadel]

Media issues aside, Vista isn't that bad of an operating system. People must think of Vista like XP RTM, 95 RTM, and Windows 3.0 (the three previous truly new operating system). They all had problems to start with. Windows XP RTM was probably worse than Vista truth be told, it only became good once SP1 came out, when was it? 2002?

[Shinigami-Sama]

Media issues aside, Vista isn't that bad of an operating system. People must think of Vista like XP RTM, 95 RTM, and Windows 3.0 (the three previous truly new operating system). They all had problems to start with. Windows XP RTM was probably worse than Vista truth be told, it only became good once SP1 came out, when was it? 2002?

I compare it to ME than anything but hey

I do agree with you though, once the service pack comes(and hopefully has a more efficient aero) then I'll consider it again, until its a POS just like ME imo

[Sharktooth]

no "more efficient aero" in sp1... you can download the beta and test it... once sp1 is installed vista eats even more RAM!

[JohnnyMalaria]

no "more efficient aero" in sp1... you can download the beta and test it... once sp1 is installed vista eats even more RAM!

Where from? According to:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9038660

it's by invitation only.

Beta SPs tend to be bigger than the final, too.

[Sharktooth]

just look on the net. i can legally download it here in italy, but dont know in your country.

[Shinigami-Sama]

no "more efficient aero" in sp1... you can download the beta and test it... once sp1 is installed vista eats even more RAM!

to bad I don't have any more vista compatible hardware:rolleyes:
unless I put it in a VM

[Sharktooth]

good for you. you wont miss XP... ;)

[JohnnyMalaria]

Just a thought - isn't it time to change the title of this thread?

i.e., "Why Vista will suck...." should be "Why Vista sucks..." or "Why Vista doesn't suck...."

:):o

[Sharktooth]

yeah. "Why vista SUCKS" would be ok.

another Vista myth: Vista boots faster than XP.
i think it does not...: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=378

[GrofLuigi]

another Vista myth: Vista boots faster than XP.
i think it does not...: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=378

For quite a few years I've been constantly amazed by Microsoft's (and moreso users') fascination by "boot times". AFAIK it all started between Windows2000 and XP, when some users complained about slow boot times and Microsoft reacted by cutting corners in XP ("fast initialization" of devices), introducing "prefetch" (which adds another layer of complexity and work to be done, IMO unnecessary) and hibernation (which is rarely implemented right in hardware - try putting a computer to sleep or waking it up with USB2.0 device connected).

Why not wait few seconds more and let hardware and all structures be initialized properly?

GL

[Maccara]

For quite a few years I've been constantly amazed by Microsoft's (and moreso users') fascination by "boot times".

Exactly.

We actually had a staff meeting once, where one guy pointed out that we should focus some effort on shaving boottimes - he had calculated we will save so-and-so much time by just shaving off 15s. Everyone took that on face value and agreed.

Something nagged me about the figures and took out a calculator and a minute later voiced my opinion: "I just realized, we should give guy X the boot - he doesn't do any work here, he's just rebooting his computer all day." :devil:

He's calculations were for a reboot of every 6 minutes - probably tried to calculate for every 60 minutes, which is also a gross overestimation. Average user just came to work, booted computer (and at least in our department most didn't actually sit & wait for boot, so even that couldn't be calculated directly as a loss) and shutdown when left.

[HyperHacker]

How about that product deactivation (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/23/1255235)? :p

[Sharktooth]

oh, that's a new feature that comes with Vista... slap in a new video card or a particular driver and you get your system... ehrr... deactivated. nice stuff...
ill laugh when the (in)famous driver/software revocation (http://www.fastsilicon.com/opinions-editorials/blame-vista-9.html?Itemid=27) will seriously hit Vista users...
however if you have some time... have a nice read: http://www.getgnulinux.org/windows/

[shevegen]

"Why not wait few seconds more and let hardware and all structures be initialized properly?"

I am using Linux almost exclusively these days.
But I must say that, your average Linux distribution will boot MUCH SLOWER than Windows.

It can be improved by not using those ugly shell scripts, but you see as long as the distributions do not aim for fast bootup times on default, this is another unnecessary area where Microsoft is better.

[Shinigami-Sama]

to bad most of those 'ugly shell scripts' are required to get your OS running, M$ just hides them in services and the registry

I do agree that if they wanted to they could make linux boot faster by atleast 30%, but atleast its not solaris slow!

[Sharktooth]

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=319950#post319950

[wmansir]

I finally got around to running some tests.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/706/chartws4.gif

On average Vista was 4% slower, but that's including the unusual case of 2 instances of Procoder running. It's a dual core system and ProCoder is mutlithreaded, but it still runs a little faster with 2 instances in XP. In Vista I reran the test twice and the process that took 168 minutes in XP took 188 and then 198.
Earlier this week I upgraded from 1GB DDR400 (2.5-3-3-5) to 2GB DDR2-667 (4-4-4-12) (MB supports both). My memory benchmarks were about the same with the new memory (still have some tweaking to do), but I ran the same DVD through RB last night and awoke to find my Procoder run had gone from 176 minutes to 118 minutes! I guess Vista really needs 2GB I though...then I noticed that my computer clock was a hour behind and realized the computer had knocked 60 minutes off when it corrected the clock for DST. D'oh.

[Ryokurin]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299 A three part series of basically Ed Bott completely tearing apart Peter Gutmann's whitepaper on Vista. Basically a ton of people are very misinformed on how Vista works, this thread included and its all a bunch of lies and misconceptions.

[GrofLuigi]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299 A three part series of basically Ed Bott completely tearing apart Peter Gutmann's whitepaper on Vista. Basically a ton of people are very misinformed on how Vista works, this thread included and its all a bunch of lies and misconceptions.

Fanboy vs. fanboy. But I like to err on the side of caution. :)

GL

[JohnnyMalaria]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299 A three part series of basically Ed Bott completely tearing apart Peter Gutmann's whitepaper on Vista. Basically a ton of people are very misinformed on how Vista works, this thread included and its all a bunch of lies and misconceptions.

So, as with everything in the real world when two extreme groups are trying to tell you what the real truth is, the reality is that it lies somewhere in between.

At the end of the day, only you will know the truth about how any OS performs for you.

[Sharktooth]

... crappy ... :p

[HyperHacker]

All I can say for sure is I've used Vista and didn't like it. Slow, bloated, overly flashy, ugly, and unstable. (I managed to crash the Start menu. <_<) YMMV, but I can almost ensure you'll enjoy XP SP2 more.

[burfadel]

People should be reminded of Windows XP when it first came out! Before SP1 it wasn't exactly the best operating system, and you have to remember it was the second in that generation. Windows 2000 RTM would be the best one to compare to as that was version 5.0, XP was 5.1, and Server 2003/XP x64 was 5.2.

The problem is its been so long since it came out people can't remember what they were like. Then, it has to be considered Vista has to be a lot more complex than what 2000/XP was when it first came out. Most computers now wouldn't function properly on the original 2000/xp RTM.

My only suggestion is, if you only want to run a 32 bit operating system stick with XP, if you get a new computer or have a really good computer currently (I mean good, not what you think is good), then Vista x64 is the way to go, fully updated of course. I'd stay well clear of 32 bit Vista, that was the biggest mistake Microsoft has made recently. It makes support a whole lot more difficult, and future support just isn't there! Vista 32 bit can ONLY run with 2gb of RAM (same as XP), unless the addressing switch is used which limits you to 3GB. The latest games are heading towards requiring more than 2gb of RAM for best gameplay.

[deuce2]

So, as with everything in the real world when two extreme groups are trying to tell you what the real truth is, the reality is that it lies somewhere in between.


It indeed sounds like that is the case. I'm sure that given time Microsoft will have worked out many of the bugs as they did with XP. Until then I'll wait before purchasing it since I have a perfectly good XP operating system now. :) In the meantime, I think I'll check out one of the Linux packages because I like free stuff and I've got an extra computer to play with... now which flavor?:confused:

[Sharktooth]

why ppl likes to pay for beta softwares (cause IMHO, looking at the problems it has, Vista is still in beta stage!!!)?

[Shinigami-Sama]

why ppl likes to pay for beta softwares (cause IMHO, looking at the problems it has, Vista is still in beta stage!!!)?

I agree
to many bugs, still lots of unoptimized code(aero)

[zambelli]

Has anybody tried the Vista ReadyBoost (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx)feature? I'm really curious about it. You can get 4GB of flash memory for $60 on NewEgg right now.

[Sharktooth]

you can get a fast 8GB USB flash for about 30 euros (approx 45 USD)...
however, ReadyBoost didnt make any difference on my system (even if it's a bit old it has a fast hard drive).
on older machines it may make some though.

[Ryokurin]

Has anybody tried the Vista ReadyBoost (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx)feature? I'm really curious about it. You can get 4GB of flash memory for $60 on NewEgg right now.

It didn't make that big of a difference to me, but then again I already have 1.5 gigs, about to step it up to 2 gigs on my laptop.

Its just like what burfadel said, If you remember how windows 2000 was right when it came out then you see how Vista is now, a ton of growing pains and minor issues that are annoying, but if you stick with it for a while you tend to forgive it as it is still better in the end. If the last time you tried it was the first of the year, seriously try it again as its quite a bit better now. Its not 10% but its getting there slowly.

I've kept it strictly on my laptop for now, but I'll probably start to roll it out to my desktops after the first of the year (making sure to buy business, as ultimate is basically a waste of money imho) I'm still sticking with XP for my family simply because of the nags, but I'll revisit the idea after SP1.

[HyperHacker]

Its not 10% but its getting there slowly.Typo, I presume? :p

[dragongodz]

this thread got quite funny. its amazing people claiming that just because XP had bugs etc when it was released that it is ok for Vista too and people should still be buying it.

bull.

i know i sure didnt buy Xp when it first came out, didnt buy it until i had to for certain software i use. the same is going to apply to Vista. since i have tried Vista on friends PCs and seen how it really doesnt add anything special i know its really not a must "upgrade".
infact the longest it lasted on my friends PCs was 3 weeks.

anyway for those willing to see the funny side of things have a look at this

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/857874/vista_true_info/

:D

[Dr.Khron]

Thanks for the link, dragongodz, that was very funny, and well produced, too.

If you guys want read a heated debate about the usefulness of Vista, check out this HardOCP thread:

Is Windows Vista finally hitting its stride? (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1237347)

A bunch of corporate IT guys chime in, including this interesting comment:

However, Microsoft *is* being truthful on sales of Vista Business -- every business I deal with has started buying Vista Business instead of XP Pro -- but, as is often the case, Microsoft is only telling PART of the story. The reason the companies are buying it is because Vista Business counts as a legal Windows XP Pro license as well -- so, for the same price, it's a better deal. You get an XP Pro license for now and a Vista Biz license for when (& if) it becomes viable.

The fact that Microsoft seems to be omitting is that even though businesses are BUYING Vista Business -- they are only buying it for licensing reasons and then exercising their downgrade rights and installing XP Professional.

[Sharktooth]

With the initial performance characteristics of Windows Vista leaving much to be desired (see our previous post on the subject (http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-intel-giveth-microsoft-taketh-away.html)), many IT organizations have put off deploying the new OS until the first service pack (SP1) is released by Microsoft early next year. The thinking goes that SP1 will address all of these early performance issues and somehow bring Windows Vista on par with - or at least closer to - Windows XP in terms of runtime performance.

Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. Extensive testing by the exo.performance.network (www.xpnet.com) research staff shows that SP1 provides no measurable relief to users saddled with sub-par performance under Vista.
http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/vista-sp1-performance-dud.html

Research Staff said...

See our previous post on "What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away" for numbers from XP SP2 vs. Vista RTM. Basically, Vista is roughly 2x slower than XP on the same hardware across the board.

RS

[Shinigami-Sama]

why does that not surprise me?

are there any numbers for vista server yet?
2008 is it?

[Sharktooth]

dunno... im not interested in M$ crapserver2008...

[Shinigami-Sama]

dunno... im not interested in M$ crapserver2008...

seems no-one I know is
I've asked several people I know if theres any decent info on it and keep coming up blank or some PR fluff on second rate sites

[burfadel]

Readyboost does make a bit of difference, but whether to use it or not comes down to a few things.

First of all, most devices aren't suitable for readyboost. Even the ones that do pass the initial test (it tests the drives small read/write performance automatically when you first use it), they don't provide the low access and transfer times that makes readyboost beneficial.

I have a 2gb Apacer HT203 for my readyboost, its one of the fastest for this purpose. The best readyboost drive I know of is the Patriot Xporter XT. A drives rated speed on the packet is its sequential read/write rate. Readyboost relies solely on random read/writes of small amounts of data. A fast drive, 200x, may actually not pass the requirements, whereas a 120x drive passes quite well.

A cheap readyboost passable drive is not really beneficial, latency is important! Those cheap drives won't really provide any beneficial gain if they work for readyboost.

On 32 bit Vista, readyboost makes sense, since you are effectively limited to 2gb of ram. I know you can run more than that, same with XP, but its not really effective. Anyways, 2gb is ideal, but if you have a 4gb drive thats even better (very very slightly). If you specifically buy a readyboost drive then the extra cost is not worth it for 4gb.

If you're on 64 bit vista, with 2gb or less of ram it would be much more beneficial to spend money on RAM before spending it on a readyboost drive. 4gb or ram compared to 2gb will provide a significant more gain than the readyboost! Even with 4gb of ram, readyboost is beneficial though.

Also remember a 256mb readyboost on a good readyboost drive, such as the Patriot Xporter XT is more beneficial than 4gb on a key (even if its from another good brand) that only just passes the readyboost test.

Readyboost is supposedly going to be improved slightly with SP1.

[[P]ako]

are there any numbers for vista server yet?
2008 is it?

I haven't seen any yet. However, I am running the beta 3 of Server 2008 and as far as encoding goes, the speed is the same as with XP Pro SP2. Also, I should mention that, at least in my test machine, Server 2008 is more stable than XP Pro SP2.

Test machine specs: AMD XP +1500, 512 MB of SDRAM (PC133), ATI Radeon 7000 64 MB VRAM

[Shinigami-Sama]

ako;1067624']I haven't seen any yet. However, I am running the beta 3 of Server 2008 and as far as encoding goes, the speed is the same as with XP Pro SP2. Also, I should mention that, at least in my test machine, Server 2008 is more stable than XP Pro SP2.

Test machine specs: AMD XP +1500, 512 MB of SDRAM (PC133), ATI Radeon 7000 64 MB VRAM

ahh
how well does it function a server though?
or have you tried it out much that way?

[Inventive Software]

I'd imagine it would be a logical step forward in hardware support as much as anything, considering the last server OS was Window Server 2003. 5 years is a long time in computer hardware. But that the encoding speed is the same as XP SP2 is quite remarkable. It goes to show that Vista really isn't suited for main-stream just yet. Needs a couple of years to really crunch out the performance issues. And bugs of which there will be thousands.

[burfadel]

Having the speed of encoding the same as xp sp2 is expected. Installing a new operating system doesn't replace your cpu automatically!

The comparison should be made between xp sp2 and vista x64. Vista x64, even for 32 bit apps, is supposed to be faster. Due to many factors, including memory issues etc I think people should either go xp sp2/(sp3 shortly) or vista x64 (sp1 shortly). The 32 bit Windows is a waste of time and should never have been made. At least that way it would be easier on manufacturer's making drivers, as well as on Microsoft not having to deal with so many updates.

My ultimate opinion is XP should have been revamped with sp3, maybe even include things like readyboost etc, and have its core based on Server 2003 (Windows 5.2 instead of 5.1)... and then release it kind of like they did with 98se. Instead of free+pay for postage, a nominal update fee should have applied, such as say $40? That would mean most people on sp2 wouldn't mind spending the money to upgrade. Microsoft ends up with more profit due to significantly more upgrades to the new 'XP', it reduces the amount of updates they have to compile by 2 (sp3 uses the same updates as server 2003, and vista 32 doesn't exist so no updates there either)!, manufacturers would have to write one less driver, consumers are happy, etc etc. and more time could be spend on getting x64 right!

But in the end its corporate greed as they expected everyone to switch to vista 32 regardless.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The comparison should be made between xp sp2 and vista x64. Vista x64, even for 32 bit apps, is supposed to be faster. Due to many factors, including memory issues etc I think people should either go xp sp2/(sp3 shortly) or vista x64 (sp1 shortly). The 32 bit Windows is a waste of time and should never have been made. At least that way it would be easier on manufacturer's making drivers, as well as on Microsoft not having to deal with so many updates.

It doesn't follow that 64-bit Vista should be faster than 32-bit XP or 32-bit Vista when running 32-bit apps. 32-bit apps run natively on the CPU as, well, 32-bit. For CPU intensive apps, the performance will be almost identical, possibly slightly less (32-bit requests for disk access etc have to be translated to the 64-bit kernel drivers for the hardware). (This has been my experience when running benchmarks on XP SP2, x64 and both flavors of Vista).

Not making 32-bit Vista would be foolish. At a stroke, legacy hardware would be redundant unless the vendors write 64-bit drivers. Expecting all hardware to have 64-bit drivers in time for Vista launch is unrealistic. For new hardware and software, Microsoft provide development tools that can generate 32-bit and 64-bit code from the same source code so it offers no advantage for the vendors to only create 64-bit drivers.

My ultimate opinion is XP should have been revamped with sp3, maybe even include things like readyboost etc, and have its core based on Server 2003 (Windows 5.2 instead of 5.1)... and then release it kind of like they did with 98se. Instead of free+pay for postage, a nominal update fee should have applied, such as say $40? That would mean most people on sp2 wouldn't mind spending the money to upgrade. Microsoft ends up with more profit due to significantly more upgrades to the new 'XP', it reduces the amount of updates they have to compile by 2 (sp3 uses the same updates as server 2003, and vista 32 doesn't exist so no updates there either)!, manufacturers would have to write one less driver, consumers are happy, etc etc. and more time could be spend on getting x64 right!

But in the end its corporate greed as they expected everyone to switch to vista 32 regardless.

Like XP x64, Vista derives much of its codebase from the server versions of Windows. Vista is an opportunistic stepping stone on the way to the next server version - i.e., Microsoft can make money (to pay for ongoing R&D without which we'd still be using DOS). For Microsoft to get sidetracked into extending XP would be expensive and unnecessary. They'd also get a lot of criticism for not delivering a new OS.

The 32-bit vs 64-bit argument is rather moot with Vista since both versions come with the DVD. For retail purchasers (i.e., not OEM), they can make the choice - Microsoft provide the choice. Most are choosing the 32-bit, primarily because of the lack of 64-bit driver for their existing hardware.

[zambelli]

The 32-bit vs 64-bit argument is rather moot with Vista since both versions come with the DVD. For retail purchasers (i.e., not OEM), they can make the choice - Microsoft provide the choice. Most are choosing the 32-bit, primarily because of the lack of 64-bit driver for their existing hardware.
One very good thing that came out of Vista development was the unification of 32-bit and 64-bit build process at Microsoft. Most Vista code just gets built automatically as 64-bit - there's no need for devs to make separate changes. This changes the view of 64-bit computing quite dramatically, as it's no longer viewed as a special project, but an elementary part of compiling code.

[[P]ako]

ahh
how well does it function a server though?
or have you tried it out much that way?

I haven't tried it as a server. My intention was to test it as a desktop OS.

[Shinigami-Sama]

ako;1067678']I haven't tried it as a server. My intention was to test it as a desktop OS.

is it a nicer set up than a 2k3 desktop?
I had some problems getting nlite to cooperate with 2k3 nicely

[foxyshadis]

Not making 32-bit Vista would be foolish. At a stroke, legacy hardware would be redundant unless the vendors write 64-bit drivers. Expecting all hardware to have 64-bit drivers in time for Vista launch is unrealistic. For new hardware and software, Microsoft provide development tools that can generate 32-bit and 64-bit code from the same source code so it offers no advantage for the vendors to only create 64-bit drivers.

That did happen with NT/2000, and to a lesser extent, 95. It was painful and caused a lot of angst, but people either got over it and bought new hardware or stuck with the old OS forever. The popularity of XP eventually drove large-scale releases of new drivers; the Vista launch has been more like 2000's, but surely most devices would at least be supported in 64-bit more quickly this way.

As it is, unless you're a techie you can't install unsigned drivers on Vista anyway, which in my experience about 2/3 of them are.

[[P]ako]

is it a nicer set up than a 2k3 desktop?
I had some problems getting nlite to cooperate with 2k3 nicely

Yes, it is very lean.

[Shinigami-Sama]

That did happen with NT/2000, and to a lesser extent, 95. It was painful and caused a lot of angst, but people either got over it and bought new hardware or stuck with the old OS forever. The popularity of XP eventually drove large-scale releases of new drivers; the Vista launch has been more like 2000's, but surely most devices would at least be supported in 64-bit more quickly this way.

As it is, unless you're a techie you can't install unsigned drivers on Vista anyway, which in my experience about 2/3 of them are.
why does microsoft have such a hard time signing drivers?
its not like demand has decreased...

ako;1067799']Yes, it is very lean.

nice :)

[foxyshadis]

Microsoft doesn't have a hard time signing them, companies have a hard time submitting them, especially the ones that release regular updates. Every sign costs a lot of money, but Vista has an entirely new signing model based on 3rd party testing suites (as well as Microsoft's own), so the cost is potentially much lower now. But still, paying some amount of money for every free maintenance release is a bit of a disincentive to bother.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Microsoft doesn't have a hard time signing them, companies have a hard time submitting them, especially the ones that release regular updates. Every sign costs a lot of money, but Vista has an entirely new signing model based on 3rd party testing suites (as well as Microsoft's own), so the cost is potentially much lower now. But still, paying some amount of money for every free maintenance release is a bit of a disincentive to bother.

I take that as having a hard time signing them
I'd agree with an initial payment, and say 3 re-signs for revisions
then another payment, but if 3rd party can get them signed all the better

[HyperHacker]

Every sign costs a lot of moneyAnd now we see the real reasons behind DRM and "protection" schemes. :p

[Sharktooth]

exactly... MS already gets enough money by signing drivers (just think at ATI that has WHQL certified drivers once per month!) they can release the windows OSes for free...
But the greed attracts even more greed...

[honai]

Microsoft doesn't have a hard time signing them, companies have a hard time submitting them, especially the ones that release regular updates. Every sign costs a lot of money, but Vista has an entirely new signing model based on 3rd party testing suites (as well as Microsoft's own), so the cost is potentially much lower now. But still, paying some amount of money for every free maintenance release is a bit of a disincentive to bother.

MS already gets enough money by signing drivers (just think at ATI that has WHQL certified drivers once per month!)

Do you have links or reference that show if and how much companies are being charged by Microsoft for having their drivers signed? Because I don't believe any of it, and unless you can prove any of the allegations this thread is becoming another pointless MS bashfest based on false rumors, not facts.

And doing a google search for "microsoft driver signing cost" and taking the word of an anonymous commenter at a blog at face value is not research, no matter how many gullible "researchers" link to it. Just because someone is wearing a helmet on a construction site it doesn't make him an architect, you know.

[Sharktooth]

:search: (google :p) and you will find why smaller companies cant afford to have their drivers certified even if they could pass any WHQL tests...

[honai]

here's another smarta$$ fanboy

Just because your post count reads 6,984 it doesn't mean you have a right to insult other visitors. That kind of rude behavior actually diminishes any of the valid points you might have.

And like I said, a google search is not research. Where are the hard facts? Repeating a rumor doesn't make it true. Please give me a reference from anyone involved in WHQL driver signing who can confirm that it costs "a lot of money", if any at all.

[Sharktooth]

Just the Verisign Class 3 signing costs 500$... plus 250$ for each attempt of WHQL testing (that doesnt actually mean certification!).....
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/getstart/testing.mspx
oh, btw, you started insulting this community intelligence by contraddicting facts before even getting informed...

[honai]

Just the Verisign Class 3 signing costs 500$

The 500$ for the certificate goes to VeriSign, not Microsoft. Microsoft has no control over how much VeriSign charges for it.

plus 250$ for each attempt of WHQL testing

Links? References? Where did you get that information from?

And let me quote again:

plus 250$ for each attempt of WHQL testing

Every sign costs a lot of money

MS already gets enough money by signing drivers

Even with that juxtaposition I'm still eager to see the references that confirm the price tag of "250$ for each attempt of WHQL testing".

[Sharktooth]

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/WLP_Policies.doc
also keep in mind it's 250$ for EACH OS the driver is certified for...
if the driver package is made up of multiple drivers each one must be also certified...

[honai]

Thanks for the document. Now that wasn't too hard, was it? I hope now we can get back to discussing facts, not rumors.

also keep in mind it's 250$ for EACH OS the driver is certified for...

It's 250$ for each OS family, e.g. testing for both Windows XP x86 and x64 amounts to 250$, not more.

So now that we know the facts do you still want to maintain that a company as big as Microsoft

already gets enough money by signing drivers

when in actual fact it's a mere 250$ per OS family for submitting a driver?

And by the way, given the costs accumulated by an actual Microsoft employee having to at least handle the submission, how is Microsoft supposed to make any profit from this? Fact is that it's a standard industry practice - not invented by Microsoft - to have nominal fees to deter hobbyists from keeping your employees busy when the former have no actual business interest. You'll find this all over the place. Talk to any software vendor who has such a program, and they'll tell you that unless you pay the nominal fee they won't even handle your contact.

Same with conference fees. Many of those don't cost 500$ entrance fee because they want to make a profit from it, but because they want to filter out folks who are not serious about it. Think about it.

The point is that if Microsoft dropped that price tag they'd get swamped with hundreds of thousands of submissions from people who have no actual business in it other than getting something "cool" from Microsoft for free.

[Sharktooth]

yes, considering drivers are submitted multiple times before getting a certification (each attempt costs 250$)... and that usually drivers require multiple submission each times coz they come as multiple drivers package (just think at an audio or a video card with TV output) and each submission costs 250$...
Plus, if you want the same driver certified for 2000/XP/2003 you need to pay 2 submissions at once too (2000 is free if you have it submitted with another OS)....
Do some calculations and look at the costs...
Also take into consideration that a new driver version requires all that crap again... and also signatures expires and you need to look at the mantaining policies...

[honai]

So what is your suggestion to Microsoft? How would you solve this "problem" if you had a say at Microsoft?

And more importantly: Who is the client you are advocating here? The shareware programmer? Who gets hurt by the current practice? I don't get it.

[Sharktooth]

The "client" is free software as defined here: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html
Or at least to pay a reasonable price for something that actually fits the user needs AND works without needing to spend more money by buying new hardware just coz the software contains a whole bunch of useless stuff.
Vista is exactly the opposite...

[honai]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough. You complained that the driver signing cost is too high, right? So what would your suggestion be? That Microsoft made the WHQL process available for free? If not, what's the price tag you'd propose? Please give a specific number.

[Sharktooth]

As it has been proven (again, use google) WHQL certification is useless.

[honai]

You're dodging the questions. What do you propose? Get rid of the WHQL process (because it's "useless"), or lower the price (because Microsoft is "making money" out of it)? Which way do you want it?

[Sharktooth]

Everyone has his own opinion.
Whatever i suggest MS will do what they want... so, it's useless.

[honai]

I see. So you complain about a situation, but when asked what you'd change you decline to give anything at all.

That's all I needed to know.

[moshmothma]

Do you have links or reference that show if and how much companies are being charged by Microsoft for having their drivers signed? Because I don't believe any of it, and unless you can prove any of the allegations this thread is becoming another pointless MS bashfest based on false rumors, not facts.



Thanks for the document. Now that wasn't too hard, was it? I hope now we can get back to discussing facts, not rumors.


Having just stumbled on this thread I really find your comments distracting and detracting. You made some pretty harsh allegations and when proven wrong, you find something else to be harsh about. It's post like these that really make these kinds of forums tedious. You should probably have just started another thread if you wanted to voice your support for MS. I would personally be quite happy if you'd drop it or start another thread.
Happy Thanksgiving

[honai]

It seems your reading was less than cursory.

You made some pretty harsh allegations and when proven wrong

You are wrong. Here's the initial allegations that I questioned:

Every sign costs a lot of money

and

MS already gets enough money by signing drivers

Both allegations were proven wrong. Every sign does *not* cost a lot of money, and Microsoft does *not* get enough money by signing driver. Actually, given the current wages and rates in the IT industry, Microsoft is probably operating the WHQL at a loss.

and when proven wrong, you find something else to be harsh about

No, the topic staid the same: Is Microsoft charging too much for WHQL driver signing? Answer: No.

It's post like these that really make these kinds of forums tedious.

Actually, it's posts your like yours that make these kinds of forums tedious - people who come late to the party, read very carelessly, draw premature conclusions, and steer off the conversation because they totally misunderstood what the discussion is about.

You should probably have just started another thread if you wanted to voice your support for MS.

And it's precisely sentences like those that inflame a discussion. This is not about support for Microsoft, this is about getting facts straight. I don't care if it's Microsoft or any other company.

I would personally be quite happy if you'd drop it or start another thread.

I would personally be quite happy if you made a meaningful contribution to the topic at hand, instead of talking about meta-aspects of the discussion, or the implied motives of posters.

Do you have an opinion on WHQL driver signing?

[Wilbert]

@Sharktooth, i suggest that you edit your disrespectfull and offensive posts, and refrain from doing this in the future.

[Shinigami-Sama]

@Sharktooth, i suggest that you edit your disrespectfull and offensive posts, and refrain from doing this in the future.

I actual in agree with shark, and honai hasn't been to friendly either

anyways
500$ and 250$ doesn't sound that bad on paper
but if you have to submit your driver 4 or 5 times to get it to pass WHCL tests, it starts to add up, for very little return at all on the final product

[[P]ako]

The MSFT authenticode signing digital ID can be $399:

http://www.verisign.com/code-signing/msft-partner-code-signing/index.html

And just in case this is not clear, I would like to point out that the digital ID license is for the whole company regarless of the number of products it wishes to submit to MSFT. It is not a license for each product.

WHQL testing becomes mandatory only with 64-bit server, in all other cases the companies don't need their drivers to pass WHQL testing to submit them (proof of that were the ATI drivers mentioned many posts above). Now, if the companies were to do their job properly, they'd be submitting their drivers for testing only once or maybe twice. Unless said companies think that it is cheaper to have MSFT testing their drivers for them than doing the tests at home. Who would like to waste their developers' precious and expensive time testing drivers?

[HyperHacker]

I see. So you complain about a situation, but when asked what you'd change you decline to give anything at all.

That's all I needed to know.You don't need to know how to solve a problem to know the problem exists. What do you suggest we do about global warming?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Hmm, let's see how MS are out to rip money from the blood and sweat covered hardware and software developers.

My Verisign certificate - $99 a year and I can sign every and any piece of software I care to - even Notepad.

For less than $400 per year, I have had a full MSDN subscription entitling me to unrestricted access to all MS products and (essentially) unlimited installs.

To get Microsoft Certified Partner status, you have to submit an application for testing - not by MS - but Veritest. In my case, the testing will be done in Ireland. It costs $400 for the main test and $400 for "an elective" test. In my case, that's a feature of the application that requires an MS Office application - no big whoop. The application has to pass a variety of important tests to ensure stability, proper behavior as far as not abusing the security of the OS (no, nothing to do with DRM before your twitching DRM gene kicks in) and it has to have gotten positive references from money-paying customers.

Ouch - $800. Well, after a long (1hr) telephone conversation with Microsoft, I received a voucher for $800 to cover the cost of the testing.

And I'm just me - not some huge software company. *Anyone* can get all the same benefits I have received with little effort. (Basically, a web site that says you are an ISV and a promise to release a product of some form within 18 months of signing up).

What's in it for MS? They get to leverage your product into increased sales of their products. Normal, everyday co-promotion. Will that happen with my products? Unlikely. But some ISV's products will and the cost of a dirt cheap MSDN subscription, free product testing and other perks more than pays for itself.

BTW, as far as driver signing for hardware goes, get real. A few hundred dollars for the signing is bugger all compared to the cost of development of the hardware, updates to firmware, circuits etc. Do you really think the likes nVidia, HP, Canon, Intel etc etc wave their arms in outrage? No.

And finally - before you bitch and moan about the big, evil 64-bit driver signing mandate, do some research. Here's a clue:

bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

[JohnnyMalaria]

but if you have to submit your driver 4 or 5 times to get it to pass WHCL tests, it starts to add up

If you have to submit your driver 4 or 5 times then you or your programmers don't know what you/they are doing. The DDK provides all the documentation and tools to develop drivers and test them exactly the same way they are tested by the labs before submitting them.

[Shinigami-Sama]

If you have to submit your driver 4 or 5 times then you or your programmers don't know what you/they are doing. The DDK provides all the documentation and tools to develop drivers and test them exactly the same way they are tested by the labs before submitting them.

have you seen recent drivers?

[foxyshadis]

Actually you can get the WHQL test suites, you don't ever have to submit them 4-5 times unless your team never bothers to test.

[Sharktooth]

succesfully pass WHQL certification is not so easy. it depends on hardware too. a small company cant afford to recreate all possible situations (hardware combinations) to be sure the driver will pass the tests.
The problem is MS cant do that too. So basically, getting the certification is useless but gives the end user a false feeling of safeness (hey there's a nice Designed for Windows logo and drivers are certified by MS! it must work! ... not ... and the game crashes, or looks ugly... or thousands of other problems coz the AGP current is too low or the driver was not meant to work with that software or other crap like that...).
Some companies (read nvidia) even get beta drivers WHQL certified. Those drivers have BIG issues but they still pass the WHQL tests (WTF!?!?) while making the system COMPLETELY unstable!
Now, let's consider how many hardware makers struggle to get the certification just for marketing reasons (hey, we got certified by MS! our product is the best!) and how much software/hardware is submitted for certification and THEN think at how much income has MS just for that... certifications.
Still, that certification doesnt mean that driver/hardware will work on your system AND that the driver/hardware is bug free... but who cares? it has a nice "Designed for Windows" logo and a nice WHQL certification...
It's just another way for MS to earn money in a questionable way (WHQL = Windows Harware Quality Labs... what?!? what labs?!? it's a software that automatically does some tests!).
So basically, MS gets money from both customers and hardware makers and their retail products are way too expensive for the end users while having impossible license restrictions, bugs, security holes and problems (think at malwares, spywares, trojans, viruses, vulnerabilities, Internet Explo"d"er!!!, etc...).
Also, considering the bugs and bloats you get with recent releases of their softwares (starting from the OSes - since this thread is about how much Vista sucks!) and the need for hardware upgrades you need to DO EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS you were able to do with previous releases of the same products (win2000 or XP), as a human being with his own intelligence, i (and you too!) would think twice (or more) before spending a cent on MS products, expecially when there are free and (more) functional alternatives.

@wilbert: done.

@honai: note -- the thread title is "Why Vista will suck!" and not "Suggestions for MS"...

[JohnnyMalaria]

succesfully pass WHQL certification is not so easy. it depends on hardware too. a small company cant afford to recreate all possible situations (hardware combinations) to be sure the driver will pass the tests.

Have you ever written a kernel-mode driver for Windows? A driver is typically written for a specific piece of hardware. It doesn't matter what other hardware is in the system. The OS sends specific requests to a driver at a number of possible priority levels. If the driver makes one mistake, the OS bug-checks (BSOD) and purposely stops. Kernel code has to be right every time - there's no room for error. Bug-checks occur for two reasons: the driver breaks the rules (which the self-test suite of tools in the DDK will detect) or it communicates incorrectly with the hardware it is paired with. That's sloppy programming or bad hardware. It makes no difference if your driver for your widget is running on a system with 3rd party hardware X, Y or Z.

The problem is MS cant do that too. So basically, getting the certification is useless but gives the end user a false feeling of safeness.....

The primary purpose of digital signing (drivers or applications) is to assure the end user that the software comes from where it claims to and that it hasn't been tampered with. e.g., when you download a driver for some hardware from a 3rd party driver repository, you can be confident that it is exactly the same driver as distributed by the original vendor and not some malware-infested hack.

It's just another way for MS to earn money in a questionable way (WHQL = Windows Harware Quality Labs... what?!? what labs?!? it's a software that automatically does some tests!).

Come on, Mr. Shark. Re-read what you wrote and you'll surely see the nonsense in it.

Windows Hardware Quality Labs - it's about certifying hardware, not just the driver(s) for it. So, somebody (or perhaps a robot) has to receive the specimen hardware and drivers from the vendor. Rather difficult to FTP a PCI-X card - maybe when teleporting becomes a reality. Once received, it has to be installed in a cleanly prep'd PC running the OS specified by the vendor. Then the testing software has to run and report the results. If the hardware is designed for multiple OS families, it needs to be tested on each - a reimaging each time.

So basically, MS gets money from both customers and hardware makers........<Completely unrelated but predictable diatribe removed>

[Sharktooth]

Never heard of hardware/driver conflicts? I do... and it happens with certified hw/sw too.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Define conflict. If it means that certain software won't work properly with hardware, that's a completely different animal than causing a fatal error in the kernel leading to a stop condition.

Certification is about robustness and adherence to hardware and software best practices. If there are conflicts due to 3rd software not communicating with your driver properly, that's crap programming by one or both parties.

This part of this epic thread is about signing, not logo certification. The goals and testing requirements are completely different.

Based on what you (and others with the same view) have said, there should just be a free-for-all of people writing shite drivers. It already happens - even in XP you get the "this ain't signed, are you really willing to install it".

If you personally haven't taken a product through the certification process, frankly you are talking from a position of ignorance.

People bitch and moan about Vista's unbelievable security restrictions (I hope I haven't infringed your copyright on that ;) ) and, in the same breath (perhaps through a second face), complain about how insecure Vista is. Kernel-mode driver signing is a helpful start to address that. And, as I mentioned before - seemingly to great effect given the deafening silence it generated - mandated 64-bit driver signing can be disabled (except for drivers loaded at boot time).

As for the cost passed onto the consumer, how many millions of, say, a given nVidia graphics card are sold and how much of the millions of dollars of revenue are offset for signing and certification?

How many WHQL certified hardware + driver products do actually cause BSODs? And how many do not?

I have only experienced one BSOD with Vista in the 12 months I have been using it. That was early on with an old soundcard that happened to be in the box. I had installed it to (unsuccessfully) work with XP. The last drivers ever written for it were for Windows 2000. On the same system, I have used beta nVidia drivers without issue.

So, do you actually use Vista on a regular basis? If so, do you have lots of BSODs?

[Sharktooth]

Out of curiosity i tried to install vista on an box with an athlon xp 2600+, a geforce 6600 AGP video card, an asus a7n8x (nvidia chipset) motherboard and 1.5Gigz or ram.
the installation program refused to find my sata hard drive... i then searched for the silicon image SATA controller drivers and after hours of searching (since that controller model was no longer supported!) i found them. i found out that nvidia has no vista drivers for that chipset (motherboard) too but vista attempted to "fix" the problem and offered to install some 3rd party (but WHQLed and distributed by microsoft) realtek drivers "that are supposed to work" (at least for the integrated audio controller, the nvidia MCP - that's not realtek!!!)...the 3com ethernet controller doesnt work at all (the nvidia one does though) instead. after installing all drivers (at least those which i and it found) vista started up for a couple of times. i just had the time to do all the updates from windows update and... surprise, BSOD. the sata controller drivers (WHQL!!!) crashed and the partitions was completely messed up.
1 hour later i managed to manually recover the MBR and almost all system files and luckily the system started again (thanx to linux...).
after issuing a disk check, i ensured all updates were installed (except language packs and vista ultimate extras... coz i dont give a sheep about them...) and i proceeded installing some softwares (usual stuff, avisynth, megui, etc). after a couple of reboots, one more BSOD and the partition is gone again...
the sata driver crashed causing massive data and filesystem structure corruption...
i threw the vista DVD outta window while wiping the partition... plugged in my good old seagate drive with XP installed and it worked like a charme.
Now, if what you say is true, someone explain me how the hell those drivers got the WHQL certification fom MS...

[JohnnyMalaria]

No wonder you have such a dim view of Vista :)

If I'd have gone through the same thing, I'd have thrown it out the window, too...

[Shinigami-Sama]

we had similar problems on Virtual machines with Business edition
then again we broke the EULA to do it though so MS would probably wouldn't even give us the time of day rather than an answer why

[HyperHacker]

I take it that drive never had any problems before or after this incident? I'd suspect a faulty drive otherwise.

[Sharktooth]

the drive is ok. it even passed the surface test of the disk check. however there's suse 10.3 on it right now and it's working perfectly on the same box.

[JohnnyMalaria]

the drive is ok. it even passed the surface test of the disk check. however there's suse 10.3 on it right now and it's working perfectly on the same box.

Maybe Vista is smarter than we could ever imagine and it KNEW that Suse would end up on there sooner or later. Whether this means Vista bowed down to a greater system or decided to screw you up because you would dare to use something else is a question that maybe only Steve Jobs can answer.:p

[smileBhappy]

Out of curiosity i tried to install vista on an box with an athlon xp 2600+, a geforce 6600 AGP video card, an asus a7n8x (nvidia chipset) motherboard and 1.5Gigz or ram.
the installation program refused to find my sata hard drive... i then searched for the silicon image SATA controller drivers and after hours of searching (since that controller model was no longer supported!) i found them. i found out that nvidia has no vista drivers for that chipset (motherboard) too but vista attempted to "fix" the problem and offered to install some 3rd party (but WHQLed and distributed by microsoft) realtek drivers "that are supposed to work" (at least for the integrated audio controller, the nvidia MCP - that's not realtek!!!)...the 3com ethernet controller doesnt work at all (the nvidia one does though) instead. after installing all drivers (at least those which i and it found) vista started up for a couple of times. i just had the time to do all the updates from windows update and... surprise, BSOD. the sata controller drivers (WHQL!!!) crashed and the partitions was completely messed up.
1 hour later i managed to manually recover the MBR and almost all system files and luckily the system started again (thanx to linux...).
after issuing a disk check, i ensured all updates were installed (except language packs and vista ultimate extras... coz i dont give a sheep about them...) and i proceeded installing some softwares (usual stuff, avisynth, megui, etc). after a couple of reboots, one more BSOD and the partition is gone again...
the sata driver crashed causing massive data and filesystem structure corruption...
i threw the vista DVD outta window while wiping the partition... plugged in my good old seagate drive with XP installed and it worked like a charme.
Now, if what you say is true, someone explain me how the hell those drivers got the WHQL certification fom MS...

Your story is familiar. I had to convert to vista at work because all the new pc's are shipping with it. I tried to 3 weeks to get it working with all our software and on the network and gave up in the end.

If you have a vista license on your pc you can downgrade to XP by installing XP and phoning up microsoft when you try an dactivate it.

[Sirber]

Guess what... I'll be going back to XP32! I'm deepely bored of UAC and to not find things easily in the control panel. Aero sucks hard (linux has more 3D on a 20x less powerful machine). Also, DX10 is a big disapointment.

Big fail.... big fail...

[Sharktooth]

still unpatched:
Crash while calling FltIsDirectory
This is a bug in FltIsDirectory. System Image Manager uses wimfltr.sys to overlay the contents of a wim on top of ntfs, and wimfltr takes ownership of any file objects in that overlay and uses its own format for the structures in the FsContext1 and FsContext2 fields.
The bug occurs when you call FltIsDirectory on a file that wimfltr.sys owns. Instead of sending the IRP for this function to all the filters in the device stack, filter manager sends the IRP directly down to NTFS. NTFS doesn't know how to deal with wimfltr's custom FsContext fields, and crashes.
Until a fix for this issue is available, you should avoid calling FltIsDirectory on file objects exposed by wimfltr. These files have NodeTypeCode == 0x1029 in their FSRTL_ADVANCED_FCB_HEADER.
and makes Vista severely CRASH or even REBOOT...

[Dr.Khron]

Ditto on the DX10 being a big disappointment, I'm glad I installed Vista on an separate drive that was easy to remove.

Basically boils down to: slightly better textures (in some cases), and slightly better mapping (in some cases), all for a rather massive performance hit. I dunno... maybe once its been out for a while the developers will learn to overcome its inherent short comings?

Why does this make me long for the days of OpenGL?



Here is an interesting piece on Leopard vs Vista:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2223921,00.asp

He claims that Apple made many of the same mistakes with Leopard that MS did with Vista. Not exactly a new idea, but this guy offers five concrete examples. He also has an interesting perspective, as he just recently started using Macs with the prior OS.

[HyperHacker]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

[JohnnyMalaria]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

That's the way it works...

[Nematocyst]

DX10 was clearly a trojan horse. Release it only for Vista, games will come out only supporting DX10+, gamers are forced to "upgrade".

I don't know when, but it's been speculated that XP users may eventually be able to get DX10 by running a windows version of Wine (http://www.winehq.org). That will be hilarious if it ever comes to pass.

[Inventive Software]

Microsoft had better get some severe backlash in the next 4 quarters for not releasing DX10 under XP...

[burfadel]

All I can say about Vista x64, once its changed to MY preferences :) - people complain about a lack of a feature, and when added complain about it, but thats life! Anyways, it runs much better than XP ever has for me. I've treated this installation pretty roughly, installing/uninstalling, playing/fiddling, etc etc. and it still runs fast and flawlessly.

I have mind you, used vlite and streamlines every normal downloadable + the normally not downloadable patches (of which there were at least a couple of hundred) into the installation before using. The interesting thing is, this was my first install - yes, still running on the bast***ised Windows with no problems! Only problem I had was one blue screen crash, which did create a stupdily large memory dump file before the the reset button was blessed with my finger, and that was caused by faulty memory that probably got that way through overclocking! Once the new mem went in no probs (and no activation issues). The jump from 2gb to 4gb (on x64 of course) was a very good one, it works much better on 4gb, Vista certainly loves its ram! to the point that its faster than XP.

The trick is, on older computers (Athlon 64 single cores, P4's (even recent ones sorry to say) and less than Nvidia 8600 or equivalent, or those with 1gb or less RAM) to run XP, those with at least 2gb (2gb max for Vista x86 effectively anway), Core 2/Athlon X2, nvidia 8600 or equivalent and above, to run Vista.

Outside the above remarks, Vista is slower on Vista than XP. Get x64 version, then 4gb of ram if you can!

[Shinigami-Sama]

one good thing about vista
downgrade licence, so if they ever manage to salvage it...

and yeah, i also expected more out of DX10, but I hear good things of DX 10.1, heres hoping its not as bad as DX10

[Sharktooth]

the downgrade right is for vista business and ultimate only...: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf
for example you cant downgrade vista home basic/premium (or other kind of licenses) to XP home or pro...

[Hard Core Rikki]

Vista SP1 supposedly will bring dramatic boost of network speed (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=336). Not enough to encourage me to "upgrade" here, though I guess random joe would be pleased by such changes...

[JohnnyMalaria]

The gains are only really beneficial either when transfering between a Vista PC and a Home Server, or when transfering small files.

For large files (like most of us deal with), transfer between two Vista machines is actually a tad slower with SP1 than RTM.

[Sharktooth]

lol... not only Vista is slower than any previous windows versions (and other less known OSes...) during network operations (and in any other way), but those "improvements" are just BUG FIXES for something that was supposed to work from the beginning.
So, M$ is advertising SP1 will triple the network speed... i would say they finally made it work at the speed it was supposed to work from day 1! and btw previous versions (and other less known OSes) are still faster...

[Shinigami-Sama]

the downgrade right is for vista business and ultimate only...: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf
for example you cant downgrade vista home basic/premium (or other kind of licenses) to XP home or pro...

then its a good thing I tell people to buy business then if they insist on vista

as for the network increases
I guess they finally figured out how to make a good NDIS driver, one that doesn't max the CPU on a gigE network
:rolleyes:

[zambelli]

If anyone cares: Vista SP1 Release Candidate is now available to Technet subscribers:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb738089.aspx

[4Dude]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/11/snag-vista-ultimate-for-free-in-exchange-for-your-privacy

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

[Shinigami-Sama]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/11/snag-vista-ultimate-for-free-in-exchange-for-your-privacy

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

this is one where I'd just attach it to a private VPN and leave it running for three months stock
;)

[Sharktooth]

I guess you can manage to build a virtual machine and let their spying software run inside it... and get the license for free.
Uhm... i should try it... just coz i actually have an unlicensed Vista copy that i ONLY use to test bugs reported from MeGUI users AND Vista...

[Hard Core Rikki]

Apparently you can get Vista for FREE provided you KNOWINGLY let Microsoft MONITOR YOUR EVERY MOVE FOR 3 MONTHS!

I VALUE MY PRIVACY and would not do this!!!!

Anyone else feel as i do?

It's cheaper for them than hiring armed guards to monitor your every downloads ;)

[communist]

"What happened to the free product option?

Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to overwhelming response, the supply of gifts have been exhausted so we have closed our free product offer on 12/11/2007 at 2pm. Thanks to everyone that participated!"
Anyway if one really wanted to go with it here is what you should have done:
1) Install it
2) Dual boot into your 'real' installation
3) Wait 3 months
4) ???
5) Profit ;)

[JohnnyMalaria]

If you don't want MS snooping around and still want Vista and not want to pay full retail, just do this (with SP1):

Install it.
Don't activate it.
Wait until the activation grace period expires.
Follow the instructions to purchase a legit license from MS for less than half retail (e.g.,$199 for Ultimate) - it is the full retail product, not OEM.

[Sharktooth]

if you do that, probably your PC will connect to some spying satellite or system (echelon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON) or something) and it will secretly access your bank account and pay M$ the remaining difference from the retail version while sending them your private data for the rest of your life.
will also modify on the fly the online bank reports whenever you access them, so you have no suspects...
LOL :D

[Hard Core Rikki]

Anyone here think peoples' mp3/movie downloading/viewing habits wouldn't be monitored, for "services improving" (and/or undisclosed RIAA usage? :p)

Seriously, online privacy has been going downhill pretty quickly these years. I remember the time back when XP was first launched, so much outrage at the mere idea of online activation. From the terms I read on their site, this freebie thingie looks like a very significant privacy hole. WGA looked tamer than this...

[communist]

Its voluntary! No one is forcing you to participate in this program. If you dont like it keep using your copy of XP/Vista/Linux/whatever. We are not talking about computers coming preloaded with such a windows version, where you dont have the choice to get a non-monitored version.

OTOH stuff like this and recent actions from others (Facebook / Beacon) clearly show that the barrier to employ such schemes at all seems to have dropped a lot over the years. Or maybe I just never noticed it ;)

[deathkenli]

it's better than the crappy leopard anyway

[deathkenli]

monitored by micro$oft is a little better than being monitored by the evil british government.