Vista: Big Brother is alive and well!

I agree. Microsoft should be making it easier to steal, not harder.

bhankii:

I am not in favor of "stealing", and that issue is intertwined here, without doubt. Rather it is the way that Microsoft took it upon themselves to be the "cop on the beat". They have inserted themselves into the equation in their monopolistic way to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes "stealing" and makes no allowance for legal creation of backups, manipulating our own media content etc. This is analogous to photocopy machines making copies that are either inferior to the original, or, fade out after a certain period of time, if it would make copies at all of certain documents without Microsoft's "permission"; of a VCR that could no longer record a TV show in its original quality for later viewing, or wouldn't allow recording of broadcast media at all, again, without Microsoft's permission or licensing.

This is all in my opinion just another page (albeit a big one) in Microsoft's attempt to control computers, the internet and digital media. They want to create a world in which their permission (read approvals, licensing, or purchase of their related products) is required for as many things related to the digital transfer/manipulation of data as they possibly can, all their excuses and claims of "customer convenience and value" notwithstanding.

Digital Rights Management is an important issue, and the rights of all have to taken into account, along with the goal that creators of content have the right to be compensated for their efforts. That is not the issue in my mind here, but only an excuse that Microsoft is hiding behind in their quest for extending their own monopoly. They are inserting themselves in such a way that everyone will need to pay them "tribute" in one way or another for using anything related to computers or digital information.

They have numerous "look and feel" software patents on things that were originally developed or demonstrated by others: much of the GUI, which they lifted from the Apple's Macintosh or the Xerox Research Center before them. Under the guise of compatibility, they have to certify any other program applet or hardware you wish to install or even use with Windows. This is not a healthy thing for us, or the marketplace, and the last big example I can remember of similar control, was AT&T's certification of anything that connected to their phone network before the court mandated break-up.

If you think that monopolies as strong and pervasive as Microsoft do ANYTHING for ANYONE'S ultimate benefit other than their own, then brother, I have a bridge to sell you.

Greg

Tell me more about this bridge...

As soon as I get Microsoft's certification for my email, my agent will contact you ................

One would tend to suspect that MS realised somewhere along the line, that authoring software their way, may lead to a market full of piracy, mainly because the average costumer feels overcharged.

As their product-range is evidently limited, it's only "natural" they turned into what was later called "contents-market" meaning news, audio, video, and animation authoring.

Alas, there is a "darker" aspect to all this mayhem: piracy-prevention is not likely to become easy, not technologically, not legally, and surely not socially, especially in developing countries, in which piracy is a socially excepted "sport" a kind of sideline to the hi-tec industry and culture.

The developing countries are emerging as the highest volume of hi-tec consumption, due to established "saturation" in rich countries, and due to ever decreasing prices of automated industries (not unlike Alvin Toffler's prediction in "Powershift" from 1991 I think).

Alternative hacker communities "preach" for "a bold new world" in which all information-age products are made available for free, regardless of economical consequence. As if to strengthen their point, they hail, publish and distribute some of the finest soft-tools available today, Linux being only their flagship.

This is nothing to take likely, as these "mayhem mongers" are the next-in-line candidates, in the future grasp of power. I believe MS got a whiff of that, and made their moves accordingly.

The fact that they chose to go upstream may be commendable or regrettable, up to your point of view, the thing is, it's a latent battle, with all means in-hand, which erupted in the eighties, and which no-one dares to discuss as an open political agenda, in fear of being posed against popular demand.

It's not an easy issue, and it's not likely to be easy, and again, it's latent, not out-in-the-open for us discuss without being suspected of "choosing-sides". A kind of taboo. Why?

First of all: I'm not an overclocker, I don't tweak my system and I don't allow applications to run in my background.

My first OS was Windows 98. It crashed a lot and I got a blue screen almost every day. I tried every fix you can imagine but it never solved the problem. So I got ME thinking it would fix all that - it didn't. Some things ran a little better but my computer still crashed the same as usual. All I got with ME were "upgrades" to all the usual MS apps that come with windows which I never used anyway. Plus they are vulnerable to hackers.

Then came Windows XP and I hesitated for a while until I learned that it was based on NT and a lot of old issues were fixed. So, I "upgraded" to Windows XP. Yes, it ran much better, fixed most, but not all, the crashes I was having before. But, it also introduced tons of more crap that I don't need and never use. Since then I've discovered that XP is also more hackable then 95, 98, ME ever were. Users can directly manipulate the registry and hook the API, things you couldn't do before. That's why MS had to make the SP1 and then the SP2. (roll eyes)

From what I hear, Windows Vista is no better, maybe even worse. It's just another "upgrade" to all the standard apps- mainly IE, Media Player and DirectX- only this time MS has made these apps backward-incompatable in order to force you to "upgrade". Im already seeing messages saying something like "this file requires Media Player 9" when I go to a website to watch a video.

The solution isn't easy. We have to refuse to "upgrade" until MS, or somebody, publishes an OS that is fast, reliable and hack proof. Maybe it's time for Linux.

Dear Harbinger,

...From what I hear, Windows Vista is no better...

Did you ever try windows 2000 pro? I still use it for most of my PC activity, it is VERY stable and predictable compared to other MS products, don't ask my why, I don't know, but it is.

It's also based on NT, and frankly, when XP came out, I read somewhere that XP is basically Win 2000 with new graphics, which is by the way, what they say now about XP and Vista.

To that effect, you can say to MS: "If it's there and working, why fix it?"

True, I still have another hard-disk with XP, but I only use it for some apps which will run exclusively only with XP.

The only snag I care about with Win 2000, is that it's partition and format can use a maximum of 132 Gb.

Yuval