sp4f on 31/1/2007 at 22:17
I think an aloof disdain or active hatred of users is supposed to be the norm for someone who works in IT, at least it seems to have been at most of the places I've worked for. Some of us on the other hand don't bite that much :angel:.
Aerothorn on 1/2/2007 at 02:41
I'm holding off on Vista, but just ordered Office 2007 (student edition) and am looking forward to that. Hopefully it will reduce my desire to kill Word.
Tonamel on 1/2/2007 at 03:52
Office 2007 is madness. They redid all the menus and whatnot, a la IE7, except in a way that I don't find completely repulsive. Took a little bit of getting used to, but ultimately, I ended up liking it better than the Death by Menu that it was before. Also, it comes with OneNote, which is just awesome. When it comes to just writing stuff out, and organizing my thoughts, I actually prefer it to Word.
aguywhoplaysthief on 1/2/2007 at 05:56
I think the only reason that MS released the new Office was so that people with older versions of Office (I use 2000) will start to find Word documents in circulation that they can't open, and will be forced to upgrade.
Spitter on 1/2/2007 at 08:06
micro$HIT (the conspiracy is real)
dlw6 on 1/2/2007 at 11:03
Quote Posted by derfy
DRM only works if you play by Microsoft's handbook. So, don't use WiMP(media player classic ftw!) and you should be fine. Also, .avi files don't have DRM (not html grin)
Thank you. I was joking about DRM -- I don't have any MP3s so I have never used DRM. The only movies on my hard disk were bought from JibJab and those are Flash.
What I meant was that WMP crashes when I play WAV files, such as system sounds or sounds from Thief missions. It also crashes when I play WMV files, such as the stuff my friends like to spam me with. It even crashes when I load it up without a file to play, so at least it's consistent. :rolleyes:
Don
NyquistLimit on 1/2/2007 at 15:25
The ridiculous paranoia surrounding the DRM in Vista has been generated mostly by media hype. The only data affected by PMP (Protected Media Path), is media that is encrypted with DRM such as HDCP encoded video from HDDVD / BD, or legitimately bought music / video from the likes of the Zune marketplace.
The PMP reduction of resolution for unsupported hardware (hardware that does not support HDCP) is done in software and there are already potential methods of circumvention. See: (
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/29/vista_drm_cracked.html) Vista PMP Cracked
All of your non-DRM media; mp3s, avi files / whatever you currently possess, will be totally unaffected and can be played in Vista just like any other operating system.
So unless you plan to view HDDVD / BD content on your PC (or you use your pc as a media center) and you don't own an HDCP compliant gfx card and monitor, the DRM issue can be completely ignored.
I've been running Vista as my main OS for about a month and to be perfectly honest there is very little difference in the way you'll be using it compared to Windows XP.
Most of the interface changes are in the control panel; networking settings, user account management etc are completely different.
There is a revamped start menu, but it isn't completely dissimilar to XP; you'll probably find yourself using it like Quicksilver where you type the name of the program instead of clicking through the "Program Files" menu.
The file management program (Windows Explorer) has also been revamped to include things like breadcrumbs and other context sensitive shortcuts, but navigating and manipulating files is essentially the same.
One neat feature is the ability to have a checkbox on each file so that selecting multiple files no longer requires the need to hold down the control key. However, it's still possible to accidentally miss the checkbox and screw up your entire selection.
My reasons for upgrading are mostly low levels ones; improved netbios code, file management, indexing and searching, file tagging, memory management (improved caching).
Regarding memory management, if you're running Vista and check Task Manager for RAM usage you'll probably find that you have something like 68mb out of 2 gigs free (or whatever RAM you have installed). This isn't an indication that Vista is hogging all of your RAM but rather it's making more efficient use of it by caching more data. Users of linux distributions should be familiar with this. It's probably the main reason people claim that Vista feels more responsive on the same hardware (that and the fact that the UI is now 3d accelerated).
On the subject of gaming performance, someone suggested the reduced performance stemmed from background processes performing DRM checks? That's pure speculation and paranoia. It's far more likely that the performance drop is attributed to the infancy of the gfx card drivers written by ATI and Nvidia. Quote from an ATI developer on Rage3D:
Quote:
Just as a note:
Windows Vista drivers are significantly different than XP drivers, and there's not that much that can be leveraged from XP (DX9 perhaps). Consequently, you either have to a have a whole new driver team, or you need to slow down XP work while you work on Vista, and even then, you aren't putting all resources on it. And while a lot of the core of the drivers was started over 2 years ago, the OS itself was clearly evolving up until recently. It's hard to develop for a moving target.
In general, the drivers take time, and will take probably many more months to clearly be comparable or superior to XP Drivers.
As of today, on the base driver and DX9, I think we have robust and decent drivers. More fixes and performance improvements are forthcoming, of course. Certainly by Vista general availability, it will be better. OpenGL is scheduled for January from us (OpenGL translation is the current default). Again, it's a very different ballgame from XP and it will take time to get to the level of XP, given all the time people have spent tuning and debugging the XP applications and drivers.
Vista for us has been a *huge* effort and we are just at the beginning, in many ways.
In its current state Vista at its core is very mature and usable but if you're in no rush to upgrade I'd recommend waiting a few months for hardware and software manufacturers to mature their drivers / software before upgrading.
Matthew on 1/2/2007 at 15:31
Just (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm) don't leave your mic on when you leave the room, that's all.
In the last few days I've had a bit of a change of heart about Vista. I
might consider upgrading nearer the end of this year (apparently a Service Pack is rumoured for Q4).
Matthew on 1/2/2007 at 16:00
Haha, (c) 2006? I think not, chaps.
