Iria

Source: News.com
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In response to widespread chatter on blogs and forums, Microsoft has acknowledged the presence of hacks that may allow pirates to bypass the product activation security feature in its Windows Vista operating system.

According to a post by Microsoft Senior Product Manager Alex Kochis on the Windows Genuine Advantage developers' blog, Microsoft has identified two ways in which hackers have broken the product activation security feature on original equipment manufacturer PCs that come bundled with Vista. But the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant does not yet have plans to snuff out this threat.

OmegaRED

Nothing to see here MS, move on and leave that hack alone

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GutterPunk

just let it be!

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DudeBoyz

I thought that Windows columnist guy found a legit way to delay activation for at least 12 months on Vista? Isn't that all you need to do? No hack needed?

Judas

yeah.... you can do a legit 30 day reset hack 4 times, and then do another hack after those 4 times to reset the 30 day 4 time hack, then use the 4 time hack over again, this method then works only 4 times

so 4x30x4=480 days \ 365.25 = 1.3 years of no activiation required use

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DudeBoyz

I've run Vista through its paces like crazy and just flat out don't like it. I'd rather go through XP activation 4 times a year after I change hardware then deal with Vista and not have to activate for over a year.

Vista just flat out sucks, at least for me.

mike2h

just installed home premium on the wifes comp. think it is great for her & i do like the looks & some of its functionality(setting up network shares was a breeze). that being said, it wil be awhile before i install my ultimate copy on my comp. I just dont think vista is ready for gaming yet, & there r still a lot of prog/driver issues out there(not ms fault).
i also beleive that once it has matured vista will be a much better os than xp.
hate that fn uac crap... my god, how annoying. the apple/ms commercial about that hit it dead on. lol.
ill prolly turn it bk on after i am done installing everything, she doesnt reall mess around to much. cant imagine uac on my comp tho...

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Judas

behold the ATI vista experience..... Vista gaming done right

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OmegaRED

You've got the perfect Vista system...I think you're just nuts

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DudeBoyz

I'm biased against Microsoft corporate, but if Vista was good, I'd openly admit it. But it really isn't. Windows XP, as bloated as it has been, is still much more efficient than Vista. I don't get how Microsoft could screw the release up that badly. You'd think their programmers would be top quality because they have the money to pay them good wages.

Vista is just a huge let-down.

dipstick

Care to share what is more efficient in XP? Just the multiproc efficiency in Vista makes XP look like Win98...

DudeBoyz

Graphics are, because they are in the inner rings in XP, which is good for gamers.

Audio is because in XP you have good hardware support - Vista has just about everything done in a software layer.

Video - MS Screwed folks with OpenGL by forcing it by default into a DirectX wrapper, which means that ATI and Nvidia need to write their own OpenGL foundation from scratch, hence all the video issues.

XP can game and run fine on 512 meg and 1 gig - Vista? Not so much.

Can't free up resources in Vista by turning off Fast User Switching like you could in XP.

Stuff like that.

Sandok

Graphics as in FPS in games? There have been plenty of tests to show that, if the drivers are up to the task, games run the same on Vista and XP. Hell, Supreme Commander works better on Vista (all newer games will start to show that trend)

Audio on Vista has fine hardware support, crappy software (driver) support but that's not MS's fault... It's the industry's fault for not apadting.

OpenGL is sorta not used much in many instances. Personnally, I dunno what Video issues you're even talking about, my ATI card ran Vista fine

XP is over 5 years old so of course 512-1gb is good enough for it... Vista is new and thus, you gotta move with the times. Can't stay old forever

And bloated by things like fast user switching? That's a first...

GutterPunk

what... a year late? mmhmmm

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Judas

a year late?

What happened with the Radeon 8500 launched...... and the time it took for the Radeon 9700 to launch?


If i recall right, the Geforce 4 and Geforce FX series launched between the 2 correct? and what did the 9700 do to everything? ATI took a seriously huge marketshare

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DudeBoyz

All things being 100% equal, graphics on Vista are slower due to the fact that graphics operations have been moved outside the inner rings. It's just a given.

However, moving the graphics to the outer rings should make the core more stable.

The industries fault for not adapting? I can't agree with that.

OpenGL is used for every Doom engine game out there. I can hardly believe you are saying that is a minor part of the market.

Judas

No no no,

Only DirectX native applications are getting the "wrapper" effect, but due to the design of Vista, the Graphics and Video accelerations are actually more atuned then any previous windows operating system,

But default, the 3D application are "prelaunched" already, what i mean is that within Windows Vista, the creation of the 3D mode is already created, where as windows XP it has to full switch from a 2d to 3d enviroment.

Launcing 3D application within Vista is vastly faster, nearly instant. Mix Crossfire in with it and it's enourmously faster.

The wrapper effect is still hardware though, as the calls that are made for a DX9 app are then very efficiently translated to the DX10 counterpart for any video card to use. The Drivers have to be fully DX10 compliant mind you, but that's not really a problem as vista driver WHQL requirements are for full DX10 compliancy.

OPENGL was orginally going to be wrappered, but due to the outcry about it, microsoft dropped that idea, and it's now it's own API again, however, it's really no different then the way previous windows was, Microsoft doesn't give opengl support out of the box, your video driver is responcible for the support, And the rules in which 3D applications under vista work, a new wack of coding had to be done, Sure intitially this seems like a horrid move by microsoft, but in all logical seriousness, it makes sense, since DX10 was/had to be built from the ground up, it would make sense that OpenGL would have to be built from the ground up for vista as well.

So really what are the pros and cons?

Cons:

DX9 Applications "may" preform slightly slower under vista, however this is highly marginal and may be Application specific.
OpenGL support is nill and will take some time before it's has the same performance and capabilities as windows XP due to having a late build time.

Pros:

More Stable, Faster, atuned 3D experience due to being built form the ground up for DirectX 10 baised games,
More Stable and manageable Experience with Older directX 9 and older yet games.
Oventually a more solid and robust OpenGL platform then ever before, built from the ground up for Vista specifically.
Countless other reasons.

IMO, The Stability and security features built into vista is what's slowing the move over to vista down, why? Because so many companies cut corners in the coding for programs that vista won't accept because a strict set of rules are in place now.

And i'm happy as hell to see that some rules have been enforced on the audio front as well, Creative and there lacking driver support and overall crappy drivers have to be reworked, to bad microsoft couldn't have gone even strictor.

Considering the vista OS was in development for as long as it has, and that the betas were out over a year ago, the industry should have been MORE THEN WELL prepared, The least they coulda done is had a worky ready driver or software ready at the official launch of vista.

IMO, so far the most stable set of hardware with vista is:

ATI
AMD
Realtek
Intel

The others having troubles still quite a bit:

Nvidia
Analog Devices
Via
Creative
And a pile of others

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Monkeyboy

Totally agree - the fact that such a large part of the industry was unprepared for Vista is, quite frankly, unforgivable. Vista betas have been available for years - not to mention the SDKs were also released in plenty of time. Even at the last minute, Vista was released to business users a full two months before it went on general release, still giving manufacturers some time to get ready. The hardware manufacturers who weren't ready have only got themselves to blame, period.

Oh, and you can add Hauppauge to that list - plenty of users are still without drivers for their tv cards, and they have released new models with "Vista Capable" (which means squat for components, but meh!) stickers on the box only for people to get them home and find there are no Vista drivers for them at all.

DudeBoyz

I, like John Carmack, am happy enough to stick with XP for quite some time. Maybe in a year or two, all of the issues with Vista graphics and drivers will be taken care of.

GutterPunk

the fx series was crap lol

nvidia stepped up the quality a bit,

its just sad that it keeps getting pushed back! I think the 8800 series has taken a lot of the marketshare, and the price of the cards is not cheap to switch anymore! I am an ati fanboy. I went to nvidia because i saw the performance different vs price in the 19xx xt. That and why the heck not enjoy something that is new for awhile!

I may step back into the ati grounds but not for awhile.

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---------------

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DudeBoyz

Another thing that baffles me is why people are willing to give Microsoft a free pass in terms of apps and hardware not working with Vista.

It is MICROSOFT that changed things and essentially "broke" existing stuff. Shouldn't they be held accountable for that?

There was no need to crap all over OpenGL like that. No need to force a total rewrite of the audio stack either. Certainly no need to put all that DRM crap in there that gets in the way of people playing HD/Blu-Ray content on their existing hardware.

Why not put the blame at Microsofts doorstep where it belongs?

Judas

can't break something that is already broken, microsoft didn't change all that much, they just refuse to allow shitty coded drivers/programs to work on vista...

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Zelig

There is no HD content which will play in a different OS while failing to play in Vista. DRM is engineered into the formats, the only way to watch full quality HD/Blu-ray content is to support all of the DRM, or to bypass it. Obviously no legit OS is going to include support for bypassing DRM... leaving 2 options, include DRM and have HD content work, or exclude it, and HD content doesn't work.

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DudeBoyz

lol...

Nvidia and ATI video cards seem to work just fine on XP...

DudeBoyz

So it is not the case that you can play HD/Blu-Ray on XP without DRM enabled monitors - by default I mean?

I thought you could play in 1080p on XP with your existing monitor and such.

I sort of wish I had all the equipment to test that personally so I could be sure, but I don't and have been going mainly on what I have read online. I'm not trying to assert anything as accepted fact, just indicate what I have read as I browse around, click on Slashdot links, etc.

Perhaps since I'm one of those who would rather watch DVD's and such on a regular TV in the living room, I'm not going to be that affected by whatever HD / Blu-Ray stuff is on the PC side. I don't want to use my PC as a true multimedia box, just a gaming and production machine for the most part.

I feel bad for all those folks that do have to deal with that stuff though. It's no fun being bleeding edge.

I'm hoping this push by Steve Jobs to get rid of at least some of the DRM out there helps users on all platforms, including Linux and OS X.

Zelig

Only if the 1080p content is DRM free. Using any OS, drivers, video cards and monitors must all be HDCP compatible in order to play Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs. If the monitor isn't HDCP capable, I believe they will still play, but the resolution will be reduced. (Although still greater than standard DVD)

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PangingJr

lol the topics are changing quite large in these threads

BlueMak

I hate doing this, but, is there any content that is not DRM free? (HD-DVD and Blue ray)
As far as I know they haven't released any that requires you to use HDCP hardware.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Zelig

Neither HD-DVD or Blu-ray are DRM free, they both require HDCP hardware/software support... or did I misunderstand the question?

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BlueMak

Hmm, as far as I know (haven't tested it myself) if you connect the HD-DVD drive for the xbox 360 directly to a PC monitor, still plays at full resolution.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.