Slashdot Mirror
PC Makers Offering a Bridge Back To XP
The Telegraph is reporting on efforts by PC manufacturers to give customers buying systems pre-installed with Windows Vista a much-sought way to downgrade to Windows XP. ( A few months back we discussed Microsoft's similar concession for corporate customers.) "It took took five years and $6 billion to develop, but Microsoft's Vista operating system, which was launched early this year, has been shunned by consumers — with computer manufacturers taking the bizarre step of offering downgrades to the old XP version of Windows."
Not to sound like a Microsoft shill (having traditionally been an outspoken Linux and FreeBSD fanboy for over a decade), but:
DRM? Sheeit, nigga - give it up, already. I've been running Vista (by choice) on my laptop since a couple weeks after its released, and have yet to have negative experience from this "DRM" thing which I only seem to hear about in Slashdot straw man, begging-the-question-in-the-traditional-logical-fallacy-sense-of-the-term rants.
See, I'm just not particularly sure how it might be affecting the things I do with the computer. I still copy DVDs with anydvd+dvdshrink, my MP3s all play just fine, CDs rip as well as they ever did on this machine, and YouTube (along with its its ilk) all work fine. Azureus still downloads torrents, VLC, Winamp, and [horror] Windows Media Player still play video without any particular episode. Even Miro Player works fine when fed with all manner of illegitimate RSS feeds.
Yeah, sure. Vista supposedly supports some Trusted Computing Alliance boojigity that will permit (restrict?) me to play certain fancy DRM content (or, I suppose, software) with Vista that won't work elsewhere. But I've never found such media. And in the unlikely event that I'd actually be interested in such content I suspect that the effects of any newfangled DRM would affect users of other operating systems more so than me and my Vista Business install.
Meanwhile, I just don't feel at all inconvenienced by any special DRM function in Vista.
Aren't you schizophrenic motherfuckers bored with the DRM FUD, yet?
Kid-proof tablet..
Dude, Java sucks complete ass on every system. It has nothing to do with MacOS X or Apple.
I thin it would be 'really cool' if MS continued to slowly collapse under its own weight.