Vista Makes CNET UK's List of "Worst Consumer Tech"

Several anonymous readers pointed us at CNET UK's Crave blog for a list of what is or was, in their opinion, the worst consumer tech in history. Vista comes in at number 10, in company with Apple's puck mouse (number 6) and Sony's CD rootkit (number 9). According to Crave: "[Vista's] incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade, are just some examples of why this expensive operating system earns the final place in our terrible tech list." That's gotta hurt a little, coinciding as it does with Apple's Don't Give Up On Vista attack ad.

Comments

Vista is #10?

[downix]

Come on Microsoft. Vista is #10 on the index. You need to try harder, that #1 slot can be yours within an SP or two!

Re:Vista is #10?

[MarsDefenseMinister]

I have movies which I ripped myself from DVD's I own. They are in .avi format. I can play them everywhere, on Linux, on Mac, on Windows 2000, Windows XP.

Windows Vista says there's a byte error in the file and refuses to play the movie. This is Windows Media Player, same version as the version on XP.

Vista DRM is a little over-zealous. Or maybe Vista itself just is incapable of playing movies.

Re:Vista is #10?

[GIL_Dude]

As someone who Beta tested the OS and who has it on 3 work machines and a couple of home machines (except for one box that dual boots Ubuntu and XP) I can almost agree with you. However, if you try to capture audio as it is playing you will find it has more DRM than XP. Using freeware like Audigy on XP you could (depending on your sound card) capture what was being played. Some cards called it "what u hear" others "wave out mix" - but generally you could grab it.

With Vista, you can no longer do that. It does stop me from ripping that 2 second sound byte from DVD that I sometimes want for my own use. In fact, that's the only reason the XP box still exists; it would be just Ubuntu if not for that one thing. So, to be fair - there is more DRM in Vista than in WinXP. It hasn't hurt much yet for me - but it has been a small pain. I think what we need hear is more honest talk from folks who have tried it and seen what sucks and what doesn't and a little less vitriol from some folks anyway who haven't even tried it.

Re:Vista is #10?

[PhrostyMcByte]

I generally agree with you, except for one area where there IS abusive DRM: mandatory x64 driver signing.

They snuck it in under the guise of improved security, when the real purpose is to stop people from making drivers to intercept DRMed data. For proof of this, try watching certain DRMed content in 32-bit Vista with an unsigned driver loaded - it won't let you.

End result? People who want to still get past the DRM, developers have to pay large yearly amounts for a code signing certificate (which can be a severe cost for small-time and Free/Open Source developers), and users have to pay more to offset development costs.

Re:Vista is #10?

[flyingsquid]

Pardon my ignorance but what's an astrosurfer ? Thanks by advance.

Well, for example, the Silver Surfer. Offhand, I can't think of any other examples.

Re:Vista is #10?

[Dak RIT]

Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers), it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."

Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:

"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."

Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.

Wired also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."

Perhaps you should do some research before you post.

Re:Vista is #10?

[Four_One_Nine]

I can't think of any other examples.

Elroy Jetson?

Re:Vista is #10?

[mysticgoat]

You offer an opinion backed by personal experience.

I offer an alternative opinion, backed by John Locke's original description of the dynamics of a fair market. Here is my opinion:

Calling DRM "abusive" is redundant, but appropriate. Furthermore, "Digital Rights Management" has nothing to do with managing the rights an individual has under copyright law, nor does DRM benefit the creators of the materials it is attached to. The beneficiaries of DRM are third party corporations who once had a purpose in preparing and distributing old media like vinyl and eight-track tapes, but are now obsolete and too dinosaur-stupid to figure out how to do anything else with their resources.

DRM is at best only one more weak reason for The Revolution. It isn't a particularly good reason of itself: history will regard it as insignificant.

And that also pretty much summarizes the problem with Vista. After years of promising all kinds of significant improvements in computering, when it finally came to market, we found that Microsoft had switched focus away from the significant things that were promised, and instead concentrated its efforts on insignificant and sometimes irritating "features" like DRM.

The revolution will not be televised; you will not see it in Vista commercials. The revolution will not come from Redmond. It is, however, unfolding all around you, and you will see it if you bother to look beyond the commercials for other ways to get things done and make your life richer.

Re:Vista is #10?

[tthomas48]

We bought my wife a brand new computer with a faster processer, twice the RAM, and Vista rather than XP that it replaced (the laptop had to be replaced because we lost the screen). The Vista computer is SLOW. I'm sure there's a point where you get a fast enough computer to make it not matter, but it makes computers that could fly with XP look like you're trying to run it on a 486.

And I can only assume you've turned off the security prompts if you like the OS. It drives me bananas to click on something, have the computer lock up for a second, redraw the screen shaded, and then pop up with a security warning. Just a warning. No prompt for a password. Nothing. I feel so much more secure for losing that 5 seconds of my life every time I want to look at that control panel.

It's a POS. I'm sure you could make it work as well (or possibly better) than XP, but who has that kind of time? It's broken as shipped. And fixing it makes Linux's foibles seem easy to deal with. I'm a Linux fanboy, but I at least recognize Windows 2000 and XP as being perfectly decent operating systems. Vista is not. I'd prefer to use Windows Me over Vista. It crashes about the same amount and is quicker.

Re:Vista is #10?

[bzipitidoo]

You completely miss the point. It is not Vista or any other OS's business to dictate to users above and beyond the necessities of serving the users up to the capabilities and limits of the hardware. Nor is it remotely practical to attempt to enforce anything using what essentially boils down to an "evil bit", as it is so easily circumvented and so often wrong. And the rules that it is trying to enforce are themselves excessive, of doubtful utility, subject to interpretation, changeable at the drop of a large bribe, and difficult to follow. So there are 3 reasons why Vista's attempt to do so is annoying, insulting, and stupid. Vista should have stuck to the business of operating the computer, and let the users worry about the morality and legality of the uses to which they would put it. Vista shouldn't be a nagging nanny, "helping" people obey ethics that they are too "stupid" to figure out for themselves.

You saying it's a "matter of legal compliance" completely ignores the impossibilities of actually forcing compliance, even upon somewhat willing users. You might as well be implying the answer to the question "how do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?" with "open the refrigerator door, put the giraffe in, close the door." Just about anything can be used to break the law. People can be shot, stabbed, strangled with pretty much any sort of wire (network cables, piano wire, guitar strings, etc.), run over with cars, bludgeoned with hard drives, and on and on. But you don't and you won't see "smart" knives. Even if it was possible to make a "smart" knife, circumvention is as easy as whipping up a plain old knife out of pretty much any old sheet of suitable material. Stone Age tech-- actual Stone Age as in 8000 B.C.-- can circumvent a "smart" knife. Cameras can photograph anything-- there is no way to selectively cripple them so they won't photograph copyrighted material. If such a thing as a camera that "respects" copyright could be made, few would willingly buy it even if it wasn't more expensive, slower, and prone to false positives. Before there were cameras, there have always been eyes and visual memory. Suppose there was a "smart" car that wouldn't exceed the speed limit or allow the driver to run red lights or steer into oncoming traffic. The car still couldn't tell if one of the passengers had just robbed a convenience store, or memorized a few pages out of a book. Nor could it tell when it might be time to break the rules, as for instance in a medical emergency. And the car could still be hacked. An OS is no exception to these basic facts of nature that neither copy protection nor "evil bits" work. Don't know what drugs MS was on when they actually seriously tried to make a "smart" OS capable of preventing its users from committing just one kind of crime, and, like obscenity, a very difficult to define and detect crime at that.

Re:Vista is #10?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, but that's not my point. Read up on the Image Constraint Token and you'll realize that MS's hands are tied in this matter. By law, to play HD media that uses the ICT, they need to provide the protected video path, or if the hardware does not support it they need to downsample media with the ICT bit set. They have no choice in the matter. Nor does Apple or anybody else who doesn't want their butt dragged into court by the MPAA. ...

Again, I am not saying this is fair. I'm saying, blame the MPAA or the govt. for not stepping in to rectify this bullshit situation, instead of yelling bloody murder at MS when they have no choice in the matter. They have a choice. You know, Microsoft could grow some balls and not just not support it. Then inform users the reason they can't play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is because the MPAA wants to screw over their customers. Redesigning your OS just to make the MPAA customer screwing easier isn't a good decision. Microsoft controls 90%+ of the desktop market, they could force the MPAA into some sort of compromise if they had the sack to.

Explain something to me . . .

[UnknowingFool]

Apple's puck mouse was #6. Vista was #10 and Sony's rootkit was #9. I admit that the mouse was more form than function. But it didn't really cause harm unlike like Sony's rootkit and isn't the fiasco that is Vista. So why is it higher? Also if users didn't like the mouse, they could replace it with a $20 model from a store. Many people I know don't use the mouse that came with the computer. You can't easily replace Vista or get rid of the rootkit.

Re:Explain something to me . . .

[NetDanzr]

I admit that the mouse was more form than function. But it didn't really cause harm unlike like Sony's rootkit and isn't the fiasco that is Vista.

Vista and the Sony rootkit can cause onsets of rage or heart attacks in few cases, but that mouse was an ergonomic disaster. Using it for a few hours cramped your fingers so much that many male Apple users ended up lonely at night, without their hand being able to perform its marital duties.

Re:Explain something to me . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, name 3 bits of hardware with Vista only drivers

011

Re:Explain something to me . . .

[moosesocks]

Apple's puck mouse was #6. Vista was #10 and Sony's rootkit was #9. I admit that the mouse was more form than function. But it didn't really cause harm unlike like Sony's rootkit and isn't the fiasco that is Vista. So why is it higher?

If you RTFA, you'll notice that the ordering of the items in the list seems arbitrary, and that the authors don't really refer to any sort of ranking within the list.

And yeah.... the puck mouse did suck, but it also wasn't horribly difficult to go out to buy a new mouse if you hated the thing. It was the first apple peripheral, after all, to use a universally standard interface. (Apple really led the pack with USB and Firewire. The PS/2 interface *still* shows up on many PCs! It's a bit sad, however, to see FireWire slowly dying out, as it was undoubtedly the technically superior interface for data transfers)

Think different?

[garcia]

That's gotta hurt a little, coinciding as it does with Apple's Don't Give Up On Vista attack ad.

I wish they would go back to the ads showing how sexy the technology they offer is (like the PC with a mess of wires in the back compared to the iMac with nothing but the keyboard and mouse or the continuing awesome iPod ads with catchy tunes from bands with moderate success prior to the release of the video) instead of those crappy "attack" ads. Hell, go back to the old ads with the geek chic that was ever so popular here on Slashdot even.

Just enough talking about Vista and Windows -- they're starting to sound like politicians. In fact, they've been picking up other bad habits. My wife and I went into the Apple store at the Mall of America and while I was gawking and drooling over those huge displays, two of their employees launched a Best Buy style sales attack on her. She actually said, "you know, we used to enjoy entering this store and you're now very much like Best Buy, you might want to rethink that." The sales people actually left her alone after one replied, "sorry, I will bring that forward." Who knows if they did or not.

Think different, again, please!

Re:Think different?

[QuantumG]

Macs are powered by a combination of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field and the smugness of their users.

as much as I dislike Vista

[jtroutman]

and its onerous security notifications, adherence to DRM and general pointlessness, I don't think that "incompatibility with hardware" is really a valid statement. It runs on modern hardware from a wide variety of vendors. If you want to see an operating system with stringent hardware requirements, you need look no further than OSX. At least I can show people how to run the OS on my own hardware without the software's manufacturer coming after me and threatening legal action if I don't stop.

Re:as much as I dislike Vista

[Just Some Guy]

I don't think that "incompatibility with hardware" is really a valid statement.

True. Many people don't own printers or scanners or sound cards, and so will never notice that half their peripherals are now driverless.

Re:as much as I dislike Vista

[jtroutman]

In an average week of work + home computing, I see maybe two or three UAC prompts the entire time, and I'm running with UAC on.

That's three times more than are necessary.

Obviously Vista has to follow certain rules in order to play HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray content, but that's the fault of the MPAA, not Microsoft. Either you implement the secure pipeline and require hardware to match (HDMI-everything), or you don't get to play that content at full resolution.

And if Microsoft, with 90+ percent of the market, said, "No, if you want to get your movies into our market, you'll get rid of this annoying, overhead causing crap that our consumers hate."

And as for the old, debunked rumor from several years prior to Vista's release you should read this, last updated earlier this year.

The article should have been called

[ClosedSource]

Nine old obscure products I can use as an excuse to slam Vista.

You have obviously never used one

[Bryansix]

I have had the displeasure of using one of these things and they are right about not knowing which way is up. Because it is circular there is no way to control how the thing is rotated so it frequently would become the case that moving the mouse (if you could call it that) left would move the cursor up on the screen. It seriously made me hate MAC computers just based on the "PUCK" and it made me contemplate putting out a hit on whomever designed this useless piece of shit. Yes, you could replace it but most Universities with MACS did not replace them.

Re:You have obviously never used one

[RabidOverYou]

Okay, one more time. It's it's, as in "it is", not its. It's a contraction, not a possessive.

The Crave "article" is embarassing

[Infonaut]

The abundance of "lists as articles" makes me want to vomit, but this one takes the cake. They just randomly put down ten tech mistakes in an ad-baiting format (click here to see the next on the list - we won't tell you what it is, but if you click here, we'll get more ad revenue!). What's the time period? What are the criteria for selection?

The writers just pulled nonsense out of their asses, and somehow that passes as valuable information. In this so-called Information Age, one would think better writing would rise to the top. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. We get crap, but at least we get it instantly!

Windows, OS X, and Linux user

[Master Switch]

I spend much of my time using Windows (2K pro, 2003, XP, and Vista) and OS X , and a little on Linux. I consider myself experienced with both OS X and Windows. I much prefer OS X but I can say there is also some things I like about Vista. I have not had any speed issues and only a few software compatibility issues. I appreciate the structural improvements made in such areas as the management console, event logger, command line utilities, and kernel structures. Vista isn't the upgrade it should have been but it is not horrible. Microsoft is on the right track with UAC, and with some fine tuning it will be worth the trouble. The display subsystem is moving in the same direction that NeXT aka OS X took 15 or so years ago (think display post script in NeXT, now display PDF in OS X). It's taken Microsoft far too long to catch up but I do think they are on the right track. Remember the resistance XP met with when it first arrived. Now it's well received. I think Vista will eventually achieve this status a few years down the road.

Re:Don't worry, i won't flame you :)

[gordgekko]

> 4. The point with Vista is not whether it ACTUALLY prevents you from watching DVD's. The point is that it can in the future, and that you won't be able to do ANYTHING about it. Vista is taking all the decisions for you, and where you'd like to be asked "Cancel, or Allow?" regarding updates-from and reports-to Microsoft, you won't be. If Redmond decides to install a rootkit on your vista, you won't even notice!

No offence, but this exact same statement (well, statements) can be made about Apple as well. What's preventing them from injecting new DRM into OS X in a future update? Because Jobs wears turtlenecks? The only operating system I trust in that respect is Linux and its variants so I guess I'm agreeing with you in that respect. I'll tell you what -- and I am a man of my word and owner of Gutsy Gibbon on DVD -- if Vista ever screws with me when it comes to backing up or playing my digital media, I join the FOSS army faster than you can say Monkey Boy.

Vista, MS garbage

[harvey the nerd]

I had an important business presentation with a Vista laptop that I had to buy in a hurry several months before (old one was damaged right before a business trip). The damn thing updated Vista online overnight by itself and then collapsed the next day on reboot and couldn't restart for 15 minutes in a meeting. There is no excuse for the problems that I have had with this Vista laptop, it should be more stable before it ships. IMHO any IT type recommending Vista deployment before SP1 or 2 should be terminated on sight. It is by far the most annoying I've had, far more than anything on previous 95, 98SE, XP laptops.

Puck mouse

[CaptainCarrot]

It may look much slicker, but Apple still could have learned from a similar design failure from a few years earlier. The old VAXstation 3100s used a round mouse, and everyone hated the fucking things. As with the Puck mouse, you couldn't easily tell by feel how it was oriented, and with three buttons instead of one it wasn't difficult to accidentally use the wrong one.

At least Apple avoided the other problem with them. The VAXstation mice didn't use a ball, but a pair of cylinders mounted so as to engage the surface at right angles to each other. When you were using it at the edge of the mousepad, one of they cylinders would invariably go past the edge so that the cursor would stop moving in one direction.

Not a myth

[DrYak]

Vista's DRM problems are no "Myth" at all.
Maybe some overblown exaggeration made by some blogger and the Zdnet blog you're citing is specifically attempting to debunk them.

That doesn't prevent Vista's DRM to suck anyway.

- About the HDCP/DRM
Needing a whole DRM stack just to connect your screen is what I find the most abusive.
It's MY display that I BOUGHT legally with MY OWN MONEY.
It's MY graphic card that I BOUGHT legally with MY OWN MONEY.
I have complete legal ownership of both these items.
THEN WHY THE HELL MUST THERE BE A DRM STACK that has to decide what goes on my screen and what doesn't ?
Why is it putting arbitrary restriction on what I can do with something I own legally ?
All this stupidity only because the **AA are afraid that someone *might* attempt to pirate digital content at no loss using the digital transmission.
(As if all this has prevented Muslix64 and Co to design a method to decode HDDVD & BD using keys dumped from software).

The some idiotic design is replicated on other channels, including the audio path. And give the ability to the audio player to refuse to play if it considers the driver stack insecure.

- About the drivers for Vista 64.
Sorry, but Windows Vista 64 driver models seriously challenge free drivers (like kxProjet alternative drivers) and completely prevent open source driver project ( like 3DFX Voodoo 3/4/5 - which are compatible with 64bit system : XP 64).
The former, as a free/beer project may not have the budget to buy signing keys.
The later, as a free/speech project need to grant its user the ability to do whatever they want with the code. Should a newer patch be available for either Mesa or Glide, I should be able to recompile mine and load them (the recent patches to enable Quake4 on MesaFX comes to mind as an exemple). Without a signing key, it's something impossible to do. This both contradict the fundamental liberties that organisation like FSF are fighting for, and also violates GPLv3 (don't know if currently there are GPLv3 drivers being developed).
Yes, one could find signing key from other CA. But that cost money that some project don't have, or would require every single end user to have access to the key in order to keep the basic software freedoms.

And the ActiveX fiasco (and the various CA-signed malware that has appeared in the past) has already shown that merely signing code won't actually guarantee it's quality.

So these two are clearly both useless (video content got copied anyway, signing has never kept out malware) and arbitrarily restrict users freedom (I should decide what goes on my hardware, without needing to pay additional fee just to use something I've already paid for).

Legal complaince?

[jotaeleemeese]

Next:

- Ford, Toyota, Hundai et all enforce speed limits.

- Bacardi, Budweiser enforce amounts of alcohol you drink before getting behind the wheel.

- Gun companies enforce gun laws.

Did you get it or should I throw more analogies at you to remark how idiotic is for MS to be enforcing the wishes of content producers?