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?

[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 . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, name 3 bits of hardware with Vista only drivers

011

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).