What is new in Office 2007 is the way the Ribbon works, which is different than ribbons in blender and notes, etc.
The Office 2007 Ribbon is contextual and offers intelligent options based on what the user is doing, add in realtime formatting options from a ribbon drop down concept, and remove menus completely, and you have what makes the Office 2007 interface innovative.
Also, not only does it push the new paradigm on a Ribbon concept, it also forces users to become familar with it by not offering a Menu System.
I find the interface a love hate. At first you hate it when looking for features, but once it clicks (about 15min of random use), then you appreciate the Ribbons and the way it presents information, things that just can't be done easily with toolbars nor done at all with menus, like the live previews.
I mean, if only Microsoft will support it in their OS, well, that says enough on its own
Apple has talked about and announced HD support as well, and to implement HD fully they would also have to turn on HDCP...
However, like I said HDCP is 5 years out before it is has any proability of common use, and by then it will be dead. Also again, just because MS enables a technology to work, that doesn't make them the evil ones.
People should be yelling at content providers to ENSURE they don't use HDCP, they should also yell at companies like Intel that invented this CRAP.
How about taking a second to comprehend instead of jumping on Vista for flaws of HDCP (an Intel Standard even)...
Here is what you are missing...
#1. All Consumer Players are ALSO HDCP crippled, so if the video can't be confirmed, it downsamples.
#2. Vista does nothing different than a Consumer Player; however, the FEATURE of Vista is that if the video/monitor can be confirmed, it will allow full HD rendering with no downsampling.
#3. In reference to #2, since Vista does enable HDCP to PLAY AT ALL on Vista, it IS A FEATURE, as HDCP content currently will NOT PLAY on OSX, Linux, Solaris, BSD, and only on select XP machines made from Toshiba that have proprietary HD-DVD hardware in the units. So it is a feature if the user DID WANT TO PLAY HDCP content, as Vista is the ONLY OS that you can currently play it on, outside of a stand alone consumer player that also 'downsamples/cripples' the display.
I don't know why people MAKE THIS A VISTA issue, it has really NOTHING TO DO with Vista. Please for the love of God, let people finally 'get this' and stop buying into the FUD and ignorance the original article/post tried to start that tries to get people LIKE YOU up in arms about Vista.
HDCP has NOTHING TO DO with Vista any more than a DVD decryption Codec has anything to do with OSX, Linux, BSD, or XP.
Except what will happen when Vista has a 80% install base and the only content being released is protected?
You mean like 100% of all blu-ray and HD-DVD consumer players ALREADY HAVE?
This is really stretching reality, MS has NO control over this, nor even 'encourages' it. Look up the recent story where Gates himself tells people to buy CDs and rip the music yourself instead of buying online with DRM.
MS was forced to add HDCP to 'enable' HDCP content to play, that is all.
If you are so worried about an 80% install base with protected content, I suggest you start focusing on Apple today. iPod has the market and is not only super DRM, locked into iTunes as the sole product that can touch the device, but even locked into the Apple ONLY store for Music content. Thus giving Apple 100% control of an 80% base, all with DRM.
Even MS's own Windows Media DRM is VERY optional, and is a feature only when content providers can't sell copyrighted material without a control mechanism like audible.com. You don't find DRM doing ANYTHING on the computer or forcing consumers to do anything with DRM. MS's DRM with Windows Media doesn't even force users to use Media Player, in contrast to Apple and iTunes. Any developer can make a DRM enabled player and device software like creative and various other companies do.
So even if Vista does reach a 80% install base, big deal, no one has to buy into protect content, and in the words of Bill Gates, don't support the companies that force you to, especially if you are buying physical media where DRM is not needed.
The market will not let DRM controlled content win, trust me on this. Look at the old DVD competition pushed by Circuit City, it was a buy the media, but it was a own/rent concept that locked the user from playing the content after a certain number of plays. It failed almost immediately, and play old DVDs won out, mainly because they weren't limited, and secondly because cracks for DVD encryption pushed the viability of DVD content beyond the physical media.
DRM will never succeed in a consumer market, unless it makes sense and is used with mild constraints.
The only company online that this makes sense and meets this standard so far that I have found is audible.com, where audible books do need protection for online access to give the publishers and authors their dues. Since 2000 and using Windows DRM, I now have over 200 book titles available to me at any comptuer I sit down at, and I can even burn them to physical media.
This is the only DRM I have ever supported, and I can understand the reasoning behind their DRM, as it is not setup to harm the buyers, but instead gives the book publishers more incentive to publish audio books online for people like me that want the book immediately. You also don't see the book industry pushing to keep companies like Audible off the market as you find in the Music and Video industry, it seen as a good thing from their side instead of a potential risk.
However, I don't usually support DRM, and most people don't. That is why DRM that has NO PURPOSE but to screw consumers will never succeed.
And back to Vista, again it does NOTHING with regard to control or DRM or access to the computer than XP or OSX or any other mainstream OS does. All the Vista boogey men stories of TPC enabled applications and DRM software were all false FUD and myths, Vista is essentially no different than any previous version of Vista. PERIOD.
See this is the exact kind of ignorance and FUD an article like this creates...
Why on earth do you think Vista is DOING ANYTHING to control what you watch or download?
The ONLY DRM in Vista is two things.
DRM for Windows Media Audio/Video, and ONLY if it is turned on by the content provider (like if you bought a song or book that was protected). (Just like Win2k, WinXP no difference!!)
HDCP is also in Vista, but as MOST people will tell you that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will not even start using this type of copy protection until 2011 by most estimates. Secondly, this ONLY AFFECTS people that are STUPID enough to buy a HDCP protected HD movie in the first place. The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING...
And even the TPC chip is not used for any DRM, Vista uses the TPC chip for authenication if you use Bitlocker on a Laptop, and ONLY to allow the drive encryption authenication, which also can be backed up with a passcode and to a USB device.
Other than that, there is NOTHING in Vista preventing people from doing anything they want to do. WindowsXP had DRM in Windows Media as well, and OSX has tons of DRM in iTunes, but you don't see people crying they will never buy a Mac because of all the DRM, even though OSX's Media DRM is MORE INVASIVE and CONTROLLING than Windows Media.
This article is crap, and what people are learning from it is wrong.
In response to the parent post, I was watching movies and TV from non-legal links last night on my Vista system that controls my home entertainment center. I watch a lot of content that isn't 'licensed' and there is NOTHING I have not been able to watch on Vista. This includes everything from P2P movies and Divx to hidden casts on various sites around the world.
SO if you think Vista will stop you from doing anything you currently do, you are being MISLEAD...
(The article might as well tell everyone Vista will kill their kittens, as the article and the FUD surrounding it isn't anymore accurate.)
Only in the US do people seriously think that you can "own technologies". The rest of the world has, so far, rejected the notion of software patents (despite much effort from the US to get them more widely accepted).
Have you ever been to this little place called Europe?
Software patents are troll material anyway. There is no such thing as a piece of software that does not violate numerous software patents without a license. That includes Windows; Microsoft get sued for patent violations two or three times a year, and they usually just settle (it's not usually newsworthy). The system is so broken that you can't win, unless you simply refuse to play.
This I completely agree with. I think software patents may have a place, but the way they are handed out and implemented in today's USA is insane and sad. True Novel technology never sees the light of day, and esoteric concepts that apply to everything get a freaking patent.
I'm not at all saying the patent system is right or good, I am just saying it is currently being used to battle the technological war. If you can't design a better product you buy a patent and sue, or you just steal a technology and hope nobody notices before it becomes common use.
The US patent system concerning both software and technology needs a massive overhaul, with 99.9% of the patents being thrown out immediately. If the patent is truly good, they can resubmit for patent for free under the new system that has not only higher criteria, but also has good technological people handing these out, and not office clerks that wouldn't know a byte from a bit.
However we are in reality, and right now these are the rules of the game that everyone is being forced to play to.
MS even hates the patent system, as they have stated several times, they also never took the patent war seriously until a few years ago. Before then they had few patents, and since then they have went out of their way to patent anything they can to keep people from suing them.
Apple has actually been better at playing the patent game, look at number of patents on simple ideas they have pushed through in the past 15 years, they were actually smarter about protecting themselves than Microsoft.
Yep someone is lazy, or it is a side effect in the API.
BTW Only the HAL of any NT based system is written in assembly, everything above that must be portable C. (This is one reason it was sad that WinNT 4.0 was faster than Win9x, as the Win9x team could use all the assembly they wanted.)
Old API, not properly reviewed. BTW, did anyone notice that the exploit requires 'prior' admin authorization? It can only elevate after getting the permission to do so at a prior point, so it is kind of a moot bug on Vista.
As the other post suggests, kind of... (Cause we won't include WoW and a few not so popular console/PC projects)
However the idea behind XBox Live on Vista is to get Vista Live users playing with XBox people as well as having a centralized gaming hub for Windows as XBox users already enjoy.
It just happens that Halo2 will not be one that they are going to allow this at this point because the original Halo2 on the Console wasn't designed with any idea of another player being on a PC, and also Halo2 for Vista has other multi-player options not available on the XBox.
Do look for future games to enable play from the XBox 360 and Vista. Marvel Online is one for example, and I also would be surprised if Halo3 won't be designed for multi-player Live play between PC and XBox 360 users.
The MS Live system was to be released 'with' Vista, but with all the other delays got pushed back to be an update. However when it is released, don't be surprised if a lot of the multi-player arcade online games work whether you have a PC or XBox 360. The best way to gauge will be if the game is a XBox 360 Live native game, or an XBox game, if it isn't a 360 game, like Halo2, don't expect to play PC Users.
And now we know why when marketing gurus were researching cults, they interviewed several Linux users and movers in the industry.
It is called being the part of a Club and following the leaders over the cliff if asked.
Linux is freaking technology, not a me too, or I'm a geek club. Sadly it is the people that use MS, Apple, Linux, and BSD in whatever ways work best that are now the rebels, and the hardcore Linux only or BSD only or Apple only or OSS only users are the cult members and part of the new estabishment.
Worship Linux for all I care, but there is a time when you lose your personal ideals for technology when you can't see the shortcomings of the technology you use and instead buy into the everything is great and anything outside is bad.
Linux has a lot of great things, and OSS and GPL has a lot of great things, but there are also flies in the ointment, and to ignore them is becoming part of a cult.
MS may not be the company that comes calling for technology in use in Linux distributions, but just a bit more profit and people to target and you will see people crawl out of the woodword looking for $$ for the technology in use in Linux. You can find lots of stuff that is in Linux distributions that are on shaking ground from Xerox technology to even Fat32, and there are tons of people that do own these technologies and could potential ask they stop being used and shutting down Linux distributions all over the place.
If you ask me, this is a good thing, because even if Novell is the first to take notice of this, it will encourage the entire Linux industry to take note and ensure that a technology patent dispute could not force people to turn off servers running that distribution.
I thought trolls gave up after a few attempts to sound credible.
Vista is essentially no different than XP except for the required driver signing on the x64 version for non user mode drivers. This is why it is 'closed' source software, they get to control the coding too.
If this horrifies you, then buy the x32 version or if you have no plans to use Vista, then you have no business worrying about or replying to posts about Vista.
Go back to your blah blah blah Windows Vista Evil blah blah blah...
You will be able to interact with other XBox live users, but the PC version will only allow PC to PC multiplayer because of the custom map editing system they are adding to the Vista PC Version.
Personally I'd like to see the exact opposite -- PC gaming that is more appropriate for a PC. For instance windowed gaming: There are a tremendous number of games that can only play in fullscreen mode, yet I like the ability to hop between applications without a time sucking, crash-inducing schism, not to mention that I like to see all of my other windows.
This is also something I do, I seldom run games full screen, as I like to have IM and email handy when talking to friends or co-workers (especially with MMOs).
This is one area Vista made a big improvement in my life for Windows Games, everything runs so well in a Window, I haven't found a reason yet to run a game full screen. And as games are smarter, if I want a semi-full screen or in my face experience I just maximize the Window, and can still be typing IM or accessing the taskbar and other applications while the game is loading to a new level or instance in MMOs.
As for the whole branding, I think it is a good thing, as it will add some consistency to the packaging and information about the game. When the XBox was released, one of the nice things about the games, is that on the back you could see in a couple of seconds what features the game had, if it was live enabled, multi-player, etc.
Windows game packaging could use this ease of recognition on the product packaging as well. This also becomes more of an issue as the gaming specs won't be hidden and require nerds to decipher if the game will run and run well on the person's PC.
Vista is also adding XBox Live in the spring, so again this a good move, so it will be easier to spot upcoming games that are Live enabled, etc.
Just imagine Halo2 Vista users playing at true 1080p against XBox users playing at 480p, should make for some interesting game play.
Just wanted to say thanks for the post, you have added a lot of good additional information.
There are some specifics that could be further explained or debated, but would probably be wasted in this venue.
For other people that want to continue exploring what is in Vista that may be important but would fall under the radar of most tech and user review sites, be sure to check out the technical documents at MS and especially the MSDN blogs from the MS developers. The MS Channel9 is also a good resource from the mouths of the developers and designers.
Detail oriented and tech savvy people will find a lot of information on Vista in these areas that you won't find in reviews or even from the MS marketing people. This information is important, especially for non-Windows developers that don't run Windows day to day anymore, as you will surprisingly find ideas and even some innovative concepts that you might be able to use in your OSS development work. (Know your enemy so to speak, and if MS has a good idea, take it and use it instead of just trying to dismiss it.)
Vista has a lot of good technologies that are pushing the industry in new directions, and the video system is just one area. However, it is very important to note that there are other people working also working on some good graphic system concepts in the OSS world. Some of the XWindows 3D window managers 'proof of concept' designs are truly quite amazing as well.
Vista could also do a lot more with its Aero interface, but MS took the route of providing basic 'glitz' instead of creating a new UI paradigm.
However, MS with Vista did create some really sound and strong GPU architectural design concepts that will help to move the industry forward as they continue to work with NVidia and ATI. Just getting both main GPU vendors to think past SLI concepts of multi-GPU usage is a strong push in the right direction, and more complete multi-tasking GPU chips will be a direct result that will help the entire computing industry.
As even MS stated, Vista and DX10 are using some tricks to get the GPUs to do what they are doing in Vista; however, ideal implementations would require the new paradigm in GPU technologies that Vista is hopefully setting the stage for NVidia and ATI to travel down that road.
In a weird way, it is like Windows 3.x where MS was pushing the 286 technologies, giving users multi-tasking cheaply, but setting the road for the 386 and pre-emptive multi-tasking, and then pushing even further with NT and multi-processor support. Of course MS wasn't the first to do this, but their desktop power and the ease of multi-tasking even DOS on the 286 set a consumer road of expectations for the common WordPerfect and office workers. This helped to ensure the progression of multi-tasking and multi-application OSes and UIs as the baseline of expectations for users.
Vista is very much a stepping stone, and does have weaknesses, but as I tried to point out to the original parent, there is a lot in Vista that goes beyond what you can do with the current generation of XP, and Vista also adds quite a few tricks you can't do at all on any commercial OS.
I wish you well in your work and development, and thank you again for taking the time to provide quality information in your posts.
There are functions on the 3D side of Video cards that are NOT used in normal 2D business applications. Vista uses the 3D side of the Video Card to 'speed up' normal 2D drawing operations. For example, it will allow the GPU to process a Bitmap instead of having the CPU do it, or it will use 3D optimizations when drawing a font instead of having the CPU do it.
You're trying to tell me Vista's using the v.c. RAM like system memory?
Vista lets applications share the GPU and System RAM for applications, specifically 3D applications in a way that lets more than one 3D application consume all the GPU RAM, and shares the RAM between applications. If you open up a 3D game, it will tell you that you might have 550Mb of RAM on your GPU, when you Video card only has 128Mb on it. (Think of it like the Caching your HD does to virtualize more RAM for the computer, except this time it is system RAM being virtualized as GPU RAM.)
Now take it a step further and realize Vista is the moderator not only for GPU RAM, but for GPU cycles, and this allows concurrent 3D applications to run side by side with almost no performance impact.
I take offense to the marketing analogy, I would have rather you called me a lawyer...
First I would like to say that it is nice to see a response from someone that isn't out to push an ideal and actually has some experience on the topic...
- The RAM thing exists already - without the paging. Drivers can allocate AGP- and even Sysram to get some space for the data. Sysmem is obviously a very bad idea with AGP, but its there. With PCI, this is much less of an issue. There the drivers can transfer from/to sysram, which gets paged by the OS already.
This does exist, but in a very limited fashion compared to what Vista and WDDM does and allows. Vista uses memory placement optimizations for existing 3D applications (DirectX and even OpenGL).
This means games don't have to be recoded to take advantage of the memory sharing architecture. A basic example, would be a low use texture that normally is shoved into the GPU because it needs to be in GPU RAM space for processing, so instead of it wasting high speed GPU RAM space, Vista will place in System RAM since there is no performance benefit, and yet the texture will appear to the application to be in the GPU and can have the GPU act on it as if it were internally loaded in GPU RAM Space. I by no means claim to be a 3D coding expert, but there are some really good true 'tech' articles on this subject at both MS and other sites like ATI and NVidia even.
- Running multiple games at once will obviously hurt their FPS, unless they are not very demanding (running Gothic 3 and Oblivion at the same time is not a good idea). Running several 3D apps side by side HAS to work in Vista since the entire interface is going to be a 3D application, actually. In fact, D3D10 adopted a server/client model from OpenGL here; in OGL it never was a big deal to run several GL apps at once, because they are clients using one server (the graphics card).
DirectX has had a client/server model for a long time now, even on WindowsXP, running multiple instances of a 3D application in a Window is not a new thing, nor something only possible with OpenGL. (Remember MS was on big on OpenGL until they could not get the group to move to gaming hardware support concepts. Too bad the OpenGL of today and the willingness to adapt was not prevalent then, if so DirectX may never have existed.)
What is new is the way applications are 'multi-tasked', in a way the applications now think they have full access to the GPU and access to tons of GPU RAM, and Vista's WDDM instead is playing the 'multi-tasker' instead of the applications themselves realizing they are just a client and self yielding. Think of this as the change from the 286 to the 386, on the 286 multi-tasking was possible, but the application had to yield, on the 386 true pre-emptive multi-tasking was possible as the application didn't have a say, nor did the system care if it yielded or not.
I know OpenGL does have some strong arguments in the multi-client field, but with the WDDM and direction of technologies co-developed by MS/ATI/NVidia, this is not just about DirectX10 getting on the train, it is about laying new tracks for everyone to follow.
From the GPU vendor standpoint, multi-tasking architectures are virtually non-existent, that is why SLI and crossfire are such 'kludge' technologies.
Again, I'm a not a 3D coding expert, but when people I know at ATI that I consider to be at the top of the game, have told me, 'holy shit', you will not believe the new areas we are heading with the technologies Vista and MS has brought to the table. (PS Also look back at the shader technology in the XBOX 360, it was a very conceptual way of handling things and now you see cards from NVidia and ATI showing off why this is the next generation. MS does a lot of work in the non-software side of the 3D world so they have people that understand this from an OS standpoint to people that can help in chip design.)
- Accelerated drawing: not going to happen. At least not on a primitive stage. The windows are VERY likely to be rectangular textures, but forget about draw
But aren't GDI and GDI+ no longer accelerated in Vista?
They are still accelerated, and now will even use the 3D side of the GPU if your computer has a DirectX 7 or later video card (which is about 1998-1999) timeframe.
So many of the standard GDI and GDI+ functions get a boost because they can be accelerated from areas of the GPU made for 3D, like using the 3D chip for calcualtions, texture features for bitmap processing, etc.
It is a far bit more complicated than using shared system RAM as GPU RAM with an integrated Video solution. (BTW Even old PCI could use shared system RAM, it doesn't take AGP)
The difference is, on a system with an AGP ATI x700 for example that has 256MB of RAM on board the Video card, and 'knows' nothing of sharing the RAM with OS or the using the OS RAM.
Vista steps in and manages the two sets of RAM pools, and merges them even on high end systems, allowing realtime allocation from either pool by the application or the OS itself. This is happening at the OS and applicaiton level, where the 'integrated' shared memory you are talking about happens usually somewhere in the hardware level and once the memory is allocated to the GPU is usually locked to JUST GPU usage.
Vista can take GPU RAM and use it for painting the screen, speeding up CorelDraw, or take system RAM and allow you to run 5 games on the screen at once.
Also you are skipping over the GPU Multi-tasking concepts, GPUs are usually not built to be good a working with more than one application. Vista's WDDM adds multi-tasking for GPUs, and also sets the stage for future GPUs to be multi-tasking chip designs. Again this means that not only while Vista is speeding up the drawing in AutoCad or Corel using the GPU, you can be running WoW in another window and won't have to worry about loss of FPS or them fighting with each other.
Did you miss the umpteen stories about PatchGuard and the various anti-virus companies complaining and Vista DRM systems and the one about some security researcher finding a way to break the driver security model?
Every single story comes down to the same fundamental point... Vista is designed to be secure against the owner.
What you said about User Account Control (UAC) is totally wrong. User Account Control ONLY elevates you to hand-cuffed-Admin level. You are still locked out of System level. It is impossible for you to install third-party anti-virus software because you are NEVER permited system level access. This is the exact reason for all of the stories about the security companies being pissed at the anti-competitive lockout. Even using User Account Control it is IMPOSSIBLE for an owner to reach the System level access he needs to install security software.
You have SO many things mixed up...
First you go off about DRM and then the 64bit driver security, which doesn't even apply to the 32bit versions, then you go off on UAC and how it is somehow related to the Symantec and McAfee complaints.
You need to get this information straight.
Vista x32 - there is no 'signed' driver requirement. Vista x64 - there is a 'signed' driver requirement - meaning that developers must have their driver signed if it RUNS BELOW user mode on Vista x64. User Mode Drivers are NOT affected.
UAC CAN push the Administrator User all the way to the top of the security chain. This is how admins kill processes, install applications, and can even modify Windows files if they truly are stupid enough to do so. There is NOTHING in Vista that prevents a person from DOING ANYTHING TO THE OS at an Admin level if the administrator is stupid enough to elevate themselves.
The UAC is more in place to prevent 'automated' priviledge elevation, in other words, the user/administator has to specifically CLICK on the UAC prompts, and these cannot be circumvented with keyboard or mouse hooks. So a REAL person has to authorize any elevation.
The part McAfee and Symantec COMPLAIN over in Vista, is that MS created a unified API and security center for Vista for 3rd parties to plug in their anti-virus software for monitoring by the system. THIS PISSED OFF McAfee and Symantec, as they don't just sell anti-virus software, they sell 'security' systems that take over the firewall, the network stack, etc etc...
This is also why their products SUCK, as they are touching parts of the OS no Software vendor should EVER have that much control over. It is also why you didn't see companies that sell ONLY anti-virus software and not 'security suites' complain or even CARE, as they can fully integrate as they always have with Vista, and now there are even stanrdard APIs they can use to report back to the system and get access to information on things they need to. This is a good thing for a 'real' anti-virus company, and not a company what wants to replace everything and turn off the Vista security center.
People like you can complain that Vista secures against the owner, but it is the same fools that bitched that WindowsXP didn't enforce the NT security model far enough and why Windows was left so wide open. A Vista owner can replace anything on their system, hell even boot into the new mini-boot PE mode of Vista and then access your HD and change everything you want.
You can even slimstream the Vista install, all with MS tools to add ANY feature and remove ANY feature from the OS and EVEN replace system files that would make Vista not even run.
This is ALL IN A USER'S CONTROL, just as it was in previous versions of Windows; however, with Vista, from inside Vista, processes do not automatically get root level rights to run crazy on your computer.
Now why don't you write us a great post on how closed OSX is, and why it sucks. Heck even maybe a post on the new Sony 7.1 receivers and how they are closed source and as far as we know they are emailing the pentagon about ever
UAC can elevate programs from normal user permissions to admin permissions. Getting system permissions will require messing around with some ACLs,
This is FLAT OUT WRONG...
Yes UAC will elevate a normal user to Admin if needed, it will also elevate an admin or normal user to 'trusted installer' which is above 'system'.
If an admin couldn't push past the 3rd tier of access as the post suggests, then no one could ever install an application on the system.
An admin CAN push to the top level of access and even have control over System, that is how you kill SYSTEM processes, etc.
An admin can do anything on the system, but certain areas are going to require a security jump to allow them to do it, that is why even running as Administrator on a system, you will get the UAC prompt if you want higher priveledges.
Admins are NOT locked to the third level of security as the article and parent post suggests.
Go look this stuff up, I am so tired of the uninformed me too posts.
The only process I'm aware of that runs as trusted installer is, as you might expect, the Windows installer. PS Windows Installer is not the only process capable of pushing to trusted installer level of access. A 1991 VB 3.0 setup application can request trusted installer just like a 2006 Windows MSI Install script can.
The complete change in how Video works in Vista should be a primary reason for people to upgrade, but you don't see many tech people out here that get it.
Vista's new graphics system is not about eye candy, although that is a good side effect. Here are just a few things that the new Vista graphic system has that you can't do on earlier versions of Windows.
- It can multi-task GPU RAM with system RAM intelligently. Meaning if your Video card only has 128mb or RAM, and you want to run all the extra High Quality Textures in a game that would normally want more GPU RAM, Vista will let the game do this, seamlessly with existing games.
The multi-tasking of GPU RAM also extends to GPU multi-tasking as well, which is a new concept and works even marginally already with current generation boards from ATI and NVidia. So you get GPU RAM and GPU multi-tasking that also extends beyond a single game or application or even the interface itself.
On Vista for example, you can load WoW, SWG, CoH, and pick a good FPS, put them all in a Window and they will run side by side with VERY little FPS drop in any of the applications. Now take into consideration they all want the GPU to themselves, and they all want all the GPU RAM. However, it just freaking works in Vista, and works well. This example I give is one demonstration one of our techs uses. He will set the characters to auto-run in the applications and he will then hit Flip 3D, angling all the applications in perspective on their side with all the Aero effects, and point out to people how the FPS didn't change in any of the applications. And this is with a 256MB NVidia 6800 card that is almost two years old.
- Accelerated drawing. Everyone should know Vista adds 3D technology to the basic desktop and desktop applications, but another fact missed is that even the old 2D drawing of applications uses the 3D GPU functions to accelerate rendering. And this happens on even old DirectX 7 cards from 1998 that couldn't dream of running Aero/Glass.
How does this affect everyone? Well the display, rendering and movement of bitmaps and vector images is significantly faster than on WindowsXP, or any other OS. Take an application like CorelDraw or AI, they will draw very complex vector images and are are pre-Vista made applications, yet on Vista they will display and redraw their graphics 10x faster or more. I have one layered image that on WindowsXP and OSX takes close to 30 secs to redraw fully, yet on Vista it will redraw in less than 2 secs fully.
So if you work in the graphics world, Vista will impact your life tremendously. So existing and old applications get a tremedous speed boost when they are very graphically heavy applications.
- 3D composer. Vista like OSX sports a full Composer, so images never tear. Again this is a performance improvement over WindowsXP. It also features a full vector based composer, meaning that newer applications using the WPF side of Vista get even more of a performance increase, as it can talk to the composer in pure vector and redraws and changes can be communicated in vector instead of full bitmap redraw changes being shoved to the composer. This again not only adds more performance for applications that haven't even been released yet, but adds interface quality as Vista can properly anti-alias the vector images, etc without any work from the application.
Another nice 'visual' side effect of the graphics composer in Vista, is that is can scale 'old' application on high resolution displays. So if you want to get all the use out of the pixel on your 17" 1920x1200 display and don't have perfect eye sight, you can still run your desktop at 1920x1200 and Vista will scale things up to a level that you can see and look like a printed page.
- User Mode Video Drivers - Video in Vista has been put back in the user mode. This means more stability if a video drivers crashes. However, one clever side effect of how Vista has implemented the WDDM
That is, until DirectX 10 games start hitting the shelves, as Microsoft has publically stated that they won't be releasing DX10 for earlier versions of Windows.
It isn't just that they won't be releasing DirectX 10 for anything but Vista; it is more the fact that none of the previous OSes can run DirectX 10 technologies.
Many of the features of DirectX 10 require the new way video is handled in Vista, and that includes the new WDDM....See more in my reply to the parent post...
The owner of the computer, even with root ("Administrator") status, can have at most only the third privilege level.
This is pure crap... Anyone with 2 brain cells has heard of UAC, even if why people hate it. The baseline is, running as administrator, you can elevate all the way to the top, this is trusted installer, and what the UAC prompt is all about.
As default, administrator on Vista is not like root on *nix. This is a good thing considering the level of 'knowledge' that most Windows users have about computing. So even if they leave the system running with an administrator account, the system will ask for permission to get to a higher level if a process or application requests it.
The whole post starts off via some idiot's rant about the 'potential' of Vista be 'closed source'. (Truly read what the people are saying, it isn't about Vista being crap, it is about Vista has stuff we don't know what it is and can't see the source code for.)
This is insane, Vista is a closed source OS, and not even the only one in world - there is no story here. OSX and many DVD Players are closed source as well, but that doesn't mean we have to create a conspiracy theory about how they they are phoning ET just because we can't see the source or dislike that they use a non XWindows GUI.
Ok, so two-thirds of the tricks used in worms and virus buffer overflor attacks are negated, but are those two-thirds heavily used attacks, or very minor ones?
This is a nice step, but I'd like to see them be a little more active on the security front. How about patching some more of those released zero-day exploits for Word?
The trick is for these exploits to 'get into' the computer in the first place, which Vista makes far more challenging by 100x over previous versions of Windows.
In theory it should take a user with admin level access and tons of social engineering to get them to click through the herd of 'Are you really stupid enough to run this on your computer?" boxes they have to click through. And even then the software would have to get past the inherent spyware scanning table, in the case it is a known exploit.
As for the Word patches, well if you are Mac user, just do what Apple has told you about OSX several times. "If you want the bugs and exploits fixed, pay the upgrade fees and get the new version." (*winks to Steve Jobs rolling naked in the patch extorted money.)
However, maybe not everyone should be 'forced' to upgrade to get exploits fixed. Just give MS a couple of days, they already patched a couple of these pretty fast, almost lightning speed in MS time.
It is strange the new exploits are so common in the last days of the pre-Office 2007 OpenXML document format era. Maybe hackers are getting what they can out of the last generation of Office before people buy new computers for the holidays with Office 2007 pre-installed.
I also wonder if MS is considering adding an option to pre-2007 office versions to give a flag or warning about opening native documents that are not Open XML, or only allow documents to be opened via the Open XML add-on. (Anyone at MS reading, just give me a wink in the notes if you add this feature.)
While this is a cool technique, I had heard about NAT2NAT years ago...
Yes this is old news, but it is NOT NAT2NAT...
It could be used in a NAT2NAT situation, but also could be used in a company with real IPs behind a genuine solid Firewall...
This is just client side port opening, and the methods Skype uses to trick the firewalls to let the users have access so a direct P2P connection can be established. More or less it is a clever way of getting through a firewall, and provides the basic functionality of UPnP on a firewall that doesn't allow such things.
Slashdot Mirror
The Ribbon per se isn't a new technology.
What is new in Office 2007 is the way the Ribbon works, which is different than ribbons in blender and notes, etc.
The Office 2007 Ribbon is contextual and offers intelligent options based on what the user is doing, add in realtime formatting options from a ribbon drop down concept, and remove menus completely, and you have what makes the Office 2007 interface innovative.
Also, not only does it push the new paradigm on a Ribbon concept, it also forces users to become familar with it by not offering a Menu System.
I find the interface a love hate. At first you hate it when looking for features, but once it clicks (about 15min of random use), then you appreciate the Ribbons and the way it presents information, things that just can't be done easily with toolbars nor done at all with menus, like the live previews.
I mean, if only Microsoft will support it in their OS, well, that says enough on its own
Apple has talked about and announced HD support as well, and to implement HD fully they would also have to turn on HDCP...
However, like I said HDCP is 5 years out before it is has any proability of common use, and by then it will be dead. Also again, just because MS enables a technology to work, that doesn't make them the evil ones.
People should be yelling at content providers to ENSURE they don't use HDCP, they should also yell at companies like Intel that invented this CRAP.
Whoa, wait a second...
How about taking a second to comprehend instead of jumping on Vista for flaws of HDCP (an Intel Standard even)...
Here is what you are missing...
#1. All Consumer Players are ALSO HDCP crippled, so if the video can't be confirmed, it downsamples.
#2. Vista does nothing different than a Consumer Player; however, the FEATURE of Vista is that if the video/monitor can be confirmed, it will allow full HD rendering with no downsampling.
#3. In reference to #2, since Vista does enable HDCP to PLAY AT ALL on Vista, it IS A FEATURE, as HDCP content currently will NOT PLAY on OSX, Linux, Solaris, BSD, and only on select XP machines made from Toshiba that have proprietary HD-DVD hardware in the units. So it is a feature if the user DID WANT TO PLAY HDCP content, as Vista is the ONLY OS that you can currently play it on, outside of a stand alone consumer player that also 'downsamples/cripples' the display.
I don't know why people MAKE THIS A VISTA issue, it has really NOTHING TO DO with Vista. Please for the love of God, let people finally 'get this' and stop buying into the FUD and ignorance the original article/post tried to start that tries to get people LIKE YOU up in arms about Vista.
HDCP has NOTHING TO DO with Vista any more than a DVD decryption Codec has anything to do with OSX, Linux, BSD, or XP.
Except what will happen when Vista has a 80% install base and the only content being released is protected?
You mean like 100% of all blu-ray and HD-DVD consumer players ALREADY HAVE?
This is really stretching reality, MS has NO control over this, nor even 'encourages' it. Look up the recent story where Gates himself tells people to buy CDs and rip the music yourself instead of buying online with DRM.
MS was forced to add HDCP to 'enable' HDCP content to play, that is all.
If you are so worried about an 80% install base with protected content, I suggest you start focusing on Apple today. iPod has the market and is not only super DRM, locked into iTunes as the sole product that can touch the device, but even locked into the Apple ONLY store for Music content. Thus giving Apple 100% control of an 80% base, all with DRM.
Even MS's own Windows Media DRM is VERY optional, and is a feature only when content providers can't sell copyrighted material without a control mechanism like audible.com. You don't find DRM doing ANYTHING on the computer or forcing consumers to do anything with DRM. MS's DRM with Windows Media doesn't even force users to use Media Player, in contrast to Apple and iTunes. Any developer can make a DRM enabled player and device software like creative and various other companies do.
So even if Vista does reach a 80% install base, big deal, no one has to buy into protect content, and in the words of Bill Gates, don't support the companies that force you to, especially if you are buying physical media where DRM is not needed.
The market will not let DRM controlled content win, trust me on this. Look at the old DVD competition pushed by Circuit City, it was a buy the media, but it was a own/rent concept that locked the user from playing the content after a certain number of plays. It failed almost immediately, and play old DVDs won out, mainly because they weren't limited, and secondly because cracks for DVD encryption pushed the viability of DVD content beyond the physical media.
DRM will never succeed in a consumer market, unless it makes sense and is used with mild constraints.
The only company online that this makes sense and meets this standard so far that I have found is audible.com, where audible books do need protection for online access to give the publishers and authors their dues. Since 2000 and using Windows DRM, I now have over 200 book titles available to me at any comptuer I sit down at, and I can even burn them to physical media.
This is the only DRM I have ever supported, and I can understand the reasoning behind their DRM, as it is not setup to harm the buyers, but instead gives the book publishers more incentive to publish audio books online for people like me that want the book immediately. You also don't see the book industry pushing to keep companies like Audible off the market as you find in the Music and Video industry, it seen as a good thing from their side instead of a potential risk.
However, I don't usually support DRM, and most people don't. That is why DRM that has NO PURPOSE but to screw consumers will never succeed.
And back to Vista, again it does NOTHING with regard to control or DRM or access to the computer than XP or OSX or any other mainstream OS does. All the Vista boogey men stories of TPC enabled applications and DRM software were all false FUD and myths, Vista is essentially no different than any previous version of Vista. PERIOD.
See this is the exact kind of ignorance and FUD an article like this creates...
Why on earth do you think Vista is DOING ANYTHING to control what you watch or download?
The ONLY DRM in Vista is two things.
DRM for Windows Media Audio/Video, and ONLY if it is turned on by the content provider (like if you bought a song or book that was protected). (Just like Win2k, WinXP no difference!!)
HDCP is also in Vista, but as MOST people will tell you that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will not even start using this type of copy protection until 2011 by most estimates. Secondly, this ONLY AFFECTS people that are STUPID enough to buy a HDCP protected HD movie in the first place. The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING...
And even the TPC chip is not used for any DRM, Vista uses the TPC chip for authenication if you use Bitlocker on a Laptop, and ONLY to allow the drive encryption authenication, which also can be backed up with a passcode and to a USB device.
Other than that, there is NOTHING in Vista preventing people from doing anything they want to do. WindowsXP had DRM in Windows Media as well, and OSX has tons of DRM in iTunes, but you don't see people crying they will never buy a Mac because of all the DRM, even though OSX's Media DRM is MORE INVASIVE and CONTROLLING than Windows Media.
This article is crap, and what people are learning from it is wrong.
In response to the parent post, I was watching movies and TV from non-legal links last night on my Vista system that controls my home entertainment center. I watch a lot of content that isn't 'licensed' and there is NOTHING I have not been able to watch on Vista. This includes everything from P2P movies and Divx to hidden casts on various sites around the world.
SO if you think Vista will stop you from doing anything you currently do, you are being MISLEAD...
(The article might as well tell everyone Vista will kill their kittens, as the article and the FUD surrounding it isn't anymore accurate.)
Only in the US do people seriously think that you can "own technologies". The rest of the world has, so far, rejected the notion of software patents (despite much effort from the US to get them more widely accepted).
Have you ever been to this little place called Europe?
Software patents are troll material anyway. There is no such thing as a piece of software that does not violate numerous software patents without a license. That includes Windows; Microsoft get sued for patent violations two or three times a year, and they usually just settle (it's not usually newsworthy). The system is so broken that you can't win, unless you simply refuse to play.
This I completely agree with. I think software patents may have a place, but the way they are handed out and implemented in today's USA is insane and sad. True Novel technology never sees the light of day, and esoteric concepts that apply to everything get a freaking patent.
I'm not at all saying the patent system is right or good, I am just saying it is currently being used to battle the technological war. If you can't design a better product you buy a patent and sue, or you just steal a technology and hope nobody notices before it becomes common use.
The US patent system concerning both software and technology needs a massive overhaul, with 99.9% of the patents being thrown out immediately. If the patent is truly good, they can resubmit for patent for free under the new system that has not only higher criteria, but also has good technological people handing these out, and not office clerks that wouldn't know a byte from a bit.
However we are in reality, and right now these are the rules of the game that everyone is being forced to play to.
MS even hates the patent system, as they have stated several times, they also never took the patent war seriously until a few years ago. Before then they had few patents, and since then they have went out of their way to patent anything they can to keep people from suing them.
Apple has actually been better at playing the patent game, look at number of patents on simple ideas they have pushed through in the past 15 years, they were actually smarter about protecting themselves than Microsoft.
MessageBox API in assembly
Yep someone is lazy, or it is a side effect in the API.
BTW Only the HAL of any NT based system is written in assembly, everything above that must be portable C. (This is one reason it was sad that WinNT 4.0 was faster than Win9x, as the Win9x team could use all the assembly they wanted.)
Old API, not properly reviewed. BTW, did anyone notice that the exploit requires 'prior' admin authorization? It can only elevate after getting the permission to do so at a prior point, so it is kind of a moot bug on Vista.
As the other post suggests, kind of... (Cause we won't include WoW and a few not so popular console/PC projects)
However the idea behind XBox Live on Vista is to get Vista Live users playing with XBox people as well as having a centralized gaming hub for Windows as XBox users already enjoy.
It just happens that Halo2 will not be one that they are going to allow this at this point because the original Halo2 on the Console wasn't designed with any idea of another player being on a PC, and also Halo2 for Vista has other multi-player options not available on the XBox.
Do look for future games to enable play from the XBox 360 and Vista. Marvel Online is one for example, and I also would be surprised if Halo3 won't be designed for multi-player Live play between PC and XBox 360 users.
The MS Live system was to be released 'with' Vista, but with all the other delays got pushed back to be an update. However when it is released, don't be surprised if a lot of the multi-player arcade online games work whether you have a PC or XBox 360. The best way to gauge will be if the game is a XBox 360 Live native game, or an XBox game, if it isn't a 360 game, like Halo2, don't expect to play PC Users.
And now we know why when marketing gurus were researching cults, they interviewed several Linux users and movers in the industry.
It is called being the part of a Club and following the leaders over the cliff if asked.
Linux is freaking technology, not a me too, or I'm a geek club. Sadly it is the people that use MS, Apple, Linux, and BSD in whatever ways work best that are now the rebels, and the hardcore Linux only or BSD only or Apple only or OSS only users are the cult members and part of the new estabishment.
Worship Linux for all I care, but there is a time when you lose your personal ideals for technology when you can't see the shortcomings of the technology you use and instead buy into the everything is great and anything outside is bad.
Linux has a lot of great things, and OSS and GPL has a lot of great things, but there are also flies in the ointment, and to ignore them is becoming part of a cult.
MS may not be the company that comes calling for technology in use in Linux distributions, but just a bit more profit and people to target and you will see people crawl out of the woodword looking for $$ for the technology in use in Linux. You can find lots of stuff that is in Linux distributions that are on shaking ground from Xerox technology to even Fat32, and there are tons of people that do own these technologies and could potential ask they stop being used and shutting down Linux distributions all over the place.
If you ask me, this is a good thing, because even if Novell is the first to take notice of this, it will encourage the entire Linux industry to take note and ensure that a technology patent dispute could not force people to turn off servers running that distribution.
I thought trolls gave up after a few attempts to sound credible.
Vista is essentially no different than XP except for the required driver signing on the x64 version for non user mode drivers. This is why it is 'closed' source software, they get to control the coding too.
If this horrifies you, then buy the x32 version or if you have no plans to use Vista, then you have no business worrying about or replying to posts about Vista.
Go back to your blah blah blah Windows Vista Evil blah blah blah...
Yep, I stand corrected.
You will be able to interact with other XBox live users, but the PC version will only allow PC to PC multiplayer because of the custom map editing system they are adding to the Vista PC Version.
Thanks for catching that...
Personally I'd like to see the exact opposite -- PC gaming that is more appropriate for a PC. For instance windowed gaming: There are a tremendous number of games that can only play in fullscreen mode, yet I like the ability to hop between applications without a time sucking, crash-inducing schism, not to mention that I like to see all of my other windows.
This is also something I do, I seldom run games full screen, as I like to have IM and email handy when talking to friends or co-workers (especially with MMOs).
This is one area Vista made a big improvement in my life for Windows Games, everything runs so well in a Window, I haven't found a reason yet to run a game full screen. And as games are smarter, if I want a semi-full screen or in my face experience I just maximize the Window, and can still be typing IM or accessing the taskbar and other applications while the game is loading to a new level or instance in MMOs.
As for the whole branding, I think it is a good thing, as it will add some consistency to the packaging and information about the game. When the XBox was released, one of the nice things about the games, is that on the back you could see in a couple of seconds what features the game had, if it was live enabled, multi-player, etc.
Windows game packaging could use this ease of recognition on the product packaging as well. This also becomes more of an issue as the gaming specs won't be hidden and require nerds to decipher if the game will run and run well on the person's PC.
Vista is also adding XBox Live in the spring, so again this a good move, so it will be easier to spot upcoming games that are Live enabled, etc.
Just imagine Halo2 Vista users playing at true 1080p against XBox users playing at 480p, should make for some interesting game play.
Just wanted to say thanks for the post, you have added a lot of good additional information.
There are some specifics that could be further explained or debated, but would probably be wasted in this venue.
For other people that want to continue exploring what is in Vista that may be important but would fall under the radar of most tech and user review sites, be sure to check out the technical documents at MS and especially the MSDN blogs from the MS developers. The MS Channel9 is also a good resource from the mouths of the developers and designers.
Detail oriented and tech savvy people will find a lot of information on Vista in these areas that you won't find in reviews or even from the MS marketing people. This information is important, especially for non-Windows developers that don't run Windows day to day anymore, as you will surprisingly find ideas and even some innovative concepts that you might be able to use in your OSS development work. (Know your enemy so to speak, and if MS has a good idea, take it and use it instead of just trying to dismiss it.)
Vista has a lot of good technologies that are pushing the industry in new directions, and the video system is just one area. However, it is very important to note that there are other people working also working on some good graphic system concepts in the OSS world. Some of the XWindows 3D window managers 'proof of concept' designs are truly quite amazing as well.
Vista could also do a lot more with its Aero interface, but MS took the route of providing basic 'glitz' instead of creating a new UI paradigm.
However, MS with Vista did create some really sound and strong GPU architectural design concepts that will help to move the industry forward as they continue to work with NVidia and ATI. Just getting both main GPU vendors to think past SLI concepts of multi-GPU usage is a strong push in the right direction, and more complete multi-tasking GPU chips will be a direct result that will help the entire computing industry.
As even MS stated, Vista and DX10 are using some tricks to get the GPUs to do what they are doing in Vista; however, ideal implementations would require the new paradigm in GPU technologies that Vista is hopefully setting the stage for NVidia and ATI to travel down that road.
In a weird way, it is like Windows 3.x where MS was pushing the 286 technologies, giving users multi-tasking cheaply, but setting the road for the 386 and pre-emptive multi-tasking, and then pushing even further with NT and multi-processor support. Of course MS wasn't the first to do this, but their desktop power and the ease of multi-tasking even DOS on the 286 set a consumer road of expectations for the common WordPerfect and office workers. This helped to ensure the progression of multi-tasking and multi-application OSes and UIs as the baseline of expectations for users.
Vista is very much a stepping stone, and does have weaknesses, but as I tried to point out to the original parent, there is a lot in Vista that goes beyond what you can do with the current generation of XP, and Vista also adds quite a few tricks you can't do at all on any commercial OS.
I wish you well in your work and development, and thank you again for taking the time to provide quality information in your posts.
Take Care,
TheNetAvenger
Why? Because the window is now rendered in 3D?
There are functions on the 3D side of Video cards that are NOT used in normal 2D business applications. Vista uses the 3D side of the Video Card to 'speed up' normal 2D drawing operations. For example, it will allow the GPU to process a Bitmap instead of having the CPU do it, or it will use 3D optimizations when drawing a font instead of having the CPU do it.
You're trying to tell me Vista's using the v.c. RAM like system memory?
Vista lets applications share the GPU and System RAM for applications, specifically 3D applications in a way that lets more than one 3D application consume all the GPU RAM, and shares the RAM between applications. If you open up a 3D game, it will tell you that you might have 550Mb of RAM on your GPU, when you Video card only has 128Mb on it. (Think of it like the Caching your HD does to virtualize more RAM for the computer, except this time it is system RAM being virtualized as GPU RAM.)
Now take it a step further and realize Vista is the moderator not only for GPU RAM, but for GPU cycles, and this allows concurrent 3D applications to run side by side with almost no performance impact.
I take offense to the marketing analogy, I would have rather you called me a lawyer...
You apparently are not going to read, so blah blah blah Vista is Evil blah blah blah...
Vista is a freaking closed source OS, and you are complaing that you can't change the guts. Are you mental?
So, now you get it?
First I would like to say that it is nice to see a response from someone that isn't out to push an ideal and actually has some experience on the topic...
- The RAM thing exists already - without the paging. Drivers can allocate AGP- and even Sysram to get some space for the data. Sysmem is obviously a very bad idea with AGP, but its there. With PCI, this is much less of an issue. There the drivers can transfer from/to sysram, which gets paged by the OS already.
This does exist, but in a very limited fashion compared to what Vista and WDDM does and allows. Vista uses memory placement optimizations for existing 3D applications (DirectX and even OpenGL).
This means games don't have to be recoded to take advantage of the memory sharing architecture. A basic example, would be a low use texture that normally is shoved into the GPU because it needs to be in GPU RAM space for processing, so instead of it wasting high speed GPU RAM space, Vista will place in System RAM since there is no performance benefit, and yet the texture will appear to the application to be in the GPU and can have the GPU act on it as if it were internally loaded in GPU RAM Space.
I by no means claim to be a 3D coding expert, but there are some really good true 'tech' articles on this subject at both MS and other sites like ATI and NVidia even.
- Running multiple games at once will obviously hurt their FPS, unless they are not very demanding (running Gothic 3 and Oblivion at the same time is not a good idea). Running several 3D apps side by side HAS to work in Vista since the entire interface is going to be a 3D application, actually. In fact, D3D10 adopted a server/client model from OpenGL here; in OGL it never was a big deal to run several GL apps at once, because they are clients using one server (the graphics card).
DirectX has had a client/server model for a long time now, even on WindowsXP, running multiple instances of a 3D application in a Window is not a new thing, nor something only possible with OpenGL. (Remember MS was on big on OpenGL until they could not get the group to move to gaming hardware support concepts. Too bad the OpenGL of today and the willingness to adapt was not prevalent then, if so DirectX may never have existed.)
What is new is the way applications are 'multi-tasked', in a way the applications now think they have full access to the GPU and access to tons of GPU RAM, and Vista's WDDM instead is playing the 'multi-tasker' instead of the applications themselves realizing they are just a client and self yielding. Think of this as the change from the 286 to the 386, on the 286 multi-tasking was possible, but the application had to yield, on the 386 true pre-emptive multi-tasking was possible as the application didn't have a say, nor did the system care if it yielded or not.
I know OpenGL does have some strong arguments in the multi-client field, but with the WDDM and direction of technologies co-developed by MS/ATI/NVidia, this is not just about DirectX10 getting on the train, it is about laying new tracks for everyone to follow.
From the GPU vendor standpoint, multi-tasking architectures are virtually non-existent, that is why SLI and crossfire are such 'kludge' technologies.
Again, I'm a not a 3D coding expert, but when people I know at ATI that I consider to be at the top of the game, have told me, 'holy shit', you will not believe the new areas we are heading with the technologies Vista and MS has brought to the table.
(PS Also look back at the shader technology in the XBOX 360, it was a very conceptual way of handling things and now you see cards from NVidia and ATI showing off why this is the next generation. MS does a lot of work in the non-software side of the 3D world so they have people that understand this from an OS standpoint to people that can help in chip design.)
- Accelerated drawing: not going to happen. At least not on a primitive stage. The windows are VERY likely to be rectangular textures, but forget about draw
But aren't GDI and GDI+ no longer accelerated in Vista?
They are still accelerated, and now will even use the 3D side of the GPU if your computer has a DirectX 7 or later video card (which is about 1998-1999) timeframe.
So many of the standard GDI and GDI+ functions get a boost because they can be accelerated from areas of the GPU made for 3D, like using the 3D chip for calcualtions, texture features for bitmap processing, etc.
It is a far bit more complicated than using shared system RAM as GPU RAM with an integrated Video solution. (BTW Even old PCI could use shared system RAM, it doesn't take AGP)
The difference is, on a system with an AGP ATI x700 for example that has 256MB of RAM on board the Video card, and 'knows' nothing of sharing the RAM with OS or the using the OS RAM.
Vista steps in and manages the two sets of RAM pools, and merges them even on high end systems, allowing realtime allocation from either pool by the application or the OS itself. This is happening at the OS and applicaiton level, where the 'integrated' shared memory you are talking about happens usually somewhere in the hardware level and once the memory is allocated to the GPU is usually locked to JUST GPU usage.
Vista can take GPU RAM and use it for painting the screen, speeding up CorelDraw, or take system RAM and allow you to run 5 games on the screen at once.
Also you are skipping over the GPU Multi-tasking concepts, GPUs are usually not built to be good a working with more than one application. Vista's WDDM adds multi-tasking for GPUs, and also sets the stage for future GPUs to be multi-tasking chip designs. Again this means that not only while Vista is speeding up the drawing in AutoCad or Corel using the GPU, you can be running WoW in another window and won't have to worry about loss of FPS or them fighting with each other.
Did you miss the umpteen stories about PatchGuard and the various anti-virus companies complaining and Vista DRM systems and the one about some security researcher finding a way to break the driver security model?
Every single story comes down to the same fundamental point... Vista is designed to be secure against the owner.
What you said about User Account Control (UAC) is totally wrong. User Account Control ONLY elevates you to hand-cuffed-Admin level. You are still locked out of System level. It is impossible for you to install third-party anti-virus software because you are NEVER permited system level access. This is the exact reason for all of the stories about the security companies being pissed at the anti-competitive lockout. Even using User Account Control it is IMPOSSIBLE for an owner to reach the System level access he needs to install security software.
You have SO many things mixed up...
First you go off about DRM and then the 64bit driver security, which doesn't even apply to the 32bit versions, then you go off on UAC and how it is somehow related to the Symantec and McAfee complaints.
You need to get this information straight.
Vista x32 - there is no 'signed' driver requirement. Vista x64 - there is a 'signed' driver requirement - meaning that developers must have their driver signed if it RUNS BELOW user mode on Vista x64. User Mode Drivers are NOT affected.
UAC CAN push the Administrator User all the way to the top of the security chain. This is how admins kill processes, install applications, and can even modify Windows files if they truly are stupid enough to do so. There is NOTHING in Vista that prevents a person from DOING ANYTHING TO THE OS at an Admin level if the administrator is stupid enough to elevate themselves.
The UAC is more in place to prevent 'automated' priviledge elevation, in other words, the user/administator has to specifically CLICK on the UAC prompts, and these cannot be circumvented with keyboard or mouse hooks. So a REAL person has to authorize any elevation.
The part McAfee and Symantec COMPLAIN over in Vista, is that MS created a unified API and security center for Vista for 3rd parties to plug in their anti-virus software for monitoring by the system. THIS PISSED OFF McAfee and Symantec, as they don't just sell anti-virus software, they sell 'security' systems that take over the firewall, the network stack, etc etc...
This is also why their products SUCK, as they are touching parts of the OS no Software vendor should EVER have that much control over. It is also why you didn't see companies that sell ONLY anti-virus software and not 'security suites' complain or even CARE, as they can fully integrate as they always have with Vista, and now there are even stanrdard APIs they can use to report back to the system and get access to information on things they need to. This is a good thing for a 'real' anti-virus company, and not a company what wants to replace everything and turn off the Vista security center.
People like you can complain that Vista secures against the owner, but it is the same fools that bitched that WindowsXP didn't enforce the NT security model far enough and why Windows was left so wide open. A Vista owner can replace anything on their system, hell even boot into the new mini-boot PE mode of Vista and then access your HD and change everything you want.
You can even slimstream the Vista install, all with MS tools to add ANY feature and remove ANY feature from the OS and EVEN replace system files that would make Vista not even run.
This is ALL IN A USER'S CONTROL, just as it was in previous versions of Windows; however, with Vista, from inside Vista, processes do not automatically get root level rights to run crazy on your computer.
Now why don't you write us a great post on how closed OSX is, and why it sucks. Heck even maybe a post on the new Sony 7.1 receivers and how they are closed source and as far as we know they are emailing the pentagon about ever
UAC can elevate programs from normal user permissions to admin permissions. Getting system permissions will require messing around with some ACLs,
This is FLAT OUT WRONG...
Yes UAC will elevate a normal user to Admin if needed, it will also elevate an admin or normal user to 'trusted installer' which is above 'system'.
If an admin couldn't push past the 3rd tier of access as the post suggests, then no one could ever install an application on the system.
An admin CAN push to the top level of access and even have control over System, that is how you kill SYSTEM processes, etc.
An admin can do anything on the system, but certain areas are going to require a security jump to allow them to do it, that is why even running as Administrator on a system, you will get the UAC prompt if you want higher priveledges.
Admins are NOT locked to the third level of security as the article and parent post suggests.
Go look this stuff up, I am so tired of the uninformed me too posts.
The only process I'm aware of that runs as trusted installer is, as you might expect, the Windows installer.
PS Windows Installer is not the only process capable of pushing to trusted installer level of access. A 1991 VB 3.0 setup application can request trusted installer just like a 2006 Windows MSI Install script can.
The complete change in how Video works in Vista should be a primary reason for people to upgrade, but you don't see many tech people out here that get it.
Vista's new graphics system is not about eye candy, although that is a good side effect. Here are just a few things that the new Vista graphic system has that you can't do on earlier versions of Windows.
- It can multi-task GPU RAM with system RAM intelligently. Meaning if your Video card only has 128mb or RAM, and you want to run all the extra High Quality Textures in a game that would normally want more GPU RAM, Vista will let the game do this, seamlessly with existing games.
The multi-tasking of GPU RAM also extends to GPU multi-tasking as well, which is a new concept and works even marginally already with current generation boards from ATI and NVidia. So you get GPU RAM and GPU multi-tasking that also extends beyond a single game or application or even the interface itself.
On Vista for example, you can load WoW, SWG, CoH, and pick a good FPS, put them all in a Window and they will run side by side with VERY little FPS drop in any of the applications. Now take into consideration they all want the GPU to themselves, and they all want all the GPU RAM. However, it just freaking works in Vista, and works well. This example I give is one demonstration one of our techs uses. He will set the characters to auto-run in the applications and he will then hit Flip 3D, angling all the applications in perspective on their side with all the Aero effects, and point out to people how the FPS didn't change in any of the applications. And this is with a 256MB NVidia 6800 card that is almost two years old.
- Accelerated drawing. Everyone should know Vista adds 3D technology to the basic desktop and desktop applications, but another fact missed is that even the old 2D drawing of applications uses the 3D GPU functions to accelerate rendering. And this happens on even old DirectX 7 cards from 1998 that couldn't dream of running Aero/Glass.
How does this affect everyone? Well the display, rendering and movement of bitmaps and vector images is significantly faster than on WindowsXP, or any other OS. Take an application like CorelDraw or AI, they will draw very complex vector images and are are pre-Vista made applications, yet on Vista they will display and redraw their graphics 10x faster or more. I have one layered image that on WindowsXP and OSX takes close to 30 secs to redraw fully, yet on Vista it will redraw in less than 2 secs fully.
So if you work in the graphics world, Vista will impact your life tremendously. So existing and old applications get a tremedous speed boost when they are very graphically heavy applications.
- 3D composer. Vista like OSX sports a full Composer, so images never tear. Again this is a performance improvement over WindowsXP. It also features a full vector based composer, meaning that newer applications using the WPF side of Vista get even more of a performance increase, as it can talk to the composer in pure vector and redraws and changes can be communicated in vector instead of full bitmap redraw changes being shoved to the composer. This again not only adds more performance for applications that haven't even been released yet, but adds interface quality as Vista can properly anti-alias the vector images, etc without any work from the application.
Another nice 'visual' side effect of the graphics composer in Vista, is that is can scale 'old' application on high resolution displays. So if you want to get all the use out of the pixel on your 17" 1920x1200 display and don't have perfect eye sight, you can still run your desktop at 1920x1200 and Vista will scale things up to a level that you can see and look like a printed page.
- User Mode Video Drivers - Video in Vista has been put back in the user mode. This means more stability if a video drivers crashes. However, one clever side effect of how Vista has implemented the WDDM
That is, until DirectX 10 games start hitting the shelves, as Microsoft has publically stated that they won't be releasing DX10 for earlier versions of Windows.
...See more in my reply to the parent post...
It isn't just that they won't be releasing DirectX 10 for anything but Vista; it is more the fact that none of the previous OSes can run DirectX 10 technologies.
Many of the features of DirectX 10 require the new way video is handled in Vista, and that includes the new WDDM.
The owner of the computer, even with root ("Administrator") status, can have at most only the third privilege level.
This is pure crap... Anyone with 2 brain cells has heard of UAC, even if why people hate it. The baseline is, running as administrator, you can elevate all the way to the top, this is trusted installer, and what the UAC prompt is all about.
As default, administrator on Vista is not like root on *nix. This is a good thing considering the level of 'knowledge' that most Windows users have about computing. So even if they leave the system running with an administrator account, the system will ask for permission to get to a higher level if a process or application requests it.
The whole post starts off via some idiot's rant about the 'potential' of Vista be 'closed source'. (Truly read what the people are saying, it isn't about Vista being crap, it is about Vista has stuff we don't know what it is and can't see the source code for.)
This is insane, Vista is a closed source OS, and not even the only one in world - there is no story here. OSX and many DVD Players are closed source as well, but that doesn't mean we have to create a conspiracy theory about how they they are phoning ET just because we can't see the source or dislike that they use a non XWindows GUI.
Ok, so two-thirds of the tricks used in worms and virus buffer overflor attacks are negated, but are those two-thirds heavily used attacks, or very minor ones?
This is a nice step, but I'd like to see them be a little more active on the security front. How about patching some more of those released zero-day exploits for Word?
The trick is for these exploits to 'get into' the computer in the first place, which Vista makes far more challenging by 100x over previous versions of Windows.
In theory it should take a user with admin level access and tons of social engineering to get them to click through the herd of 'Are you really stupid enough to run this on your computer?" boxes they have to click through. And even then the software would have to get past the inherent spyware scanning table, in the case it is a known exploit.
As for the Word patches, well if you are Mac user, just do what Apple has told you about OSX several times. "If you want the bugs and exploits fixed, pay the upgrade fees and get the new version." (*winks to Steve Jobs rolling naked in the patch extorted money.)
However, maybe not everyone should be 'forced' to upgrade to get exploits fixed. Just give MS a couple of days, they already patched a couple of these pretty fast, almost lightning speed in MS time.
It is strange the new exploits are so common in the last days of the pre-Office 2007 OpenXML document format era. Maybe hackers are getting what they can out of the last generation of Office before people buy new computers for the holidays with Office 2007 pre-installed.
I also wonder if MS is considering adding an option to pre-2007 office versions to give a flag or warning about opening native documents that are not Open XML, or only allow documents to be opened via the Open XML add-on. (Anyone at MS reading, just give me a wink in the notes if you add this feature.)
While this is a cool technique, I had heard about NAT2NAT years ago...
Yes this is old news, but it is NOT NAT2NAT...
It could be used in a NAT2NAT situation, but also could be used in a company with real IPs behind a genuine solid Firewall...
This is just client side port opening, and the methods Skype uses to trick the firewalls to let the users have access so a direct P2P connection can be established. More or less it is a clever way of getting through a firewall, and provides the basic functionality of UPnP on a firewall that doesn't allow such things.
Understand the difference?