People who took place in the Vista preview programmes (i.e. used the betas) are entitled to 'upgrade' to the final version of Vista - and thus this 'trick' is both required and legal for them to use.
To be fair, it's not as if Creative tried to cover up anything, they've come out and stated things clearly enough (and they're entitled to delete links to unauthorised drivers, if they so desire) - it's not in the same league as deleting negative feedback:
It's a stupid statement anyway, demonstrating an obvious anti-Vista viewpoint - what exactly is meant by "one university liberal enough to accept... Vista"?
The university would offer advice and support for the students own computers - any reasonable university is going to be "liberal enough" to let people use their own machines!
Shame it's not updated for SP1, contains links to lists of links of things that are out of date (e.g. iPod problems), has silly claims, contains inaccurate/biased 'studies' like this highly scientific study of five games (highly debunked in the comments).
For what it's worth, I'd highly recommend that Vista users install SP1.
I found that bit about wanting "to believe that the internet will require everyone to be more responsible or lose" quite interesting.
Who here really thinks that Slashdot is really 'responsible reporting'? There's too much sensationalism, bias, misleading summaries, etc - not that I expect a site based on user submissions to be accurate all the time, but a site like this that very likely gets a sizable advertising revenue should really be able to employ someone to do some checking.
Is 'Firefox Mobile' really going to be offered as completely free to the mobile phone operators though?
If that's really the case, then why the need for the negotiation mentioned in the topic - let people download it themselves. I suspect, however, that they're looking for some sort of bundling deal.
oliderid writes to let us know that, even as the UK threatens ISPs who don't clamp down on P2P traffic, the rest of the EU is going the other way.
That's a bit of a silly summary when you consider the UK probably has the biggest TV streaming project out there with the BBC iPlayer, which uses P2P technology.
It's especially silly when you consider that 'the rest of the EU' in that statement actually *includes* the UK, with funding from the BBC.
Not to be cynical, but everything points to this being a fake post considering how horrendously wrong the summary is.
This is a problem reported on a beta version, and so will likely be fixed in the final. The final is currently 'unreleased' to the public (although it's out there), and the beta version requires registry entries to install. In both cases you need admin rights on the machine. The summary is *completely* wrong in that SP1 is not available on Windows Update yet, and that's even assuming that the problem isn't fixed in the final.
Given all that, it seems like an awfully convienent time, '10 minutes ago' for this to happen to you (and if somehow you are telling the truth, what sort of IT department lets users install service packs themselves, let alone unreleased service packs?)
Could you go into any detail into why most installations don't need this particular function? Even if you can, it's hardly misleading to call it a 'Linux Kernel 2.6 Local Root Exploit' if it is one, is it?
They've not even indicated as to whether the original figures pre-SP1 were problematic. It could be that those figures were perfectly fine, and similar to XP performance on that particular system.
What's really needed is three figures: XP, Vista, and Vista SP1 - with particular focus on issues that Vista pre-SP1 had problems with.
What I have noticed with SP1 is a very considerable boost in system responsiveness, something which hasn't been benchmarked here, and can't easily be.
Pretty much all this article consists of is a test of a few file copies - and that's not saying much. This seems to me to be basically getting a 'review' of SP1 up as soon as possible - and they succeeded in getting reported on Slashdot.
That article's a good example of people bashing Vista just because they can, and probably because it gets page hits.
Look at the bottom screenshot in the article - '36843 days remaining'. The article presents that as being an incredibly slow transfer on Vista SP1 (i.e. implying that the problem hasn't been fixed in SP1). However, the progress bar in the screenshot, at about ~70% complete, clearly shows that it's a cosmetic issue with the remaining time reported.
Let me guess. You don't think it's news that newer versions of Office won't open old word documents but Open Office will.
Well, I would hope that any news about Office compatibility would use a rather bigger sample size and more research than this particular 'study' on games compatibility did.
Is a test that includes only 4 non-working games really a good indication of compatibility, and worthy of coverage on Slashdot? I certainly haven't had a problem with gaming on Vista, although I'm aware there's a few issues here and there.
I also did a search for one of the games listed - Darwinia - first two results on Google gave me a link to an update for Vista on the official site/forum. If he's using that (which he hasn't said either way) and still having lockups, I'd have thought there's some other issue there.
Although I agree with that, unfortunately in practice a great deal of people don't independently consider things they read. The source of information often indicates a certain level of bias one way or another though, and if it's a signficant level of bias it perhaps should be highlighted.
You also have to consider that, even if any criticism given is warranted, a person with bias could purposely omit complimentary information - something which happens a lot in Slashdot summaries.
Slashdot Mirror
People who took place in the Vista preview programmes (i.e. used the betas) are entitled to 'upgrade' to the final version of Vista - and thus this 'trick' is both required and legal for them to use.
To be fair, it's not as if Creative tried to cover up anything, they've come out and stated things clearly enough (and they're entitled to delete links to unauthorised drivers, if they so desire) - it's not in the same league as deleting negative feedback:
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332
What on earth has Quad-SLI got to do with 'saving us from consoles' ?
You don't even need a single top-end card to provide an alternative to a console, let alone *four* top-end cards.
The university would offer advice and support for the students own computers - any reasonable university is going to be "liberal enough" to let people use their own machines!
http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/177855
Shame it's not updated for SP1, contains links to lists of links of things that are out of date (e.g. iPod problems), has silly claims, contains inaccurate/biased 'studies' like this highly scientific study of five games (highly debunked in the comments).
For what it's worth, I'd highly recommend that Vista users install SP1.
I found that bit about wanting "to believe that the internet will require everyone to be more responsible or lose" quite interesting.
Who here really thinks that Slashdot is really 'responsible reporting'? There's too much sensationalism, bias, misleading summaries, etc - not that I expect a site based on user submissions to be accurate all the time, but a site like this that very likely gets a sizable advertising revenue should really be able to employ someone to do some checking.
Is 'Firefox Mobile' really going to be offered as completely free to the mobile phone operators though?
If that's really the case, then why the need for the negotiation mentioned in the topic - let people download it themselves. I suspect, however, that they're looking for some sort of bundling deal.
It's especially silly when you consider that 'the rest of the EU' in that statement actually *includes* the UK, with funding from the BBC.
Like in TF2, when you 'dominate' someone you become their 'nemesis' - and so they'll come back seeking revenge... :)
The best thing to do here would be to compare how both Opera and Mozilla notify each other about exploits they find in other browsers.
Not to be overly pedantic here, but they can't have had access for over a month yet - the final SP1 build is from 18th January.
Not to be cynical, but everything points to this being a fake post considering how horrendously wrong the summary is.
This is a problem reported on a beta version, and so will likely be fixed in the final. The final is currently 'unreleased' to the public (although it's out there), and the beta version requires registry entries to install. In both cases you need admin rights on the machine. The summary is *completely* wrong in that SP1 is not available on Windows Update yet, and that's even assuming that the problem isn't fixed in the final.
Given all that, it seems like an awfully convienent time, '10 minutes ago' for this to happen to you (and if somehow you are telling the truth, what sort of IT department lets users install service packs themselves, let alone unreleased service packs?)
Looking at the comments at the top of the code, it's described as "quite old code" (assuming you believe the author).
This is quite old code and I had to rewrite it to even compile.
If the copy of Windows is from a computer seller using dodgy copies without the buyer knowing, then both the user and Microsoft are 'victims'.
They've not even indicated as to whether the original figures pre-SP1 were problematic. It could be that those figures were perfectly fine, and similar to XP performance on that particular system.
What's really needed is three figures: XP, Vista, and Vista SP1 - with particular focus on issues that Vista pre-SP1 had problems with.
What I have noticed with SP1 is a very considerable boost in system responsiveness, something which hasn't been benchmarked here, and can't easily be.
Pretty much all this article consists of is a test of a few file copies - and that's not saying much. This seems to me to be basically getting a 'review' of SP1 up as soon as possible - and they succeeded in getting reported on Slashdot.
That article's a good example of people bashing Vista just because they can, and probably because it gets page hits.
Look at the bottom screenshot in the article - '36843 days remaining'. The article presents that as being an incredibly slow transfer on Vista SP1 (i.e. implying that the problem hasn't been fixed in SP1). However, the progress bar in the screenshot, at about ~70% complete, clearly shows that it's a cosmetic issue with the remaining time reported.
Well, I would hope that any news about Office compatibility would use a rather bigger sample size and more research than this particular 'study' on games compatibility did.
Is a test that includes only 4 non-working games really a good indication of compatibility, and worthy of coverage on Slashdot? I certainly haven't had a problem with gaming on Vista, although I'm aware there's a few issues here and there.
I also did a search for one of the games listed - Darwinia - first two results on Google gave me a link to an update for Vista on the official site/forum. If he's using that (which he hasn't said either way) and still having lockups, I'd have thought there's some other issue there.
How can I sell my DRM'd Steam games though? I might not actually get around to selling any of my old games, but I feel I should have the right to.
You mention that the music industry should be doing similar, but this is the equivalent of being unable to buy or sell second-hand audio CDs.
Vista SP1 and the as-yet unreleased Windows Server 2008 share a common codebase, so I'd certainly hope it's a 'tech release'.
For what it's worth, my experience with the 'release candidate' of Vista SP1 has been very favourable.
Make sure you turn disasters off.
Although I agree with that, unfortunately in practice a great deal of people don't independently consider things they read. The source of information often indicates a certain level of bias one way or another though, and if it's a signficant level of bias it perhaps should be highlighted.
You also have to consider that, even if any criticism given is warranted, a person with bias could purposely omit complimentary information - something which happens a lot in Slashdot summaries.