Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?
Really? I remember upgrading from 2000->XP, and it seemed pretty... uneventful. My impression at the time was, "Well this is exactly like 2000 but reskinned." Maybe people upgrading from Windows 98 had more problems, but a lot of business users were already on Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000.
1. XP is fine -- a remarkable achievement, actually -- a Microsoft operating system that's finally releatively stable. Well, they've had a few years to get it right. And getting an OS right is really, really tough.
XP is fine, but it's growing a bit outdated. Put it next to OSX or Linux, and it starts becoming apparent that XP is several years old and not progressing with the rest of the world.
2. Vista requires top of the line hardware to run decently -- dual core processors and 2G RAM. We had the exact same discussion over ten years ago when Windows 95 came out -- Microsoft swore it would run fine in 4M memory, and it never did -- 8M was better, and 12M was decent.
Yeah, so that's a negative of Vista. It's slow and bloated and required ridiculous specs.
3. Vista is still not stable -- it is, after all, a 1.0 release. Geeks consider anything 1.0 from Microsoft a bit dodgy.
If only it were a 1.0 release, we would probably cut it more slack. It's Windows 6.0. Between version 5.0 and 6.0, Microsoft had 5 years to make a stable, worthwhile upgrade.
4. All current applications run fine on Windows XP, but may or may not run under Vista. No surprise there.
No surprise? When Apple went to a completely new codebase and UI, they managed to allow you to run "Classic" applications relatively well and with few incidents. Linux users, Solaris users, OSX users, and BSD users can share many of the same applications with just a recompile. So yeah, I guess I'm a little surprised that with all the resources that Microsoft has and 5 years to work on it, they couldn't do a better job with interoperability.
5. A recent article said that XP was still outselling Vista three to one on new system installs. It's not a tough choice: do you want the stable option that runs more quickly and is more compatible, or would you prefer the unstable option that runs more slowly and is less compatible? Hmmm. But the new one has such pretty pictures! Shiny! Shiny!
Yeah, and don't you think it's sad that after all the time and money spent of Vista, all Microsoft has to offer is "Ooooo, shiny!"?
Actually, loads of people didn't see the point of upgrading to XP, but relatively few had any particular problem with XP.
I mean, really, what does XP offer business users over 2000? Not much. And so no one was all that interested in upgrading. But here's where the situation is different: XP didn't really cause problems. For the most part, Windows XP and Windows 2000 can use the same applications and even drivers. You can even drop all the skins and everything from XP, and there's barely a difference between XP and 2000. So the criticism of XP, that it wasn't sufficiently different from 2000 to justify the upgrade, was also its saving grace, that it wasn't different enough to cause problems.
The whole Vista thing is actually a different situation. Vista *is* different in a bunch of ways, and that means a lot of your Windows 2k/XP hardware and software won't work with Vista, or will have problems. However, none of those differences are actually very helpful.
Did you ever think that the "inevitability" of upgrading even when people don't want it is a problem? Maybe it's exactly the problem that makes people want to avoid Vista, and that has some of these people fed up with Microsoft?
This is the problem with monopolies, ladies and gentlemen. They don't allow an open market, which means market forces aren't at play in those cases, which means you don't get the benefits of capitalism. What you're saying, essentially, is that we'll all be using Vista in 3 years because Microsoft has the ability to cram it down our throats, whether we like it or not, whether it hurts our businesses or not.
As an IT pro, I feel that's an unacceptable situation. When your vendors start screwing you over and trying to push you around, that's when you change vendors. It's like, "Screw you, buddy, you're supposed to be working for me!"
I'm just waiting for someone to post the standard:
Why is everyone going so easy on Apple for this? If Microsoft had done this, everyone would be screaming bloody murder! I mean, come on, it's been obvious for several years now that Apple is the source of all computing problems. They sell 1 button mice, for chrissakes. If they weren't evil, they'd just use Windows since it's the standard operating system!
If they finally restricted their targets to people who were obviously making money from it (you know, like the real physical media bootleggers do), there would've be zero problems at all.
But you see, the problem is that they don't want/need to go after the bootleggers. It isn't the bootlegging industry that's sharing content on P2P networks. It's college kids, little girls, and the nice couple next door. The whole problem with the situation is that their business model was created by distribution, based on the inability of some random guy to press 10 million vinyl records in his basement and distribute them worldwide for free. However, in the digital age, some random guy can effectively spread millions of MP3s around the work for free (well, you have the cost of a computer and Internet service).
So don't think these lawsuits were an effort to stop bootlegging "pirates" who make money from selling illegal copies. The goal was to protect an outdated business model.
I think you're right, which is why it might be fair to call their actions 'an inadvertent war'. The question now becomes, will they change their practices in light of this new information? Can they somehow deal with the fact that "pirates" and "customers" often overlap, and that often their non-sharing customers still want DRM-free music?
Well I think the problem was also believing that there's a clear distinction between "illegal file sharer" and "customer". As though there aren't plenty of people who are both.
So the record industry set out to wage war on "pirates" and inadvertently ended up attacking their own customers and hurting their own business interests. Instead, they might have realized that the people "pirating" their content were also "sharing" their content and thereby giving free marketing. They might have realized that the mass "piracy" that took off with Napster was less an issue of lawlessness and more an issue of their business model going obsolete.
Well honestly, if I didn't know what you were talking about, I would have written you off as a crazy and not responded. "He's talking about 'Viper' and the whatnow?"
I meant to be addressing the joke, that Viper was a crappy show with obvious sponsor issues, but even the huge, successful, critically acclaimed shows these days are using a creepy amount of product placement.
And what the words were originally supposed to indicate is a willingness to change quickly. Liberals are supposed to be those who push new and progressive ideas while conservatives resist change or insist that change happens slowly.
Not woosh. I knew what you were referring to. I was just saying that it's gotten more subtle and made its way into more mainstream and arguably "good" shows and movies. I mean, Viper pretty well sucked. And wasn't it one of those syndicated deals? (i.e. it wasn't on a particular network, but would appear on your local crap station)
Meh. I think you're kind of right, but the reasons are semi-valid. Every time there's any kind of a problem with Linux or OSX, someone makes a big todo about "If this happened with Windows, you all would be screaming bloody murder!"
But the things that piss people off about Microsoft are usually... well.... worse. No one is accusing Apple of misuse of hidden APIs or anything. It's not like, "You enable the firewall and Firefox stops working, but suspiciously Safari works fine!" It's not as though these holes in the firewall are set to phone home to iTunes. Apple assumed that, even if you told the firewall to block everything, you'd still want your basic networking services to continue to work. In their minds, mDNS is a basic networking service, and though I can definitely see how someone would disagree, it doesn't seem that there's any nefarious intent.
Ha! You think people are going to stop watching TV if the content is bad enough?! Hogwash. It doesn't matter how horrible and stupid TV shows are, people will never stop watching TV. It's too hypnotic. Too easy an escape. All broadcasters have to do is runs ads that successfully convince you that you'll be happier if you watch their show instead of the other guys'.
As people desert the pay-with-your-time model and switches to pay-with-dollars model, there will be a seismic shift in the broadcast TV industry.
Probably not. Even if you pay for it, they're going to stick ads in it. One of the things you have to understand is that they make way more money with ads than if you pay for it. You might be thinking, "If people have to pay to watch their favorite shows, they won't be willing to sit through ads!" But remember, people thought cable TV was crazy because "no one is going to pay for TV and still be willing to watch ads!" And look what happened.
Anyway, even if you drop "commercial breaks" from the content, you'll still see advertising via product placement and such. That means advertisers will still be controlling the content of the shows.
It's gotten much more integrated in weird ways. There was an episode of Heroes recently where Clarie's father gave her a car. No big deal, except that Claire mentioned the brand name of the car, and how cool the car was was. Then they had a commercial break with a commercial for the same car. It was one of the more obvious/awkward moments of product placement in Heroes (there's TONS of product placement in that show), but I wonder how many people didn't even think about how weird it was.
Really, product placement is all over the place. Rappers mention specific brands in their songs. Some semi-respectable movie has the main characters drinking a specific brand of whiskey. Some of it's obvious and some of it's subtle, but a lot of it is intentional and purchased.
And part of my point here is that it's not just TV shows. Kids movies are about selling toys, summer blockbusters have tie-in promotions for sneakers and soft-drinks. Once you start paying attention, you realize it's all over the place, and it's kind of disgusting. And it's even in the stuff that you *buy*, the stuff that supposedly isn't "ad supported".
That idea is sorely underrepresented in a lot of discussions about "media content". Even ignoring the ad breaks in TV shows, there's still product placement within the shows. If you haven't seen it yet, either you don't watch TV or you haven't been paying close enough attention.
When you really evaluate what's going on in media companies, it's clear that even a lot of content that you pay for is still designed to serve as advertising. The music and movies you buy are rigged and designed to get you to buy into related brands and merchandizing. Listen to a record executive for a few minutes, and you'll realize that what they're really interested in is branding, marketing, merchandizing. The music is an advertisement for lifestyle products, clothing lines, etc.
So the business model, under this light, is the consumer as a customer. The content owners/producers are providing a service, but you aren't the customer, you're the product. The customer are the huge companies who produce loads of crap that no one really wants or needs. The service being provided is to convince you (essentially the product) into believing that you want and need crap that you don't actually want or need.
the American Revolution was economic more than philosophical
Yeah, because the English Empire never exploited their colonies or anything. Like India's move for independence, which was purely economic, right? I bet that Gandhi fellow was a money-grubbing scumbag too!
I kind of agree with you, but you have to admit that it's a little ironic. Environmentalists spent a couple decades demonizing advocates of nuclear power in spite of the fact that it's probably the best answer to a lot of our environmental problems.
I still get ugly looks when I mention nuclear power. "Environmentalists" who drive SUVs when the only cargo their hauling is their own fat asses-- these people yell at me for suggesting we should consider using more nuclear power.
I remember reading on slashdot several years ago about a network security idea to scrap all this firewall gateway etc stuff and just implement a secure desktop
That's all well and good so long as you can really trust each individual machine. Also, you'll probably want to wait after the move to IPv6, or else you'll probably want to have some kind of gateway w/NAT. Even if you had all that, I wouldn't mind having a firewall anyway, just as an added layer of security.
C'mon, an incoming firewall is a good start, but it's just that. You still need AV, Anti-malware is good.
I don't know... I think a big part of the solution there is to stop using Windows wherever possible. Yeah, Linux and OSX can get viruses too, but it much less of a problem once you drop Windows.
But I agree a perimeter defense isn't the whole story-- especially in cases where you have available ports or wireless access points that go right into your network. Lots of threats come from the inside somehow. There are simple things that you should do, like stick to encrypted authentication methods even in your own network, have the wireless network hook into the DMZ, and limit user access only to the files to which they should have access. Those are all simple/obvious. I try to treat servers almost like they're all on the internet, and users almost like they don't work together.
I'm no security expert, though, so I'm sure there's some other cool things that I could be doing, but my methods seem to be doing well enough so far.
And that's all great for Microsoft, I'm sure, to prevent keys from leaking and to prevent pirates from using Windows. But frankly, none of that is my problem, and I don't want it to be my problem. If someone gets ahold of my license key, I shouldn't have to care. All I should have to worry about is whether I'm complying with licensing.
But I shouldn't have to worry about getting my OS to work or keeping it working for the sake of protecting Microsoft's IP. Or, at least, as long as I have the option of other operating systems which don't make protecting their IP my problem, I'd sooner choose those alternatives. I don't care how easy a KMS is to set up, it won't ever be easier than just not needing one.
If it's an important business e-mail, you should be proofreading it anyway. No interface is immune to typos, and even with a spell-check, you can still get the wrong word. Like "it's" and "its", "their" and "there", or "whole" and "hole".
If you don't proofread important documents and communications, then you're going to look like a moron. The input device doesn't matter.
Any decent multi-function server should be able to add the KMS functionality...
Yeah, yeah.... I know. Believe me, I know you can devise a system whereby activation isn't a big problem, assuming the system you devise works. However, those are a bunch of hoops people shouldn't have to jump through. Even if it's only a minor annoyance, it's still an annoyance that should not exist, that Microsoft has forced on their customers without good reason.
Further, the bigger worry is that the software is designed to stop working on its own. By purposefully building in a kill switch where someone can stop your computer from working against your will, there's just another thing to go wrong. I'd rather deal with a company's whose goal is to keep the OS working.
Oh please. There are so many imaging options with Vista it could easily get "more" confusing if they added another one (you can use a thumb drive as an answer file during unattended installs if you want, but that's a pretty pointless exercise).
Yeah, you're completely missing the point. The point is, imaging shouldn't be confused by needing a real "imaging solution". There's a reason why I referenced OSX and Carbon Copy Cloner. Do you know how Carbon Copy Cloner works? All it really does is copy all the files from one drive to another, and then sets the new drive as bootable. There are no special tricks, no copyright protection to circumvent, and no drivers to load to get your system working. It's pretty close to being as simple as copying all your system files to your USB drive, and then you have a bootable USB drive. And with a simple key-press at boot, you can boot that USB drive from any computer.
Go ahead and be smug, tell me that's not useful. Tell me that plugging in a USB drive makes me look like an idiot. Of course, you can set up an imaging server for OSX too. That functionality is built into OSX server already. But wouldn't it be nice if imaging were trivial? If even a first year helpdesk tech could image a machine with a silly thumbdrive?
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Just like XP flopped when people were complaining for ages that thousands of applications wouldn't work on it, very few DOS programs wouldn't work and it seemingly didn't offer enough benefits to counter-act this?
Really? I remember upgrading from 2000->XP, and it seemed pretty... uneventful. My impression at the time was, "Well this is exactly like 2000 but reskinned." Maybe people upgrading from Windows 98 had more problems, but a lot of business users were already on Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000.
1. XP is fine -- a remarkable achievement, actually -- a Microsoft operating system that's finally releatively stable. Well, they've had a few years to get it right. And getting an OS right is really, really tough.
XP is fine, but it's growing a bit outdated. Put it next to OSX or Linux, and it starts becoming apparent that XP is several years old and not progressing with the rest of the world.
2. Vista requires top of the line hardware to run decently -- dual core processors and 2G RAM. We had the exact same discussion over ten years ago when Windows 95 came out -- Microsoft swore it would run fine in 4M memory, and it never did -- 8M was better, and 12M was decent.
Yeah, so that's a negative of Vista. It's slow and bloated and required ridiculous specs.
3. Vista is still not stable -- it is, after all, a 1.0 release. Geeks consider anything 1.0 from Microsoft a bit dodgy.
If only it were a 1.0 release, we would probably cut it more slack. It's Windows 6.0. Between version 5.0 and 6.0, Microsoft had 5 years to make a stable, worthwhile upgrade.
4. All current applications run fine on Windows XP, but may or may not run under Vista. No surprise there.
No surprise? When Apple went to a completely new codebase and UI, they managed to allow you to run "Classic" applications relatively well and with few incidents. Linux users, Solaris users, OSX users, and BSD users can share many of the same applications with just a recompile. So yeah, I guess I'm a little surprised that with all the resources that Microsoft has and 5 years to work on it, they couldn't do a better job with interoperability.
5. A recent article said that XP was still outselling Vista three to one on new system installs. It's not a tough choice: do you want the stable option that runs more quickly and is more compatible, or would you prefer the unstable option that runs more slowly and is less compatible? Hmmm. But the new one has such pretty pictures! Shiny! Shiny!
Yeah, and don't you think it's sad that after all the time and money spent of Vista, all Microsoft has to offer is "Ooooo, shiny!"?
Actually, loads of people didn't see the point of upgrading to XP, but relatively few had any particular problem with XP.
I mean, really, what does XP offer business users over 2000? Not much. And so no one was all that interested in upgrading. But here's where the situation is different: XP didn't really cause problems. For the most part, Windows XP and Windows 2000 can use the same applications and even drivers. You can even drop all the skins and everything from XP, and there's barely a difference between XP and 2000. So the criticism of XP, that it wasn't sufficiently different from 2000 to justify the upgrade, was also its saving grace, that it wasn't different enough to cause problems.
The whole Vista thing is actually a different situation. Vista *is* different in a bunch of ways, and that means a lot of your Windows 2k/XP hardware and software won't work with Vista, or will have problems. However, none of those differences are actually very helpful.
Did you ever think that the "inevitability" of upgrading even when people don't want it is a problem? Maybe it's exactly the problem that makes people want to avoid Vista, and that has some of these people fed up with Microsoft?
This is the problem with monopolies, ladies and gentlemen. They don't allow an open market, which means market forces aren't at play in those cases, which means you don't get the benefits of capitalism. What you're saying, essentially, is that we'll all be using Vista in 3 years because Microsoft has the ability to cram it down our throats, whether we like it or not, whether it hurts our businesses or not.
As an IT pro, I feel that's an unacceptable situation. When your vendors start screwing you over and trying to push you around, that's when you change vendors. It's like, "Screw you, buddy, you're supposed to be working for me!"
I'm just waiting for someone to post the standard:
If they finally restricted their targets to people who were obviously making money from it (you know, like the real physical media bootleggers do), there would've be zero problems at all.
But you see, the problem is that they don't want/need to go after the bootleggers. It isn't the bootlegging industry that's sharing content on P2P networks. It's college kids, little girls, and the nice couple next door. The whole problem with the situation is that their business model was created by distribution, based on the inability of some random guy to press 10 million vinyl records in his basement and distribute them worldwide for free. However, in the digital age, some random guy can effectively spread millions of MP3s around the work for free (well, you have the cost of a computer and Internet service).
So don't think these lawsuits were an effort to stop bootlegging "pirates" who make money from selling illegal copies. The goal was to protect an outdated business model.
I think you're right, which is why it might be fair to call their actions 'an inadvertent war'. The question now becomes, will they change their practices in light of this new information? Can they somehow deal with the fact that "pirates" and "customers" often overlap, and that often their non-sharing customers still want DRM-free music?
Well I think the problem was also believing that there's a clear distinction between "illegal file sharer" and "customer". As though there aren't plenty of people who are both.
So the record industry set out to wage war on "pirates" and inadvertently ended up attacking their own customers and hurting their own business interests. Instead, they might have realized that the people "pirating" their content were also "sharing" their content and thereby giving free marketing. They might have realized that the mass "piracy" that took off with Napster was less an issue of lawlessness and more an issue of their business model going obsolete.
Well honestly, if I didn't know what you were talking about, I would have written you off as a crazy and not responded. "He's talking about 'Viper' and the whatnow?"
I meant to be addressing the joke, that Viper was a crappy show with obvious sponsor issues, but even the huge, successful, critically acclaimed shows these days are using a creepy amount of product placement.
And what the words were originally supposed to indicate is a willingness to change quickly. Liberals are supposed to be those who push new and progressive ideas while conservatives resist change or insist that change happens slowly.
Not woosh. I knew what you were referring to. I was just saying that it's gotten more subtle and made its way into more mainstream and arguably "good" shows and movies. I mean, Viper pretty well sucked. And wasn't it one of those syndicated deals? (i.e. it wasn't on a particular network, but would appear on your local crap station)
Meh. I think you're kind of right, but the reasons are semi-valid. Every time there's any kind of a problem with Linux or OSX, someone makes a big todo about "If this happened with Windows, you all would be screaming bloody murder!"
But the things that piss people off about Microsoft are usually... well.... worse. No one is accusing Apple of misuse of hidden APIs or anything. It's not like, "You enable the firewall and Firefox stops working, but suspiciously Safari works fine!" It's not as though these holes in the firewall are set to phone home to iTunes. Apple assumed that, even if you told the firewall to block everything, you'd still want your basic networking services to continue to work. In their minds, mDNS is a basic networking service, and though I can definitely see how someone would disagree, it doesn't seem that there's any nefarious intent.
Ha! You think people are going to stop watching TV if the content is bad enough?! Hogwash. It doesn't matter how horrible and stupid TV shows are, people will never stop watching TV. It's too hypnotic. Too easy an escape. All broadcasters have to do is runs ads that successfully convince you that you'll be happier if you watch their show instead of the other guys'.
As people desert the pay-with-your-time model and switches to pay-with-dollars model, there will be a seismic shift in the broadcast TV industry.
Probably not. Even if you pay for it, they're going to stick ads in it. One of the things you have to understand is that they make way more money with ads than if you pay for it. You might be thinking, "If people have to pay to watch their favorite shows, they won't be willing to sit through ads!" But remember, people thought cable TV was crazy because "no one is going to pay for TV and still be willing to watch ads!" And look what happened.
Anyway, even if you drop "commercial breaks" from the content, you'll still see advertising via product placement and such. That means advertisers will still be controlling the content of the shows.
It's gotten much more integrated in weird ways. There was an episode of Heroes recently where Clarie's father gave her a car. No big deal, except that Claire mentioned the brand name of the car, and how cool the car was was. Then they had a commercial break with a commercial for the same car. It was one of the more obvious/awkward moments of product placement in Heroes (there's TONS of product placement in that show), but I wonder how many people didn't even think about how weird it was.
Really, product placement is all over the place. Rappers mention specific brands in their songs. Some semi-respectable movie has the main characters drinking a specific brand of whiskey. Some of it's obvious and some of it's subtle, but a lot of it is intentional and purchased.
And part of my point here is that it's not just TV shows. Kids movies are about selling toys, summer blockbusters have tie-in promotions for sneakers and soft-drinks. Once you start paying attention, you realize it's all over the place, and it's kind of disgusting. And it's even in the stuff that you *buy*, the stuff that supposedly isn't "ad supported".
That idea is sorely underrepresented in a lot of discussions about "media content". Even ignoring the ad breaks in TV shows, there's still product placement within the shows. If you haven't seen it yet, either you don't watch TV or you haven't been paying close enough attention.
When you really evaluate what's going on in media companies, it's clear that even a lot of content that you pay for is still designed to serve as advertising. The music and movies you buy are rigged and designed to get you to buy into related brands and merchandizing. Listen to a record executive for a few minutes, and you'll realize that what they're really interested in is branding, marketing, merchandizing. The music is an advertisement for lifestyle products, clothing lines, etc.
So the business model, under this light, is the consumer as a customer. The content owners/producers are providing a service, but you aren't the customer, you're the product. The customer are the huge companies who produce loads of crap that no one really wants or needs. The service being provided is to convince you (essentially the product) into believing that you want and need crap that you don't actually want or need.
the American Revolution was economic more than philosophical
Yeah, because the English Empire never exploited their colonies or anything. Like India's move for independence, which was purely economic, right? I bet that Gandhi fellow was a money-grubbing scumbag too!
Personally, I can type faster and more reliably on my iPhone than on my old Blackberry. Call me a liar, but that's my experience.
I kind of agree with you, but you have to admit that it's a little ironic. Environmentalists spent a couple decades demonizing advocates of nuclear power in spite of the fact that it's probably the best answer to a lot of our environmental problems.
I still get ugly looks when I mention nuclear power. "Environmentalists" who drive SUVs when the only cargo their hauling is their own fat asses-- these people yell at me for suggesting we should consider using more nuclear power.
I remember reading on slashdot several years ago about a network security idea to scrap all this firewall gateway etc stuff and just implement a secure desktop
That's all well and good so long as you can really trust each individual machine. Also, you'll probably want to wait after the move to IPv6, or else you'll probably want to have some kind of gateway w/NAT. Even if you had all that, I wouldn't mind having a firewall anyway, just as an added layer of security.
C'mon, an incoming firewall is a good start, but it's just that. You still need AV, Anti-malware is good.
I don't know... I think a big part of the solution there is to stop using Windows wherever possible. Yeah, Linux and OSX can get viruses too, but it much less of a problem once you drop Windows.
But I agree a perimeter defense isn't the whole story-- especially in cases where you have available ports or wireless access points that go right into your network. Lots of threats come from the inside somehow. There are simple things that you should do, like stick to encrypted authentication methods even in your own network, have the wireless network hook into the DMZ, and limit user access only to the files to which they should have access. Those are all simple/obvious. I try to treat servers almost like they're all on the internet, and users almost like they don't work together.
I'm no security expert, though, so I'm sure there's some other cool things that I could be doing, but my methods seem to be doing well enough so far.
Apple makes fashion accessories.
Google makes software that works.
I'll be sure to inform the users of OSX, iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut, and Logic that Apple's software does not work.
And that's all great for Microsoft, I'm sure, to prevent keys from leaking and to prevent pirates from using Windows. But frankly, none of that is my problem, and I don't want it to be my problem. If someone gets ahold of my license key, I shouldn't have to care. All I should have to worry about is whether I'm complying with licensing.
But I shouldn't have to worry about getting my OS to work or keeping it working for the sake of protecting Microsoft's IP. Or, at least, as long as I have the option of other operating systems which don't make protecting their IP my problem, I'd sooner choose those alternatives. I don't care how easy a KMS is to set up, it won't ever be easier than just not needing one.
If it's an important business e-mail, you should be proofreading it anyway. No interface is immune to typos, and even with a spell-check, you can still get the wrong word. Like "it's" and "its", "their" and "there", or "whole" and "hole".
If you don't proofread important documents and communications, then you're going to look like a moron. The input device doesn't matter.
Any decent multi-function server should be able to add the KMS functionality...
Yeah, yeah.... I know. Believe me, I know you can devise a system whereby activation isn't a big problem, assuming the system you devise works. However, those are a bunch of hoops people shouldn't have to jump through. Even if it's only a minor annoyance, it's still an annoyance that should not exist, that Microsoft has forced on their customers without good reason.
Further, the bigger worry is that the software is designed to stop working on its own. By purposefully building in a kill switch where someone can stop your computer from working against your will, there's just another thing to go wrong. I'd rather deal with a company's whose goal is to keep the OS working.
Oh please. There are so many imaging options with Vista it could easily get "more" confusing if they added another one (you can use a thumb drive as an answer file during unattended installs if you want, but that's a pretty pointless exercise).
Yeah, you're completely missing the point. The point is, imaging shouldn't be confused by needing a real "imaging solution". There's a reason why I referenced OSX and Carbon Copy Cloner. Do you know how Carbon Copy Cloner works? All it really does is copy all the files from one drive to another, and then sets the new drive as bootable. There are no special tricks, no copyright protection to circumvent, and no drivers to load to get your system working. It's pretty close to being as simple as copying all your system files to your USB drive, and then you have a bootable USB drive. And with a simple key-press at boot, you can boot that USB drive from any computer.
Go ahead and be smug, tell me that's not useful. Tell me that plugging in a USB drive makes me look like an idiot. Of course, you can set up an imaging server for OSX too. That functionality is built into OSX server already. But wouldn't it be nice if imaging were trivial? If even a first year helpdesk tech could image a machine with a silly thumbdrive?