??? XP now, Vista Premium / Basic???

DonkeyRhubarb

Predicument.

My mate wants to get a PC this week from Komplett. The PC is brilliant, Core 2 Duo, 8800, 2gb... You name it.

If he gets it now, it will have XP. No 2 ways about it. If he holds out, he will have the option of Vista.

We are of 2 opinions on this, thus I am here to try and gather some other peoples brains.

Should he:

(A) - Get the PC now with XP and fork out for an upgrade to vista as well later on?

(B) - Wait 2 - 3 weeks when Vista comes out. Should be about that long and just get a full version of vista on it?

Things to consider:

An 8800 without Vista will have no direct X 10 support.

If an upgrade is the choice he makes, should he upgrade to Home Basic or Home Premium?

Is it worth paying twice for an OS, given that there is no free upgrade option with Komplett like there is with Dell?

So thats it, any and all of your correspondence will be greatly appreciated. Youll be helpin settle a lot.

Much appreciated, Mike

aidan_walsh

Are Komplett running an upgrade offer similar to Dell's, whereby if you buy now you will be given a free upgrade to Vista upon release (or at least a discounted upgrade offer)?

DonkeyRhubarb

Komplett do not have an upgrade offer similar to Dells. Hence the predicument.

Stark

The major difference between Home Basic and Home Premium is the Aero Glass user interface. Home Basic doesn't have that. As he has a fancy graphics card, he'll probably want to take advantage of Aero.

The full comparison is here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/editions/default.mspx . The other differences look like **** pretty much, although I did like the demo I saw of Windows meeting spaces, especially the ability to instantly network and share files with another wireless-enabled laptop in the same area running Vista, even if neither have their networks configured.

IrishEmperor

if your mate is getting a 8800gts/x then they're obviously a gamer:

in which case (according to an article i was was linked to by engadget/kotaku/digg/...?

Vista isnt the best option at this point in time for games.

Apparently it asked alot of questions anytime (everytime) you want to make the slightest of changes - software or hardware

seamus

In reality, I'd install XP Pro on it and return to the Vista issue in a year's time. BY then they should have many of the issues ironed out, extensive help available online, and good drivers from 99% of hardware manufacturers.

ntlbell

seamus wrote:

In reality, I'd install XP Pro on it and return to the Vista issue in a year's time. BY then they should have many of the issues ironed out, extensive help available online, and good drivers from 99% of hardware manufacturers.

This is the best advice you're going to get.

Mountjoy Mugger

IrishEmperor wrote:

Apparently it asked alot of questions anytime (everytime) you want to make the slightest of changes - software or hardware

It does, but you can get it to stop doing that if you want to. It was the first thing I did when I installed my copy.

Creamy Goodness

yeah that's called the UAC (User Account Control) it's a great feature especially if you have people who are not tech-saavy.

Stephen

UAC isn't much of an irritant once you have everything installed and set up initially. Its much like a linux system asking you to enter the root password every time you make a change to it.
After all, if you inadvertantly run some piece of malicious software with UAC enabled, it can only run with your privileges, so in theory shouldn't be able to do much damage.

mr_disc

Decisions, decisions...... decisions !!...................

Windows Vista Business;
Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Business N;
Windows Vista Enterprise;
Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Home Basic;
Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Home Basic N;
Windows Vista Home Premium;
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Starter;
Windows Vista Starter N;
Windows Vista Ultimate;
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition.

youcancallmeal

mr_disc wrote:

Decisions, decisions...... decisions !!...................

Windows Vista Business;
Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Business N;
Windows Vista Enterprise;
Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Home Basic;
Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Home Basic N;
Windows Vista Home Premium;
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition;
Windows Vista Starter;
Windows Vista Starter N;
Windows Vista Ultimate;
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition.

Thats ridiculous :eek:

Anyway I heard there is all sorts of issues with drm and Vista?

Creamy Goodness

vista starter will not be available within the EU or the US.

it is only targetted at areas where software piracy is widespread.

what's all this Vista business N/Vista home basic N/etc. what's the N for?

mr_disc

The N editions mean they will be shipped without Media Player, ( the result of the court case they had recently ), cant see many people looking for this !

mathias

Concerning upgrading to Vista , these are the rumours circulating about Vista downgrading output if you dont have the right hardware or software ,

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=25124

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hdcp-vista.ars

http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/167101037

Now I have MCE on a HTPC at the moment , and it plays back downloaded HD content on my Projector and TV as is , Im happy with it as it stands ,
According to the reports , I would have to upgrade my graphics and TV to use Vista on this system , thats about 2000 euro worth of hardware!!

There is no way Im going to upgrade to Vista without first being sure that its not going to rubbish my system , and no way is microsoft going to tell me what I can and cant watch , so until this particularly nasty little feature of Vista is clarified I wont be touching it.

The Above posters are right , Vista will be riddled with bugs until service pack 1 , just like XP , so leave it for at least a year , then all should be well , and if they really have been as short sighted as to include such a restrictive DRM feature as reported in the links , in a years time they should have realised what a crappy mistake it was and dropped it , or at least relaxed it some.

Stephen

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hdcp-vista.ars

^^ Did you even read that article? Requiring HDCP-compliant hardware or not is down to the content provider, not Microsoft. If Vista didn't support it and the content provider stipulated that they require HDCP to view in HD, then you wouldn't be able to view their content in HD no matter what your hardware.

I'm sure someone will crack it sometime down the line anyway

mathias

Did you even read that article? Requiring HDCP-compliant hardware or not is down to the content provider, not Microsoft.

Its you that needs to read ....I posted links that are anti Vista DRM and some that are pro vista DRM , like the only one you seem to have read !! Just trying to be balanced. !!

The concern here is that Microsoft implement HDCP or a forced quality downgrade regardless of the content provider, and its Microsoft that decides how their operating system and media player behaves , not the content provider , Microsoft are no small fish here , they have been forcing standards and practices for years and cant now start to whinge and say " well its not just our fault ".
Microsoft does what the hell it likes regardless, and has done for years. Theres no way Im going to buy a " Well hollywood made us do it " excuse.

Still , wait and see , thats the safest option.

astrofool

Well, it's either implement HDCP to spec, or not at all, so MS can't do anything 'bad' with it.

Anyway, one thing is definite, all the stuff people download now will not be DRM'd at all, and all works in Vista without a problem. To imply otherwise is a bit tinfoil hat.

Also, those articles are from August 2005, and as of Jan 2007, no content provider has a HDCP protected title, so HD-DVD/BR work fine in Vista. If/when Sony/Tosh/Content producer decide to turn HDCP on, then anything that doesn't support DRM can't play them, and those that can will.

ALSO, it's in MS' best interest not to enable DRM at all as the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player doesn't support HDMI either....

mathias

A 2007 article , google throws up quite a few , also , according to guttman, the system ( the drm system within vista that is ) looks for all premium content , not just Blu ray or HDdvd , so in effect , any piece of software that already exists within your collection that gets deemed premium and that you dont have a license for , may trigger the system.

Heres a quote ,

He also refutes Microsoft claims (one of the few comments the company has made) that businesses would not be affected as they were unlikely to play Blu-ray or HDTV DVDs - the main target of the Premium Content DRM.

The DRM software looks for all Premium Content, Guttman said. That will include MP3s employees might play at work, videos they are emailed, the devices they connect to their PCs. "I don't think you can prevent Premium Content from coming into contact with your network and the fear is that this [the effects of DRM] could spill over into other parts of the machine."

For instance , I copy my new CD to the system , I genuinely own it , but theres no license , would this trigger Vistas DRM system ??
Thats the point !! Guttman seems to think it will.

Note that Guttman likes Vista, the issues here are seeing it "hobbled" with such a restrictive DRM system.

http://m-net.net.nz/latest-news/1340/guttman-stands-by-vista-drm-suicide-note-claims/1/read.php

mickoneill30

mathias wrote:

For instance , I copy my new CD to the system , I genuinely own it , but theres no license , would this trigger Vistas DRM system ??
Thats the point !! Guttman seems to think it will.

Note that Guttman likes Vista, the issues here are seeing it "hobbled" with such a restrictive DRM system.

http://m-net.net.nz/latest-news/1340/guttman-stands-by-vista-drm-suicide-note-claims/1/read.php

Where did you get that idea from? Not from the article you linked to. He's not saying that Vista is suddenly going to DRM your collection of MP3s or AVIs and anybody that really thinks that should apply tinfoil hat now. He's talking about premium content DRM (the Hollywood HD-DVD / Blu-Ray stuff) which will never catch on anyway.

mathias

Where did you get that idea from? Not from the article you linked to. He's not saying that Vista is suddenly going to DRM your collection of MP3s or AVIs

Begging your pardon but yes ,thats exactly what hes saying in that article , didnt you see the quote I took directly from it ???

By the way , DRM is not a verb , its not something you do to a file , its a system for file copyright protection , what Guttman is saying is that Vista's DRM system requires each file to meet certain conditions or it will reduce the output quality of playback. If that is the case , then even one file of , lets say questionable origin , or a file you legally have but dont meet Vistas DRM requirements , will trigger the DRM system and hobble your output quality .
Thats what Guttman and a lot of other sites are saying , google it yourself and see.

Hes not saying Vista will " DRM " them , whatever that may mean.

IrishEmperor

Toms Hardware:
Gameplay Stinks with RTM Vista and Current Drivers

mick.fr

I read the last week that Vista Business (Targeting Small companies, SME) does not have BitLocker feature.

If this is true I think this does not make sense, because it means fo rinstance, SME, can not encrypt their hard drives.
But very often thiefs are targeting small companies. And many small companies do not have an IT Department to implement proper security processes. So I am confused.
Maybe the article was out of date. We will see pretty soon. Got my "All in One MSDN Vista DVD" but I have only tried "Ultimate Edition" so far.

Stark

The Microsoft website confirms what the above article says.

Capt'n Midnight

mick.fr wrote:

I read the last week that Vista Business (Targeting Small companies, SME) does not have BitLocker feature.

If this is true I think this does not make sense, because it means fo rinstance, SME, can not encrypt their hard drives.

Almost all laptops have an option to password protect the Hard drive. Many desktops can do this too. And it's transparent and there is no speed penalty since the drive does it too. Also it's pretty secure since you have to take out the platters out to read the data, which also means you don't loose your data if you forget the password, but it would cost hundreds of euros to do it, so to a normal thief the drive is worthless.

Also before ENTFS you could read any non-stripped drive with a dos 5 boot disk and ntfsdos it's not as if they are removing a feature windows didn't have.

I haven't looked up too much on ENTFS or Bitlocker because of the escrow problem, if the administrator can't override the security you risk loosing the data if the user forgets the password, but on the other hand if the administrator can override the password then it's isn't secure

But at the end of the day it's the decision of Microsoft Marketing not a technical one, as to which features to disable in the cheaper versions.

astrofool

In reply to above, i'm currently using Vista RTM, Ultimate, and have for the last month or so. I've also copied my unprotected albums and MP3's onto the machine, and lo and behold, no enforced DRM.

So, unless it's a random occurrance, then what was said in that article above, is not true.

KamiKazi

overclockers.co.uk now have certain versions of vista in stock

Creamy Goodness

KamiKazi wrote:

overclockers.co.uk now have certain versions of vista in stock

mine shipped yesterday

mathias

Yay !! Microsoft themselves answer some of the concerns that have been doing the rounds ,

Some of it is reassuring , some of it not so , and enforced SD resolution on any non HDMI screen while playing HD content is unfortunately true!! Bummer , so dont buy an HD-DVD or Blu ray drive if you dont have a HDMI monitor !!
Planning on upgrading your HTPC to Vista ?, not if you dont have HDMI , or a spare HDMI slot , cos component is limited to 540 pixels , which microsoft say " stills gives a great user experience" !!! Thats a quote from the article by the way !!

Here is the quote ,

Will the playback quality be reduced on some video output types?

Image quality constraints are only active when required by the policy associated with the content being played, and then only apply to that specific content -- not to any other content on the user's desktop. As a practical matter, image constraint will typically result in content being played at no worse than standard definition television resolution. In the case of HD optical media formats such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, the constraint requirement is 520K pixels per frame (i.e., roughly 960x540), which is still higher than the native resolution of content distributed in the DVD-Video format. We feel that this is still yields a great user experience, even when using a high definition screen.

Now the problem here is that component connections are supposed to be left unchanged according to the HDCP specification , these are analog after all , but according to this , if , when playing protected content under Vista , there is no HDCP handshake , then all output goes down to SD quality , so what happens if I have an Xbox 360 being used as an extender , is the console strictly SD then ??
What about any HD graphics card using component ( like mine !! ) , do I have to buy a new graphics card ,and or a HDMI switcher to run my HTPC with a Blu ray / HD DVD drive , this would be very expensive !! Whereas MCE and PowerDVD as installed at the moment could handle this no problem. There is no HDCP issue as I am outputting on component , I still get HD , in Vista I dont !!

It would seem that Vista is not for me.





http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx

astrofool

From the same article....

Aren't there already output content protection features in Windows XP?

Yes. Output content protections are not new requirements for commercial content. The CSS content protection system for DVD-video discs requires output protections such as Macrovision ACP and limiting the resolution on component video outputs to standard definition. Windows XP has supported these requirements for some time.

So to sum up, if the content provider turns on the constraint token, then Vista will downgrade the picture. Under exisiting operating systems, the picture will not be displayed at all.

HDCP is nothing to do with component connections, at all, in any way, shape or form, so I don't know where you're getting that from. HDCP is across digital connections only.

NOW, seeing as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have both been cracked, the whole thing is moot, as even if a content provider DOES turn on the constraint token (which no one has anyway), then a user would be better off buying a pirate cracked DVD.

Now, seeing as all new devices will start supporting HDCP soon anyway, then end user's will not need to worry, user's of older systems will be in the same position as if they didn't have a DX10 graphics card for a DX10 game, they'll need to buy new hardware.

Also, by using component connections you're also getting a much worse picture by default than by using a digital connection such as DVI/HDMI/Displayport.

Ultimately, on your CURRENT SETUP, if they turn on the constraint token, you will get NO picture.

8T8

The constraint token for HD-DVD/Blu-ray is not in use for any titles and has been pushed back to I think 2012.

All the constraint token does is lower the output resolution of the movie from 1920x1080 to 960x540 over analogue connections.

But like I said it's not in use or going to be used.