Look, Vista just isn't as evil as you want it to be
Maybe you represent the Mac, Linux, or Windows XP Evangelists, or are part of the Holy Crusade Against Microsoft, but Windows Vista just isn't as evil as you'd like it to be.
I've heard plenty of reasons not to convert to Vista, but the sad thing is, none of them are even close to rational.
Some of the great yarns somebody is spinning include
-
Vista has DRM, therefore its evil
Somewhere along the line, people have got the idea that DRM before Vista doesn't exist. Its a good thing CSS doesn't for DVD's, just like FairPlay doesn't exist, or no other online music service would try and protect the content you're buying….Apparently Vista makes all of your MP3's, CD's, games, etc, require DRM - even if they didn't have it before - meaning all your ripped/downloaded mp3's (no matter how 'legit' they won't work)
People:
Get.
Over.
It.You're misinformed.
Sadly, its your fault that DRM is integrated fairly heavily into the core of Vista. The consumer wants higher resolution video files, such as 1080p, and what happens? HD-DVD/BluRay are developed, and the manufactures decide to attempt to protect their IP with DRM, and Microsoft cops the blame?
Apple will eventually be releasing an update to their operating system which will incorporate similar features, lets see how much flak they do/don't get.
-
Vista still has viruses, therefore, its less secure than Windows XP
I've seen this one a lot - people think that somehow, Windows can be free of malware, without the users taking responsibility for their actions. You visit a 'warez', hacking, or even good ole fashion porn sites, and you're going to get spam, adware, and malware. Its just how it works.
Most of the 'reports' of malware that's still around in Vista has nothing to do with operating system flaws, its pure social engineering. Sure, it won't take long for an exploit to come out, but there is nothing Microsoft can do about stupidity. -
Vista won't just be a software upgrade, you have to buy lots of new expensive hardware
Okay, this is slightly more justified than the last point, you will need more powerful hardware to run Vista at "XP" levels, however any 1ghz or greater CPU will be fine - and they've been around for a looooong time.
Some of the hardware people think you need is ridiculous. Apparently HDCP monitors are required (but strangely, people miss that you'd need a HDCP video card…), at 300gb of HDD space, at least 2gb of system RAM, and at least a 7600GT, wait, no, a 7900GT video card.About 10gb (although, 15gb would be nicer), 512mb of RAM, any DirectX 9 video card (ATI/AMDs Radeon 9000 series was, wasn't it? That was just a few years ago..)
Oh, you mean you have to have better hardware for decoding HD content? Darn, no P3-500mhz HTPC for me anymore..
- Vista has special evil (maybe demonic?) activation required
Yup, turns out its harder to pirate. I guess you've got me on that one, Vista is much more evil than XP. - Vista is stupid expensive!
While yes, Vista will cost you around AUD$400 for Home Premium, lets have a look at a few cost factors first.
XP has lasted 5 years, lets say Vista lasts 3 years. $400 / 3 = $133/year.
What's the cost of the average game these days? About AUD$90. Or if its a console, about AUD$100->$120. That's a single game.
Considering your games, applications, etc, won't run without an operating system, AUD$400 isn't that much.
(please note, these prices are in AUD. Australian Dollars. Not Peso's, Canadian Dollars, or US Dollars)However, I know that $400 to a lot of people is a lot. I know it is to me. But if you're getting a new PC and need a new OS, Vista is a very viable option.
It leaves me with a few questions, who is spreading these rumours, and why are so many 'informed' people falling for it.
I know quiet a few people who I respect for their knowledge, who were under the impression that the rumours about DRM were infact true.
HellToupee (from #ANZGW) debated about how unrealistic the expectations in Vista's hardware/etc was. Then again, he does use Linux - its his job to be anti-Microsoft.
Don't get me wrong, Vista will have (/already has) flaws, but if you're not adopting because you think your MP3's won't work anymore, your fears are unfounded.
As stated previously, I probably won't convert to Vista until they bring out at least their first service pack or release, so some of the holes, security exploits and other fixable flaws are patched up.
Most of the Windows Series of Operating Systems had obstacles which were a pain in the first 6-12 months of its release; I'm not sure after having to suffer 2000 and XP Pre-SP/SR, that I'll honestly want to go through it again with Vista. So for now I'll sit on the side-lines before I commit myself to it, it does however look like a viable solution to me in perhaps a year, both cost wise (As the price will undoubtedly start to drop in 12-16 months time) and service.
Well, Vista is unneccesarry:
1)It doesn't make your work more productive.
2)It isn't more secure because it won't make users more responsible.
3)It doesn't give you control of your coumputer, vice versa - it really does limit your possiblities (mainly media content).
4)Yeah, it really is expensive, if we take a look at what benefits it brings, that we can't approach by any other ways. (in easy words - it's not about cost, it's about efficiency)
In other words, I think Vista isn't much more than just new set of icons and colors with old concept. Nothing revolutionary.
Umm…games are $50. Console games are $60. you doubled the prices.
You fucking moron.
From my perspective most of the "improvements" with Vista seem to be purely cosmetic. I can't really justify spending money on something that wouldn't really improve my experience whilst web developing.
@ Aksel
Australian Dollars. That's what AUD means.
@Askel: AUD, not USD.
@Remus: After I used the RC's for a week, I found the subtle changings in searching for files, and just general improvements (rather than innovations) to the shell actually did make my work go a bit faster.
That'd be purely on a person-by-person basis.
@You idiot: Thanks.
" What’s the cost of the average game these days? About $90. Or if its a console, about $100->$120. That’s a single game. "
What games are you buying? Last time I looked game were around the $40 - $60 mark new and got significantly as time passed. Sometimes as low as $20 not even 4 months after release. I think you really misstated this one.
$400 is an absurd price for an OS. period.
@Aksel:
Those are Australian prices. Hence the "AUD$400"
Many people bitch how windows is so unsecure and how mac and linux are secure. Do you want to know why mac and linux are secure? Because nobody wants to make viruses for them. 95 procent of all viruses are done with windows in mind, and this happens because its the most popular OS. IF linux was the most popular or mac they would infected with viruses probably a lot worse than windowses.
Paul,
You must be one of the "bloggers" that got sent a free Acer laptop from M$. That's the ONLY way you can justify sitting there and blaming other people for crap in Vista that is a true issue to, oh go figure, the people that would have to pay for Vista!
Seriously, dumbasses like you should get a lump of coal in your stocking, little fanboi of M$!
*Microsoft Vista with the options an OS should come with = $400.00ish
*Upgrading your PC to handle all the fluff in Vista = $100.00-$500.00
*Sticking Linux, which is free, in the face of a wuss M$ fanboi = Priceless!
$400AUD = $315.xxUSD
Still absurd…
Obviously the author didn't read this:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Nor does he recognize that users did not ask for 1080p, HD has been planned since the early 90's (at least that's when I first heard of it). It's not because consumers want it but because the CRT technology was reaching a point where it was no longer as profitable as the new technologies are.
I hope Apple follows suit of Microsoft because then it will force more awareness of Linux. Windows isn't flawed in my esteem because of it's susceptibility to malware but because of it's flawed design. One look at the registry and memory management will tell anyone that, for whatever reason Microsoft clings to legacy code that was flawed when it was written in order for backwards compatibility.
Instead of spending the massive amounts of money it would take for a complete code audit to fix the errors that management forced on the public years ago or starting fresh with the intent to emulate all legacy materials Microsoft chooses to release a broken product that is crippled by it's flaws. Now they plan on crippling an OS even further with intrinsic DRM's.
It's not that the DRM's are bad it's that Microsoft will not implement them in an unobtrusive fashion, as a result malware will be released to take advantage of this and normal glitches in the program that would have originally been minor nuisances will become system crashing catastrophies.
Go ahead and buy Vista, I'm learning to use Linux and to those that it's too hard I recommend Mac's. I prefer to own my software and hardware rather than lease it.
To say an OS is "evil" is certainly an exaggeration, and I agree people get carried away sometimes.
However, all of the heated debate actually fuels innovation and can be productive. Yes, a lot of people jumped the gun in judging the OS; however, people want to be sure it's going to be good. The delays were a little worrisome; however, only time will be the ultimate judge of the OS.
@Anarchyx, I wish, a new laptop would be cool.
I'm 'struggling' away with my Asus F3JP, paid with that cash-ey thing.
Nice straw man argument on the cost. Games cost $90? Right. Maybe in pesos…
to RemuS:
1) thats true, but it does make your work and files safer
2) it is more secure since any software interacting (new install, etc) need interaction from the user. Some malware trying to install and run itself while browsing the net has to be approved. Yes, it is on the user if he clicks yes or no, and sometimes that decision is not easy for the everyday user, but at least it interacts without any additional software you have to install! And lets not forget that no software is allowed by the kernel to write anything in the windows directory itself - thats what most of todays malware does! No windows files will be overwritten or changed by malware!
3) i agree with you on that: ALL software out there is expensive. Vista does give you a lot for your money, but lets see the facts: lower the price to 50% of the current price (all softwares out there!) and you will sell more then double the amount hen before - less pirated software if it gets more affordable!
-> Vista is worth buying - if you get it for $100 upgrade or even for free on a new computer system, but not as a separate software.
@Jeppe:
I don't think you've used Linux before. While in part you are correct because most malware installation is due to user ignorance Linux has this lovely thing root and privleges. Root is, by default, the only user allowed to make any major changes. You are NEVER supposed to use root for anything other than administration. If you need to let a user edit a folder you give them the permissions neccessary to do so with root then immediately exit.
Linux was designed with security in mind for those that are security minded. Linux is harder to use initially for almost every single application you could imagine because of the learning curve. However for someone that knows nothing about security it's easier to secure a linux box than a windows box… So while you may be partially correct your assessment of the situation is flawed.
cubeman: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Microsoft_details_Aussie_Vista_pricing/0,130061733,339271542,00.htm
For some reason, we have to pay an extra amount for Vista over here. Doesn't look to be that fun.
I got my prices from staticice, and prices were around $400AUD.
There was one below, but I've always been a bit weary of ITEstate.
You have convinced me that Vista didn't invent DRM. Now convince me it's a good thing that it's built into the operating system.
Also, you're a tool.
If another persons posts that games are only 40-50 USD I am going to stab the screen..
I understand most don't realise that any currency exists outside of USD but its AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS (AUD)…mmmmkay ?
My concern with DRM on Vista is with DRM'ed, proprietary formats, not MP3's that I have ripped that do not have DRM.
The concerns about how heavy handed Vista will be in authenticating anything - e.g. the video disc you are playing (services/checks running in the background all the time) are well founded.
If you like to be able to own your own stuff and move it where ever you would like and do with it what you wish, Vista will indeed make this harder than XP as is it represents the further tightening between M$ and media/content providers.
I see why "the business" interests want to do this and if I were in their shoes I might make similar choices however as a consumer I like freedom and DRM inhibits it - Vista invariably means more DRM not less.
I don't see anyone pointing out the white elephant in the room - the fact that this new OS is conspiracy (in healthy way if judged for business) to force both businesses and consumers to have to buy new hardware that happens to require a new OS (or at least likely need more RAM and a new graphics card to see any real Vista candy).
A close friend of mine is an IT VP for a major bank and he is soooo annoyed with MS - they just got a presentation from Redmond on Vista and the end result is that it will just force them to buy new hardware and deal with an increase of help desk issues with dialog boxes and other interruptions and controls users will be totally unfamiliar with seeing.
MS is like a successful band - every few years they come to town and even though you paid for their albums once already you pay to see them again live in the present hoping it will be somehow the best/better experience. Often it is not as good as what you remember.
I could rip this "astroturf blog" apart point by point if I felt like wasting the time, but its unnecessary - Microsoft's draconian approach to Vista has been well documented from far more respectable and more transparent sources than this.
But the real question is… What does Vista offer the end user that XP doesnt? The answer : Nothing. There is zero added benefit to the user, only costs, frustration and headaches - which will largely only affect people who are honest and actually BUY software/media. If anything, Vista is going to encourage piracy.
Looking forward, I cant decide if Vista is going to be a larger disaster for Microsoft or the users who run it? But a disaster it definately will be.
@Jeppe
Mac OS9 had just as many viruses as Windows. And had a smaller marketshare than Mac OSX to boot.
So your explanation of zero viruses on Mac is garbage.
Mac OSX has zero viruses because it is more secure. End of story.
Stop whining about it.
I would agree that Microsoft and all its product were evil may be 4-5 years ago and they have been scorned, complained and bitched about for many years. But in recent years I have seen it grow into a much better company than earlier. They have continuously produced quality software and looked forward to produce more stable and secure software. Windows XP was a prime example of how they have increased their efforts towards building quality software. I have been using Windows XP for a while and I love the OS and I never had a complain with it. Also, I have found lot of ways to improve my system performance. I also agree that XP does have wise way to use memory and prone to memory leak and samewise for other application which runs on it. And so once in a while a requires a reboot but I am ok with it. Also I dont use P2P or go to porn or any spyware prone sites and I have avoided the pain of causing system crash or hardware failures or infection by virus.
Also, windows is the best available option as most of the Computer manufacturer bundle with the system and also I am pretty much mastered all the in and outs in OS. So when I load any windows OS I am pretty aware of how to use and there no learning curve for me to update to vista or another that come along. Also since the Vista is bundled with new computer I think I will get a PC or notebook with hardware upgrade that suits vista until then I am happy with XP Pro that I have. Also, I don't have any special need to upgrade also that XP can't support.
dude it's not about the money or about someone's misinformed idea about DRM. Vista has only minor improvements and when you promise something to the consumer and only deliver half of it you can't expect people to be happy about it. Sure Vista looks nice and all but so does OSX and it has a lot lower hardware requirements. Plus both OSs use the same hardware now so what gives? And close to 3gb of hdd space for installation? Are you people insane? It's a freaking barebone OS with no software whatsoever. So what if hdd are huge nowadays and RAM is cheap? And if the MS devs would do only half as food of a job at optimizing then why should I have to pay the full price ( and compared to XP it is considerably more that the full price )?
So if you are pulling for those MS advertising money good for you man but I'm not buying your arguments. Vista feels like a complete rip off and the only way I'll use it is through an illegal copy. You also need to check the prices of PC games. I don't know who you buy them from but I've never seen a game that cost 130USD.
Paul, thanks for doing your part sharing the experience with Vista.
For those anti-microsoft, all I want to say is, choosing Vista or something else, it is totally your decision. We've had enough wars, why bring them to the stuff we all love? Criticize Vista or Microsoft if you want, but safe your hate for something else.
Its unbelievable how some people will just spit at Microsoft for no reason.
I think a lot of concerns about Vista not being useful are just silly. Many of these points could be applied to other major OS, which don't receive nearly as many attacks.
Vista isn't really much more then an updated UI, but thats what OS's are - better UIs.
To fault Vista for only being that is to force yourself to also fault other OS's for being the same, else you become hypocritical.
The problem with vista is that its improvements require superior hardware. The author is right in saying that the hardware has been out for a while, but it still is expensive. The recommended requirements (The minimal requirements don't give you the full Vista Aero experience, so I'm disreguarding them) are:
a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) - most people have this.
1 GB of system memory — Most will not have this, as 512MB was the recommended RAM for XP. So People will have to pay ~$50 for another 512 or 1GB stick.
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel. — Most will not have this either, as many budget PCs had integrated graphics. Even with the budget graphics cards out there, I doubt many will be able to fulfill these requirements. Only PC enthusiasts will probably make these requirements.
40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space. — With all the digital content these days, I doubt most people will have this much space, unless they recently updated their computers with big HD's.
So we're looking at 3/4 criteriathat are not fulilled… optimistically we'll go for 2/4.
Thats probably ~$80 to $15o USD, more if you've missed a third, and probably around $250 USD for all four.
Why do I think most people won't have those four? Because still a large majority of the US does not have even broadband (I'm unaware of the internet situation in Australia), but I think it is obvious that if people are still using dial-up, they certainly don't have a Vista-ready PC.
So to finish this up, Vista will probably turn out to be a good OS, and most anti-hype against it is baseless. Vista and upgrades for it will cost some money though, and I think that is its major problem
The post above me with the stupid mastercard cliche just illustrates the baseless hatred many people have for microsoft and its products. And I think that is what is going to keep the OS down, despite its very slick and sexy UI, which is really just what an OS is supposed to offer.
Your numbers are way off. Thanks for the missinformation
Misinformation indeed.
Many Australians are still on dialup, it's more a matter of cost and availability, not choice.
how much did M$ pay you to write this horseshit?
Seriously, read "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection." Read it top to bottom. If you can understand the technical aspects that the document talks about then it should be absolutely clear that Vista employs completely draconian methods to completely control any and all content on your computer. Not only will it control it, it will alter it. You want a high definition 1080p DVD experience? Go ahead, you got it — as long as you don't mind Vista downsampling the stream so as to deliberately degrade the quality. Got some nice audio gear on which to listen to your music? Don't expect CD quality. Once again, thank Vista and its DRM. Want blazing performance with your $4,000 rig? Don't get your hopes up, considering Vista will be scanning and analyzing every single frame of every bit of video produced by your graphics card to make sure you're not doing anything untoward with whatever it is you're doing. So, go ahead and thank Microsoft. Just be absolutely clear about what it is you're thanking them for.
I support Win2k3 server farms and WinXP workstations in a huge international Fortune 100 company. There is little reason to upgrade to Vista. We won't see Vista in our enterprise environment for at least 3 years. The reasons to upgrade are not that compelling to justify millions in site licenses. It's mostly just hype. The corporate workstation/laptop hardware standards are low. They go with the lowest cost most consistent hardware which means Intel integrated video, integrated Intel NIC, etc. No real speed demon computers, that's reserved for the servers. Besides, running a 1.0 release of a new OS is not recommended for large corporate networks. We will wait for a service pack or two and some hotfixes first.
It takes a lot of engineering work to properly lock-down a WinXP system. There are group policies, registry hacks, corporate anti-virus & firewall, VPN configurations, stripping of admin rights, renaming of the local administrator account, setting a strong random password on the renamed administrator account, encrypting the entire disk with a third-party tool, etc., etc., etc. Vista will require all this and there will need to be time to learn it all.
What's the person at home to do? Microsoft leaves them high and dry without even a proper rescue disc! WinXP is left wide open for attack, heck in 15-20min. after connecting to the Internet a WinXP system will be hacked without SP2 or a NAT router to protect it. Think of all those folks with a system restore disk that revert to a pre-SP2 install!
Sure Microsoft's got WinPE but it's not available to the general public just OEM's and large corporate customers. Microsoft just bought Winternals/Systernals and what do they do? They announce rescue tools but only for the OEM and corporate customers at a high price! Were it not for BartPE or Knoppix, most technically savvy folks would be screwed! Why can't Microsoft give you some recovery tools for free?
Linux and even Mac OS X give you a rescue disc usually the installation CD/DVD that can boot and get into a non-responsive system. The Linux rescue disks are better and more capable then the Mac OS X ones. But at least the Mac OS X one can give you a disk utility and terminal prompt. All Mac's can be booted via Firewire Target Disk Mode. This means you connect two Mac's together via a firewire cable and hold down the T key and boot one of them. It loads quickly to a firmware Firewire mode and the disk mounts on the second Mac like the first Mac is an external Firewire drive! Talk about a quick way to get to the disk and recover/backup files!
Modern Linux (Ubuntu based systems) and Mac OS X (BSD) disable the root account and provide admin user accounts that can sudo to perform root functions. Windows has only the Administrator account and the Local System Account which together are like root. But there is a whole world of legacy software that won't run without being run with full administrative privileges! This is Microsoft's fault for not enforcing the change to NT/Win2k/XP on the vendors and trying to allow for backwards compatibility. There comes a time when they should just cut off the old and throw it away for the betterment of all users. Vista still doesn't do that… Apple put Mac OS 9 out to pasture. Recent PowerPC systems stopped booting it over a year ago, Intel Mac's won't boot it nor emulate it. If you want to run it you have to have an older Mac. Apple cut off support for Mac OS 9 and prior and even performed a little funeral for it with a coffin and flowers, etc. Apple put the Motorola processes to rest after switching to PowerPC. They provided an upgrade path and emulation for a while but then they stopped after a reasonable amount of time. Vista should have been a clean break from the old to the new. But I bet it will let you still install those apps that require local admin rights to run.
Not to mention the GUI changes in Vista and Office 2007 - Think about having to train 150,000+ employees on a new OS and Office suite, *** shudder *** Some of those users can barely use a mouse and now Microsoft takes away the venerable File, Edit, View, Format menu's, WTF! We had to shutoff most of the WinXP GUI changes to make it look like Win2k/NT because users didn't "get" the new START menu and Control Panel, etc. Of course, this is less of a problem as the next generation of workers come along. Those who grew up playing video games; they'll figure it out. But my company has no mandatory retirement age so there are a lot of grandma's and grandpa's running around still working.
Not gonna upgrade to Vista… Not until I absolutely "HAVE" to! AeroGlass eye candy is not a good reason to upgrade! There are some good things under the hood but certainly not enough to justify the extreme cost and effort required to upgrade all the workstations to Vista and train all the users. All the new features meant to solve problems for corporate network management, etc. have already been solved by third parties or individual corporate engineering. There really is very little reason to upgrade from WinXP. Microsoft's gonna have a hell of time getting users and especially corporations to upgrade! We might as well upgrade to Apple Intel Mac's and install Parallels to run those business apps we still need to run locally and everything else on our Citrix Farms! Apple already integrates with Active Directory and the new Leopard OS and server OS are gonna make a big splash. I've got a bunch of graphic design folks already running on Tiger OS and server as well as a bunch of developers running Mac's. They manage the Sun Microsystems Solaris servers and develop on Intel Mac's. They run the same Java IDE Eclipse that they ran on Windows, they can load the BEA Weblogics admin console via Apple's X11, they can use SSH and VPN to connect to the network, and they can connect to NFS shares directly from the Sun Solaris servers. They all seem extremely happy with their Apple laptops and desktops. Because Apple only encrypts the home folders on a Mac (File Vault feature) it's easy to backup their encrypted home folder disk images. Using the encryption software on Windows (third party) is a lot harder to backup. To backup the Mac's the users logout and the unmounted home folder encrypted disk image is copied to the server. It stays encrypted on the server. This protects all their locally stored source code. We also switched from proprietary PVCS to SVN (subversion source code repositories) which run on Sun Solaris, i.e. checkin/checkout code changes.
The combination of Apple Intel Mac workstations, Unix (Sun) servers, Linux servers, & Win2k3 servers and Citrix Farms will enable us to switch away from PC's to Mac's. Most of the Windows based software will run under Citrix until it can be replaced with web applications or client/server Mac OS X Cocoa based applications.
Look its easy for everyone to wine about the situation similar things were said at the dawn of xp. However all the bad points about vista are true my friend is using vista. DRM only protects artists not the consumer its really stupid. Why wud i want to upgrade to an os just to lose my music and video's. True technology is moving on but vista dosn't have support for anymore hardware than xp so why bother once again. Another point also being tht the security features may make windows more secure "apparently" but how many people said tht about win xp and now look it aint any more. Alas microsoft has a massive hold on the market meaning tht vista will be forced on the general public, as vista will be sold with every new computer so there won't be much you can do except format and install xp. But then y bother if you have just spent a bomb load on a machine that has vista as an added cost. However if you think tht vista looks nice u don't need to upgrade to have it just download stylexp if you want ur desktop and windows to look gr8. I belive with the advent of 64bit windows needs to bite the bullet and drop the old legacy code write something which encorporates the new processors power while still being compatible with 32bit systems and no current software is incapable of doing this. This will actually give the consumer a reson to upgrade thus benefitting everyone. it also means tht ms can actually make something which the consumer finds useful and not restrictive the user shud be able to choose how the system is run not the other way around. And for the record 95% of viruses are not designed souly for windows, how many companies do u think use linux based servers? ALOT, and viruses are designed for al os systems its jst tht windows is more suseptable due to the fact tht old code allows many malware to integrate without windows detecting it. Running scans all the timeon wot u r doing is abit ridiculous too thts wat u need 15 gigs for so tht vista can make a log and backup important process information to send back to ms. Which in a way shud be our choice i certainly don't want ms knowing wot i do on my computer, surely thts a breach of privacy? vista was ancient efore its realease it just looks pretty and still has no real 64 bit functionality jst poor programming. I think its time to start again don't you?
1. You won't lose your music/video's though, even if they are pirated.
2. Windows XP /is/ more secure than its predecessors. Win98, comparatively, was horribly insecure. Why is XP no longer /that/ secure? Because its been used for 5 years. Every virus programmer has been at it for a long time.
3. StyleXP/msstyles hacks aren't anywhere near Vista level. If anything, download WindowsBlinds, which at least has transparencies.
4. Yeah, Windows is less secure, its also more popular. If you want to do big damage, you attack the majority, not the minority.
5. Vista x64 is 64-bit, and its rather good. The problem is with the lack of signed driver supports, from the hardware companies, not Microsoft.
You're right — nobody with any sense is claiming that Microsoft invented DRM. However, with their massive leverage, they could have rejected the demands for it to be included in their operating system. Who is Hollywood going to run to? That _other_ operating system that everyone uses? This seems highly unlikely. Pressuring Microsoft to in turn pressure the media producers is a sensible strategy. Don't buy portable mp3 players that support DRM, and don't buy an operating system that supports DRM.