Archive for January, 2007

Windows Vista: hostile to consumers, broken by design


Windows Vista’s copy protection systems are being heavily criticised. Peter Gutmann, a computer science lecturer at the University of Auckland, in a report looking at the impact Vista would have on video and audio playback, described Vista’s Content Protection specification as “the longest suicide note in history”.

Gutmann said Vista was “broken by design” and intentionally crippled the way it displayed video.

This follows reports that Vista would ‘downgrade’ the quality of all video and audio if not output via approved connections on the PC. Microsoft has defended the digital rights management systems integrated into its new Vista operating system.

“The sheer obnoxiousness of Vista’s content protection may end up being the biggest incentive to piracy yet created,” said Gutmann.

It remains to be seen just how many consumers will be tempted to buy despite all the bad reports and negative publicity surrounding the new operating system when it is released this week. The cheapest version of Vista offers next to no improvements over XP—even eschewing cosmetic changes to the look of the OS—while all versions from Basic to Ultimate will be on the same DVD. Which Vista version installs on your computer will depend on how much you paid, and the key sequence you are given to unlock the disk and run the installer. The OS will then need to ‘phone home’ to confirm that you are installing a legitimate, non-pirated copy.

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Monday, January 29th, 2007