Windows Vista security changes to cause migration headaches

Yup :)

---

Windows Vista security changes to cause migration headaches

Yup :)

Uh-ha, for sure.

---

Windows Vista security changes to cause migration headaches

Yup :)

Uh-ha, for sure.

Trying to be fair on Microsoft, they are damned if they do and still damned with a continuing security nightmare if they don't.

The bigger question is how they go about making and publicising the changes and whether they will allow the 3rd parties to stay in business...

Regards,
Martin

(Note: These are all my own opinions...)

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Windows Vista security changes to cause migration headaches

Yup :)

Uh-ha, for sure.

Trying to be fair on Microsoft, they are damned if they do and still damned with a continuing security nightmare if they don't.

The bigger question is how they go about making and publicising the changes and whether they will allow the 3rd parties to stay in business...

Regards,
Martin

(Note: These are all my own opinions...)

Hi ML1. :)

I guess that one way would be providing info about the changes as optional downloads from the windows update site.

I honestlty don't know what will happen with 3rd parties.

---

I admit that i haven't read this thread for a while, but i just found something in the cafe that i thought people might find interesting:

What's so bad about Microsoft?

---

Want to search the BOINC Wiki, BOINCstats, or various BOINC forums from within firefox? Try the BOINC related Firefox Search Engines

Point is, XP runs just fine with less than 512meg

Sluggish, but OK.

Hardly sluggish.

My xp based 650mhz (now even with 768meg) ran fine for 2-3 years at 384meg.

And it was actually running faster than my classmates 2.0 gmhz xp system.
Ie; he has it unoptimized and loaded down with lots of junk and doesnt run periodic cleanup (be it virus related or just simply deleting trash).


Yes one will need to optimize or not load it down with crap.
But hardly sluggish.

I agree though a better cpu or ram is definately better but that goes without saying for any system.

For me anybody who thinks its sluggish probably doesnt do a lot with pc's except games.

Ive even had xp on even lower than 512meg and lower cpu with no sluggishness.

Personally I prefer to put win2k on any system that is real low on memory or cpu.. and am putting w2k on a old pII with very low ram... may go ahead and add ram to it (its my nieces)..

For me anybody who thinks its sluggish probably doesnt do a lot with pc's except games.

I don't do games.
Email, the Net, occasionally rip & burn CDs/DVDs.
512MB is sluggish. 1GB gives much better responsivness.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

For me anybody who thinks its sluggish probably doesnt do a lot with pc's except games.

I don't do games.
Email, the Net, occasionally rip & burn CDs/DVDs.
512MB is sluggish. 1GB gives much better responsivness.

Ultimately we agree that more is better.
Its basically what is the slugish point for you versus what it is for me.

I get the same responsiveness (xp pro wise) on my 650mhz at home that i get on a 512meg xp pro 2gmhz at work (IBM) and my home system is loaded down compared to the one at work.
And only in the context of having much more apps open and running might I agree that >512m is sluggish. But at home I still run a lot of stuff on that low system.

Considering the volume of what I do, I would still daresay that its not sluggish.

If its slugish on your setup, then you probably dont have it configed or optimized or cleaned up.

I know for example that using outlook in certain ways can litterly slow any setup to a crawl.



I agree more is better...but still not sluggish.

I do a lot of .net and a lot of programming an developement and its not slugish at all..
I even often do several major intensive tasks simultaniously and still no slugishness.. even at 384meg.

I do agree that more ram/hd speed is better, which is still why i am building my next system as time permits. I always recommend maxing out ram when possible.

In my own case, I did finally max out 2 of my computers to their max on ram.

Still, not even close to slugish even on less than 512m
And yes it did improve some when I increased from 384m->512m->768m
Mostly in the area of responsiveness but not enough to even say that it was related to being sluggish.

I also burn a whole lot of cd's and admittedly havent burned dvd's (dont have a dvd burner).

That socalled slugish unit is the server for 5 computers in my house..
And still does pretty good with me using it for business & developement primarily.

And yes I will be moving it out to other uses, when I replace it with better/current builds (hopefully by summer).

This one pc is the only one that is 'loaded down' with a large amt of stuff and definately isnt slugish at all.

Only in the context of comparing it to a comparibly configured faster (& more ram) pc is it even close to sluggish.

Now if we were talking 256meg or lower, I would probably totally agree.
Ive had xp pro on very low systems, and had to virtually kill a lot of options to make it work decently (often those pc's would have been better to be w2k instead, on those, w2k will actually work on very low systems just fine, though slugish).

Fact is, even now its still running faster and none slugish compared to people I know who cant seem to keep their systems clean & optimized.

Having been a:
mainframe programmer for 27 years.
pc programmer for 8 years.
pc technician (current) for 3 years.
pc config tech for 10 years.

I would still say that its only slugish on a sub-512m system if its old enough/slow enough, but being less than 512meg ram is not a slugish factor on the 100+ systems that I put xp pro on that had less than 512meg on.
And nearly all of them had no slugishness in usage or operation.

Ideally I would agree that more ram/hd/speed is always better.
I wouldnt for example want to bother with XP pro on a system that had less than 384meg if I had my choices, but it depends also on the system.

---

OOPS <512 in my previous note.

Ive noticed from classmates & workmates often that some techs & others tend to think the standard line yet dont ever seem to keep the system they base their views on properly maintained or optimized.

Anyway, having done 100's of systems (actually thousands if we include dell configs Ive done for Conoco), while I have seen slugishness on a <512meg system it was almost always a issue of the machine being too old (or low enough cpu) or ram being less than my experience at 384meg.

The slugishness that I think you are talking about is what I get with systems with less than 384meg (even faster cpu's).

For me anybody who thinks its sluggish probably doesnt do a lot with pc's except games.

I don't do games.
Email, the Net, occasionally rip & burn CDs/DVDs.
512MB is sluggish. 1GB gives much better responsivness.

Ultimately we agree that more is better.
Its basically what is the slugish point for you versus what it is for me.

I get the same responsiveness (xp pro wise) on my 650mhz at home that i get on a 512meg xp pro 2gmhz at work (IBM) and my home system is loaded down compared to the one at work.
And only in the context of having much more apps open and running might I agree that >512m is sluggish. But at home I still run a lot of stuff on that low system.

Considering the volume of what I do, I would still daresay that its not sluggish.

If its slugish on your setup, then you probably dont have it configed or optimized or cleaned up.

I know for example that using outlook in certain ways can litterly slow any setup to a crawl.



I agree more is better...but still not sluggish.

I do a lot of .net and a lot of programming an developement and its not slugish at all..
I even often do several major intensive tasks simultaniously and still no slugishness.. even at 384meg.

I do agree that more ram/hd speed is better, which is still why i am building my next system as time permits. I always recommend maxing out ram when possible.

In my own case, I did finally max out 2 of my computers to their max on ram.

Still, not even close to slugish even on less than 512m
And yes it did improve some when I increased from 384m->512m->768m
Mostly in the area of responsiveness but not enough to even say that it was related to being sluggish.

I also burn a whole lot of cd's and admittedly havent burned dvd's (dont have a dvd burner).

That socalled slugish unit is the server for 5 computers in my house..
And still does pretty good with me using it for business & developement primarily.

And yes I will be moving it out to other uses, when I replace it with better/current builds (hopefully by summer).

This one pc is the only one that is 'loaded down' with a large amt of stuff and definately isnt slugish at all.

Only in the context of comparing it to a comparibly configured faster (& more ram) pc is it even close to sluggish.

Now if we were talking 256meg or lower, I would probably totally agree.
Ive had xp pro on very low systems, and had to virtually kill a lot of options to make it work decently (often those pc's would have been better to be w2k instead, on those, w2k will actually work on very low systems just fine, though slugish).

Fact is, even now its still running faster and none slugish compared to people I know who cant seem to keep their systems clean & optimized.

Having been a:
mainframe programmer for 27 years.
pc programmer for 8 years.
pc technician (current) for 3 years.
pc config tech for 10 years.

I would still say that its only slugish on a sub-512m system if its old enough/slow enough, but being less than 512meg ram is not a slugish factor on the 100+ systems that I put xp pro on that had less than 512meg on.
And nearly all of them had no slugishness in usage or operation.

Ideally I would agree that more ram/hd/speed is always better.
I wouldnt for example want to bother with XP pro on a system that had less than 384meg if I had my choices, but it depends also on the system.

---

With my home net... all computers except my main one have small hd's on purpose.
All of them use server space on the main pc.

All nonmain pc's have 40gig or lower hd's and are ghost/backup'd almost daily.
I do need though to see what I can remove as far as older backups that are now just taking up space.

I do keep some major personal data on a burned cd's, and in my upcoming new build will be starting to burn dvd's of same.


Even my 'MY documents' etc, are pointing to space on the main pc.
My total home hd space is nearly 800gig with two pc's having the bulk of it.
(of 5 pc's) And with my next build, one of those two will lose its giant hd to a 'external' setup along with other stuff.

But I use a routers,printservers, etc... since I also have two printers hooked up to my main pc. One is inkjet and the other is a widecariage inkjet that I use soley for doing posters for my volunteer work I do.

Yes, which is WHY backing up PERSONALLY created data in documents, code you write, correspondence, contact lists, saved games, etc./et all (you-name-it) is SO very important!

It's the stuff that potentially, you can NEVER recreate the exact same 110% again imo & cannot just "reinstall" it like you can some program (well, if you have good backup? Then YES, you can!).

I usually do backup as well, and it doesn't hurt to have some of your important stuff on CD.

OR, a decent REAL-MODE OS based type of recovery tool would be in order, imo @ least... that way, NO need for doing things as YOU cite, & no need to worry about your GHOST'd type images being infested/infected, either...

That sounds good. And the OS maker should provide such a tool as standard. Just as they should provide most if not all the security software, only fully integrated within the system. Okay, it's more simpler said than done.

&, like I said before him here, from outta the UNIX world in fact.

Then the credit is yours for mentioning it. But I have known about rootkits for a long time.

Barring "user ignorance" (like opening email attachments from others you don't know for example), it shouldn't be.

That's probably one of the best things one can do to protect themselves. Email is the easiest way that the really bad stuff (worms/trojans) get on a computer/network. For single users, a firewall that blocks exploitable service ports along with an anitvirus program is enough. But even doing or having all of the above won't give you complete security because malicious files and scripts can still get on a computer through a browser while surfing the internet.

E.G.-> By FORCING users to operate in "less than Administrative privelege mode", technically (if you don't suck in & use a bogus program or fall victim to some app that is remotely exploitable), you SHOULD be fine & even if you did open some 'bogus/hostile-intent' type of attachment via email, or some program you d/l'd is 'loaded', you shouldn't be able to install it period if operating as less than administrator iirc.

Mmm, well, while limited user mode, or shadowing the system IS safer of course, and the administrator of a network wouldn't want too many people on that network with high privelges, I'd prefer just running at administrator level if I'm using a single computer with no network. It's just one more hassle. I used to do that in the past though.

By the same token? Don't knock it... there are a great deal of improvements forthcoming in it, even over Windows Server 2003 @ "low levels".

Hmm, I'll give vista about 90 days after its release to see if it's gonna do what microsoft says it's supposed to do for security.

None of them catch them all, none (especially signature only based detection type tools like many antivirus or IDS use)... too much to look for, even for "heuristic analysis" (behaviours based best-guess type analysis & determination of action)...

Although some antivirus programs do an excellent job of finding things when set at highest heuristic levels. But most of them are missing the spyware component.

Hey, I've always said that the "Security War" can never be really "won" & I truly believe that.

I agree.

Heh, my name too... hello "namesake"!

:)

APK

Hmm, the same name eh? That's cool. :)

---

If its slugish on your setup, then you probably dont have it configed or optimized or cleaned up.

With 512MB of memory, just running a couple of programmes results in memory being paged to the swap file if you run a 3rd, making the others slow to respond when they run again. With 1GB it takes quite a few programmes (or a pig of one) for that to occur.

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 05:17:01, on 8/06/2006
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)

Running processes:
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\smss.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\winlogon.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\services.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\lsass.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\svchost.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\svchost.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\spoolsv.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\nvsvc32.exe
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON_Service.Exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\Explorer.EXE
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft IntelliPoint\\point32.exe
E:\\FreeWX\\FreeWX.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\svchost.exe
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSInt.exe
E:\\NIST Time\\nistime-32bit.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boincmgr.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boinc.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\svchost.exe
E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\RpcSandraSrv.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\projects\\setiathome.berkeley.edu\\setiathome_5.15_windows_intelx86.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe
E:\\DOCUME~1\\Grant\\LOCALS~1\\Temp\\Temporary Directory 1 for hijackthis.zip\\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main,Start Page = http://members.ozemail.com.au/~gjpearce/mypage/
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - E:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat 5.0\\Reader\\ActiveX\\AcroIEHelper.ocx
O4 - HKLM\\..\\Run: [UPSMON] E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON.exe
O4 - HKLM\\..\\Run: [IntelliPoint] "E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft IntelliPoint\\point32.exe"
O4 - Startup: FreeWX 2.04.lnk = E:\\FreeWX\\FreeWX.exe
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - E:\\Program Files\\Java\\jre1.5.0_04\\bin\\npjpi150_04.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - E:\\Program Files\\Java\\jre1.5.0_04\\bin\\npjpi150_04.dll
O12 - Plugin for .spop: E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\Plugins\\NPDocBox.dll
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CCS\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CS1\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CS2\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O23 - Service: Sandra Data Service (SandraDataSrv) - SiSoftware - E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\Win32\\RpcDataSrv.exe
O23 - Service: Sandra Service (SandraTheSrv) - SiSoftware - E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\RpcSandraSrv.exe
O23 - Service: UPSMONService - Unknown owner - E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON_Service.Exe
I reckon my system is pretty tidy & reasonably optimised.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

For those that are interested Do you want to help improve Windows Vista?.

Andy

If you were talking about lower than 384meg I would 100% agree.
Fact is, none of my pc's that are 384meg or greater have ever been slugish.
Its not just config/optimizing too though I guess.
Yes having more memory does result in being able to run more apps.
Thats true even of a 2gig of ram system.

In fact the only time I have ever had sluggishness on any of my pc's (personal or corporate), was pre-XP days and those were on 96meg ram systems under Win98 mostly.

Those were rarely customized by me, and I rarely if ever tweaked systems till W2k & XP pro came about.

Point still is that I often have many many programs running even when I was 384meg (9years),512meg 1 year, now recently 768meg.

And a lot of the following simultaniously.
Yes adding memory helps, and yes, my future plans in moving the main pc to secondary use and replace with better system.
Am currently building a 2.6gmhz p4 with 2gig of ram to be new main pc.
But it will be virutally identical to what I built for others and used for months and very similar to same setup I had at work.


So, still the point is, I have hundreds of pc's running lower than 512meg ram on xp pro, that I have built elsewhere, some with tons of stuff running others with admitedly not much.

I guess no matter what, people will continue to say 'its slughish if under 512meg' even when it aint.

Yes I do have even some machines xp pro running even at 256meg, but those are 100% web only or 'boinc' only units. Those are the ones I would agree that the more you run that slugishness happens.
In fact as of today, I added more pc's to my home network.
CPUwise none are 1gmhz or higher.
Ramwise only 3 are more than 512meg.
2 cant even go higher than 256meg and are the 'webonly' units.
All use the two printers via printer server that is actually attached
to my router. ALL but two use the HD space on a server drive for their hd space. Local hd space used only for local installs.

My main pc till this week has been running 384->512meg for 9 years,
and was less than that pre-xp days.

and the only problem I ever have that might approach slugish is when I use OUTLOOK (and thats on any of my low or high systems.

Yes adding memory to the main pc did improve somethings.
Like before at 384meg->512mg Im still running the same 30-40 apps on a regular basis..even then:
Router,
two printers,
two monitors,
boinc & related,
home network,
printer network,
Norton 2006 Suite.
Trillian
Above runnign around the clock

NOrton Ghost - run as needed.


MUSICMATCH (custom music server)
BTw, thats using a 300gig hd (all of which will be improved with new pc.
Often running when im not running the below.



Hercules Mainframe (MVS & VM) Emulator.
Often running this around the clock simultaniously with other stuff.

Full MS Office Suite. Heavy use often at same time as other stuff.

VIsual Studio (only vb,c# though).
This is the only product where I intentionally not run other stuff.


Also often running some games, though admittedly most are not cpu heavy games (like current ones).

If its slugish on your setup, then you probably dont have it configed or optimized or cleaned up.

With 512MB of memory, just running a couple of programmes results in memory being paged to the swap file if you run a 3rd, making the others slow to respond when they run again. With 1GB it takes quite a few programmes (or a pig of one) for that to occur.

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 05:17:01, on 8/06/2006
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)

Running processes:
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\smss.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\winlogon.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\services.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\lsass.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\svchost.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\svchost.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\spoolsv.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\nvsvc32.exe
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON_Service.Exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\Explorer.EXE
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft IntelliPoint\\point32.exe
E:\\FreeWX\\FreeWX.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\svchost.exe
E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSInt.exe
E:\\NIST Time\\nistime-32bit.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boincmgr.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boinc.exe
E:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\svchost.exe
E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\RpcSandraSrv.exe
E:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\projects\\setiathome.berkeley.edu\\setiathome_5.15_windows_intelx86.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe
E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe
E:\\DOCUME~1\\Grant\\LOCALS~1\\Temp\\Temporary Directory 1 for hijackthis.zip\\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main,Start Page = http://members.ozemail.com.au/~gjpearce/mypage/
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - E:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat 5.0\\Reader\\ActiveX\\AcroIEHelper.ocx
O4 - HKLM\\..\\Run: [UPSMON] E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON.exe
O4 - HKLM\\..\\Run: [IntelliPoint] "E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft IntelliPoint\\point32.exe"
O4 - Startup: FreeWX 2.04.lnk = E:\\FreeWX\\FreeWX.exe
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - E:\\Program Files\\Java\\jre1.5.0_04\\bin\\npjpi150_04.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - E:\\Program Files\\Java\\jre1.5.0_04\\bin\\npjpi150_04.dll
O12 - Plugin for .spop: E:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\Plugins\\NPDocBox.dll
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CCS\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CS1\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O17 - HKLM\\System\\CS2\\Services\\Tcpip\\..\\{4D097467-B8DF-4E2F-A60F-97E087974A1E}: NameServer = 203.0.178.191
O23 - Service: Sandra Data Service (SandraDataSrv) - SiSoftware - E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\Win32\\RpcDataSrv.exe
O23 - Service: Sandra Service (SandraTheSrv) - SiSoftware - E:\\Program Files\\SiSoftware\\SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007\\RpcSandraSrv.exe
O23 - Service: UPSMONService - Unknown owner - E:\\Program Files\\OPTI-SAFE\\UPSMON_Service.Exe
I reckon my system is pretty tidy & reasonably optimised.

---

Does anyone know how stable Vista runs on an Intel Dual Core system with DDR2 and integrated graphics, such as Intel's GMA 950?

---

Does anyone know how stable Vista runs on an Intel Dual Core system with DDR2 and integrated graphics, such as Intel's GMA 950?

Though nothing has been finalized yet for Vista, it's pretty safe at this point to say that with your suggested configuration, the system should be Vista 'capable' but not necessarily using the new Aero Glass interface (or whatever it's called now).

Basically, it'll be like running XP without the eye candy graphics - it will be rather basic but in appearance but with full functionality.

---

Does anyone know how stable Vista runs on an Intel Dual Core system with DDR2 and integrated graphics, such as Intel's GMA 950?

Though nothing has been finalized yet for Vista, it's pretty safe at this point to say that with your suggested configuration, the system should be Vista 'capable' but not necessarily using the new Aero Glass interface (or whatever it's called now).

Basically, it'll be like running XP without the eye candy graphics - it will be rather basic but in appearance but with full functionality.

So I take it that dedicated graphics (128 MB min) really would be required to run Vista stable with the Aero Glass feature. I just don't understand why microsoft is making this OS so graphics-intensive. It's a bit overkill IMO.

---

So I take it that dedicated graphics (128 MB min) really would be required to run Vista stable with the Aero Glass feature. I just don't understand why microsoft is making this OS so graphics-intensive. It's a bit overkill IMO.

That is correct in needing dedicated graphics for Aero Glass. Although future integrated graphics solutions may become powerful enough to run Vista in full Aero Glass form - which is the current theory considering Intel just posted a new position for a lead technician to help build a better integraged graphics last week. I'm sure Intel is ready to meet the ante that Microsoft just imposted on hardware manufacturers, and IMO it's a long necessary one. Integrated graphics have long suffered and have been the bane for many software packages. If they're going to sell systems with integrated graphics, they might as well make sure it can run software decently.

Just to be fair (and honest), the Mac OS X has similiar requirements. Some of the Radeon 64MB graphics cards in the "base" configurations don't have all the graphics options either. You can only get the full eye candy experience on a Mac with a decent graphics card w/128MB RAM.

I'm sure something similiar will eventually make it's way into Linux as well, for the geeks that like eye candy.

---

I haven't had the change to read this ridicously long thread, but it seems to me that no one has acknowledged the fact that the article is talking about an OEM license for Vista and it not being transferrable to another machine.

Further, I wonder if anyone knows that this has always been the case for all Windows OEM licenses, dating back to Windows 3.1 (pretty much the first version of Windows to become available in an OEM form to be pre-packaged with computers).

If you don't like the thought of that, simply buy the Upgrade or Full Retail. Sure, you pay more, but those licenses are transferrable from one system to another.

---

... Further, I wonder if anyone knows that this has always been the case for all Windows OEM licenses, dating back to Windows 3.1 (pretty much the first version of Windows to become available in an OEM form to be pre-packaged with computers).

If you don't like the thought of that, simply buy the Upgrade or Full Retail. Sure, you pay more, but those licenses are transferrable from one system to another.

You can also upgrade to one of the main Linux distributions for a lot less. The licenses for those all specifically allow you to put the distribution onto as many machines as you wish.

If you're looking for some very high-powered "eye-candy", the Linux world have been running the XGL desktop for some time now. My view is that Vista's "Aero Glass" is a shady rushed rehash that copies the ideas already running in XGL and also work done by Sun and others...

Worth a look :-)

Regards,
Martin

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So I take it that dedicated graphics (128 MB min) really would be required to run Vista stable with the Aero Glass feature. I just don't understand why microsoft is making this OS so graphics-intensive. It's a bit overkill IMO.

That is correct in needing dedicated graphics for Aero Glass. Although future integrated graphics solutions may become powerful enough to run Vista in full Aero Glass form - which is the current theory considering Intel just posted a new position for a lead technician to help build a better integraged graphics last week. I'm sure Intel is ready to meet the ante that Microsoft just imposted on hardware manufacturers, and IMO it's a long necessary one. Integrated graphics have long suffered and have been the bane for many software packages. If they're going to sell systems with integrated graphics, they might as well make sure it can run software decently.

Just to be fair (and honest), the Mac OS X has similiar requirements. Some of the Radeon 64MB graphics cards in the "base" configurations don't have all the graphics options either. You can only get the full eye candy experience on a Mac with a decent graphics card w/128MB RAM.

I'm sure something similiar will eventually make it's way into Linux as well, for the geeks that like eye candy.

Just having 128MB graphic card with Vista does not ensure that everything will work in Vista. I downloaded beta 2 and discovered that my current Nvidia 128MB card did not do "pixel shading" and would not even load the embedded version of Movie Maker, so I had to go buy a new card to do any video editing.

With Vista, MS is catering to the home entertainment crowd, which is why you need so much graphics power. HDTV, Dolby audio, etc. The graphics are fantastic, but overall, Vista has a long way to go before its final release.

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