Vista’s “Suicide Note”
posted in Technology |I’ve been meaning to read this document for a little while. It’s a dry and very tech-heavy read, but well worth it. I use a valid volume license install of Vista on two machines currently. One of them is a somewhat older laptop, and it’s multimedia capabilities are fairly limited to begin with. However, the desktop on which I type this is a well spec’d, multimedia capable machine. I have had countless mutlimedia problems on this machine in the month or so I’ve been running Vista on it. I initially attributed it to the codec and driver people being unable to have optimized/debugged versions out for Vista’s newer graphics subsystem, as is typical with a new OS. After reading this doc, things are becoming more clear. Heck, things like terrible voice chat quality in gTalk and Trillian that I’ve noticed suddenly make sense.
And after reading this doc, let me make something abundantly clear. It’s precisely this kind of crap that is going to drive me to Linux, or so help me even a Mac. In the short run, I am at the moment fairly likely to nuke Vista off this machine and fall back to XP. The stuff going on under the hood when it comes to multimedia subsystems in Vista is downright retarded. This is the beginning of the end for Microsoft’s OS. When piling on this insane level of control and specification requirements, the third party vendors will get pissed off beyond all hope soon enough. I’m not a Microsoft basher (actually, I will typically defend them more times than not), but in this case, I will become an unrestrained Microsoft basher. This crap has got to stop. Microsoft, as somebody who works almost solely on your operating system platform, you are putting my and fellow IT department workers in jeopardy. Calling this stuff Vista’s suicide note is hardly an overstated piece of anti-MS hype. This kind of practice really could turn away enough third party vendors (whom I wouldn’t blame in the slightest - in fact, I’d fully understand them doing so) and high-end multimedia enthusiasts like myself to really make an impact on the market. As I read that technical analysis (which is fantastically unbiased by the legal or moral aspects of any DRM related things), my mouth was constantly agape at what I was reading. “This is insane” was the thought constantly running through my mind while I read it. “No wonder nVidia and DivX can’t produce a driver or codec that works worth a lick in Vista” was another.
This move is a clear and definitive step by Microsoft out onto a *VERY* steep and slippery slope. As a faithful user and supporter of Microsoft platforms for the last couple decades, this is the first time where I’m seriously considering walking away.
