I'm not going to upgrade to Vista for a long time. Having said that, there is a bit of misinformation here. To be sure, I'm not a Micro$oft apologist, but let's stick to the facts.
< snip>....There is a very real difference between the XP and the Vista EULA. Under XP's, you own the software, you own the computer and you get to make the decisions. Under Vista's you don't own the software, you don't get to make the decisions and Vista can willy nilly shut down your hardware, even if it works fine, because its not officially licensed by Microsoft. And I say to hell with that....
First off, you haven't "owned" your operating system since Windows came out. Every EULA I've ever read says "You are granted an exclusive license to USE this software...blah, blah but Microsoft Corporation retains ownership and the rights that accompany ownership, blah, blah, blah....." The practical effect here is that you aren't supposed to reverse assemble the software, among other things. Most software you buy today is the same way.
As far as "willy nilly shut down your hardware", it's a bit more predictable than that. Vista won't work with hardware drivers that aren't digitally signed. Install an early release of the nVidia reference drivers, and you'll usually get a message before they install warning you that these drivers aren't "certified" and asking you if you want to proceed anyway. In most cases, Vista won't give you that choice. Ever since Windows NT there has been an aspect of the OS called the "hardware abstraction layer". The problem is that some hardware tries to operate directly on memory (DMA) or other hardware which is very fast and normally a very good thing, unless it operates on memory addresses that belong to some other hardware. If the OS detects the hardware doing something it isn't supposed to, it can disable the hardware and prevent it from operating. But, that's been around for some time.
< snip>....Oh right and Microsoft can give the rights to companies to go snoop around your hard-drive and disable your files so Vista won't play them. Got a ripped copy of your favorite movie on your computer? Your CD? Might not work once you connect to the internet or in the future.
Exactly - they are calling it DRM - Digital Rights Management.
....you mean like Google desktop? XP searches and indexes your files today, unless you disable it. And, DRM is with us now. Windows Media Player won't rip most copyrighted CD's. Most software won't rip a new DVD. If a file has DRM content, you bet XP will operate on it, and so will Vista. Sure, there are ways around that.... :whistling: If you don't think XP or XP applications "phone home" now and then, you are wrong. Put a packet sniffer on your broadband port and be amazed at the number of software applications that phone home and ask for permission to run and operate on files on your hard drive. I don't like it either, but Microsoft isn't the only guilty party there, to be sure. Preventing it isn't impossible, but there's a lot of software that disables itself if it can't phone home now and then. That's going on today.
Also, consider whether you play games. Vista is using Direct X 10, but is NOT compatible with DX9 or lower. Any game you have that is not Vista Compatible will be a shiny CD you can do nothing with. I'm sure this will be hacked eventually, but was one of the more stupid decisions among very stupid decisions by MS.
Not true. DX10 is fully backwards compatible with DX9 and earlier. DX10 games are supposed to play just fine on DX9 hardware, but you don't get the "eye candy" that DX10 brings to the table. I suppose a "DX10 only" game isn't out of the question, but it's hard to imagine a game author wanting to limit their target audience so severly. Your games should play fine.....but maybe slower. Tom's Hardware Page did some benchmarking and found Vista to be slower than XP in certain operations.
I guess it depends on how "paraniod" you are. Micro$oft really has their balls in the vise over this one. XP is viewed by many as "virus prone" and "fragile" and "a prime target for spyware and worms". Well, sure it is - its the most widely used OS on the planet. With a little over ten times the number of users that OSx has, it's where the script kiddies and virus authors are most likely to play. FireFox was very secure until they developed a decent sized user base. Now, there are viruses targeted at FireFox. OSx's day will (...has?) come as well. What M$ is trying to do is batten things down, and prevent many of the problems they've had in the past. You can debate if they are doing it the right way or not, but I believe what they are doing is trying to respond to the issues they've had in the past. That, and Balmer needs a new yacht.... :laugh:
Having said all that, you have to understand that I'm not "gung ho" on Vista, either. I like XP a lot. I haven't had spyware or virus issues, but I keep the OS patched and run active virus scanners. I know how to defrag my hard drive, and don't install every download tool and icon library I find on the internet....

XP does everything I want it to, for now, so it's plenty good enough. I suppose once the first couple of service packs for Vista come out, and once DX10 video hardware comes down in price, and we get a couple of killer DX10 games released.....maybe it'll be a different story. Maybe not.
Cheers - B.B.S.