While the BBC features reviews of Vista by ordinary folk, someone dove into Vista’s EULA [.pdf] only to find that when you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, the license of that product becomes invalid. What this means, basically, is that after you’ve upgraded your XP install to Vista, you cannot use the license of your old XP install on another computer. Tom’s Hardware, in the meantime, published an in-depth benchmark comparing Windows XP to Vista, concluding that “Vista is the better Windows, because it behaves better, because it looks better and because it feels better. But it cannot perform better than Windows XP.” APCMag, lastly, wonders what can be learnt from the Vista launch.
my dad has used the same Win98 image and license for over 50 computers at his non-profit. i tell him to watch out about that, but he doesn’t care and thinks nothing will come of it — and he’s probably right.
which is what people will think, and do, in this case as well.
Edited 2007-01-30 17:13
I agree with your dad.
In my opinion, if I buy something, it is mine to do with as I please. I realize that Microsoft doesn’t agree, but I don’t care.
Actually, I have never purchased a Microsoft product, so I don’t care twice.
..but
“Vista is the better Windows, because it behaves better, because it looks better and because it feels better. But it cannot perform better than Windows XP.”
soo its slower then. Wonder if he benchmarked .NET
Vista is better because it has even more junk that you get to turn off after installing it.
🙂
I’m not sure why anybody would think that Vista would be faster.
First of all, there is a lot more to Vista than XP, plus all the DRM stuff, the new UI, etc.
Second, no new version of Windows has ever been faster than its predecessor. Each new version has added things to make Windows nicer, but “faster” should never really be expected. More code never equals faster.
Edited 2007-01-30 21:24
Windows Me is faster, it hangs faster than 98/98SE.
Would anyone know if Protected Media Path and all our other furry DRM friends will be in longhorn server?
Well my understanding is that Microsoft decided not to make WMP11 available for WinServer 2003, so WMP and other media components may not even come with LH Server. Considering many servers run headless and some don’t even come with sound cards, it’s likely that even if the DRM stuff is included, it will never be loaded into memory and so won’t cause any issue. That’s my intuitive reasoning anyways. I wouldn’t put it beneath the RIAA/MPAA to demand “Protected Network Path” or something equally asinine.
We all know that!
So no wonder MS operating systems have 95% market share.
And no wonder MS is trying to find they own way around software piracy which really annoys me.
I definitely think your dad would be better off getting a copy of good reliable PCLinuxOS ( or just about any distro ) and install it without fear of MS WGA “retaliation”.
Install Windows Vista if you want to lose 32% of FPS on UT2004…
You have to buy a monster PC to run Vista and all the power of your new hardware is wasted by Vista…
5 years of development for that ?
Funny to see that between each release Mac OS X is going faster while each release windows is slowing down.
Install Windows Vista if you want to lose 32% of FPS on UT2004…
You have to buy a monster PC to run Vista and all the power of your new hardware is wasted by Vista…
It’s GPU driver related. Neither ATI nor NVIDIA’s drivers have the level of optimization of their XP counterparts, and stability is their primary concern currently.
“It’s GPU driver related. Neither ATI nor NVIDIA’s drivers have the level of optimization of their XP counterparts, and stability is their primary concern currently.”
I’ve heard this excuse before. Its like Vista was a *surprise* to these companies.
Its not been coming out for like *forever*. Will they even be optimized. *Can* they be optimized. 32% is quite a hit.
Vista simply is mot ready as a gaming machine.
Driver maturity takes a while sometimes. Especially considering Vista has a whole new driver framework which has a larger overhead.
Or especially when they decide the completely remove OpenGL support from their driver interface. That really makes it harder for the graphics vendors to get decent performance on OpenGL games like UT2004 or professional graphics applications like… well, most of them.
I doubt this issue will be addressed anytime soon. Microsoft decided that nobody needs to use OpenGL when they could just port their stuff to DirectX. Obviously its the game developers’ and professional graphics software developers’ fault for choosing a non-Microsoft graphics library. They should have known better.
Minor correction; Unreal Tournament 2004 (and all Unreal engine games) is a Direct3D application, not an OpenGL application.
Unreal engine does have an OpenGL rendering path, but it’s not nearly as optimized as the Direct3D version, and it’s not maintained as well… IIRC most of the work on improving it was done by the folks at Loki before that died.
UT2k4 was developed for Direct3D and it still lost a third of its performance under Vista. Ouch.
– chrish
Huh? Graphics drivers can support OpenGL all they want.
Read this: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=380046
I’ve heard this excuse before. Its like Vista was a *surprise* to these companies.
Its not been coming out for like *forever*. Will they even be optimized. *Can* they be optimized. 32% is quite a hit.
You’ve heard it before because it’s simply true. NVIDIA’s themselves still mark their drivers as betas, and both companies have talked about work still to be done for performance increases. NVIDIA and ATI, until recently, have prioritized most of their development towards XP and other OSes, and have provided basic drivers for Vista and tried to make them stable. Check the archives and release notes of either vendor to verify their work for yourself.
This isn’t a new issue, nor is it specific to the GPU vendors. With each Windows release, there’s always some vendors that lag behind. OSNews probably has XP/2000 threads with people complaining about the same thing. In a few weeks time (or months for some), the vendors will catch up.
“You’ve heard it before because it’s simply true. NVIDIA’s themselves still mark their drivers as betas, and both companies have talked about work still to be done for performance increases. NVIDIA and ATI, until recently, have prioritized most of their development towards XP and other OSes, and have provided basic drivers for Vista and tried to make them stable. Check the archives and release notes of either vendor to verify their work for yourself. ”
So its 30% Slower for an OS thats being released tomorrow. According to you. Nvidia and AMD are using beta drivers in Vista.
So your saying is Vista is still not ready for the desktop.
If makes you wonder how many other drivers are *beta*.
If you bought a £600 card set-up you get the triple blow of not being DirectX 10 complement. Unable to play Next-Gen Video content and your graphics are 30% slower…all for the cost of £180
The excuse could be anything….and I don’t care. Like I say did Microsoft/AMD/Nvidia not know Vista was coming out.
Edited 2007-01-30 19:34
In short, Microsoft cannot dictate how vendors spend their time and resources. The majority of the GPU vendors’ customers are still on XP, and Vista’s business launch required nothing more than stable desktop support for most business users (it’s best to have code that works right and is stable before performing optimizations anyway). Thus, right or wrong, the GPU vendors spent most of their time on drivers for current OSes.
DirectX 10 support is provided in NVIDIA’s current driver. ATI, AFAIK, has no DX10 GPU at this time, nor is one required to run Vista or any current games. In any case, if you spend £600 on a GPU or anything else, you should research whether your needs are met by the product before spending the money.
This is a driver and vendor issue, not an OS or Microsoft issue.
Edited 2007-01-30 19:59
“Vista’s business launch required nothing more than stable desktop support for most business users”
You are I’m sure aware of when Vista is being released to rest of the world…erm NOW.
“This is a driver and vendor issue, not an OS or Microsoft issue.”.
So games are slower….by 30% and its not an OS issue. It clearly is. Is it a Microsoft issue *absolutely*. One of the main selling points under XP is as a gaming platform…thats what the whole DX10 thing was about. Current games are 30% slower.
The reality is that we have yet to see a card *faster* under Vista’s new OS. Maybe 30% is all you’ll get. Why should AMD;NVidia;Microsoft support old graphics cards its not in *their* best interests.
30% slower thats like a *LOT* slower.
Edited 2007-01-30 20:09
Let me put this into a language even you can understand:
Windows Vista was outfitted with a more flexible and robust driver framework which incorperates the new rendering technologies of Aero and enforces stricter rules on people who slack off which graphics drivers.
Before, it would be that any graphics driver could potentially harm your system, while this is still true with WDDM the risk is much less. A report earlier this year showed that a huge percentage of XP’s crashes were based on Graphical errors.
WDDM offers a stricter set of rules driver manufacturers must adhere to if they want Vista to run their driver.
In other words, to reiterate what others have said: nVidia and ATi are working to STABILIZE their drivers before they even think about fine tuning them for performance.
The reason they could not do this during Vista’s 5 year development was because there was a (long) period of time that the WDDM Driver Framework wasn’t finalized and subject to change.
Things like these take time, give it a few days. It will get better.
So what your saying is its %30 slower with nothing to show that this will improve, or when.
“give it a few days. It will get better.”
5 Years…5 Long years.
I give up with you. You seem to ignore everything I say and restate the same misinformed statement you made before.
Then you get modded up by all the Anti-Microsoft people on OSNews.
You’re in for a real shocker when you find out how things really work.
“Install Windows Vista if you want to lose 32% of FPS on UT2004… “
I noticed that as well using RTM. The Beta Nvidia drivers did nothing to help it either at the time, which was the beginning of January. It should be mostly GPU and driver related, though Nvidia does not seem interested to get a non-beta driver out the door. They have had 2 months in which to do it and have not bothered.
My recommendation to anyone is not to upgrade to Vista until you need applications that just won’t run anywhere else. Those will be a year or more coming most likely.
I am sick man, sick of Vista news. Get something real…like…yeah, publish something like a dancing penguin with beer in his hands. That is cool enough.
I haven’t read TFA, but I don’t see anything wrong with that. After all, you get the upgrade version of Vista at a reduced price. The old XP license integrates the value of the new software you’re installing.
Or did you really think MS has some kind of fidelization program that rewards users who bought many of their products by offering the new ones at a discounted price?
😉
I haven’t read TFA, but I don’t see anything wrong with that. After all, you get the upgrade version of Vista at a reduced price. The old XP license integrates the value of the new software you’re installing.
Or did you really think MS has some kind of fidelization program that rewards users who bought many of their products by offering the new ones at a discounted price?
With other software it used to be possible to use upgrade version even if you only used a copy of competing product.
One could upgrade from Wordperfect to Word and didn’t have to pay the full copy price.
Now that the competition is gone and it’s pretty much a monopoly in the software market place, upgrades are only to get you to upgrade to new and more expensive version.
No, what I don’t agree with is MS invalidating my legally binding receipt that says I own this copy of Windows XP. Using a kill switch to invalidate a purchase is possibly illegal in the UK, but yet unchallenged.
In the UK, you can resell software licences because they are a considered a normal product under the law and fall within the sales of goods act (which gives you the first right of resale). Microsoft are illegally invalidating people’s software licences when they purchase another product; as the EULA is also not enforcable here.
No, what I don’t agree with is MS invalidating my legally binding receipt that says I own this copy of Windows XP.
I think the license itself says you do not own this software, you just license it.
But I like that law you referenced. I never heard of that before. I wish they would pass a law like that here in the US.
Edited 2007-01-30 20:28
http://www.discount-licensing.com/
Yes, this is very legal (in the UK)
So….let’s say that I got Windows XP Pro for $299.
Then I could have gotten Business version of Vista for $299….which adds up to $598. I can use BOTH licenses on two computers.
Then lets say I got XP Pro for $299, but want to UPGRADE to Vista Business for $199…which adds up to $498.
Now with the upgrade I can’t use the Windows XP license…even on the same machine.
If I got Vista Clean install for Business it would be $299. Let’s look at this.
Two licenses: $598 I can use both.
Upgrade: $498 I can use only ONE. (sum of WinXP Pro and the upgrade to Vista)
Vista ULTIMATE only costs $399 (Sheesh…did I just say “only?”) for ONE license fresh install…
That basically means that Microsoft has stolen $99 from me ($598-$498 = $99) to downgrade from two licenses to one.
Now do we see why these guys are the richest in the world and the world gets ripped off? They basically STOLE 99 bucks from EVERYONE who did an upgrade!!!!
I will NEVER hand over a PENNY to that company again…
“That basically means that Microsoft has stolen $99 from me ($598-$498 = $99) to downgrade from two licenses to one. Now do we see why these guys are the richest in the world…”
No, but from the way you are counting money we can definitely see why you aren’t.
Edited 2007-01-30 18:14
Couple of problems with how you calculate that (not talking about your actual numbers).
First, you bought XP prior to buying Vista, as Vista is a newer version of Windows, the value of your copy of XP has depreciated.
Then you have the convience of taking less money out of your pocket NOW (not just all time), which is a big factor for many people.
Two licenses: $598 I can use both.
Upgrade: $498 I can use only ONE. (sum of WinXP Pro and the upgrade to Vista)
Vista ULTIMATE only costs $399 (Sheesh…did I just say “only?”) for ONE license fresh install…
That basically means that Microsoft has stolen $99 from me ($598-$498 = $99) to downgrade from two licenses to one.
Talk about a flawed approach to calculating costs. Your point is invalid.
Ok, Bobmeister, I can see where you were trying to go, I think… And, I’m game to play a little devil’s advocate.
$498-$399=$99 [Cost of Business upgrade – Cost of Vista Ultimate (full)] = $99.
There are those who would argue that you have already amortized the cost of a WinXP license if you have been using it for the past few years, but I’m going to go out on a limb and explain why I think your reasoning is valid. The WinXP license still has value, and the ability to continue using it on an older machine certainly has value. So, the invalidation of the license results in the loss of value. OTOH, it is possible that the WinXP license was a recent purchase that didn’t give you the time to amortize the value. Either way, the true cost of the business upgrade does indeed include the value of the WinXP Pro license.
The point that I think you failed to point out is that by this argument you’ve been fleeced out of more than $99. You’re missing the additional features that would be present in Vista Ultimate as well as the use of a perfectly good WinXP Pro license. So…
$498-$399=$99 [Cost of Business upgrade – Cost of Vista Ultimate (full)] = $99 + license + features [true cost of upgrade].
/* That basically means that Microsoft has stolen $99 from me ($598-$498 = $99) to downgrade from two licenses to one. */
no, you actually lost $300 if you upgrade to vista, because MS still has $300 you paid for XP and you no longer can use xp.
/*I will NEVER hand over a PENNY to that company again…*/
a penny? you mean hundreads of dollars,like, $300 for XP
Yes, the EULA certainly would allow them to treat your XP license as henceforth invalid, but this is old news.
Microsoft changed the Eula in a number of ways to limit experimentation with old licenses, dual booting, and virtual machines. Toward that end there are now explicit limitations and this license change is a reflection of that. (Fun facts : Technically there was no way to legally test some versions of Windows Vista in a virtual machine at all. Unless they changed that part, you are denied that ability by the license. This really sucks when you want to test with IE 6 and IE 7 at the same time on one machine.)
Though a case could be made for permanent revocation of the old license, I would read this only as a revocation of the old license while the new, Vista license is in force. So no, you can’t upgrade one machine to Vista and use the old XP license on another box. Doing a clean install of XP to overwrite Vista should not be an issue though. In that case the user has explicitly voided the new license for Vista in the approved manner, allowing the old license to be used once more.
However, I think this does mean dual booting is now technically in violation of the license if you are trying to keep the old and new OS available. This is because the license is based on the new OS being installed, not on it being in operation. You would only be allowed to dual boot with two independent licenses, not the old license and an upgrade.
I wonder what people would think that if you buy a Nokia cell phone, and then you get a new Nokia cell phone, the licence of this new phone says that you’re not allowed to use your previous Nokia cell phone anymore.
This is also true for almost every commercial product out there, and always has been. People just don’t care. The same people used Winzip for a zillion years and told everybody it was a free program.
No it’s not; Quark tried to pull this same stunt with v7, invalidating the v6 license behind it. There was uproar – and they had to turn about and retreat with their tail between their legs.
There will not be an uproar, WGA(sic); DRM(sic); Trusted(sic) computing…nobody blinked. There will be no uproar. Well not from anyone who *matters*
You could say that GNU/Linux and free software is and has been an ongoing uproar reaction to Microsoft’s business practices.
One of the goals of such copy protection and licensing schemes is always to force people to abandon their investment in the prior versions. The cash cow will never be milked if you give people the freedom to choose some alternate path. So STFU, bend over, hand Bill your wallet and be happy in the warmth of knowing it looks better and may or may not prove more or less secure.
Maybe even a few less zombie bots out there when the dust clears if we’re lucky.
HA!
Yeah…should have used a calculator! Sorry about THAT blunder…but the principle still stands!
no problemo, happens to the best of us
someone dove into Vista’s EULA [.pdf] only to find that when you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, the license of that product becomes invalid. What this means, basically, is that after you’ve upgraded your XP install to Vista, you cannot use the license of your old XP install on another computer.
I don’t see any controversy here. If you asked your airline to upgrade your second class ticket to a firstclass ticket or your hotel to upgrade your room to one with a view would you expect to keep both ?
Seems like common sense.
Yes, but imagine your new seat was next to an overweight wrestler with a flatulence problem. When you asked to be returned to your previous seat, they then said, no, you’re stuck here now.
If you give up your XP key, what happens when you run into a critical compatibility problem that the vendor says won’t be fixed for a year, and you want to return to XP? Surprise! You don’t own Windows XP any more; only Vista!
That would be really bad luck. Does it really work this way? I doubt it.
It would be in Microsoft’s best interest to make it possible to downgrade to XP if Vista doesn’t run. It doesn’t help their sales if people are afraid to upgrade because of this. Forcing people to buy a new XP license in case Vista won’t run, would only annoy their customer, and even Microsoft knows that this is not a good thing to do.
It wouldn’t need to be a problem to Microsoft either as you would still just have one license.
If you give up your XP key, what happens when you run into a critical compatibility problem that the vendor says won’t be fixed for a year, and you want to return to XP? Surprise! You don’t own Windows XP any more; only Vista!
Wrong. There’s nothing in the EULA which specifies that the XP key will be invalidated or deleted. What the EULA says essentially is that you’re not permitted to install that XP software on ANOTHER MACHINE. Big difference. If you discover that there’s a problem with Vista that requires you to go back to XP, you can do it simply by reinstalling XP on the SAME MACHINE. No controversy here.
Well…to me, Common sense would be to not spend any money, stay with what works…and find alternatives that are reasonable.
What about a “family pack” idea…I thought I saw that floated around somewhere…
For me, I’ll just look for unrestrictive licensing agreements, like the one I’m using now.
pertaining to your analogy, you are partially correct, but that seat that you gave up WOULD PROBABLY be filled by another person and at least get used. Of course, the airline would charge for that seat, but they usually don’t charge much for an upgrade, or anything at all…the profit they make is selling that other seat again.
This is different…here they are saying that you can’t use something you already have. Although you can’t sit in two places at once, you can use two computers at once, right? Your example breaks down on this point, but I understand your main point…thanks.
What about a “family pack” idea…I thought I saw that floated around somewhere…
“Microsoft tries to copy Apple’s OS X ‘family pack’ idea with Vista” ( http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8746/52/ )
This is different…here they are saying that you can’t use something you already have. Although you can’t sit in two places at once, you can use two computers at once, right?
Except in the twisted logic of EULA’s you don’t have the software, it is licensed to you.
You’re analogy is interesting as licenses often go “per seat” (per user). In this case the upgrade means your “1 seat” XP license is exchanged for a “1 seat” Vista license in return for a $100 discount.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sam/lic_cal.mspx#perseat
Edit: “not spend any money, stay with what works” I strongly agree with this BTW.
Edited 2007-01-30 18:57
More like Apple copied Microsoft.
MS had a family pack deal for XP.
Thanks, Tyr for the insight……
I feel so beat to death with the whole EULA concept…it seems so unfair…but your points are valid…
My full retail copy of XP allows me to move it to a different computer, provided it is removed from the previous one. Wouldn’t the Visita Upgrade revoking my XP license screw me if I decided to move to a faster computer?
presumably you’d be putting Vista on that new, faster computer (you certainly won’t want to be running it on the old slower one!).
The problem is that Vista upgrades needs a previous installation to be able to install. So since you can’t install windows XP anymore you won’t be able to update it either.
But this is has already been “hacked” by someone who installed Vista on a new computer without entering is key and then reinstalling over the previous vista install with is upgrade key.
Why make it so difficult, apple seems to have a great way of doing it : 2 versions of the OS (server and “client”) and not keys, no copy protection.
I like apple an dislike microsoft as much as any other guy, but two points:
no copy protection? How about that one that prevents it from beeing installed on non apple hardware?
no keys?
Have you ever installed Mac OS X server? There is a pretty form to copy the key from the sticker on the box…
That said, i think apple protection on their products is reasonable, where microsoft is not.
Vista this, Vista that and, in less than a year, no one will remember this and I’ll be giving helpdesk services to Vista-equipped clients. It always happens when a new version of Windows arrives:
“I won’t use that crap!!1 Win2k FTW!!three!”
“It’s even more bloated”
“Remember Windows Me? This is the same, but even worse”
And so on. Give it a few months, wait for the 3D drivers and Crysis and everything will be OK for about 95% of the people. The rest will keep using MacOS and/or GNU/Linux. No matter how much people likes to hate MS and Windows, they always end up using it; only a small amount of people gets fed up and moves to a different platform.
And I must admit I find extremely amusing the fact that everyone is yelling “What?! You licence it to me?! You mean, like, it’s not mine??!!” Go on and check pretty much every EULA out there and you’ll find that they can revoke your licence and therefore your permission to use the software pretty much at any time they want.
And, for the Vista upgrade, you must understand that you’re exchanging your XP licence to get a Vista one for less money. This looks perfectly normal to me…
And I must admit I find extremely amusing the fact that everyone is yelling “What?! You licence it to me?! You mean, like, it’s not mine??!!” Go on and check pretty much every EULA out there and you’ll find that they can revoke your licence and therefore your permission to use the software pretty much at any time they want.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they would stand up in a court of Law in many U.S. states and in foreign countries…
At least FOSS licences can’t be used to prevent your use of the software in any way (save redistribution, which is not “use” in the normal sense of the word).
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they would stand up in a court of Law in many U.S. states and in foreign countries…
I’m not saying this is right, I’m only saying that things have been this way since a long time. It took so long to people to start reading EULAs? So, if I make my some kickass app I can include as much crap as I want into its EULA since no one will ever care? Or at least not until it’s already late? This is what I can’t understand.
At least FOSS licences can’t be used to prevent your use of the software in any way (save redistribution, which is not “use” in the normal sense of the word).
And yes I agree, that’s why I choose using free software: I’m sure that I can use the software in any way I like without worrying that someday John Vendor will come trying to sue me 🙂
I won’t comment on bloat, because thats a whole different threat. What is worth saying. Is that *bundled* applications on Vista is greater than *any* Microsoft OS before it.
It isn’t Like ME, ME was the last of 95 line, and XP was released straight after. It was not 5 years GAP between releases. I’m not even sure how you could compare the two.
The reality is the world Vista is released into is a *different world*. XP has been out *5 years* its the most compatible OS ever, to any piece of hardware. Vista is suddenly not very compatible.
Why the assumption everything was OK. I have a computer in the corner that wouldn’t work with XP because it uses MPACT2 graphics card. Its not going to be different with Vista.
Whats interesting about 3D is its 30% slower. Will this get better. I don’t see why anyone would make such an assumption. Microsoft have a fancy desktop, and a trusted computer path to look after.
The best feature of “Windows-Vista”???
Try google your way on the web!!
There are something called vista-tours, wich are a buss-line.
The other thing is….
Try google vista windows instead of windows vista…
Read the company profile, when the company was founded.
(SURPRISE)!!!
Vista DRM is cheacking that your gaming character isn’t doing anything naughty LOL.
Honestly, I laughed with some printer techs yesterday over a query about when their company would have Vista Supported Drivers for their equipment. Their answer was somewhere in a year or so.
Nobody gives a F about Vista except for MS paid web sights.
Try http://www.news.com.au and have a look at the marketing shite MS has pulled with these lame news sites. Made my puke.
If you’re having a problem with gaming UT2004 in Vista you could try using OpenGL in your ini setting file and see how the FPS with a NVidia card is (full screen of course).
I just love how sound is F-ed in Vista and MS recommends using OpenAL. All we need is MS full support for OpenGL and we will have a multitude of games for easy transition to other OS platforms.
…I don’t read Tom’s Hardware:
“Vista is the better Windows, because it behaves better, because it looks better and because it feels better. But it cannot perform better than Windows XP.”
So, uh, because it’s not as good it’s better?