Why No New Laptop?

The end is nearing for Microsoft. Vista is the most visible outward sign of the rot within.

Allow me to clarify: my issue with Windows Vista – no, everyone’s issue with Windows Vista – is its focus. Not only does it fail to provide significant improvements over prior operating system offerings from Microsoft, but the key drive behind Vista’s design is to restrict what the user can do in an attempt to control the user.

The throbbing heart of the beast lurking within Vista is Digital Rights Management (DRM) – software that uses up your processing power on your computer attempting to check and determine if you are viewing, listening to, or transferring ‘media’ (movies, songs) which don’t belong to you.

The flaw is that even the lawyers go cross-eyed and take plenty of medications when trying to enforce the claims of the music and movie production cronies, who have steadfastly refused to come into the 21^st century (any new technology is merely another attempt to pirate their gold, according to their view). The most jaw-dropping example of this luddite-cum-lawyers approach is the recent RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) legal opinion that keeping your legally purchased CD music in MP3 form, even only for your own use, is a criminal act (see this news story).

Sorry for the digression, but it’s all one big ball of thorns with Vista.

So, what’s the net effect of Digital Rights Management for Vista users? Things that use to work just fine, like that old movie on CD or music files you’ve accumulated don’t work anymore. Even hardware devices that used to work just fine (but don’t enforce Digital Rights Management) suddenly fail to operate under Vista’s rules. Even ‘old’ printers are rejected, for crying out loud!! The default DRM software rule is: if it isn’t SPECIFICALLY allowed, it is forbidden.

And the benefit to the user is… um… the assurance that if you actually get something to play, it is a legal copy.

NOT!! – Even the RIAA lawyers say that DRM compliance is no assurance of legality. So, why did you buy all this DRM stuff again? Oh yeah – so you, the nasty pirate user, have a harder time doing evil (and you paid money for this…).

I’m sure you are sick of DRM and RIAA at this point, and if that was the only flaw with Vista, you might blame it on ‘Events Beyond Microsoft’s Control’ (they were forced to include DRM in Vista… right…). Sadly, it’s only the chorus line for this dirge.

Most of the other real changes in Vista evolve around keeping you from doing things. Hey, they did a good job of it – many common trouble-shooting and installation tasks require fee-paid services from Microsoft tech support now, and the things you can do for yourself have been deeply hidden from you.

But, aren’t their performance improvements in Vista? Not so as you’d notice. The most common compliant with Vista is its speed – or lack there of.

It’s more secure than prior Microsoft products (it could hardly be less secure!), but unfortunately, the gun that the security holds is pointed again at the user! I’m sure you will enjoy all the new ‘Are You Sure You wish to metaflabulate the tarsel durilator? It might be a security issue…’ messages you’ll get, during normal daily operations, like putting files on a CD. And you are just going to love being told by your machine that you ‘Are Not Authorized to Do This Thing’ over and over again.

At the same time, no vast improvement has been made against virus incursions from spoof web sites, etc. Some, to be sure, but the nasty minds that come up with viruses are rapidly finding the loopholes Microsoft missed.

More effort in Vista was spent on sleuthing out pirate Microsoft software and enforcing licensing than intrusion prevention.

Well, you say, if you hate Vista so much, you can stick with ol’ XP on your new computer – nope, not if you want to use the newest hardware. As a cattle-prod to get users moving to Vista, Microsoft has pushed the policy that XP support for new hardware be minimal, if existent at all.

Vista has kept me from buying a new laptop. (What a statement!) Vista has done more for Linux and Apple’s growth than any efforts on either the Linux community or Apple Computer’s part.

Microsoft won’t die tomorrow, or even a few years from now – but they lost their magic touch, and in this arrogance called ‘Vista’ comes the fall.