Windows Vista Use Growing

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
According to Net Applications, Windows Vista’s market share is steadily growing while Mac OS X is relatively flat over the same period.

According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June.
Click to expand...
 
Despite the bad rep it gets from elites and gamers, Vista is a great OS for people like me who use their computer in a normal fashion. I'm glad to see it catching on. I've put it on several of my friend's computers, and it has been largely successful.
 
We purchased one computer here at our office with Vista on it, and we have had no problems. For the everyday user doing word, internet, basic features it seems like a nice upgrade to Vista.
 
Coming from even a hardcore gamer, Vista is microsoft's best OS to date. The only issue is not microsoft's problem - the drivers.
 
The percentages stated by NET seem to indicate that some new computers are running Vista DRM. When MS releases a non-DRM version of Vista I'll look at upgrading from XP.
 
panhead said:
The percentages stated by NET seem to indicate that some new computers are running Vista DRM. When MS releases a non-DRM version of Vista I'll look at upgrading from XP.
Click to expand...

DRM? :confused: If by DRM you mean "AACS compliant," then....what's your point? It's a necessary part of the OS for DMCA compliance if you want the OS to natively support HD/BD playback for Media Center in the future (currently slated for SP1). Why do you speak like that is a bad thing?
 
InorganicMatter said:
DRM? :confused: If by DRM you mean "AACS compliant," then....what's your point? It's a necessary part of the OS for DMCA compliance if you want the OS to natively support HD/BD playback for Media Center in the future (currently slated for SP1). Why do you speak like that is a bad thing?
Click to expand...

I do not playback HD/BD content on my PC (as most business users) and have no need for the bloat and performace degradation caused by it. When I attempt to edit my home videos creatd with HD video cameras how will this 'AACS compliant' system know that I don't have any DRM?
 
It does not provide even .01% degredation in performance. DRM = Digital Rights Management and doesn't affect video editing, cropping, viewing of normal video.
 
I think he might be referring to Direct Rendering Manager.... which is a linux derived term giving different kernals access to video hardware directly.
 
When I attempt to edit my home videos creatd with HD video cameras how will this 'AACS compliant' system know that I don't have any DRM?
Click to expand...

Are you asking a serious question, or being sarcastic?

Honestly, I can't tell.
 
panhead said:
I do not playback HD/BD content on my PC (as most business users) and have no need for the bloat and performace degradation caused by it. When I attempt to edit my home videos creatd with HD video cameras how will this 'AACS compliant' system know that I don't have any DRM?
Click to expand...

LOL, you don't even know what Vista's DRM does. :p Quit believing random articles you read on the internet. Just because it is printed doesn't mean it's true. The only thing that Vista's DRM does is correctly handle playback of the content protected with AACS used in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies. It won't even touch your other files. Come on man, you can't believe everything you read out there.
 
Evil said:
It does not provide even .01% degredation in performance. DRM = Digital Rights Management and doesn't affect video editing, cropping, viewing of normal video.
Click to expand...

From the article http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the
underlying hardware every 30ms to ensure that everything appears 'kosher'. This
means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted
drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that... nothing
continues to happen. In addition to this polling, further device-specific
polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video
frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are
still as they should be
In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication
flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated.
 
cerebrex said:
Coming from even a hardcore gamer, Vista is microsoft's best OS to date. The only issue is not microsoft's problem - the drivers.
Click to expand...

Not selling me on this. I still think XPSP2 is their best right now. If Vista were so good they wouldn't need releases saying it's use is increasing. If it had been such a huge success then we would have heard about it in January. They're pushing hard to find the positives in this version. I'll stick with XP for now.
 
Shotglass01 said:
Not selling me on this. I still think XPSP2 is their best right now. If Vista were so good they wouldn't need releases saying it's use is increasing. If it had been such a huge success then we would have heard about it in January. They're pushing hard to find the positives in this version. I'll stick with XP for now.
Click to expand...

Well, if you think XP Service Pack 2 is their best OS you've pretty much proven my point. The fact you cite Service Pack 2 is a statement that the original OS was flawed. XP had several problems right off the bat which needed updates immediately. So far Vista has only required little auto updates here and there which most of the time are adding features instead of fixing them.

Clearly your evidence for why you don't think Vista is up to your standards is based on what you haven't heard. That's kind of the point.. if a product performs as intended, people get what they expected. I don't think anyone is pushing hard to find positives at all, I think people are pushing hard to find negatives in the new OS... you hear things like "frame rates are lower" or "it bluescreens". All of those are driver related, not microsoft's problem. And you'll also hear that Vista asks too many questions.. which is exactly the thing people whined about in XP.. that it wasn't secure enough... now that it is, people complain it asks too many questions... same thing with airport security after 9/11 needing to be tightned, and now people complaining they have to sit in line too long to go through security.

The OS itself (from what I've seen) is almost completely flawless. I have yet to run into any problems relating to the OS, and all the problems I've experienced relate to drivers from 3rd parties. As a matter of fact I had a post a few months about how amazing Vista actually is... I was able to upgrade from XP and it worked perfectly.. I swapped a Vista harddrive out of a Socket 478 Northwood system into a completely new Core2 Duo system with none of the same hardware, and it booked into windows at 1680x1050 with working audio and it didn't even pop up a window about drivers or hardware.. absolutely amazing.
 
It's an article about market share and the OS penetration. Why does someone always bring DRM into this? What the hell does DRM (which has nothing to do with this) have to do with this? :)
 
cerebrex said:
Well, if you think XP Service Pack 2 is their best OS you've pretty much proven my point. The OS itself (from what I've seen) is almost completely flawless.
Click to expand...

No, XPSP2 is the current state of release, it doesn't prove your point on anything. And as for the second comment, holy crap. You did hear about crashing Vista with two keypresses and 10 seconds right? Where the hell is the splash screen, and what's up with the "Windows Features" crap. Poor excuse for Add/Remove programs. Looks like they rushed to finish screens and "features" that weren't even done. God only knows what else isn't finished.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
It's an article about market share and the OS penetration. Why does someone always bring DRM into this? What the hell does DRM (which has nothing to do with this) have to do with this? :)
Click to expand...

It has to do with the thought that it is not possible for microsoft to make a decent product. :rolleyes:
 
bbz_Ghost said:
Why does someone always bring DRM into this? What the hell does DRM (which has nothing to do with this) have to do with this? :)
Click to expand...

Because the DRM bloat is what is causing most of the problems with drivers/performance. MS really F up'ed with Vista. They should have released a business version with no DRM layer and no HD playback and an media version with DRM for HD.
 
cerebrex said:
The OS itself (from what I've seen) is almost completely flawless. I have yet to run into any problems relating to the OS, and all the problems I've experienced relate to drivers from 3rd parties.
Click to expand...

If you had a SLI rig, you would be pulling your hair out. MS just resently released a patch to allow data to be sent to the send video card. Don't know if Creative has figured out how to allow your sound card's processor to function. DRM rears its ugly head :(
 
panhead said:
From the article http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the
underlying hardware every 30ms to ensure that everything appears 'kosher'. This
means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted
drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that... nothing
continues to happen. In addition to this polling, further device-specific
polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video
frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are
still as they should be
In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication
flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated.
Click to expand...

It still doesn't degrade performance... :rolleyes:
 
panhead said:
If you had a SLI rig, you would be pulling your hair out. MS just resently released a patch to allow data to be sent to the send video card. Don't know if Creative has figured out how to allow your sound card's processor to function. DRM rears its ugly head :(
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like it's drivers again?
 
cerebrex said:
how in the world is an additional process NOT going to increase CPU resources consumption, lol?
Click to expand...

Right. Any additional process is going to increase resource usage, but that does not mean that it will degrade your performance.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Despite the bad rep it gets from elites and gamers...
Click to expand...

Only reason to upgrade to Vista was DX10, and since it's that's not working out, what's the point in asking for the headache?

Getting price raped by different "versions"?

DRM technology increases prices and is not anything close to what customers are asking for.

Dear M$, make a product that has what customers actually want. Did you learn nothing from Zune? It was only like 6 month ago...
 
Maximus825 said:
Right. Any additional process is going to increase resource usage, but that does not mean that it will degrade your performance.
Click to expand...

I think the fact that it could is enough for many people, especially when it's something they don't even want in the first place.
 
Axion22 said:
I think the fact that it could is enough for many people, especially when it's something they don't even want in the first place.
Click to expand...

what you mean is it's something they don't even understand in the first place.
 
cerebrex said:
what you mean is it's something they don't even understand in the first place.
Click to expand...

No, alot of us do understand exactly what is it, and do not want it.

More cpu overhead
More memory usage
More complcated driver structure (making drivers harder to write)
Less direct access to your hardware's features

All for a "feature" that most people would prefer NOT to have.

We understand the MPAA, and movie studios want a locked down DRMed enviroment.
The people that use that content however, dont want DRM, dont want restrictions, and we do not want the MPAA screwing with there OS, just for the privilege of watching a movie.

Perhaps you need to make sure you understand what a mess your really talking about.
 
once again, you really shouldn't blame microsoft for drm-related issues. They need to make a fully featured OS that will be able to play this content. Blame the MPAA and RIAA.

As for sound card issues, the HAL has been removed. Creative, being the extremely generous company that they are, has decided to sell a patch that enables eax in some games. italics!

I use Vista, and I like it. I don't even need to say that to justify the money spent, because I got it for free (student). The only problems are with my audigy sound card (which may as well be onboard sound without eax, but I'm upgrading soon anyway, so it's moot--plus it's really really old, and how long do people really expect a company to support old, discontinued products?), and a slight drop in fps in some games.

Hopefully a few more driver revisions will close the gap a bit, but it hasn't made me turn down any settings.

What I really am hoping is that 64bit drivers will mature soon so I can upgrade to a full 4gb of ram.
 
i dont like the popups.

for some reason, it doesnt know that i am an administrator, even though i have entered the admin password repeatedly.

if it still has to ask, why does it even have a password?
 
Ocean said:
i dont like the popups.

for some reason, it doesnt know that i am an administrator, even though i have entered the admin password repeatedly.

if it still has to ask, why does it even have a password?
Click to expand...

Turn off UAC...
 
I have Ubuntu, Vista and XP on a KVM switch. I use XP most. Going from Vista to XP the system feels much more responsive.

The Ubuntu is a LAMP server, but I put the GUI on anyway and like it the most of all three. It's very clean and to the point. I'm considering nuking the Vista and installing Ubuntu Workstation and using that for everything except Photoshop and CAD.
 
'invi[tus said:
No, alot of us do understand exactly what is it, and do not want it.

More cpu overhead
More memory usage
More complcated driver structure (making drivers harder to write)
Less direct access to your hardware's features

All for a "feature" that most people would prefer NOT to have.

We understand the MPAA, and movie studios want a locked down DRMed enviroment.
The people that use that content however, dont want DRM, dont want restrictions, and we do not want the MPAA screwing with there OS, just for the privilege of watching a movie.

Perhaps you need to make sure you understand what a mess your really talking about.
Click to expand...


I understand DRM very well, I assure you.
 
Ocean said:
i dont like the popups.

for some reason, it doesnt know that i am an administrator, even though i have entered the admin password repeatedly.

if it still has to ask, why does it even have a password?
Click to expand...

You're missing the point entirely. What the OS is doing is letting you (the administrator that is logged in) that a program is requesting access to your system files. You're perceiving this to be an un-needed dialog... however all the malicious spyware and viruses that destroyed your XP system will now have to ask you if they can access your system files... completely preventing them from working. It's a security feature that needed to be added, it's just not asking you if you really wanted to open that program, but moreso it's asking if you really wanted that program to access your system files.
 
cerebrex said:
Coming from even a hardcore gamer, Vista is microsoft's best OS to date. The only issue is not microsoft's problem - the drivers.
Click to expand...

It's tolerable once you omit most of the useless crap from it.
 
Vista's got more overhead, true. Name me one OS in history that hasn't introduced some kind of bloat over time? I recall DOS fitting on one 360k floppy for the entire release, which is a long jump away from Vista on a DVD. It's an iterative process, and inherently becomes more complex over time.
However from my own experience there's no real compelling reason to migrate to Vista. Most of what I see is eye candy and support for things I either don't have, don't want, or don't use. I switched to Vista mostly because it was time for my annual reinstall, and I don't see any compelling reason to revert to XP either.
As to DRM, well, most of it is cracked within weeks anyway. A few eggheads working for the RIAA aren't exactly going to defeat the entire Internet's collective desire for free shit. The industry needs to learn its limitations. People want a degree of control over the content they receive, just look at the adoption patterns of Tivo, VHS, etc. for evidence there, and it is the province of industry to give people what they want, not dictate terms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top