alphajerk

nope, you want the business verison. it doesnt have the RAM cap that HOME has and definately not home premium which includes MCE [fully not needed]. the business is akin to XPpro.

fwiw, microsoft [at least im betas] kept the OS stripped of extras aside from IExplorer [which is built into the core anyway], but things like messenger and meeting are download/install after coreOS install kind of things.

i have been running Ultimate betas.

the Aero interface really depends more on the GPU rather than the CPU now that they unloaded it onto the GPU, which they claim some 89% of crashes occured from the GUI being on the CPU load. this is supposed to severely lower that threat. i really didnt notice much of a problem with AERO over the old GUI, or even quasiAERO [w/o the cool transparency]... but MOTU quit supporting my PCI card so i dont have drivers for it to use with Vista [probably never will but am upgrading to their PCIe card anyway here in a bit]. but definately something im going to test out using vs not using and any hits on performance... and see if MS lives up to what they say in regards to pulling it off the CPU load.

however, with modern computers... at least the ones we are building now, the audio workstation optimization is becoming far less important than on earlier machines. im running a full multimedia machine and encountering very little problems in stability or lack of power with it, and im running internet, design apps, video apps, and audio apps... most times in conjunction with each other [oh and some games as well ].

the biggest development in all of this is the jump from the 4GB RAM limit [which is really only 3.75GBish]... of course we will have to have mobos that can handle it as well as larger RAM chipsets. the mobos we use can handle 8GB, but only access 4GB under XP. 2GB RAM chips are expensive right now and usually 1GB DDR2 pairs are the norm. what eats heaviest into this is obviously VSTi's... plugins are pretty effecient in comparison.

i can basically run 96 Waves SSL plugs + WavesIR, like a PSP82 delay, some dual mono verbs, some wideners, and then like PSP MAsterQ>SSL comp>Izotope Ozone3 on the mix buss as well. so there is a WavesSSL "board" for ya in your DAW.

i find their OS doc/seraches pretty decent, although sometimes roundabout... sometimes not useful at all, others bootsaving.

i just heard that bill gates has said it creates problems for them regarding DRM... so all might be good.

but were you running 3 different machines? if so, thats assumed... but if you buy one retail copy, you have the right to run it on one machine despite upgrades.

what i loathe about pre-built machines are non-os recovery disks they provide.... oh they piss me off, especially ones from HP/compaq.... talk about SLOW!!!! recovery. i can build 10 machines in the same time it took me to recover a clients HP machine from a HDD failure recently [8 hours!].

i just meant once they drop it as a normal product. although they are GIVING AWAY XP64pro right now for 4 months use.

you can also always buy their software assurance as well now for continued upgrades.

and maybe not for the general public, but developers can take advantage of MS's programs for VERY cheap software solutions.

doesnt really answer the topic however... i was just really stoked with Vista until i found all this stuff out about it which counters anything i loved about Vista [and yeah, i did like the Aero look]

re: authorization of XP, um there are plenty of options on that front including massively streamlined versions circulating the net. now once vista is out, i cant see it really being "piracy" of the OS anymore since it would be a legacy product and not longer being sold.

i guess on that same tip, i would imagine a non-DRM hacked version will most likely appear. i see this as a pretty bold challenge that hackers will most willingly take on.

historically MS has been really good about keeping old OS's going despite new releases. that is the nice thing about MS over apple... the software is seperate to the hardware instead of tied to each other. i cant tell you how many times apple has made their own machines obsolete with their new OS releases.

i still have old OS discs which will actually boot machines well past their operating time, once one recovered me nicely and allowed me to recover the faulty OS drive, i was so suprized to see 3.1 booting up my jaw had hit the floor.

what bothers me most is that built in DRM having to be included into soundcards for driver certification. now from what i understand, this applies to the 64bit and not the 32bit version, however the 32bit version is still RAM limited.

i think if pro software plays this right, XP64pro could really step into something useful instead of being the 64bit playtoy on teh way to Vista.

i would say lobby MS to not mandate the DRM, but i dont think they would listen... and i dont think its fully them implementing it, im sure there is pressure from RIAA and Hollywood, massive pressure.

what i find most odd is with MS-MCE, i cant understand why they would WANT to degrade quality... i surely dont want to buy a MCE for my HT when its all crappy looking and sounding. so they render a product of theirs useless, which is very unfortunate because i really like that product and was getting ready to build a machine for myself running VISTA/MCE for my HT.

i have been running Vista betas for a while now and it wasnt much of a hog over XP with a new machine [i run a C2D 2.4 + 2GB [800mhz] RAM on a 975BX2 mobo], but even an older 3ghz P4 ran fine under Vista [just no cool aero interface]. i was all excited about Vista with its unlimited RAM capabilities, 64bit architecture and OS restylings [like breadcrumb pathways in the windows] until i read this:

Vista crippled by content protection

Collateral damage from Vista suicide note.

Chris Mellor, Techworld

27 December 2006

PC users around the globe may find driver software is stopped from working by Vista if it detects unauthorised content access. Peter Guttman, a security engineering researcher at New Zealand's university of Auckland, has written A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. He reckons Vista is trying to achieve the impossible by protecting access to premium content. Users will find their PCs' compromised by the persistent and continuous content access checks carried out by Vista.

Gutman thinks these checks and the associated increased in multimedia card hardware costs make Vista's content protection specification 'the longest suicide note in history.'

The core elements in Vista have been designed to protect access to premium content. The design requires changes in multimedia cards before Microsoft will support them for Vista use.

Content that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) must be sent across protected interfaces. This means cards using non-protected interfaces can't be used by Vista PCs.

Disabling and degrading

Vista is disadvantaging high-end audio and video systems by openly disabling devices. The most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) which doesn't have any content protection. It must be disabled in a Vista system when DRM-protected content is being played. Equally a high-end component video interface (YPbPr) also has no content protection and must be disabled when protected video is being played.

- Vista covertly degrades playback quality. PC voice communications rely on automatic echo cancellation (AEC) in order to provide acceptable voice quality. This requires feeding back a sample of the audio mix into the echo cancellation subsystem, which isn't permitted by Vista's content protection scheme. This lowers PC voice communication quality because echo affects will still be present.

- This overt and covert degrading of quality is dynamic, not consistent. Whenever any audio derived from premium content is played on a Vista PC, the disabling of output devices and downgrading of signal quality takes place. If the premium content then fades away the outputs are re-enabled and signal quality climbs back up. Such system behaviour today indicates a driver error. With Vista it will be normal behaviour.

- Vista has another playback quality reduction measure. It requires that 'any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality.' If this happens with a medical imaging application then artifacts introduced by the constrictor can 'cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening.'

CPU cycle guzzling

The O/S will use much more of a PC's CPU resource because 'Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual ... 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.'

Also 'In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content sent to video devices has to be encrypted with AES-128.' Encryption/decryption is known to be CPU-intensive

Device drivers in Vista are required to poll their underlying hardware every 30ms - thirty times a second - to ensure that everything appears correct.

It is apparent that Vista is going to use very much more of a PC's resources than previous versions of Windows and degrade multi-media playback quality unless the user has purchased premium content from a Microsoft-approved resource.

Such over-reaching by Microsoft could prove to be the catalyst needed to spur increased takeup of Linux desktop operating software, or of Apple's Mac OS.