[vox] Windows Vista

[Ted Deppner]

On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 10:52:22AM -0800, Bob Scofield wrote:
> I'm in a quandary.  I want to order a new laptop, but I can't figure out if I 
> should get one with XP or Vista.  It goes without saying of course that it 

It's likely you can get XP now with a free upgrade coupon to Vista.  When
you install Vista is up to you.

I've a friend who loved everything about Vista except the fact that his
company's VPN client caused Vista to be unstable.  Dunno what else might
be out there, but obviously there's still some hurdles Vista has yet to
cross.

For my part, I'd still be happy with Win2000 for what little I need
windows for.  Except of course that it's still having vulnerabilities
found and Microsoft is on the verge of stopping support for it.  Nothing
quite like having someone else decide that your $300 investment in a
windows product just isn't realistic any more.  :(

The last thing I'll say about Vista is that Vista is likely to cause a
shift over the next few years.  Remember when cell phones were expensive?
And then remember when they gave them away because the money was made on
the minutes?

I forsee Vista being free one day... simply because all the DRM content
that you have to pay for to do/have what you want will fund someone else
buying Vista for you.  Say, you use iTunes or Zune or whatever.  Vista
being locked up tight to make sure you can't do jack without some DRM
owner taking money from your wallet.  This might be several years or even
10 years away, but I expect it'll happen.  Once "they" (content producers)
have a platform to require and demand fundage from you on a regular basis,
I'm guessing "they" will give you that platform in return for your ongoing
"patronage".

That needn't be a bad thing... but it's my PC we're talking about.  I
don't want it to die if I don't order N songs from iTunes to keep my copy
of Vista running another 30 days.

None of this is a present problem... but I'm guessing wide scale adoption
of Vista will set the stage for this being reality some day.

-- 
Ted Deppner
http://www.deppner.us/