Posted on 09/12/2005 8:09:27 AM PDT by BallandPowder
If you've been wondering why Windows Vista has taken a long time to reach Beta 1, we can now tell you why: there are seven separate editions of Vista headed your way. OK, that's not the reason for the delay, but how else do you introduce that many OS versions, without invoking Snow White & friends? Join me know as I romp through the various editions, many of which you'll see are just barely differentiated.
First up, there's Starter Edition, which like XP Starter Edition, is a crippled (and lame) product aimed at the two-thirds world. It will limit users to three concurrent applications, and provide only basic TCP/IP networking, and won't be suitable for most games. The next step up is Home Basic Edition, which is really the sibling to today's Windows XP Home. However, as the name suggests, there's also Home Premium Edition, and this is where we start to split features like hairs and create a gaggle of products. HPE will build on the the Basic Edition by adding, most notably, the next-generation of Media Center capabilities, including support for HDTV, DVD authoring, and even DVD ripping backed up (of course) by Windows DRM. For non-corporate types, this is probably going to be the OS that most people use. It's similar to XP Pro in power, but with all of the added bells and whistles for entertainment. Well, most of them.
Windows Vista Professional Edition won't occupy the same spot that XP Pro occupies today, because this time it's truly aimed at businesses. It won't feature the MCE functionality that Home Premium Edition has, but it begins to provide the kind of functionality you'd expect in a business environment, such as support for non-Microsoft networking protocols and Domain support. But don't expect too many businesses to necessarily turn to PE. Microsoft is also planning both a Small Business Edition and an Enterprise Edition, which build upon pro by adding (seemingly minor) features aimed at appealing to each market. SBE, for instance, includes a networked backup solution, while EE will include things like Virtual PC integration, and the ability to encrypt an entire volume of information.
Last but not least, there's Ultimate Edition. Hey, I'm just glad that they didn't call it Extreme Edition. I'll leave it to Paul Thurrott, who has all of the details, to explain (and promote) this beast:
The best operating system ever offered for a personal PC, optimized for the individual. Windows Vista Ultimate Edition is a superset of both Vista Home Premium and Vista Pro Edition, so it includes all of the features of both of those product versions, plus adds Game Performance Tweaker with integrated gaming experiences, a Podcast creation utility (under consideration, may be cut from product), and online "Club" services (exclusive access to music, movies, services and preferred customer care) and other offerings (also under consideration, may be cut from product). Microsoft is still investigating how to position its most impressive Windows release yet, and is looking into offering Ultimate Edition owners such services as extended A1 subscriptions, free music downloads, free movie downloads, Online Spotlight and entertainment software, preferred product support, and custom themes. There is nothing like Vista Ultimate Edition today. This version is aimed at high-end PC users and technology influencers, gamers, digital media enthusiasts, and students.
OK, everyone got that? There will be a quiz on Monday.
My initial reactions are reserved, because there's just not that much detail available. Pricing, for instance, would be really nice to know. Will Home Basic Edition debut below the price point of XP Home today? Place your bets. The one thing I will say is that I fear that this may cause a great deal of confusion on behalf of your average consumer. Two versions of XP were enough to cause confusion, and now Joe Blow has four choices that may fit the bill.
One final note worth mentioning is that this strategy does remove the "corporate Windows XP" option from the hands of pirates. Volume licensing for Pro, SBE, and EE may still mean that there will be copies of Windows Vista out there that don't "call home" for Windows Product Activation, but as you can see, Microsoft has removed most of the features that most pirates would want from those OSes. You won't see corporate licensing versions of Ultimate Edition.
If the bring it out the same way that they introduced ME and XP with lots of bundle freebies included, I will buy it.
Good lord...
I like XP because it provides sharper text with Microsoft cleartype .... http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypeInfo.mspx No way will I move to Vista unless they make cleartype even better. The hardware requirements are crazy such as one gig of memory
LOL! That was a hoot!
A Tech Strategist within Microsoft, Nigel Page, has gone on record to discuss the hardware requirements for Windows Vista, due out next Christmas.
What he's said is kind of shocking.
System breakdown
Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships.
CPU: Threading is the main target for Vista. Currently, very little of Windows XP is threaded - the target is to make Vista perform far better on dual-core and multi-core processors.
RAM: 2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB. Nigel mentions DDR3 - which is a little odd, since the roadmap for DDR3, on Intel gear at least, doesn't really kick in until 2007.
HDD: SATA is definitely the way forward for Vista, due, Microsoft tells us, to Native Command Queueing. NCQ allows for out of order completions - that is, if Vista needs tasks 1,2,3,4 and 5 done, it can do them in the order 2,5,3,4,1 if that's a more efficient route for the hard drive head to take over the disk. This leads to far faster completion times. NCQ is supported on SATA2 drives, so expect them to start becoming the standard sooner rather than later. Microsoft thinks that these features will provide SCSI-level performance.
Bus: AGP is 'not optimal' for Vista. Because of the fact that graphics cards may have to utilise main system memory for some rendering tasks, a fast, bi-direction bus is needed - that's PCI express.
Display: Prepare to feel the red mist of rage - no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. You may already have heard rumblings about this, but here it is. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor. Why? Because these formats use HDCP to encrypt a video signal as it travels along a digital connection to an output device, to prevent people copying it. If you have just standard DVI or even an analogue output, you're going to see HD scaled down to a far-less-than-HD resolution for viewing - which sucks. This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies. Yay.
Thoughts
Amusingly, Page admits that there are no monitors out there that will do HDCP, and that this is a problem. Frankly, it's the consumer's problem, however, according to him. "It's up to you [the users] to say, 'Where's my HDCP?'"
I'm more inclined to say to Hollywood 'Hey, STFU' to be honest.
One of the major problems is that Hollywood knows that Microsoft dominates the operating system sphere, and so it can arm-wrestle MS into working with it. If there was more competition, Hollywood would have to be a little more cautious about what it tries to get away with.
We come back to the age-old problem. Content is being forced onto us that is, to all extents and purposes, crippled. It's not like any of this stuff is actually going to make any difference - we're still going to have dodgy films on the net, probably in no less quantity than we have now - so why would be pay to be screwed, when we can just get an uncrippled version for free?
But, that's a little off topic. In terms of the hardware stuff, it seems obvious that hardware makers are rubbing their hands in glee. It's been hard to persuade people to upgrade their WinXP boxes, since they can handle pretty much anything thrown at them, unless you're a gamer. Graphics companies are going to be selling a bucket-load more GPUs, since now practically every system sold for Vista is going to need one. It's no coincidence that Nvidia is re-introducing onboard graphics for its motherboards very soon.
2GB of RAM for high-end systems is pretty chunky, and it could be that we start to see RAM prices go up as suddenly, a big percentage of systems are being built with 4 times the current requirement. If you thought SATA2 had been slow to take off, expect every new enthusiast chipset to have it built in next year, and for drive makers to start shifting over to it quick - if they're not building a huge number of NCQ drives by the middle of next year, they risk missing out on loads of orders come Vista.
It looks like the next 12 months are going to be extremely interesting... Let us know what you think of these developments in this forum thread.
EDIT: Utterly forgot to give credit to the original source, which is over at APCStart.com.
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
If the bring it out the same way that they introduced ME and XP with lots of bundle freebies included, I will buy it.
Which One? And what if you buy one that isn't what you need? Or maybe M$ decides to quit supporting the version you bought?
This is the best product that could have ever been released...
for Linux!
Please add me to the tech ping list.
Thanks
In before Rusty Turkey and Gore2000!
Good luck to MS on that. This alone may explain why Vista has taken so long.
In a related story, everyone, by law, is required to buy all seven editions.
Or maybe just not buy it?
Luckily, I have an MSDN subscription and get it as part of the package. I know I wouldn't spend money for yet another upgrade.
But don't let that stop you from rendering an opinion.
A freinds 30" G5 has a better high definition picture than his HDTV. Mac's seem to play HDTV pretty well.
OK, I've now made a thorough analysis of the many options, and I've made my decision - WindowsXP Pro.
Wait, I already HAVE WindowsXP Pro, and it's working fine. So, I won't need to buy ANY version of Vista.
Phew, I'm glad that decision's behind me.
No matter how fast they build a computer, Microsoft will develope a Windows version to eat up all the memory and processor power so that it will run at about the same speed and efficiency as a 286 running DOS.
This may be the OS that finally drives me to Linux.
Wow, guess its a good thing I just bought a PCI-Express 256mB video card, then.
Many of those PCI Express cards seem to use the main system memory to power them. EXAMPLE: one might have 32mb onboard and the system memory is supposed to supply the rest to bring it to 128mb.
so, you are telling me Lotus 1-2-3 on DOS/386 on VGA Monitor ($2000 computer back then) will run just as fast as Lotus 1-2-3 on Windows Vista/Pentium 8xx processors ($1000 computer) at lower price level?
maybe, you have a journalism degree?
Speaking of arstechnica.com, has anyone ever clicked on their forums? Specifically, their "Soapbox" forum is full of anti-America vitrol and endless Bush bashing. It almost rivals Democratic Underground for sheer stupidity....
Memo to self: Buy more Apple shares on Vista release day.
good luck with that new OS eveyone i'm not getting on the next M$ train.
i've got xp and it runs well.
if the linux guys can get their package install crap together then the only switch i would see is onto a linux train.
see http://smartpm.org/ for the key to getting linux past the next step towards real world use.
Most users never buy Windows. They buy a computer. Most computers are never upgraded, they are just demoted and replaced. The second-hand user simply continues with whatever OS was originally installed.
DELL sells about 150,000 computers a day, 365 days a year. Considering their market share, that means about 150 million new computers are sold every year, and 90 percent will be delivered with Windows.
Windows will add about five percent to the price of the computer.
I am still running win98se on a couple dozen machines. I am not missing anything vital that I have ever noticed. On some of my higher end machines it almost runs faster than DOS did on my 386. I can not imagine how slow this thing would b e by comparrison.
Okay, does this mean that if I want electric door locks I have to get the sunroof?
Oh, how "conservatives" on this board hate capitalism! And how people like you despise morality.
You have absolutely no evidence that consumers will suffer from this move. And yet you do not hesitate to defame thousands of honest hardworking people. It's less conservative of you than voting for Kerry.
By having dominant power, Microsoft has produced what is called coordination in economics and game theory, which has saved consumers uncaclulable benefits.
You should be proud of capitalism: it has made this country prosperous and surpassed any other system known to man. In the very least, learn something about it. Stop reading Java manuals and buy a book on economics.
With xp early on they did not support my video driver. Took them several months to do so.
But, in answer to your question, probably the top home edition. And I doubt they will not support that.
So you're saying that Linux users are lining up to buy Vista now? (At least that's what your picture seems to indicate)
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
You have absolutely no evidence that consumers will suffer from this move. And yet you do not hesitate to defame thousands of honest hardworking people. It's less conservative of you than voting for Kerry.
MUHHAAAAAHHAAHAAAAHHAAAA!!!!!!!
I'm not defaming anybody... But you defamed me.
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
Please remove the part of the title that is in parentheses: it's been added by the poster and constitutes anti-capitalist propaganda (opinion of the poster not rooted in any known fact)
The title should be left as is. Seven versions of the same (crippled or features left out) is definitely milking the market.
Holy Mother of God! "Coordination in economics and game theory"???
Yet another psychobabbling shill signs on to the Freep.
One more time you are screaming at the top of your lungs that you have no clue about either economics or business administration.
Go on, it's fairly entertaining to observe a delusion ignorant socialist that does not even think about Commandments and yet fancies fancies himself a "conservative."
It's entertaining to see a buffoon. Go on, please.
*If* it would be possible to stop all piracy, then the cost of products should go down, if not then they sell less product.
What I wanna know is if you have to now go through seven layers of former fry cooks to get it activated.
Nah, you just use that word for ALL things you are ignorant of. Reduced you feeling of incompetence for a moment.
Make sure you take your boots of when you go to bed tonight.
"Holy Mother of God! "Coordination in economics and game theory"??? Yet another psychobabbling shill signs on to the Freep."
You're both wrong.
http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/PureCoordination.html
1) It's not Pareto Cooperation
2) Pathetic that you apparently never took Microeconomics in college, or took time to learn one darn thing about the subject... It's far from "psychobabble."
I note you have a recent signup date. Nothing wrong with that, of course, yet it prods my instincts. You smell very familiar. Have you been here before under another moniker?
Correctomundo!!!!
I cannot believe people would want to spend money on a computer which can show HDTV since pretty soon HDTV players
will be YOU-BIC-QUIT-US! If you're making HDTV content, well
I understand, but to type out memos, notes, and e-mails?
How did people do all those things with the lowly
Mac Classics/Amigas/PC 8088's???
Is that anything like "queer theory"? :)
"I still don't get why folks are down on DRM. It seems to me that the only folks that should be down on DRM are the pirates and thieves. I, for one, welcome DRM as it should ultimately (eventually) make it easier (seemless) for me to use my computer to view copyrighted content from whatever form of media that I have chosen to pay for."
You won't be able to... the media can be tied to playback on a specific device. For this usage of DRM, you'll have to pay AGAIN to view it on a different device, if the seller wants you to.
All valid points by you. Plus what's in Office2003 that Office2000 won't do as well for 95% of users? Even Office '97 is suitable for most. And Microsoft makes a lot more money from it's Office suite than from it's OS sales.
"the only folks that should be down on DRM are the pirates and thieves."
it stops me from placing sounds on my portable mp3, the key word is my not the one they pick for me and it stops me from networking my archived files across my personal network.
does that make me a pirate or a thief???
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