VeeshanVault

I'm sorry, but could someone please clear up my technical ignorance? What could the Vista DRM possibly have anything to do with the drivers for a mouse and keyboard? Isn't the DRM just an attempt to stop copywright infringement? Last I knew, drivers for every product on the market are free.

You're totally correct. It's just Funkmasterr that has no clue what he's talking about.

The issue he's referring to is with 'unsigned drivers'. Unsigned drivers are drivers that have been released but haven't gone through the proper MS/Windows testing as specced by MS. You get this a lot when installing beta drivers or drivers for lower end hardware (like if you bought a shitty USB to parallel cable). The purpose of driver signing is to ensure that when an end-user installs a driver on their PC, it works well and doesn't cause any problems with the OS, that the driver is truly coming from the trusted source (i.e. the Nvidia driver you're installing is really from Nvidia). This is an example of MS trying to improve the user experience. This is also present in Windows XP, though MS made some improvements to it for Vista. Info below:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/d ... te]Digital signatures allow administrators and end users who are installing Windows-based software to know whether a legitimate publisher has provided the software package.

Earlier versions of Windows used digital signatures to discourage users from installing download packages, executable files, and drivers from untrusted sources. In Microsoft Windows Vista, new features take advantage of code-signing technologies, and new requirements for security in the operating system enforce the use of digital signatures for some kinds of code.

The following are new features in Windows Vista:
• Administrator privilege is required to install unsigned kernel-mode components. This includes device drivers, filter drivers, services, and so on. This applies for all development phases, including pre-release product code and non-product code such as tests.
• x64 versions of Windows Vista require Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS) in order to load kernel-mode software.
• Components in the Windows Vista Protected Media Path (PMP) must be signed for PMP, and all other kernel-mode components must be signed by WHQL or Kernel Mode Code Signing, in order to ensure access to premium content.
• Driver binaries that load at boot time must contain an embedded signature.
• Install packages and self-extracting executables downloaded through Internet Explorer must be digitally signed in order to run or install.
• Digital signatures are required for hardware-related drivers for the Windows Logo Program.
• Components must be signed by a certificate that Microsoft Windows "trusts" as described in the white papers on this site.[/quote]

Welcome to the entertainment Vetiria. Take a seat, I have a feeling we are just getting started!

It annoys me to no end that I have to go and research something so trivial to provide people with correct information because that fucking moron is posting incorrect information due to his own ignorance.

At least when someone calls me on something, I go look it up, do my own research and apologize when I know I'm wrong.

If Funk was indeed more intelligent that all of us, then wouldn't logic dictate that he would've been able to tell this friend about the difference between driver signing and DRM.

Vista is a small step up, some stuff has changed and some apps will not work cause of security. Disk burning apps and AV come to mind as prime problem areas. Video drivers are going to be a problem area as well but Intel(the onboard POS graphic adapters you find in most business machines), NVidia and ATI have already released drivers for the RTM version of Vista. Notebook drivers for video will be almost impossible to get for notebooks manufactured prior to Jan 2007 and will most likely require some sort of hack job to get the reference drivers from the card makers to run.

I'm re-installing Vista Ultimate this weekend for good and not going back to XP. Gotta be looking forward, not back.

I LOVE the way they re-did the user profile folders in Vista. Will make enterprise administration much easier by making things more granular.

Regarding the Nvidia drivers. For all but the 8800 series, from what I'm reading, there are few issues with any of their cards. SLI mode is still unsupported under Vista to the best of my knowledge, but allegedly the 100.50 drivers will be released on the 30th and will support SLI.

The current stance of Nvidia is that they're working hard with MS to get driver performance up to XP levels for legacy games etc. For anyone on the fence, you are likely to take an FPS hit in your favorite games under Vista. How bad it will be and whether or not you'll care will be largely dependent upon how good your hardware is.

noel wrote:Regarding the Nvidia drivers. For all but the 8800 series, from what I'm reading, there are few issues with any of their cards. SLI mode is still unsupported under Vista to the best of my knowledge, but allegedly the 100.50 drivers will be released on the 30th and will support SLI.

The current stance of Nvidia is that they're working hard with MS to get driver performance up to XP levels for legacy games etc. For anyone on the fence, you are likely to take an FPS hit in your favorite games under Vista. How bad it will be and whether or not you'll care will be largely dependent upon how good your hardware is.

You are spot on correct with this information as far as I've been reading as well. (A lot of my info comes reading the guru3d.com forums)

Nice work Noel on the Vista Issues thread.

Animalor has a link on that thread, but the first thing you should do is turn off the User Account Control (UAC). For anyone with a hint of computer knowledge, all the UAC does is pop up endless annoying warning messages. Turn it off and be happy.

I also had to use the fix to get Firefox 2 to play WMP11 audio internally awhile back. I discovered that while working on my Comic Forum website. I couldn't get the mp3s to play on my site until I fixed that.

Vista rocks IMO after spending quite a bit of time with it (a month of heavy use or so).

I really like the system fonts in Vista. Very clear to me. It's all the little things like fonts, search engine, reliability, etc that make Vista a nice upgrade.

CloneCD works for me in Vista. There was a fairly recent update to the program making it Vista Compatible. Alcohol120% mounts DVDs with no problem in Vista (again, probably need a more recent version, hit those newsgroups!) Nero Burning freaked out on me. I had to use WMP11 to create some audio CDs back in December.

Most apps are Aero Theme compliant now. Directory Opus is probably the last one I use that doesn't allow the semi transparent theme although it works fine anyway. Newsleecher, DC++, Dreamweaver, iTunes, etc all work well.

Zoomplayer has an issue with overlay in Aero so you just need to be sure to pick VMR Renderless and it won't conflict with Aero. If you don't use VMR Renderless, opening Zoomplayer turns off the Aero theme for the entire OS. Zoomplayer 5 final, has a nice new skin as well. (Zoomplayer's always been my favorite video player but I had to use a very spartan skin in the past because the default skin was so ugly)

I see Vista in non Aero mode whenever I use Remote Desktop. It doesn't look bad at all to me but I do prefer Aero.

Noel, Remote Desktop rocks for LAN. I use it on my laptop so I don't have to install all my main PC's apps. It's fast enough to handle everything but streaming video (and games of course). I was using it to view a Total Training tutorial for Dreamweaver last night. Sound was good but video slightly choppy. I'm wondering if gigabit would be able to handle video using Remote Desktop. I only have gigabit connected between my Terabyte NAS and main PC atm. I'd need to buy a gigabit Card for my Laptop. I'd be worth it for video if it works. Anyone have experience with Remote Desktop using LAN and a gigabit connection?

Actually I removed that link to turning off the UAC simply becuase I believe that the feature is a good thing for everyday casual Windows users.

For powerusers, I would leave it up to their discretion but UAC will intercept harmful processes trying to run and does give a pretty decent notification of people take the time to read the message.

I would only advise turning it off during the time it takes to install an application that it might interfere with and then turning it back on.

Anyone have experience with Remote Desktop using LAN and a gigabit connection?

You bet. It works fine. I use it daily in the office to connect to my SQL Servers. (I like to work locally on the servers when dealing with v2000)

I also use RDP from home via VPN/cable, but of course that is not quite as fast--but certainly faster then methods 10+ years ago.

Winnow, I can probably test it later (I've got a Gigabit switch sitting on my desk), but I seriously doubt that a 100Mbps connection is the limiting factor on Remote desktop streaming video (unless there's a SHITLOAD of other traffic going on simultaneously). More likely the manner in which Windows has to package the data isn't optimized for that yet, and you're dealing with a slow piece of software/processing limitation than a network limitation. I'll test it and get back to you.

On the subject of UAC, Animalor and I have been talking about it offline, but here's my opinion:

1. I think it's a huge step in the right direction and really no different from the sudo command on Funkmaterr's favorite OS (that he doesn't configure himself) Linux.

2. When you first get Vista and you're in the process of installing your applications and getting set up, it's really fucking annoying. At this point I can see where a lot of users will simply disable it. I do not recommend this.

3. At some point after you've got everything the way you want it, UAC won't pop up nearly as often, and you'll know when it will pop up, so when it pops up and you're not expecting it, you'll probably read the information and it might help you out.

I definitely recommend you not turn off UAC until you've used Vista for at least a month, month and a half to see if it really bothers you enough to care. It is intrusive, but it's there for a reason and I think as apps get written to work with UAC, there will be less instances of having to set things up to 'run as administrator' and to change things that require a UAC prompt. Just my personal opinion.

noel wrote: I definitely recommend you not turn off UAC until you've used Vista for at least a month, month and a half to see if it really bothers you enough to care. It is intrusive, but it's there for a reason and I think as apps get written to work with UAC, there will be less instances of having to set things up to 'run as administrator' and to change things that require a UAC prompt. Just my personal opinion.

UAC would have been better if there was a checkbox when a notice popped up that would allow you to disable the notice on a per app basis. I'd be fine with disabling on the fly, weeding out the bogus notices and leaving anything that might be important later on.

I couldn't agree more.

I've often argued that MS has erred on the side of usability where usability/security is concerned. In this case, I think they went too far. As I said, I'm really hopeful that future updates and third-party apps will make UAC less intrusive without watering it down.

MS really is damned if they do, damned if they don't though and I can see where they'd err on the side of security since that's where they take the bulk of their criticism.

So let's see..

- They remove support for all of SQL 2000.
- They remove support for SQL MSDE of course (part of SQL 2000).
- SQL Express which should replace MSDE is not supported on Vista without SQL Express SP2.
- SQL Express SP2 is not available and has no release date.

God I hate Microsoft..

I read that RDP 6.0 (the version included in vista) supports multiple monitors. Can anyone confirm or deny that?, I would love to be able to use both of my monitors when connecting to other computers.

I think that the problem with using remote desktop to watch video is the buffer size used by the RDP protocol (this is a hunch, I did zero research on this specific problem). I know the buffer size used by pre-6.0 RDP was the limiting factor for resolution (different clients like ishadow "faked" higher resolutions), and they increased the buffer size to allow higher/widescreen resolutions in 6.0.

Aardor wrote:I read that RDP 6.0 (the version included in vista) supports multiple monitors. Can anyone confirm or deny that?, I would love to be able to use both of my monitors when connecting to other computers.

I think that the problem with using remote desktop to watch video is the buffer size used by the RDP protocol (this is a hunch, I did zero research on this specific problem). I know the buffer size used by pre-6.0 RDP was the limiting factor for resolution (different clients like ishadow "faked" higher resolutions), and they increased the buffer size to allow higher/widescreen resolutions in 6.0.

I know RDP 6 supports 1920X1200 but I don't have Vista installed on my laptop or at work to check (and I don't have Remote Desktop 6 installed nor multiple monitors at work : (

I can confirm old versions of RDP work great with Vista though.

Kelshara wrote:So let's see..

- They remove support for all of SQL 2000.
- They remove support for SQL MSDE of course (part of SQL 2000).
- SQL Express which should replace MSDE is not supported on Vista without SQL Express SP2.
- SQL Express SP2 is not available and has no release date.

God I hate Microsoft..

Removing support for SQL 2000 is a horrid idea. Hell, 75% of my Prod/UAT/QA/DEV SQL Servers are 2000. Granted 2005 (at least Ent versions) has many great (and some notsogreat) improvements, base 2000 functionality is what most people need anyways...granted, you still need to buy SQL LightSpeed...but you have to do that anyways unless you want retardedly large and slow BAK/TRN files...

I digress....

Aardor wrote:I read that RDP 6.0 (the version included in vista) supports multiple monitors. Can anyone confirm or deny that?, I would love to be able to use both of my monitors when connecting to other computers.

I think that the problem with using remote desktop to watch video is the buffer size used by the RDP protocol (this is a hunch, I did zero research on this specific problem). I know the buffer size used by pre-6.0 RDP was the limiting factor for resolution (different clients like ishadow "faked" higher resolutions), and they increased the buffer size to allow higher/widescreen resolutions in 6.0.

I can confirm.

Also, you can set this up to run in Win XP. However I heard it breaks Remote Assistance so if you have a need for that. Thread also says it's now included in Windows Update so can maybe check there too!

http://forums.speedlabs.org/index.php?topic=1487

one quick question with respect to remote desktop:

If I am accessing my Vista machine remotely via a WinXP client is that possible? Or do both have to be Vista?

Thx

It works great. Vista supports a new extension to RDP that XP Pro doesn't (might be an update). I don't recall the exact name, but when you enable remote access on your Vista box you have to uncheck the box that says allow only (feature name) remote clients.

I'd check it for you, but I'm typing this from my Crackberry and far away from my PC at present.

Either way, it works fine in either direction.

What Noel said (XP Client --> Vista Server) works great. I haven't updated to the RDP 6 on XP but I think that allows for some more functionality...not sure what though. I see all the Vista Effects, cursots, fonts, etc except for Aero's transparent effect.

I don't remember unchecking anything in Vista in order for it to work with XP but maybe you do.

Whatever you do, don't check " show background/wallpaper" or whatever it is. That slows things down quite a bit. I turn off menu animations (not on my main machine but from the client connecting to it) as well for a little more speed.

thx info!

There are three options in Vista for Remote Desktop:

* Don't allow connections to this computer

* Allow Connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)

* Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (more secure)

My version of XP Pro doesn't support Network Level Authentication. I assumed it was a Vista only thing, but maybe I can upgrade it in XP Pro?

Anyway, here's all the info from the help file on the Vista machine:

What types of Remote Desktop connections should I allow?

The following information will help you decide which setting to choose on the Remote tab in System Properties:

Select Don’t allow connections to this computer to prevent anyone from connecting to your computer using Remote Desktop or Remote Programs.

Select Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop to allow people using any version of Remote Desktop or Remote Programs to connect to your computer. This is a good choice if you don't know the version of Remote Desktop Connection that other people are using.

Select Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication to allow people with computers running versions of Remote Desktop or Remote Programs with Network Level Authentication (NLA) to connect to your computer. This is the most secure choice, if you know that the people who will connect to your computer are running Windows Vista on their computers. (In Windows Vista, Remote Desktop uses NLA. You can also download NLA as a service pack on computers running some earlier versions of Windows.)

What is Network Level Authentication?

Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a new authentication method that completes user authentication before you establish a full Remote Desktop connection and the logon screen appears. This is a more secure authentication method that can help protect the remote computer from hackers and malicious software. The advantages of NLA are:

It requires fewer remote computer resources initially. The remote computer uses a limited number of resources before authenticating the user, rather than starting a full Remote Desktop connection as in previous versions.

It can help provide better security by reducing the risk of denial-of-service attacks (attempts to limit or prevent access to the Internet).

It uses remote computer authentication, which can help protect users from connecting to remote computers that are set up for malicious purposes.

To see if your computer is running a version of Remote Desktop with NLA
Click to open Remote Desktop Connection.

Click the icon in the top left corner of the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box, and then click About.

Edit: According to this page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925876 Monitor spanning is now supported.

Windows Vista clearly is not a great new performer when it comes to executing single applications at maximum speed. Although we only looked at the 32-bit version of Windows Vista Enterprise, we do not expect the 64-bit edition to be faster (at least not with 32-bit applications).

Overall, applications performed as expected, or executed slightly slower than under Windows XP. The synthetic benchmarks such as Everest, PCMark05 or Sandra 2007 show that differences are non-existent on a component level. We also found some programs that refused to work, and others that seem to cause problems at first but eventually ran properly. In any case, we recommend watching for Vista-related software upgrades from your software vendors.

There are some programs that showed deeply disappointing performance. Unreal Tournament 2004 and the professional graphics benchmarking suite SPECviewperf 9.03 suffered heavily from the lack of support for the OpenGL graphics library under Windows Vista. This is something we expected, and we clearly advise against replacing Windows XP with Windows Vista if you need to run professional graphics applications.

We are disappointed that CPU-intensive applications such as video transcoding with XviD (DVD to XviD MPEG4) or the MainConcept H.264 Encoder performed 18% to nearly 24% slower in our standard benchmark scenarios. Both benchmarks finished much quicker under Windows XP. There aren't newer versions available, and we don't see immediate solutions to this issue.

Original Tom's Hardware link


Still failing to see a reason to upgrade, and I've been the type of person that was the first in town to install the newest Windows versions ever since Windows for Workgroups came out.

Siji wrote:

Still failing to see a reason to upgrade, and I've been the type of person that was the first in town to install the newest Windows versions ever since Windows for Workgroups came out.

Don't upgrade. Do it in 2010 or so. It's not critical but it's a much better OS than XP. I've been upgrading Windows since 3.1 and can say Vista is easiest to use and the least problematic of any windows OS yet.

Vista rocks. This may be because I have a high performance PC. If you don't, stick with whatever you're using.

The CPU intensive things I do have been no problem in Vista. Again, if you don't have a new Intel duo core chip, 2GB and a nice graphics card, don't bother but I think you do.

I'd never go back to XP. All the CPU intensive things in Photoshop seem to be working just fine as well these past few days. I've got the whole gambit of software loaded onto Vista and it all works fine.

As with any Windows upgrade, you need to tweak it over the next month or two after installing it to tailor it to your needs. Vista is full of positive surprises as you familiarize yourself with it, not the other way around.

For those expecting it to make you coffee or blow you, wait a couple years.

This is probably the second least significant upgrade MS has ever put out after Windows ME. That's not to say it's not a fantastic OS. 90% of the problems I've had with it are due to drivers or software not yet ready to take advantage of the OS.

That article is spot on [at present and with legacy applications].

That said, I have Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade downloading now. I need to be up on the networking changes, specifically IPV6, and I need to know the pitfalls of the OS inside and out. I think the main problem MS has is that XP is such a good OS, it's kind of hard to improve upon.

Still weighing the plusses/minuses...

Core2Duo 2GHZ, 2GB RAM, 512 GeForce 7700 Go, Notebook.... XP or vista, hmmmm.... I don't want to sacrifice performance, of course. Is it worth it? I do not need the "large crayon" approach aka Mac solution. Nor do I need 'ease-of-use'...jusr performance, that is all.

Thoughts?


PS: I am a DBA, so I only think in performance numbers....meh...

My thoughts would be that you give it a try and see if you like it. With that hardware, the performance differences would be negligible.

Acronis makes an image backup software (if you have something you can back up to). Back up everything you currently have on your harddrive as an image and install Vista to see if you like it. There are a lot of enhancements for mobile users.

Fine, but I don't really care about enhancements unless they are really beneficial. Is it worth going from XP Pro to Vista, in any case? I am all for sticking it on a different partition, of course. I just want to know if it is a resource hog.

People that like Vista will answer that question as no, people that don't will say yes.

I'll tell you that just like every MS OS since the dawn of time, the requirements are greater than the previous version. I'm not talking about the requirements on the box either...

With your system you should have no issues with resources. If you like XP and don't have a need to be up on the new OS in advance of other people then there's probably no need for you to upgradel

The differences in speeds etc. are mostly on lower end systems and shouldn't really affect you at all. Speed tests from this month's PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12830 ... ticle.html

The more I play with Vista the more I get the feeling that it is not a great OS. It is a decent OS with a bunch of fluff/merged in software on top of it. Meh.

Thanks guys!

It usually takes quite a while for me to roll to a new OS--unless it is 2003 Server. I wil go ahead and get my free upgrade and within the 6-8 weeks or so for delivery, I should be able to make up my mind (and have a copy running on a different partition).