1. I’d immediately begin a very public plan to phase out Trident and replace it with Webkit over the next two versions of IE.  I’d blog about it endlessly so everyone knows that while Trident will exist (with extended CSS and HTML 5 support, natch) in IE9, it will be a new, fully Webkit based browser by version 10.
2. Developers, developers, developers? Start bundling Python and Ruby with Windows to encourage cross platform development.
3. At the same time, it’s time to release a statement granting the freedom for developers to implement .NET on other platforms.  Fighting Mono in any sense just means more people won’t ever want to touch your tainted tech.
4. On that note, I’d start looking at free.  It’s time to start giving away Visual Studio.
5. I’d stop the artificial versioning.  Microsoft actively cripples their products.  They handicap their server OS to not recognize RAM until you shell out cash for a more expensive version.  Look at Citrix, who accomplishes this without the same aftertaste: XenServer is free, no limits.  But certain non-essential features are part of an enterprise package.
6. The cost of software is destined to approach free.  Office software is too expensive, and it’s why people are seriously looking at Google Apps and other office suites.  We’re all beginning to realize we don’t really need Excel, Outlook, and Word as much as we thought.  Once we can convert our PST files, the rest is just getting used to an alternative.

We’re witnessing the collapse of a major entity, I think, and it may take decades, but you can see the cracks now.  Zune doesn’t make money.  X-Box doesn’t make money.  Bing is never going to take any significant traffic from Google.  Windows isn’t generating the revenue it used to.  IE is less important than ever.  Office is finding its way onto fewer and fewer computers.  Linux is coming into its own.  Netbooks will almost certainly, in time, be owned by Chrome or something like it.  Windows Mobile is stale and unpopular on phones today with no suggestion that it will ever be able to compete with iPhone OS, Android, WebOS, or Blackberry OS.

Windows 7 is shaping up nicely; my department at work is enjoying our testing and can’t wait to deploy it.  But that doesn’t mean we’ll make a push to deploy it, we’ll just let it leak in.  And so will many others, most likely.

If you look around carefully, you’ll see the tectonic plates of technology shifting, as slowly as they always have, but as surely as they’ve ever been . Don’t miss it: what will one day be an exciting history is unfolding before us.

I got the first few steps knocked out, I selected WordPress,  gave it my MySQL username and password, and let it go.  It installed PHP for Windows, the MySQL connector, and WordPress.  Then I launched my browser and pointed to http://localhost:81 and… no.  Error 402.  I monkeyed with the site in IIS and was able to generate an error that simply says:  Parameter not found.

PHP is installed.  IIS assicates .php files with PHP.exe.  But Wordpress no worky.

Fail.

If you perouse the internet, you’ll see – pretty much everywhere – that Vista sucks. You’ll also see a super harsh, super successful Mac compaign aimied squarely at the PC and Vista, and you’ll see Microsoft abandoning the name “Vista” in their marketing initiatives in favor of their new “Windows, not Walls” slogan.  Lastly, you’ll see Steve Ballmer telling you that waiting for Windows 7 is okay by him.  So Vista, by pretty much all accounts, is a flop.

When I first began using Vista in February of this year, it was killing me.  Application after application wouldn’t install.  UAC prompts were bombarding me faster than I could “ok” them.  The system couldn’t copy across the network faster than I could retype my documents (it seemed, at least).   It was absolutely unusable.  

Almost a year later, I have to say, I’m really at home in Vista.  I’ve only ever seen 1 blue screen event, and, ironically, it was due to Apple’s iTunes 8 Vista USb driver fiasco.  Service Pack 1 fixed the network copying issues, pretty much every app has goten situated so that it works in Vista, the icon previews are nice, and there are only a few remaining annoyances; but XP has plenty of those too.  

I’m a Mac guy at heart, but truthfully, Vista is the prettiest Microsoft OS ever to come out of Redmond.  Whereas with XP I had to disable Luna just to not want to poke my eyes out, Aero is smooth and comforting.  The ribbon has grown on me, and the system doesn’t gradually become slower and slower, at least as fast as a naked XP box will.  

So there ya go – Vista is a decent product, albeit, after 2 years in the market.  I’d still recommend people wait for Windows 7 – no point in training users and getting them comfortable if Windows 7 will be a fraction of what the E7Blog is suggesting.  But the Vista/Windows 2008 combo is a good one.  I’m not suggesting it beats Leopard, but it’s certainly better than XP/2003.

Fast forward a few weeks and I finally decided to sync my contacts.  I backed up, then wiped my phone contacts and synced them with Exchange.  My contacts all arrived in good shape with their pictures.  But now iTunes doesn’t sync Contacts with my iPhone.  So the backend is now complex, but only on the Apple side.  

On the phone, email, contacts, and calendar are pushed to the phone, often times before they even show up in Outlook itself.   I sync my calendar from Outlook to Google and I pull my Google calendar down to iCal, only when I open iCal, since I’m subscribed via an ical file on Google’s servers.   I set up Address Book to sync with my Exchange server via the OWA interface that Address Book supports by default, but it only syncs every hour, and only when the Mac is running.  So it seemlessly syncs with Windows/Exchange, for free.  But it takes several programs to get to the Mac, and then, only once an hour.   

I sync less and less these days, but if the iPhone included the ability to sync via Bluetooth or wifi – both of which should be fairly trivial to implement – I’d sync much more regularly and trust my Mac to be the master copy.  Instead, due to Apple itself, I rely on Exchange.

All of this makes me wonder if one day in the not too distant future, I’ll be using a phone running Android.  After all, if all of my core data is synced elsewhere anyway, why would I want a phone that has no voice dial, can’t do picture messaging, can’t view flash, can’t do copy and paste, doesn’t allow for any wifi syncing, permits apps seemingly at will with no guidelines, gets more closed every month, has shitty battery life, and drops calls randomly?  Just because it has a pretty apple on it?

Click the link for a larger picture

Booting up, there’s nothing immediately different. I tried copying a 28MB file over the network to check on time. It copied the first half in light-speed, but then stopped. I called the guy whose machine I copied from: “Hey, did you just shut down?” His response, “Negative, I lost connection all of a sudden.” Uh-oh, I thought.

But alas, after he rebooted, I copied the latest ISO of gOS, which weighs in at 535MB, and it told me 60 seconds, and by jiminy, it took about 60 seconds.

Thus far – after 30 minutes use – I’ve only noticed one new feature, it appears Vista SP1 has some new “modes” of desktop wallpaper display, and can finally “stretch” wallpaper. Thanks God, because my larger secondary monitor always had stripes with Vista RTM.

Click the link for a larger picture

So, first impression? So far, so good. My biggest pet peeve – the abysmal network transfer speed – appears to have been quelled (potentially, we’ll need more data for a final conclusion). I’ve long since gotten used to the graphics and learned to enjoy the subtle fade-in/fade-out of apps. I still am warning people to stay clear of Vista for some time, and still have no plans to roll it out at work in the enterprise, but I certainly think that Vista is coming along. I think there’s a better shot that when Windows 7/IE8 come of age, people will be willing to rethink things on a larger scale.

Finally, not to have all headlines stolen this St. Patrick’s Day, Microsoft loosed Vista SP1 to Windows Update.

I have installed Safari 3.1/Win and this evening I will upgrade at home on the Mac. I am currently downloading Vista SP1 for my work PC. Reviews to follow, for certain.

It’s typical for me to buy/install new software for testing on my own machine. I can generally test most software and evaluate it pretty tough, so it seemed with the XP consumer drop-dead date fast approaching, I ought to have better than cursory familiarity with Vista. It’s also a good time to ensure that all of our critical tools run on what will, unfortunately, likely be a platform our IT guys run shortly. So I embarked on the Vista adventure.

The verdict? Well, let’s start at the beginning? You know how every review of Vista… like ever… has complained about UAC? Well, imagine that level of annoying times 10 and you can begin to understand UAC. The most pointless utility ever not only bugs you for virtually everything – including deleting shortcuts from the desktop – but also moves all over the screen so it’s impossible to predict where it will show up next. Also, sometimes it sits in the taskbar, perplexingly pausing application installs until you notice the subtle orange blinking and “activate” it. Also, UAC doesn’t require a password or anything, just a click. And best of all, it’s stupid. If I delete something that requires admin access, and then repeat the action, it sometimes asks for the permission twice in 10 seconds. UAC is the worst thought out decision a team that brilliant has ever produced, and it took me about 5 hours of use to de-activate it entirely.

Most applications, surprisingly, installed just fine. Even older tools I prefer – some from 2004 – work without any problem. However, many recent tools, mostly those from Microsoft itself, don’t. You cannot install the Windows 2000/2003 admin pack – essential tools for Windows network admins – onto Vista without a stream of commands not publically advertised by Microsoft. I built myself a big batch file to run it, and I will share that file on this site later. Eventually, I did get it to run. Turns out that it’s a “security risk” because it involves certain DLLs running at elevated privileges… or something. I don’t know. But it should be embarrassing for Microsoft that Windows Vista users can’t administer Windows networks. Embarrassing… or pathetic.

Every single window in Vista fades in and out. It’s a neat effect to be certain, but it’s overused. Sometimes dizzying.

You can’t use Windows Update anymore – you have to use a app built into the control panel.

The Start Menu is a disaster. Drilling into subfolders takes a good 2-3 seconds. And they are impossible to view as a whole. While it’s pretty, it makes me long for XP’s Luna Start Menu, which is odd, since I found that to be such an abomination that I always de-activated it immediately. It’s a nightmare.

The Control Panel is much more logically organized, except I used to know where everything was, and now I have no clue where to find it without scanning the whole damned thing.

Same goes for many folder options, locations on the hard drive (it’s now C:\Users, and profiles are in C:\Users\%username%\AppData), and some other configurations, which have mysteriously moved.

I changed the path of C:\Users\%username%\Documents to re-map to my H: drive on the network – as it’s ALWAYS been – and the .NET framework wouldn’t install. I had to un-map the drives to get it to work.

But the cherry on top – by far – was my adventure to get the Citrix admin tools installed. I kept getting an IMMEDIATE error on launch; I tried many versions of Citrix, same error every time. Eventually, I traced it back to the Windows Installer service, which wouldn’t run. At all – it wouldn’t start. I kept getting the same error: Windows installer service cant start Error 193:0xc1. I googled it and looked at all the results – Google it yourself. Here, I’ll even give you the link: “Windows installer service error 193:0xc1″. You’ll notice a lot of feedback, but lots of unanswered questions. I dug and dug and eventually started poking into the DCOM service, thinking this was the problem, since the Installer service depends on DCOM. But DCOM ran just fine. So I dug further. I tried everything I could: I rebooted, I tried everything as the local administrator, I removed all of my temp files, I unregistered some files. Eventually, I found an article on Microsoft’s K-Base that discussed some problems, but you’ll notice it only covers the ancient “Windows Installer Service 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0.” XP runs version 3, Vista runs version 4. Could these be relevant?

When I got to the registry search, the key it mentioned wasn’t there, but having been through the registry several times today, I decided to do a search for “msiserver” – which is the Microsoft Installer Service. I found the new key, and one of the sub-keys is called “ImagePath.” This key is present in almost all services and gives the location of the files it launches. In the case, the file was “C:\Windows\system32\msiexec /I /v” (those switches might be wrong). So, on a whim, I wondered if many the permissions on that file were wrong. I poked into the system32 directory and found msiexec, but it was a 0 KB file. Blank. Weird, huh? Then I realized that there was ALSO a “msiexec.exe” file. In short, the path was referring to the exe without an extension, and somehow, there was a blank file without an extension by the same name! Wha??

Simply renaming msiexec to msiexec.old and trying to restart the service did it. So that’s one possible fix for Error 193 – make sure the ImagePath references the proper path.

Anyway, re-building and migrating a laptop ought to take about 3-5 hours, depending on the volume of data to transfer, and setting up Vista took me the better part of 2 days. Will I recommend it for other users in our company? No way. Will I recommend it to other IT professionals? No way. Will I recommend it to anyone at all? Sorry, Microsoft, but no way. Vista is everything you’ve read. Pretty, but dumb.

I have high hopes for Service Pack 1, but I should think it’s fair to say “too little too late.” Vista is a disaster, even moreso when compared to Leopard, whose bugs are much less serious, many of which really merely annoyances (such as stacks and menu bar complaints). But Vista is the real deal: a sympton of a company too big to make sane choices. I will definitely be posting a SP1 follow-up, to be sure. Here’s hoping for a retraction.

That’s something I’ve told both users, helpdesk techs, and even IT managers for nearly a decade. “If you change something in the registry you don’t understand, you can render your system unbootable.” And yet, over the last 10 years, I’ve had my fingers pretty deep in the registry several times – especially with my high capacity terminal servers. But it wasn’t until this week that I really had my first stumble, and it was quite an adventure.

Read on for the exciting adventure in gory detail.

<!–more–>It all started with an attractive promise made by the folks at <a href=”http://www.kaxaml.com/”>Kaxaml, a lightweight XAML-optimized text editor</a>.  It seemed like a cool app, and I like to dip my toes into new types of programming from time to time to see if anything sticks.  After all, mere exposure to a myriad of new technologies puts you at the head of the pack in the IT world.  Honestly, most people don’t even know what <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaml”>XAML</a> is. 

So I downloaded the MSI for Kaxaml, which requires the .NET framework version 3.0 or greater.  WinFX, or .NET 3.0, is relatively new, and for most people, there’s little need to run this right now, so naturally, my work laptop, which has steadily chugged along on XP SP2 for several years, didn’t have it installed.  So I downloaded the .NET 3.0 setup files from Microsoft.  Halfway through the installation, I got an error message saying that the .NET framework could not be installed because I had the “beta 2″ version of “Windows Presentation Foundation.”  Fair enough. 

But the problem is, you can’t uninstall WPF beta 2, at least not directly.  You need a special uninstaller, downloadable from Microsoft, once you’ve validated yourself with your Passport, natch.  

So I downloaded the WPF beta 2 uninstaller.  And after it ran for a bit, it shared a tidbit with me about being unable to access a particular registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT .xaml or somesuch (It did provide me the entire reg path).  So, feeling brave and confident, I called the ‘ol Start > Run > Regedit and drilled down to the key in question.  

Wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have rights to the little bastard.  How can that be? I’m an admin, I certainly installed this myself, I’m using the Microsoft uninstaller.  So, I tried to grant myself rights, but alas… no go. 

So, my next step, being tempted by Kaxaml to see what it was all about, was the navigate to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT element and grant myself inheritable rights to the entire hive.  After all, I’m an admin, so what harm could this do? 

A lot, it turns out.  See, after that happened, I started having some troubles with Windows, like immediately! First, I noticed that right clicking files only gave me a few options: cut, copy, paste… that’s about all.  I borked my shell.  

So, I rebooted.  Whoops! That’s a problem, because when I log in, I see nothing. Nada, zero, zilch, squadoosh, a big ‘ol goose egg.  So, I issue Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the task manager, which runs, but when I select a new task and type any command, I get an error about being unable to find any program to open this application.  Doesn’t open Explorer, doesn’t open regedit, doesn’t open “cmd.” Huh?

So, I reboot into safe mode to get to the registry again, but guess what – no shell.  I’m f’ed.  My staff tells me to hit up the recovery console, but I’m scared because I have A LOT of data on this machine, and the recovery console has a long and sordid history of screwing up user accounts, so I opt to hammer away a little longer.  

Then, via <a href=”http://google.com”>Google</a>: A new trick! Holding down the shift key can produce a terminal window.  And guess what – EXE files launch! Weird, right?  

So I can get into the registry and I can get into several other apps now, such as a brower, but not Explorer.  Okay, we’re one step of the way there.  I get into the registry and attempt to give myself access to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive again, but guess what – now I have no permission to the ENTIRE HIVE.  The entire thing is blanked out.  Google is not much help.  

Eventually, I reboot an login as the local administrator, only to find the same problems, but this time, in the registrym with enough fooling around, eventually, I get the shell to run again, huzzah! But alas, no icons, just blank gray default icons where everything should be.  Not a single one shows, not a single one works.  In fact, even the Quick Launch toolbar is icon-less.  Still useless, but progress, nonetheless.

At this point, I’m getting tired of this nonsense, certainly feeling as though Kaxaml is not worth it, and upset I fooled with the registry to begin with.  My otherwise happy machine is truly useless.  Then, finally, after a million or so Google results, way too many cached pages, and lots of technet articles that didn’t help one iota, I find something.  I get back into the registry via the crazy Task Manager > Command Line > regedit trick from before, and give it a shot.  The recommendation is to grant “Everyone” full control to the entire CLASSES_ROOT hive.  At this point, why not? So I do, and like magic, all of my icons light up in full color! Shazam! 

..But it’s short lived, because nothing works.  None of my EXE files launch, they still give me an association error.  Turns out this is a common problem (although one I’ve never encountered with with NT since version 4: I’ve lost my associations for EXE files.  Actually, I had suspected this before, except the only way to change it is via Explorer, and I couldn’t get any explorer windows to open before, neither via the GUI or the terminal.  So now, with a still hobbling machine, I double click “My Computer” and get a window – thankfully.  I then drill into Tools > Folder options and associate “EXE” with “Application.”  And like magic,  it works.  The machine is restored in  full working order, full color, full function.  Ha ha, recovery console be damned.  

Except one thing: I still have WPF beta 2.  And guess what? I’m fine with that.  Sorry, Kaxaml, maybe on my next laptop?

I realize that the entirety of this adventure was based on me screwing around with my own registry against the suggestion of Microsoft, but it ought to remind everyone that even a seasoned technician can still make a mistake, and the registry is not a toy.  

So I remind you all, gently, “Don’t screw around with the Windows registry.”

Longhorn, years ago, was presented as delivering on three pillars. The pillars were: WinFS, a metadata based, database-like file system; Avalon, a new .NET graphical subsystem; and Indigo, a new communications framework. WinFS is in beta now, but delivers in a far different way than originally posed. Avalon, renamed Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF was delivered with Windows Vista and is available on XP. Indigo, retitled Windows Communication Foundation, is available in Vista as well. Initially, this lends some credence to the editorial, which suggests that it’s virtually impossible to name individual “missing features” from Vista.

But upon further thought, it goes further than “which feature is missing?” Because there are loads of things that are “missing” in the sense that they ought to be included. Ultimately, where Vista fails on a large scale is delivering on the promise it made. Microsoft, not only via promo videos, but also via their insiders like Scoble, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurott, started to lay the groundwork via conversations and ideas that promised a next generation operating system. A new OS, built almost entirely from scratch, almost entirely in managed code.

But they blew it. Big time.

In fact, they were so incapable of delivering that they infamously scrapped their work and rolled back to Windows 2003 SP1 in what would eventually be called the “Longhorn reset.”

Vista is an incremental change at best. This should come as little surprise, as Vista is pretty much, as described, XP enhanced twice over. Many of the changes that made it to the final version serve little purpose. The Aero interface is clunkier and less attractive than Apple’s. The Flip3D tool is cool, but ultimately, a toy. UAC is a disaster. WinFS isn’t there. Windows Mail received love under the hood, but is still second rate. The over-branding of every app and the un-customizable, dumbed-down UI is hatable. Pretty much everything about Vista is less appetizing than Windows XP, which is maturing really nicely.

Longhorn, on the other hand, was an idea. It was going to show us something new and exciting. It was going to be the best that incredibly talented engineers could come up with when they had unlimited budget, an amazing array of programmers, marketers, user interface experts, and powerful partners. But Microsoft collapsed under its own weight. They couldn’t commit to advancing things and making them work. Who could forget the Windows shudown crapfest article? This is likely a microcosm of the entire development of this OS: the lowest common denominator, the least offensive, the least problem causing thing won. And more often than not, it sucked.

This isn’t to say Redmond doesn’t count amongst its ranks, some of the best and brightest. It’s just that when you become that large, it’s hard to be nimble and stay on course. Microsoft’s newest utter failure is their foray into search — Microsoft has already lost search. I wonder if they will apply the same “we can do anything” attitude there.

The interesting thing is that Microsoft has pretty much admitted Windows Vista is a flop by feeding the press details about “Windows 7.” The very fact that they have already dumped Vista to focus on the next shining star is pretty telling.

Combine all of this with the dizzying number of “versions” of Vista, designed, as best as I can tell, to slowly extort money from you. There is no magic included with each version, you don’t get an extra disc, or more applications. You don’t get more at all, in fact, what you get is something simply less crippled. Microsoft intentionally sells versions of its own OS with features removed unless you pay more. This is the business behind the OS, and it is part and parcel of the problem – there is no respect for the client, either as a consumer or as a user. In short, they don’t deliver the best product they can, they deliver part of the product, and for more dollars, you can use some of what was there anyway. Since none of the version provide explicitly what I would want, I would need to buy the “ultimate” edition, which currently runs $329. That’s $200 more than Mac OS X Leopard.

So maybe I can’t name siginificant individual things left out of Vista besides WinFS. And perhaps the disappointment is not that the features are left out, but rather, that developers haven’t really leveraged them for fear that a Vista-only program is doomed before the first header file is included. But one thing is certain: Vista didn’t deliver on what most people expected, which was a new experience, a new OS, a new paradigm, a new adventure. Instead, they got a stinker that requires top-notch specs to perform half as well as XP. Microsoft may yet impress us with Windows 7. Perhaps their days ruling the roost of OSes have begun their long and painful wane. But one thing will remain forever clear when discussing Vista: what they “left out” was innovation and inspiration. And what we got is a flop.

The concept of “distrust the customer” is growing, and it’s forcing people to do the “wrong” thing more often. Who is most inconvenienced by anti-skip technology, FBI warnings, and CSS, the DVD content protection technology? There is no doubt: it’s the legit DVD consumers! Because pirates crack that in seconds, so only the real, paying customers even have to see it. Who is put out by the online activation of Microsoft products? Not the pirates – the real customers!

How do big dinsaur companies like AOL and Verizon and Discover Card, who have lost their ability to innovate and serve, gain customers? They don’t, they just refuse to let their customers leave. And that is what’s missing from life today: no one gives a shit about their customers anymore.

Yes, these are the days of restrictive cell phone contracts, where military men leaving for duty abroad are fined $200 by their carriers for terminating their contracts. These are the days when voting machine manufacturers, those doing the work of the nation, refuse to allow their software to be audited. This is the age where police, who once served at the pleasure of the public, scare law-abiding citizens like we’re in the Commuist Block.

Because in place of customer satisfaction, we have inflexible rules.
And, as a result, in place of protection, we have proactive litigation.
And, as a result, in place of common sense, we have strong government lobbies.
And, as a result, in place of the USA, we have a shell of liberty.

click on the pic for an enlarged view

This is terrible web design. Not only do I not know what the product does, I’m supposed to know which edition to click on to find out. Instead, I said “screw it” and I’m not going to bother with this thing. Microsoft is so out of touch with technologists it’s crazy.

Secondly, a promo for Windows 386. The first 7 minutes are completely boring, but skip to about 7:10 in and the chaos begins. You will never believe that someone actually thought this would sell Windows. The only thing is does is convince me that promo directors in the mid-80’s must’ve done A LOT of cocaine.

Only Microsoft actively strips out features – actively DOWNgrades their systems just to sell you more of the same product again. Apple sells OS X client and OS X server. Linux allows you to install anything you want. Not Microsoft.

Vista doesn’t address some of the core architectural problems with Windows. The registry, the start shortcuts, the myriads of places to store data and programs makes the system a litterbox after some time. Put simply, manging Windows is a pain in the ass, even the most die-hards of the Microsoft camp that I know admit that. My laptop is managed to an insane degree – I authorize every single cookie, I have a hosts file a mile long, I regularly run crap cleanup utilities. So I consider my laptop fairly clean. And yet, the last several weeks, logging in is a 5-7 minute process as I wait for it as it is “Applying personal settings.” THIS is an area where, if there were significant improvement, I would be impressed. But it’s not addressed. The mess is still there. And most users will crud up their systems til the point of being unuseable and eventually call me for help.

The most important thing that some brush over is the DRM foundation and the license. These are the most important aspects. I liken it to the US – “If I’m not a terrorist, why do I care if they listen to my phone calls?” This nonsense is the same basis for “I haven’t seen DRM, so it doesn’t bother me.” One of the largest motivations for the very creation of Windows Vista was to support protected content. That is what makes money for both Microsoft and their partners. Your system is tied up with DRM. And the pathetic license pretty much grants you the most narrow use that law would likely allow. How can they legally limit you from using the system virtually? Not to mention – does their bootloader still obnoxiously disrespect/overwrite any other bootloader you’ve installed?

A bunch of half-assed applications that people won’t even use – such as their new photo management application – don’t cut it. Vista just doesn’t tout a new way to use your computer, new features that are compelling, and frankly, it’s all about limiting the user in a package that pretends to make you a more powerful computer user. And ultimately, that’s my point: I *might* tolerate some of the underlying inconvenience if the system actually made me work better. But I don’t think it does. I don’t care about the photo manager, I don’t care about the contacts, I don’t care about Windows Mail, I don’t care about the new look, I don’t care about “Phishing Protection,” I don’t care about an IE sandbox, I don’t care about per-app volume sliders, I don’t care about the pathetically late fast system search, and I don’t care about address space layout randomization. In fact, the only thing I think is really good is UAC, but reports from my contacts suggest it’s as much a pain in the tail as anything, and that it may even be turned off by most users.

I also find it interesting that Coding Horror finds Vista’s best feature to be something that Spotlight on OS X has done for well over a year now.

I may end up running Vista at some point when I upgrade my work laptop. I certainly will not run it at home, I will sooner more to Linux than Windows for my personal stuff. But when I do, sadly, it will be as one of those “OEM” suckers, people who simply can’t avoid the Windows tax.

You may be tempted to call me a Mac fanboy, but if there’s any truth to that, it’s mostly because of two things: 1) I detest Microsoft’s business practices, and 2) even if I didn’t, Vista just doesn’t offer the user much in terms of improving productivity beyond a UI overhaul. Vista will not make me a better, faster, or smarter computer user. If anything, it will simply make me happier with my window decoration. There is almost nothing compelling about Vista for me, and I will certainly not be in line to get it.

If you’ve read my blog over any period of time (and I’m relatively certain that no one has), you’ve probably noticed my not so subtle conversion from Windows to Linux back to Windows and then firmly to a Mac. We are all Mac at my house now, and I don’t try to cover that up. At work, where I choose everything from a technology standpoint, we are Windows 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server, so I’m not especially anti-Microsoft. Anyway, fair disclosure.

Read on for the details.

It all started with this Zune review in the Chicago Sun-Times. Reviewer Andy Ihnatko concludes – well – here’s a quote: “The Zune will be dead and gone within six months. Good riddance.” There are plenty of choice quotes peppered through the article, but all essentially come to the same conclusion – that the Zune is aimed at pleasing the big record companies and not the user. Ultimately, the user interface is not intuitive; the setup is painful, with reports trickling in from around the internet of failed Zune software installs; the wireless capabilities are intentionally crippled; and the device is cheaply built, with the “scroll wheel” – which is lifted directly from the iPod – not actually being a scroll wheel, but rather, a wheel-shaped piece of plastic over four buttons shaped like a plus sign.

And while they all may be valid, the reason you simply cannot buy a Zune can be boiled down to three little words: Plays for Sure.

Why is the iPod successful? More on this in a second, but it ultimately boils down to the fact that Apple was able to integrate digital rights management – or DRM – without hindering the user experience. Most iPod/iTunes users haven’t even noticed that their music is locked down like this.

As a direct response, Microsoft began their Plays for Sure campaign. They based their content restriction on their flagship Windows Media Audio, or “WMA” format. As a result, you can have restricted or unrestricted WMA files. But be aware: WMA files only play on Windows unless you have either (for Macs) third party software or (for Linux) an illegal crack. These files are NOT cross platform. To make things even easier, your Windows Media files are all managed through the already integrated Windows Media Player which – if you’re not in the EU – has already been shipping for some time fully integrated into Windows. Sweet, right?

In order to placate hardware marketers *and* offer a wide product line, Microsoft locks in their DRM scheme and calls it “Plays for Sure” as in – buy this device and your music plays for sure! This way, they must’ve believed, people won’t be scared of the lock-in, but rather know that there is guaranteed compatibility.

Fast forward to now – the Zune comes out, and guess what doesn’t play at all (for sure)? Right! All of your old WMA files, all of your “Plays for Sure” songs, songs you’ve paid for – Gonzo. Zero. Cero. Zilch. Nada. Nuttin. They are flat out unusable on the Zune. Someone, somewhere, decided to take a different spin with the Zune, and all the old tracks you bought are now useless on this device. In other words, prepare to buy all of your purchased music again, at least, if you intend to use any of it on your Zune.

Furthermore, have you made yourself at home in Windows Media Player? Because you can kiss that goodbye too. Microsoft ditched WMP for the new Zune software. Not only that, but even if you load unrestricted files onto your Zune, they become restricted on your Zune! So if you download a free mp3 podcast – or better yet, your band’s demo song, which you WANT to give away – and beam it over wi-fi to someone, a practice inexplicably called “squirting,” – which is pretty much the only cool feature missing from the iPod – they get 3 days or 3 plays (whichever comes first, natch) to check it out. How incredibly useless.

Did I mention that the RIAA gets a cut of every Zune sold, because the chairman of Universal says that if you buy one of these devices, you’re obviously a thief who downloads music illegally? Well, [[http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003380831|it happened]]. Microsoft must acknowledge that people who use portable music players are thieves, because they are cutting in the music companies on the sale of the HARDWARE. Explain that one!

You see, the way I see it, the iPod is a success for three reasons:

1. Ease of use for a user
2. Useful features that users want
3. Unobtrusive DRM

Users don’t care about the record companies. Apple treats them like they are: third rate money grubbers who are unable to adapt to a new business model who will eventually become their own demise. But they get paid, because they have to, and users aren’t subject to that nonsense. The iPod caters to the user. You barely notice the DRM, the software to manage your songs is effortless, cross platform, and logical, the device can be used as a hard drive, and the music is fairly priced.

But the best reason is the DRM itself – the DRM is built around the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec, which is built on MP4, the successor to MP3. It’s unlikely we’ll see this fall by the wayside. When someone “cracks” the rights management of Apple’s “Fairplay” DRM – which happens regularly – Apple simply updates it.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has now demonstrated that if they don’t have a high enough market share, they will screw their customers, obsolete their audio collection, and introduce a new revenue stream, forcing you to re-buy all of your music if you want to use an updated device. They have updated WMA several times, several times have broken compatibility, and ultimately built a parallel system.

You can’t have any faith in the Zune. If you dedicate ANY of your time and money to it, there is no guarantee whatsoever that you won’t be abandoned in the next 6 months, year, or even two years. Your music will be useless, your music stream could become suddenly unavailable, and your purchases unplayable elsewhere. In short, nothing is ever “for sure” with Microsoft.

The iPod, conversely, has a long history and is selling like hotcakes. Even the third alternative, which is choosing from the rich and varied line of portable players for the Windows Media line – is a poor choice now that Microsoft themselves have stopped supporting it in their new products.

In fact, there are really *no* compelling reasons to buy a Zune. They aren’t prevalent, there are no third party devices to extend its functionality yet, and investing in the “assume you’re a thief” DRM scheme is risky at best.

Let me conclude with a quote from Saturday Night Live’s weekend update from last weekend: “On Tuesday, Microsoft released their iPod competitor, the Zune. Zune, as in ‘Hey, your Zune isn’t as cool as my iPod.’“

Let me quote: So you can’t create a virtual image using Home Basic ($199) or Home Premium ($239). However, the EULA does allow you to use Vista Business ($299) or Vista Ultimate ($399). Hmmm… I wonder why? It couldn’t possibly be because those editions cost more, could it? Wanna bet? The fact that there aren’t any technical restrictions in place to prevent users from loading Home editions into VMWare, only legal and support barriers, sure lends credence to that supposition.

Let me ask – is the language in the EULA even legal? Can Microsoft actually prevent me from running software I purchased – and therefore, is properly licensed – in a virtual machine? What’s next – can they dictate that certain types of devices cannot be attached to my computer? Or certain BRANDS? What about certain files not being stored in NTFS? Can they tell me that I’m not allowed to visit certain websites with their browser? Or that I can’t install certain programs?

I use Microsoft products at work, almost exclusively, but I must say, I really wish there were an *easy transition* to an alternative, because Micrsoft licensing SUCKS with a capital “FRIGGIN SUCKS.” I’ve written about Windows licensing and how much it sucks before. But it’s getting worse. And what’s even worse is that people won’t read the EULA and will continue to sign away more and more freedoms. Sigh.