A peek into what You are really buying with Vista and some rumors squashed
09.06.06 - 08:41pm
Microsoft has released the prices for their new operating system, Windows Vista. This has got to be one of the best “get rich quick” schemes I’ve seen in a long time. When the specifications for Vista were announced a few years ago it featured a ton of awesome features such as WinFS, a revolutionary relational file system. Over the last couple of years Microsoft has slashed and destroyed all the interesting aspects of Vista so that it is now an improved version of Windows XP.
Big Money Microsoft
From the beginning it seems like Microsoft has dropped the ball on this project. I don’t know if they tried to do to much, weren’t organized enough, or simply lacked the talent, but somewhere in the chain there is a weak link that is screwing them over. If the majority of the world didn’t use Windows I’d probably be a *nix guy after spending a few weeks toying around with it. Now that I’ve ranted enough, here are the cold hard facts. The base installation named Vista Home Basic runs for $199.00 for a full installation and $99.95 for an upgrade. Vista Home Premium which is the next step up runs for $239.00 for a full install and $159.00. Then you hit Vista Business which retails for $299.00 and $199.00 for a full install and upgrade. If these prices aren’t outrageous wait till the last installment, Vista Ultimate Edition will yank $399.00 out of your wallet for a new install and $259.00 for an upgrade. To put this in perspective I can buy a processor, motherboard, gig of ram, and cheap case and powersupply with $400 and have money to spare to buy some lunch.
The Goods
On the brightside Vista will showcase a few new technologies which are worthy of attention. DirectX 10, supposedly the last installment in the DirectX series, will be fully supported by Vista. DX10 will include new shader protocols, more pretty objects, shiny items, and general improvements in visual presentation. The upcoming round of DX10 video games look rather stunning which means hardware requirements will easily double in the next 6 months with the release of Vista. If you think playing Oblivion is like watching a movie in slow motion, just wait for the DX10 games especially those featuring the Crytek engine.
Vista also will support the IPv6 protocol which helps relieve the scarce amount of IPv4 IP addresses. For those of you that didn’t know of this, we were running out of IPv4 addresses. The IPv4 protocol had enough bit variations that it could generate 4.3 Billion(4.3 x 10^9) unique IP addresses. That is a ton of address, right? Well then take into fact that the global population is a staggering 6.542 Billion people. 4.3 Billion is roughly 2.2 Billion fewer than 6.542 billion. This is where IPv6 steps in, there are 3.4 x 10^38 possible unique addresses which translates to 50 octillion (5×10^28) addresses per person alive at this moment.
Now that I have blown away your mind with all my cool numbers, what does this mean for Vista and the Internet? Windows Vista uses a dual stack which is basically a collection of code that supports both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. Now if you don’t know what DNS servers do, go off and read this first or continue reading and try to pick up what I’m saying. According to Paul Mockapetris, the creator of DNS, because Vista has a dual stack it will double the amount of DNS traffic flowing through the Internet, which will in turn cause DNS brownouts and blackouts as DNS servers are overwhelmed with IPv4 and IPv6 requests from the same boxes. If you have no clue how the DNS system works then yes, perhaps you could panic, inform all your neighbors, and start collecting canned goods. To start Mockapetris fails to understand that the whole world might dance to the beat of Microsoft’s drums but the whole world will not upgrade to Vista the day it launches. The second point he fails to note is that there are lots of upstart DNS companies, OpenDNS being my favorite and one of the most popular. This new field of companies accompanied with corporate and global upgrades to DNS servers should help curb any increase in traffic that Vista will bring to the table.
I would consider IPv6 and DirectX 10 to be great upgrades for Windows and some of the less crucial things such as the Sidebar, Aero, and Gadgets really contribute to the system, but you also have some problems that stick out like sore thumbs, namely Internet Explorer 7. Earlier this summer Microsoft released the IE7 Beta 2 version that was supposed to be the most secure IE to date. Within 24 hours there were reports of bugs, security compromises, and general software problems. Microsoft has acknowledged that they suck at designing browsers and has duly noted all the bug reports so hopefully when Vista releases those holes will be plugged up.
Conclusion
It looks like for the next year or so I will be holding on to my RC-1 Vista disks as the prices to upgrade my little farm of computers would be in the excess of $1000 dollars. Thankfully I and the world will have many years of life left in Windows XP as the world slowly rolls over to Vista. Those people that do adopt Vista early, don’t be afraid, it will not break the Internet and it can’t be any less secure than Windows XP currently is. Now it is time to go place an order for a few billion IPv6 addresses.
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