First Timebomb Explodes in Vista
Last week came the first proof that Peter Gutmann's thesis is not FUD [fear uncertainty doubt]. The computer science professor from the University of New Zealand describes how the Vista operating system is fundamentally flawed.
All over the world, at the same time on December 31, the same Media Center tv tuner feature in Vista RC1 [release candidate 1] beta simultaneously stopped working. The problem is not with the tv tuner component, reports Ina Fried of CNET, but with two subcomponents, MPEG2 decoder and Dolby Digital 5.1. Microsoft had paid royalties for licenses to use these subcomponents only until 31 December. They will not be reactivated in RC1.
The problem affects as many as five million computers, including those using third-party tv tuners from nVidia and Cyberlink. "I can see now why people go for the bootleg versions of software. I have done everything correct, I registered for the Beta program and downloaded from the Microsoft Web Site, and now I can't use the software I wanted to use," says Andy Rodon on the Windows Vista newsgroup.
This is the first timebomb to go off in Vista, and Microsoft did not warn its customers ahead of time.
How often might your business be disrupted by this sort of Microsoft-induced instability?
Update
Other problems being reported by Vista users:
* Vista licensed for use on devices of "up to two processors" only
This was only for the beta of Vista and is not in the final release, which I really like. I bet 3rd party technology had to have time limits since it was free and due to licensing.
I have not had a crash of Vista in over a year and 3 machines all older than 1 year are running it fine including my TabletPC. Nice OS.
Posted by: Shaan Hurley | Jan 08, 2007 at 10:37
I'm not running Vista (in any form) but wonder why you'd put anything that might disrupt your business on a beta?
I presume the release version is not timing out in this way?
Posted by: RobiNZ | Jan 05, 2007 at 16:30