Are you planning to upgrade to Microsoft Vista?

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by wayner

Sorry to respond to a post four months later, but TiVo upgrades their OS quite a bit more often than MS which has an upgrade of once every five years. I belive that the current TiVo OS is 7.2 or later - I have an S1 Tivo that is running 3.0.

But I am still on Toast OS 1.0, I am waiting for a Bluetooth compatible toaster to communicate with my coffee maker and alarm clock!

Notice I said "Change" the operating system. I'm not talking about service updates and such. I'm talking about (for example) going from DOS 6.2 to Windows 95. My ReplayTV had many firmware and OS "updates" (which by the way gave me much more trouble than my HTPC does now).

As for the Toast ... heh heh .. you mean you don't have your whole house automated yet ??

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by wayner

I have two work PCs plus four PCs at home that are all on 24x7 plus a laptop that I use a lot and a laptop for my wife all runing XP - a combo of Home, Pro and MCE. I don't know if I get more then 1 blue screen per year per PC.

I will get other application crashes, particularly MC on my MCE machine right now but the BSOD is very rare on win XP - your mileage may vary

I've never seen a BSOD on my HTPC .. almost three years now, running Windows 2000 the first year and XP the last two.

BUT .. if I can ever find a two day window where I'm not recording something, I will be making a large hardware upgrade to the HTPC. After three years, I think I will be tempting fate.

Of course it's the old addage: "It wasn't broke, so I fixed it".

[Bigbird999]

But I am still on Toast OS 1.0, I am waiting for a Bluetooth compatible toaster to communicate with my coffee maker and alarm clock!

Probably only strikes me a funny cuz I have a weird sense of humor, and a Mac user to boot, but Toast is a Mac OS DVD burning software.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/to.../overview.html

BB

[Rich A]

Let us not forget the "Flying Toasters" ....

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by Rich A

Let us not forget the "Flying Toasters" ....

Or The Brave Little Toaster:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092695/

[darren_e]

FORK NO!!!!!
I have a system that works nicely that took me a while to piece together only to have hardware upgrade requirements, driver issues, DRM, and automatic updates that only swing in Microsoft's favor.....


...........Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeesshhhhhh!

I'll pass. Thank you but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thank you!

[CrAnIuM]

NSA helped Microsoft make Vista secure

Revelations about NSA's involvement in Vista's development raise concerns about possible 'back-door' access to data by the spy agency

[ZetaVu]

Back door data to the NSA? How about the MPAA? Maybe the RIAA? How about anytime you play an mp3 or mpg file, m$ uploads that info so the two content pimps can determine if you owe them money for it?

Based on the behavior of M$ being in bed with any powerful group that intends to spy on us, I strongly suggest Snapstream look into going cross platform (Yes, I know what a pain in the ass it is, but bankrupcy is a bigger pain in the ass)

I forsee m$ locking and restricting all access to third party apps like btv, collecting data and sharing without our permission, (or allowing others to collect data, so they can claim it's not their problem) etc etc. Apple is not much better at least with DRM ( that will be what kills them). Linux desperately needs drivers and video editting, once it gets that (and the ability to work with high end graphics) then that will be the platform of choice. SS can still make money on their product, they become a service provider in a sense.

Anyway, Friday rant complete.

[kramsauer]

I'm changing my response from not sure to NO WAY. There just isn't a reason to do so. I have all the features I want, am not all the concerned with security (I actively maintain the relevant protections) and don't want to fork over the dough for the software and the new hardware. So I'll just keep chugging along.

[kramsauer]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

How about the MPAA? Maybe the RIAA? How about anytime you play an mp3 or mpg file, m$ uploads that info so the two content pimps can determine if you owe them money for it?

This is speculation, I presume? This isn't a feature as it currently stands, right?

[ZetaVu]

Absolute speculation, however, considering their behavior with DRM and HD DVD, and the payout for Zune, I think it is safe to assume that any underhanded deal m$ is capable of doing with the xxaa's they will do and have probably written it secretly into their code.

I expect many nasty discoveries as people start taking vista apart and tracking its "phone home" behavior. The only way I'd feel comfortable with Vista is if I used a linux box as a network server and used that to physically monitor and restrict all communication between my vista box and the rest of the world.

[cncb]

Wow, the paranoia is really amazing sometimes. Some things like DRM are done so that we can have access to things that we otherwise would not have. Would people complain less if we didn't have access at all? I doubt it.

While Windows is susceptible to attacks because so many people use it, a good side to this in my eyes is that it means that a lot of people also "check up" on it. Any "phone home" shenanigans that you are afraid of will most likely get caught and the outrage will put things right.

I have to officially change my vote since I have been using MCE exclusively for the last several months and am looking forward to my free Vista upgrade and any cool new online services that will be added.

[cfaslave]

DRM etc aside, I won't be upgrading to Vista because I would rather others deal with the problems of a new operating system over the next few years and hash those out first. Secondly, I think XP suits my needs fine without adding higher system requirements on my PC's. When you use your PC for an HTPC, it makes sense to me to keep it fairly lean and let the hardware focus on what's important - the HTPC, not a more-bloated OS. Some day I'll likely switch, but it will be a while for sure.

[Bilar Crais]

I did upgrade to Vista, thanks to the University of Mary. I gave it a week, but I was plagued by continual REFERENCE_BY_POINTER BSODs - serveral per day. Not exactly ideal for an HTPC. Even running just the basic Vista theme, my hardware is simply not up to the task (read S-L-O-W). It's just unbelievable how resource intensive Vista is. I have enough RAM, my harddrive got a 5.9 out of 6 on the Vista Experience Performance rating, but my Video card only scored a 2.3. I would have been willing to try a better video card if not for the death screens.

On the other hand, Vista does not support the hardware acceleration that my sound card is capable of, digital pass through does not work, nor does Vista utilize the HW accel of my onboard LAN. Further, overlay rendering is no longer officially supported, DXVA for video is broken....sheesh.

Thanks, but no.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by Bilar Crais

On the other hand, Vista does not support the hardware acceleration that my sound card is capable of, digital pass through does not work, nor does Vista utilize the HW accel of my onboard LAN. Further, overlay rendering is no longer officially supported, DXVA for video is broken....sheesh.

Well, the OS is not officially released and most drivers are "beta". It's not surprising you had problems. We'll see in a few weeks if everything is really ready...