Here Today... Gone To Hell!

How they only make things to work for the most recent operating system now.

Games-need XP only
Direct 10 graphics cards- Win Vista only

its annoying how they are trying to force you to buy there latest software, and at a lovely price too.


does anyone else get annoyed by them using these methods to force you into getting the most recent OS.

would you complain that you cant play PS3 games on the PS2?

what about dvd players, not so long ago, they could only play some formats and not them all...

funny how people blame Microsoft for everything yet it's not their fault in this case

you want to play the latest games at ?40 but frown paying for upgrades to your system to cope with the better quality games...why do you think they are better quality then? ill tell you, because you have a better system to play those games on

and maybe you should blame the makers of the games and not Microsoft, Microsoft only make the operating system, they dont make the PC, the hardware or most of the games

cest la vie

but at least with a pc you get the opportunity to upgrade

Actually both of u are right. The games that run only on WinXp aren't really Microsoft's fault. Game manufacturers write their games to take advantage of Xp's features and most have stopped support for older Win9x versions. However, the DirectX 10 issue is a  little tricky. Microsoft has stated that DirectX 10 and above will be available only on Windows Vista. No support for Xp and below. This means that at some point in the future, when all games start requiring a minimum of DirectX 10 to run, u'll have to upgrade to Vista (which thankfully will be some time for now).

Now, some say this is because of the underlying OS technology that DirectX 10 requires. Since with Vista, Microsoft is handling graphics and cards differently, a clean cut away from DirectX 9 is needed. However, u can always run DirectX 9, without the features requiring DirectX 10 and run games that way.

We'll just have to wait and see how the problem unfolds...

the difference there is, so yuo spend all the money to upgrade the system...then your asked to pay ?500!!! for a first edition of the new windows OS!!!

Do you work for Microsoft? :P :D

man its a moot point, Q covered it rather well with the simple statement would you expect to play PS3 games on a PS2 or a PS1 for that matter? Vista is not dropping for for awhile yet... less then a year i think now... and you will have at least one full game generation before they take full advantage of the hardware and software now out for these games. if the cost of better games is buying a new os on top of the upgrades then so beit. If you buy your upgrades properly then you should only have one huge upgrade every 3 years, that being MB CPU and memory, video can fall in the mid times but if you spread out your upgrades right every 3-4 years you should have a new system except for HD's and moniter.

as for vista..... there are.......howmany different versions of it?....5 yes 5 differnet versions and the 500 bones your talking ... i thnk that may be a bit high..... even for international ultimate edition.... though i may be not that far off.... XP pro released for $299USD and was selling for about $340 international. you can buy the basic version and quite bitching about the price... im sure that it will post for around $200USD

well hell if you want to get vista... starting now put 1 dollar away per day till it releases and u should be able to pick it up with out any problem.......

Well my boss and buddy Bill Gates told me I had to defend Microsoft's products ...he told me the world needs love and Microsoft has lots of love to share...he told me to go to the root of all this evil, namely the HTGTH GNR forum, and spread the Microsoft love 2006 style...do you have a problem with that?...if you want to join in with this joyous campaign please buy the products below from the HTGTH foyer

- Microsoft Love, the Guns N Roses Comeback T-Shirt
- Microsoft Windows A.X.L. - the GNR edition
- The Bill Gates Bobblehead complete with Chinese Democracy logo embossed head

PS. Please donate money to the Bill Gates foundation. Feel the love, show the love, make it happen, the world is depending on you

(http://www.a2zit.org/gallery/albums/album04/Bill_Gates.jpg)

That's not a good analogy.

The hardware in both cases is very different, and game companies will support both until it's not profitable to support the PS2 anymore. Perfectly understandable capitalism at work.

However, some people bought a computer with perfectly good hardware and unless they shell more money to MS, their *unchanged* hardware won't be able to run new games. For example, MS has announced that Halo 2 will require you to buy Windows Vista, even though it won't require Direct X 10.

Technically it would be possible for Microsoft to release a patch for Windows XP that would overcome any technical problem that keeps new games from running. Of course, they'll be selling the patched Windows XP as "Windows Vista" so releasing that fix for their customers for free is not in their best interest.

That's what happens when you have a monopoly.

I can upload what ever microsoft program you want.
it would be my pleasure!!!

No publisher would FORCE someone to get Vista to play a game, unless they're deeply tied with M$. Sure, you won't get the best graphics, but you only care about gameplay, right? Otherwise, if you can afford a $300+ DX10 card (probably will cost even more, maybe $400, when they debut), you can also afford Vista.

didnt you guys hear of file sharing? ::)

sure maybe its not the best analogy, but its a decent analogy

if youre talking about games, technically they arent a monopoly...also you have a choice of xbox or pc to play that game havent you?

if you dont like it, dont buy it...that's also the way commerce works


and you think stealing someone else's work is a good thing?...

if that someone is microsoft, than yes.

This is not about the Xbox at all. Yes, Microsoft is not a monopoly there (yet), they're a convicted monopoly in the OS business and this thread is exactly about that.

They're forcing people to move to Vista, and the reason they can do that is because they have complete control of the market (obtained through illegall practices, the kind of actions which you're rightfully condemning in this same thread).

The "don't buy it" part works great in theory, but it only works when you have a free market. That's why we have laws against monopolies.

convicted? what do you mean by convicted?...what are they convicted of?

forcing? who is forcing you?

most game manfacturers make games for ps, xbox, nintendo, pc, not a monopoly
you have macs, windows pc's and linux pc's and you can get similar software on all of them, not a monopoly

illegal practices? like what exactly?

who built directx? please tell me that? wasnt it microsoft?

the dont buy it part does work...if you arent greedy and dont want everything as soon as...boohoo you cant get the latest game...oh brother

and yes i have reason to dislike what microsoft do...




if you ever work for years on something and then it's stolen just remember what you said here

They've been convicted of being a monopoly (and many other illegal actions, just Google for it). They've done several illegal practices like building a monopoly and taking advantage of it (again, there are many other examples too). To be honest I'm surprised you even had to ask, because they're so many and so widely accepted even by Microsoft.

As far as buying their products, I personally don't, and I never have. And I don't use "stolen" copies either, I just don't use them. I'm in a position where I can choose, which is not something everyone can say, unfortunately, because so many non open standards are promoted with a Microsoft platform that it makes it so hard to build an alternative.

Microsoft built DirectX, a closed standard, to compete with OpenGL, an open standard. Among other things it makes it a lot harder to build cross platform games. (a game written in OpenGL, like Doom 3 for example, can be almost trivially ported to Linux and Mac OS). And because it's a non-open standard, it's damn hard to add DirectX compatibility support to another platform. (btw, one of the things Microsoft has been ordered to do is document their interfaces so competitors can build compatible products).

And again I think you're completely missing the point of this thread. The poster does not want to upgrade to Windows Vista, but he already realized that he will be forced to. Not because Vista will be too damn good, but because of Microsoft's practices (in this case though maybe not illegal, at least condemnable. He's a customer and has the right to complain; if MS was smart they would listen to him).

One last thing, not having a license to use a piece of software is not stealing. It's a copyright violation to get that software, yes, but it's not stealing.

I'll just leave one link here, in case you use MSN instead of Google.  :hihi:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html

Exclusionary Per Processor Licenses--Microsoft makes its
MS-DOS and Windows technology available on a "per processor"
basis, which requires PC manufacturers to pay a fee to Microsoft
for each computer shipped, whether or not the computer contains
Microsoft operating system software.

"Microsoft has used its monopoly power, in effect, to levy a
"tax" on PC manufacturers who would otherwise like to offer an
alternative system," said Bingaman.  "As a result, the ability of
rival operating systems to compete has been impeded, innovation
has been slowed and consumer choices have been limited."

ok, 1994, long time ago...but i get your point...but i dont think Microsoft has stifled innovation in the last 10 years...if anything it's increased a dozen times

as far as im concerned if i build something, im not sure i would give it away either...Direct X is a Microsoft product...they dont have any right to open it up to let anyone else know how it works...there exists an open standard, if the games manufacturers were concerned then all their games would use opengl eh...you said it yourself...there is more profit in a larger market...and that is choice...

just because a single game Halo (a Microsoft Game) works on Windows Vista (A Microsoft operating system) using Direct X ( A Microsoft Product) doesnt make you "forced" to buy it...and no, im not missing the point of the thread...i have a different view thats all...if i wanted to play games id have a dedicated gaming machine not a PC

i wasnt referring to you about the copyright thing..anyways

and where on earth did you get the view that copying copyrighted works was not stealing?...thats the view of many of the open source community that wants everything for nothing while looking down at people who want to be paid for their work

so look at it this way...just an example, ... you spend 5 years working on a project sell 1 million copies at ?100 each =?100 million...total expenses for working on project say are ?80 million...?20 million profit...alternatively lets say that half a million of those copies are illegal which means ?30 million of a loss...so you think that's not stealing is it?...only in the eyes of a pedant

here's the answer to your problems  ;)

(http://malison.org/cpg132/albums/userpics/10001/normal_5272_1.jpg)

Microsoft court cases have been going on since forever, but they did not stop in 1994. Like I said, google it. If MS had been forced to change in 1994 we'd have a very different market today.

When I mentioned open standards I'm not talking about open source at all, there's no need to even bring that up on this thread. Microsoft has been forced by court to open up their standards so competitors can build compatible products to fairly compete with them. They've also been accused of not complying so far, but that's another story. Open standards and open source are two very separate things.
For example, the .doc format of Microsoft Word is not an open standard. That means you have to do a lot of reverse engineering in order to build a word processor program that can read and write .doc files, which is a must if you want to compete on the market today. It's also a problem for users that they depend on Microsoft alone to read their own documents.

Them forcing people to upgrade to Vista by using their other products and encouraging other companies to do similar may not be illegal but it's not what's in the best interest of their customers, it's in the best interest of their investors. I would even say it's disrespectful. You can't say to a MS customer that he is 'wrong' to be upset, because it's his right to do that. And in my opinion they're only in position to do that to their customers because they have illegally taken up the OS market.

About the copyright thing, it's not stealing if you look up what stealing means. It's just not. When Lucky makes an unauthorized copy of a MS program they're no losing a dime. If he did not make that copy then it's a possibility that MS would be selling one for andard. Among other things it makes it a lot harder to build cross platform games. (a game written in OpenGL, like Doom 3 for example, can be almost trivially ported to Linux and Mac OS). And because it's a non-open standard, it's damn hard to add DirectX compatibility support to another platform. (btw, one of the things Microsoft has been ordered to do is document their interfaces so competitors can build compatible products).

And again I think you're completely missing the point of this thread. The poster does not want to upgrade to Windows Vista, but he already realized that he will be forced to. Not because Vista will be too damn good, but because of Microsoft's practices (in this case though maybe not illegal, at least condemnable. He's a customer and has the right to complain; if MS was smart they would listen to him).

One last thing, not having a license to use a piece of software is not stealing. It's a copyright violation to get that software, yes, but it's not stealing.

ok, 1994, long time ago...but i get your point...but i dont think Microsoft has stifled innovation in the last 10 years...if anything it's increased a dozen times

as far as im concerned if i build something, im not sure i would give it away either...Direct X is a Microsoft product...they dont have any right to open it up to let anyone else know how it works...there exists an open standard, if the games manufacturers were concerned then all their games would use opengl eh...you said it yourself...there is more profit in a larger market...and that is choice...

just because a single game Halo (a Microsoft Game) works on Windows Vista (A Microsoft operating system) using Direct X ( A Microsoft Product) doesnt make you "forced" to buy it...and no, im not missing the point of the thread...i have a different view thats all...if i wanted to play games id have a dedicated gaming machine not a PC

i wasnt referring to you about the copyright thing..anyways

and where on earth did you get the view that copying copyrighted works was not stealing?...thats the view of many of the open source community that wants everything for nothing while looking down at people who want to be paid for their work

so look at it this way...just an example, ... you spend 5 years working on a project sell 1 million copies at ?100 each =?100 million...total expenses for working on project say are ?80 million...?20 million profit...alternatively lets say that half a million of those copies are illegal which means ?30 million of a loss...so you think that's not stealing is it?...only in the eyes of a pedant


Microsoft court cases have been going on since forever, but they did not stop in 1994. Like I said, google it. If MS had been forced to change in 1994 we'd have a very different market today.

When I mentioned open standards I'm not talking about open source at all, there's no need to even bring that up on this thread. Microsoft has been forced by court to open up their standards so competitors can build compatible products to fairly compete with them. They've also been accused of not complying so far, but that's another story. Open standards and open source are two very separate things.
For example, the .doc format of Microsoft Word is not an open standard. That means you have to do a lot of reverse engineering in order to build a word processor program that can read and write .doc files, which is a must if you want to compete on the market today. It's also a problem for users that they depend on Microsoft alone to read their own documents; I wouldn't want to depend on a company that artificially forces people to upgrade from one OS version to another to read my own work.

Them forcing people to upgrade to Vista by using their other products and encouraging other companies to do similar may not be illegal but it's not what's in the best interest of their customers, it's in the best interest of their investors. It's disrespectful to their customers. You can't say to a MS customer that he is 'wrong' to be upset, because it's his right to do that. And in my opinion they're only in position to do that to their customers because they have illegally taken up the OS market.

About the copyright thing, it's not stealing if you look up what stealing means. It's just not. When Lucky makes an unauthorized copy of a MS program they're no losing a dime. If he did not make that copy then it's a possibility that MS would be selling him one for ?100, but it's also very possible that he would be looking at something else instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm against people using unlincensed copies of MS software, mostly because if people were forced to pay up they might be using something else instead. Software piracy has played a fundamental role in getting MS total control of the market.

i dont think the market would have been much diffferent at all...just look at linux, all open source and thats the best they can do?

btw open standards are open source, they are intrinsically linked

im not missing the point dude, i know what youre irked about...but im not irked about it...

the .doc standard? thats based on the rtf format ..the rtf format can be opened by almost any Word Processing program...and Microsoft provide a free program to open up any Word document...it wouldnt be difficult to reverse engineer a .doc as it's just a markup language, it's not as if you encrypt it!!!... and there are plenty of formats that arent open in the public domain

and yes it is stealing...it's pendantic to think otherwise

Nice. A Microsoft slugging thread. What else is new?  ;)


Best they can do? From being just a kernel at version .99 in '91, Linux (now at 2.6.17) has 27% of the server market and is fast making inroads into the desktop market. Don't knock Linux man, u may not like it, but u can't ignore it. Heck, even Microsoft has admitted that Linux is a threat. Ever heard of Redmond's Linux Research lab?

Obviously the Linux community can't develop at the same pace as a group of paid developers, but we're getting there...


I don't think there's anything wrong in that. DirectX is entirely a Microsoft product. You can't tell them how to market their own software. If game developers want portability, they use OpenGL. If not, they use the more advanced features of DirectX. As simple as that.


Don't kid urself, estranged. Using software without a license is stealing, no matter how u want to look at. Nobody needs to lookup what stealing means, it's just that. If u don't use a licence, the developer is not getting paid for that particular copy of the software and that is stealing.

Open standards and open source walk hand in hand by the very nature of open source, because open source software doesn't try to control the user of the software. But you can completely ignore open source when talking about open standards and the importance of them. The internet exists because of open standards; without them it would simply not exist. Please stop saying open standards depend on open source, because they don't. Open standards are also important in other areas not related to software.

The .doc format is not a markup language and it's not based on the RTF format. And it's pretty damn hard to write a program that can understand .doc files. There are other office suites out there where the most important missing feature that prevents their adoption is compatibility with MS files.

"we" ...are you involved?

yes thats what i meant, obviously linux has been for many years the best operating system for servers along with the wonderful apache server but has never been a player in the market for desktop systems until recently, 2-3 years ago maybe...as we were talking about how things would have been since 94 or whatever then since linux wasnt for the average person, Microsoft was the only option (unless youre a masochist Mac user and they werent exactly popular)...estranged says it could have been different, ummm who else would have challenged Microsoft? the answer is no-one because there was no-one...if it wasnt for Microsoft then the average person wouldnt be browsing the internet just now...because Microsoft made it easy to start using PC's for people who had never thought of using one,



i am well aware of open standards and open source, you have no need to explain them to me...

did i say open standards depend on open source? ummm no...something lost in the translation there

yea you're right some doc files contain the proprietary format , but you're wrong because some docs contain rtf code

if only people were smart enough to use .rtf instead of .doc...it's their own format, they have every right to use it, you can save it as other formats that other packages can recognise for portability...it's not as if you are presented with only one option..then it would irk me...but really...it doesnt

I think the proper word is testing :)

you don't buy a car without testdrive

im not an american, you get things much cheaper. this is the UK, i have every right to complain about the price. my country totally ripps us off