swa66 - 9:58 pm on Mar 25, 2008 (gmt 0)

Isn't that what any customer in *any* other industry would simply demand ? Just imagine e.g. Ford telling you "oh, your new car doesn't work properly ? It just stops once you get on the highway ? Pay us more and we'll tell you what's wrong with the car we sold you ...

The main cost of Vista to the world at large doesn't come from how bad the user experience or how bad the MSFT support is.

The core of the problem for the rest of the world is the secrecy in the DRM. That demand for secrecy is enforced upon makers of hardware, and it makes it *impossible* for such hardware to be supported by real open source (binary vendor blobs are possible -perhaps-).

So for me "designed for windows vista" is a warning label and I refuse to buy it at all.

Search for "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" by
Peter Gutmann of the New Zealand Auckland univerity if you want to read much more.

The entire DRM issue basically means MSFT feels your computer is their set-top box. Buying vista (even if just included in the price of hardware) is voting with your money that you support that model.