George Ou at ZDNet reports, based on an Arstechnica article, that Windows Vista Upgrade Edition will not permit “clean installs.”

For years, just to make sure we have completely clean installations, we have been able to boot an upgrade CD, insert our valid previous Windows CD to validate it, and then install Windows (95, 98, 2000, Me, XP) in a partition of our choice.

No longer. Now, we have to install Windows XP or Windows 2000 first — then upgrade it to Vista.  He also reports that there is one workaround — if you tell Vista to wipe the hard drive after validating an existing Windows XP installation, it will install as a clean copy.

Got a new hard drive? You’ll have to install XP first. Then, you can upgrade it to Vista.

What brain-dead, clueless idiot thought up this?

TechRepublic.com has a great article about Microsoft’s most recent fiasco with the Vista Release Candidate 1 version.

It seems that the Media Center features stopped working on December 31st because it only licensed the MPEG-2 encoding technology until December 31st.

Those Vista beta users who decide to continue to trust Microsoft for media center functions are supposed to be able to get their Media Centers operating again when they upgrade to official release versions of Vista.

The official release is scheduled to be available on January 30th.  The Media Center functionality is in some, but not all, of the new Vista versions.

Welcome to the world of Digital Rights Management - Welcome to the world of Vista!

Kind of hard to believe, isn’t it?

The Windows Vista interface is the number one eye-candy item in Vista — and the only visible effect of upgrading that most people will see.

InfoWorld has an article that kind of takes Microsoft to task for such a blatant non sequitur. I say “kind of” since the article doesn’t quite go so far as to question how gullible MS thinks we are…
In classic MS style, an testing lab found that, despite Windows automatically downgrading the Aero interface to an interface like XP’s on computers that don’t meet their standards, this doesn’t mean that Aero slows PC’s.

ZDNet columnist Ed Bott reports that Microsoft has changed its planned EULA for Windows Vista retail purchases (not OEM copies) to allow transfer to other machines for your own use.  Of course, you have to remove the copy from your old computer — you don’t get to use it on multiple machines.

Good move, Microsoft.

This goes to show the power of blogging…

Microsoft’s Windows Vista Blog has pictures of the new packaging designed for Windows Vista and Office 2007. They even have some kind (and strange) words for the packaging.

Unfortunately, they seem to be the only ones praising it.

When I read the first few comments about it on other blogs, I thought those people were being unreasonably harsh. But, then I saw the pictures…

Personally, if I ever get Vista, the hard plastic container will sit in the stack with all the other software boxes I have.

Who in their right minds designed a thick, hard plastic box with one rounded corner — and thought it looked good?

A Mac designer?

Open your pocketbook!

Microsoft’s EULA for Windows Vista allows one transfer of a retail copy of Windows Vista to a new machine. Of course, an OEM copy (now referred to differently) will not be transferrable to a different computer — and it never was legally according to the licenses.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has been taking steps in recent years to redefine “what is a computer.” All too often, they’ve determined that that a motherboard replacement with the same model motherboard and CPU is not a new machine, but that an upgrade of motherboard, CPU and memory in your computer now makes it a “new computer.”

The new Vista version of WGA (”windows genuine advantage”) is even touchier than the XP system checker in terms of deciding what it thinks are too many changes.

I recall, with Windows XP, adding a network card, changing a network card, adding a new hard drive to the computer (temporarily to transfer data from the old hard drive) and then disconnecting the old hard drive — and having to call Microsoft to get a new number to enter into Windows XP. Apparently this many changes to the hardware triggered the “new system” test in XP.

Well, MS says the new system is even more sophisticated and sensitive.

PC enthusiasts that like to frequently change their systems are not happy.

Under the new system, retail copies will be able to moved to a new “device” one time. After that, it’s “buy a new license” or call MS Tech Support to plead your case. MS has not released any firm rules (if they ever will) on how this will work, either.

It’s amazing. Just who does Microsoft think really drives the acceptance of their new operating systems. It’s not the corporations or the manufacturers — it is the PC enthusiasts who hound their friends that still have old PCs and old operating systems.

Yet, MS is attacking the pocketbooks of those very people. Bad move. We may see a ground-swell of support for Linux…