Monday, February 19th 2007
Steve Balmer blames poor Vista sales on piracy
The CEO of Micrsoft, Steve Balmer, admits that predicted Vista sales were 'overly optimistic'. When faced with the current Vista sales, he blames them on a high amount of pirated copies being cracked in developing nations such as Russia and China. In response to this, Balmer promises that WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) will get much tougher to combat the recent piracy. It seems that Mr.Balmer does not think that there are possible issues with Windows Vista preventing people from buying it, let alone pirating it. A lack of driver support, a lack of advantages over Windows XP, and a hate of WGA all could be reasons people are not buying Windows Vista. An increase of WGA may very well shoot back in Microsoft's face.
Source:
The Inquirer
47 Comments on Steve Balmer blames poor Vista sales on piracy
Dropping the price would surely help put it in people's hands. I got mine for a discount or Xp Pro I would still be using. And no I did not buy some cracked or hacked version. I think the time for the KILLER OS has passed. Such a thing would more than likely require break backwards compatibility or be a real resource hog...
Ply
www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25768
kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=5175
check how many apps ARENT VISTA COMPATABLE, this is VISTAS FAULT(ms's fault) and its a good part of why vista isnt catching on like ms wanted to try and force down our throughtes.2003 works great for gaming and desktop use, its all i run anymore!!!!exectly, why replace what WORKS FLAWLESS NOW, or CLOSE TO FLAWLESS, espcly when the replacment is bugg riddled and slow....yeah and in 2 years when u really start needing/using dx10 windows vienna will be out to replace vista.....why buy an os thats pretty much USELESS!!!!
i have vista testing on 3 systems ashen has it currently on 1(all RTM) we bouth agree its slower then 2003, far less compatable with software, much more of a resorce hog, and the drivers STINK compared to 2003(xp/2k)
honest to god, i cant see why people rush out to buy it, and vista is easy to "crack" that 120day trial period can be extneded with a simple regedit, then u just avoid 2 ms updates and you can rearm windows for the next 2 years without worries, well other then vista sucking for software support and drivers....rofl.
i was going to put vista on a 15gb partition i have just sitting here, but after testing it for the last few weeks i cant see any reasion.
dx9 will be the default 3d api for the next 2-3 years minimum, just as dx7/8 where default for YEARS after dx9 came out(example is halflife2 supporting dx7+8+9) with opengl 2.0-2.3 as a 2nd more powerfull and compatable then dx10 option
and once again i will say this, i dont like vista but OPENGL IS SUPPORTED FULLY, ms gave in to public demand(mostly from geeks emailing them over and over) and emplimented it 100% in vista as long as the card/chip maker makes an ogl ICD(same as with current ogl support)
they where planing to cut ogl down to 1.4 limmited to emulation thru dx9/10 on areo+glass, any higher thn 1.4 wasnt possable because dx9/10 cant emulate ogl2.x functions properly/at all, so in the end they relented and put OGL support back in, on an ati card u should beable to play doom3,quake4,riddick,exct with full ogl support, possable buggs tho due to early ogl drivers.
vista is crap but it does fully support OGL NOW, for proof please read the opengl website, infact heres a link www.opengl.org/news/permalink/windows_vista_to_support_opengl_icds_for_aeroglass_compositing_desktop/this from the people who MAKE OPENGL WHAT IT IS!!!!
please stop spreding FUD :)
still i don't use it due to punkbuster hateing vista with a furious passion even when i launch games as admin
it also dosnt make people want the os because they find that alot of their software dosnt work properly, read the link in my above post, vista is far from "ready for prime" a huge number of apps eather dont work fully or dont work at all, thats a real stupid move for ms, im not taking OLD apps, im taking stuff thats wrighten for win32 api(u know the one used by nt4,5(2k,xp,2k3) and supposedly 6(vista) ) again i say know ur facts do some reasearch b4 you start spouting FUD and propaganda.
ms has admited there are problems, they now need to FIX THEM, maby they should have waited till 2008 to put vista out?
or not dumped fetures like WinFS to insted spend time on DRM bullshit!!!!
yes thats correct ms dumped ALOT of fetures because they have to "retask" to empliment and debug the DRM bullshit that helps to CRIPPLE vista for many users.
oh and note for all
areo is the new gui
glass is the theme, they are 2 diffrent things, just an FYI :)
im an uber geek whos got nothing better to do then track down info about this stuff because its what i do, now if i could get payed to do that i would be doing even better :P
by the time people move to vista vienna will be here, i for one wont buy vista, i can get it free(msdn) or from a rep via vouchers free, but i wont use it on my main system, its just that i see no value in crippling my system to get possable future dx10 support that really isnt gonna bring anything new to the table but a messed up driver model.
I say that because it is NOT immediately AND directly (true OpenGL, not one passing thru DirectX) supported from Microsoft themselves first of all, their 'implementation' uses OpenGL API calls translations to DirectX ones more or less (shared surfaces)...
True OpenGL ICD support seems to instead depend on 3rd party support for it & the URL I cite below (the source of your excerpt) & seems to state that the MS ICD provided uses DirectX shared surfaces frame buffers for OpenGL Support: AN EMULATION ONLY...
(DO read the bolded sections from your own article quotes & excerpts).
As far as 3rd party vendors all having them done, are you telling us they all do? Most importantly, BOTH ATI & NVIDIA??
(No, just ATI, from what your excerpt says, & also it said it is probably BUGGY)!
* That's NOT FULL SUPPORT from MS themselves (their ICD uses DirectX API calls translations of OpenGL ones, & only 3rd party ones in FULL SCREEN MODE SEEM TO BE TRUE ONES, but in fullscreen only) & THUS, NO "F.U.D." @ ALL!
APK
P.S.=> PLUS, if you read here (the link your article links to & gets its facts from)?
blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archive/2006/02/22/537624.aspx
It states that it only works like it used to in previous Windows versions when this 3rd party OpenGL ICD (the MS provided one uses DirectX translations of OpenGL native ones - performance hit) goes FULL SCREEN ONLY...
It's not the same as it used to be, because otherwise it shares frame buffers w/ DWM & the "compositing desktop" by Microsoft & that's DirectX driven... apk
its fud saying that vista dosnt support ogl and implying xp or older do out of the box, they dont, if the driver(ogl icd) isnt there windows isnt gonna run ogl stuff.
and ati's drivers probbly have some buggs, just as they do in xp/2k, but amd/ati are working on rewrighting the ogl drivers for better allaround support.
ms has NEVER supported ogl, they have NEVER liked it, because they dont like doing anything thats truely open sorce or truely free to all, they want you to be stuck using their crap.
so what you said is FUD, because if you look at the past, most videocards arent supported at all under 2k/xp without getting drivers from the card maker, now for vista ATI is WAY WAY ahead of NVIDIA on drivers, this isnt ms's or vistas fault, its not ms's fault that nvidia have been a bunch of lazy fuks not working on drivers for vista but insted pushing the 8800 as a "dx10" card to boost sales (dispite NO dx10/vista support for the 8800 cards)
and b4 you talk about ms's old 95-xp ogl software driver, try and play a game on that, its fun, it plays like a gldoom1 slidshow.(looks like crap and has UNPLAYABLE fps) its for running some of the screensavers thats it.
your fud is in making everybody belive that they wont beable to get OGL support in vista because ms removed ogl support, when they didnt, its as it alwase has been in windows, based on VENDOR DRIVER SUPPORT.
blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archive/2006/02/22/537624.aspx
============================
"Eli asked about OpenGL, Direct Draw, and WPF, and how they work with Desktop composition...
OpenGL can go through one of three paths in Windows Vista depending on how your computer is configured.
MSOGL - this is an implementation of OpenGL 1.4 that uses Direct3D under the covers to hardware accellerate the application.
Legacy ICD's - These are the ICD's that are available today for use on Windows XP. These will continue to work on Windows Vista, but will disable the DWM when they are loaded in to the process of the application that's using OpenGL. The reason for this is that Legacy ICD's operate directly on the GPU without going through Windows at all, and we have no way of redirecting application's output in a stable, predictable manner.
Windows Vista ICD's - this is a new path for 3rd party ICD's introduced for Windows Vista that will work in a way that is compatible with desktop composition. Essentially allowing direct access to the GPU for hardware accellaration, but then having the final surface that appears to be the front buffer to the application actually be a shared surface that gets composed by the DWM
DirectDraw works by creating shared surface and allowing you to draw to it, but if your application locks the primary for drawing, this will cause the DWM to shut down also, because the applicaiton is essentially saying "I'm a full-screen application, so give me the the whole screen to draw to, instead of whoever is currently using it".
WPF is hardware accellerated for things like text, geometrry, etc. and presents to a D3D shared surface which is the composed to the desktop by the DWM."
============================
If you look @ that closely, you will see what I meant... & the person you said spreads F.U.D. about it, is not wrong... this is NOT the same as it was under Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003!
APK
But to all the others, blaming a new OS for lack of drivers is not logical. New OS always need new drivers, everything else is an exception. e.g. if the same driver model still works.
Otherwise you could blame Linux for its lack of drivers for certain hardware, but of course this isn't the fault of Linux, it's the fault of the hardware manufacturers not providing drivers. Same goes for Vista.
The DRM fear is just FUD. I am ripping music and movies just like I did with XP. DVDShrink, DaVideo etc., it all works fine. Nothing you could do with XP is impossible or harder in Vista, the only thing that may be hard is DRM on HD content, but then again, this will not just be a Vista thing, but it needs drivers and hardware that supports it.
So you can't just go and blame one part of the whole DRM chain. HD content protection has been cracked for good now anyway, it seems. But again, just like with WGA, DRM mostly annoys pirates and not buyers. I am working it IT support and I still have to see a single WGA problem with hundreds of users. I admit that there may be a problem, but that is mostly key related and happens with every other piece of software as well. Again, not a Vista problem.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like DRM myself, but I just don't buy anything with DRM, so it can't annoy me at all. But if I did buy DRM content, and it would work on my machine, I wouldn't be annoyed by it because I wouldn't even see the DRM working.
i see what your trying to say but as i read it your off on what your saying or how ur implying it works when you say open gl dosnt work.
i think part of why ati was able get working ogl icd's working faster then nvidia was because they already where working on allowing the gpu to be accessed in multi ways at the same time anyway(see gpu folding for example)
nvidia, well they are struggling and dispite selling the first"dx10" cards on the market they dont got the software to back it.
vista has the same kind of ogl issues that 2k had when it came out,its dependant on hardware makers to make it work properly.
acctualy 3d support for 2k was what made me really start hating ati back in the day, there 2k drivers(specly ogl) where like 35% slower then the 9x drivers AND they had alot of buggs(dont even think about playing ogl games or windowed ogl accelerated stuff on their rage128 2k drivers...horrid)
it took me till the fx5800ultra vs 9600 days to even consider another ati card, after trying it and seeing how much they sproosed up their support i was hooked, none of that driver hax to get extra perf(hax as in nvidias hax that killed quility to try and make the cards not look so bad under dx9) this time around ati is in the lead where nvidia was with 2k, nvidias 2k drivers where steller, less then 1% behind the 9x drivers and in some cases FASTER(specly aftet the first detonaters for 2k...HUGE boost)
this time its ati in the lead dispite having the card out later, but back on topic.
true opengl support has ALWASE been dependant on the hardware makers to provide, ms has NEVER included any kind of ogl driver support with their os other then the most basic ogl software driver(acctualy vistas 1.4 ogl on dx9/10 is better then past ogl support if you think about it, at least it can run older 3d apps/games out of the box...)
in my testing with my x800xt/3700+ system i have found that vista runs ogl tests fine, tho its a bit slower in tests then 2k3 was, but thats a given, i blame vista's bloat as mmuch as imature icd's, i mean i cant blame MS for hardware makers not having decent drivers out yet, tho some people try to, nvidia is at fault for not spending proper time on vista drivers in the 9+months they have had since vista went into testing(nvidia could have started work in drivers back then like other companys where doing)
blah, lets not fight, we are bouth right in a way, but how you put it "no ogl support in vista" isnt the most accuret way to put it, it would be more accuret to say something like "querky ogl support" or "sub optimal ogl support" i would agree with that, honestly the optimal way for ms to deal with ogl would be to DROP DIRECTX or MERGE IT WITH OGL, insted of this monoplistic gfx api war they are so caught up in with of all things an OPEN SORCE PROJECT thats not even trying to battle them.....
imagin a world where ms acctualy imbraced the idea of somebody else having a better idea then them or somebody else having an idea thats as good as theirs........not gonna happen with the current leadership of ms, but its a nice dream.
It IS very confusing!
(No fighting here: I am just "trying to get to the bottom of this" basically... & now my understanding of it is THAT MUCH BETTER @ this point!)I never said games using OpenGL API for display outright didn't work @ all, because I know Zekraminator tried it using Quake 4, & showed us screenshots that DEFINITELY looked to me as if the OpenGL API calls had been 'translated to DirectX' & the article excerpt above shows this (the one your original article stems from in fact).
AND, just like you did via testing? IIRC, Zek also stated games using OpenGL ran slower, or @ least Quake4 seemed to for him.Yes, vendors of vidcards do supply their API (DLL's) ontop of the MS BASIC API (even in 2000/XP/Server 2003) for OpenGL... because you do have a point there.
Otherwise, using their (editing: Microsoft's) "native" supported OpenGL libs goes a lot slower, but does work.
E.G.-> I've seen that when I've tried to run games on Ms' "native" OpenGL lib/dll drivers for various cards, w/ out applying the vendors' driver for the specific card I was using & there is a speed difference, even under Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003.
(I.E.-> Ms' OpenGL screensavers & such ran OK on it, but games were another story generally (those that used OpenGL)).
* At this point, to me @ least? Some of this sounds like how Voodoo's GLIDE used to work in fact... (because I took a look @ its function calls & also dependencies & some translated over to DirectX lib function calls!)
APK
P.S.=> The performance hit you mention for OpenGL apps bugs me in that it is slower than it was for 2000/XP/Server 2003... apk
Hey, some interesting facts here on Ms' "native" OpenGL.DLL:
I just took a peek @ its dependencies, via a SHELL EXTENSION (rightclick on a file type of thing in Explorer.exe) called PESX (great stuff for things like this) & on Windows Server 2003!
(This was so we can get a closer look @ how MS implements OpenGL.DLL API calls, via its native @ install OpenGL.DLL, & what libs it also depends upon (DLLs can & do call other libs/dlls for function, 'native to the OS or not', & you'd be surprised @ how often this happens)).
Check this out, because I think you'll find it interesting & enlightening:
What comes up in the list?
Direct Draw (DDRAW.DLL)!
(This is just like I mentioned above Voodoo Glide 'research' I did years ago, which shows how vendors layer their card's DLL/OpenGL API over Ms' & it showed DirectX dependencies).
:)
* Will wonders NEVER cease...
APK
P.S.=> At this point? I am just wondering then, WHY OpenGL gameplay is so much slower on VISTA than it is on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 really...
Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 & their OpenGL.DLL lib have apparently always used DDRAW.DLL API calls from DirectX apparently on Windows NT-based OS' (just like I saw in Voodoo GLIDE years ago)!
AND yes, vendors DO supply an API (lib/dll) ontop of that (probably filtering lib of somekind bypassing MS OpenGL.DLL in some capacities, & others not, using its functions)...
SO, what is the performance hit for OpenGL on VISTA (editing: even w/ VISTA drivers supplied by vendors like ATI & NVidia) & where is it coming from is what I am most curious about @ this point, on VISTA vs. older previous Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 really! apk
it is linux's fault that hardware makers dont support it if you get down to the core reasion most hardware makers arent willing to make drivers for linux.
i have spent LONG hours talking with people who work at these companys, and the top reasion for no driver support is that its to much work to support linux due to it having 10's of thousands of diffrent versions no 2 100% compatable with eachother, if linux makers would unifi the driver and software installer model across all distros then more hardware makers would support it, but they REFUSE TO DO SO, there are to many people who have their own idea of how it should work and be done who are unwilling to considers other peoples ideas as valid, they are as bad or worse then MS as ever been, try talking to people who work on 3 distros with diffrent design pholophsys(sp) you will find that they will argue the merrits of eachothers methods and for the most part refuse to agree to work togather to make something everybody could agree to(even grudginly agree to)
this is the TOP reasion u dont see linux drivers for alot of mainstream hardware, its just to hard and to much of an investment for to small a market share, if it was like windows or even mac where the driver model is unified across all versions of said os(osx or windows nt,2k/xp/2k3, even vista) or even bsd where all versions of bsd can use the exect same drivers.
i dont hate linux b4 anybody implys i do, i hate stupidity and hypocracy, many linux devs will blame hardware makers for not making them drivers, when fact is that if they would agree to work on a UNIVERSAL STANDARD that would work across all linux distros for software and driver install/update/removeal, what truely funny, i have had companys offer me BSD drivers or Solaris drivers but tell me they wont supply linux drivers because linux is to scattered and hard to support.
strange huh 2 free *nix os's that have diffrent versions and have driver support when the common everday linux u find dosnt, simply because they can count on every version of bsd being able to take a bsd driver, and every current version of solaris being able to take the saame driver(hell u can use solaris drivers with opensolaris/nexenta as well)
all because the people making them have set STANDARD models when linux dosnt really have any 2 distros that are 100% compatable with eachother. (god its a pain in offices where ppl run linux and windows but choose to not all use the same linux......slack,redhat,suse,gentoo,debian,mepis,ubuntu...exct)i gotta once again call bullshit on this, check around for people who have problems playing disney movies they PAYED FOR in their dvd players thanks to the bad sector DRM sony and others are using, i had to backup 12 movies so far for my neibor lady so they could watch them(4 disney ones on christmas day because none of their players could get past 1/2 way without freezing up, thats 6 players 2 of them less then 2 years old and costing $500 each, the rest being cheapo units that ran 50-75bucks and could play mp3/divx stuff)
why should somebody be forced to resort to what MPAA/RIAA would call piracy to beable to watch movies they PAYED FOR?
when a pirat could just spend 5 min looking around(or less) and get a crack for the protection and beable to watch and copy that same media without any real effort?
i admit i pirat some stuff, but guess what other stuff i pay for, and then aboout 2/3 of the time im forced to "hack" or "pirat" it to make it useable, my system dosnt play nice with most cd/dvd protections because i have scsi devices installed(external scsi drives for example) so im forced to break the protection to use my LEIGALY PAYED FOR PRODUCTS, hows that fair when i oculd just downloaded it pre cracked and not had to deal with the bullshit of looking for a crack or making one myself?
dvd's anymore i rent and copy, not because i dont feel some movies are worth buying but because out of all the stand alone players i have none can read the new protections 100%, the closest i can come is graphical and audio errors here and there as it his bad sectors.....
so i finnly gave in and just rent movies and copy them so i can watch them on my 42in tv.
why should i have to do that?
why cant they see that its loosing them alot of $ because people just cant stand paying to buy something they cant just use.
who wants to buy a new dvd player to beable to watch a 20-30$ movie? i sure as hell dont, specly when i got a $275 sony dvd/vcr combo+mitsubishi dvd player+toshiba dvd player+synphonix dvd/vcr that all play older movies and copys(even dvd +/- rw disks...)?
seems stupid to me but hey, im not the one loosing $ am i :)
anymore if i see a game with draconian protections on it, i dont buy it, if i see a movie that is from a company i know uses nasty protections i rent it and crack it because im sure not paying 20-30bucks for a movie i have to crack to watch.........thats just STUPID!!!!
blah, all this argueing.
sorry but read how you come off when you post what you posted, you come off as a rabbid ms/vista fanboi or rabbid ms employ:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
maby look at how you present yourself and your oppenion b4 you get mad and cry about somebody calling you on it?
and so im guessing your 56 if your 2x as old as me? wow little old for acting like a defencive child......sorry to say this but if your really that old what are you doing on here posting like that? reminds me of that guy who was thretening TPU for somebody supposedly plagerizing his xp mythes page.........
as to OGL, the windows included ogl in older windows versions was SOFTWARE ogl, it was fully rendered on your cpu, hence the horrid perf, and low detail of the screensavers, if you knew how to hack things a little and your card had a decent ogl icd(full icd not the one used by 3dfx for quake and such) you could get fully accelerated 3d on screensavers on al but INTEL videocards, intel hard coded the OGL screensavers dissabled on their i740 and onboard gfx systems because they claimed it caused stab problems in productivity emviromnts....yeah sure,thats why not once did i have a driver crasy with all the permedia2 and marrox cards i had running OGL accelerated screensavers....(rive128 was rock solid once they updated the drivers as well....not as good as the rendition verite cards tho, they kicked arse....)
honest to god, i like the idea behind what ms did with default drivers supporting emulated basic gl hardware accelerated support, at least its faster then pure software mode!!!!
want some fun, get unreal1 set it in software ogl mode and play on any current system withthe res cranked up to a decent level and details as well, u will see how slow it still is :)
Oh yes, just for the record, when I ran Quake 4 on Vista, it was with Windows Vista RC1 with beta, non-WHQL drivers for my X850XT. Both Vista and the drivers have improved dramatically since then.