The Windows Vista Experience: Ranting

child_of_air says this in a comment to my previous entry:

So, perhaps you can share with me- what is good about Vista? I've just heard negative things so far- like microsoft essentially released apiece of crap. Your thoughts?

It's a more interesting question than it might first look like, so I want to write the answer here rather than in another comment.

The immediate answer that springs to my mind is, of course, "Nothing". But that's not the truth, even on that level. If nothing else, Vista's native appearance (Aero) is less ugly than the older look. It's obvious that Microsoft has looked long and hard at MacOS X and tried to compete. Unfortunately they completely misunderstood what makes OSX so nice (just compare their 3D-stacked window selection thing with Exposé, for example), but, well... Points for trying.

But only looking at that level is a bit naïve. Microsoft wrote this thing for a reason. So the question becomes not just "Is it any good?" but "Who is it good for, and how?". One obvious answer is Microsoft. They wrote Vista in order for it to do something for them. And, since they're a large corporation, we can assume that that "something" is "generate lots and lots of money". Which they already do, so in some way Vista must be meant to help them generate even more money. And since they already have a near-monopoly on the desktop, they way for them to make more money can't be to sell to more people. There are no more people for them to sell to, roughly speaking.

So for them to keep making obscene amounts of money and to make even more, there are two obvious ways forward: Stop the current users from switching to something else, and get entirely new targets to start paying. Preferably targets who also have obscene amounts of money.

And one of the big new things in Vista could, if they get their way, very efficiently help them do that. That thing is called DRM, Digital Rights Management.

The point of DRM is to stop you, the end user, from doing whatever you like to the stuff that's on your computer. It's there to stop you from, for example, taking content from that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movie you bought, take extracts and make a fanvid with. Or take screencaps to put lolcat macros on, or use as your desktop background. Of course, it's usually put as preventing taking the entire movie and uploading it to filesharing sites, but it's the same thing. If you can do one, you can do the other. The point is that it takes control away from you.

The changes needed for this reach very deep into the machine. All the way down to the hardware, actually. In order to play "Premium" content (today I think that's limited to HD video) you need hardware that does encryption even when communication with other pieces of hardware in your computer, like between the video card and the monitor (or you could put something in to capture the video stream there). Which at least in part explains Vista's hunger for hardware capacity: all that encrypting and decrypting uses a hell of a lot of resources. Peter Gutmann has written more about this.

So one answer to "What is good about Vista?" is, if you're the RIAA, MPAA or someone of that ilk, that it has the most effective anti-piracy measures yet seen in the computer business.

But it doesn't quite end there. If we think a little bit conspiratorially, there is a possibility here for Microsoft to work their way into a position where they really can make enormously much more money than they do today.

All that DRM stuff relies heavily on public-key signatures. Everything in the content chain from the physical disk to the monitor has to be approved, to have its encryption parts signed by a proper authority. And since they own the operating system, that authority is Microsoft. It's easy to imagine how they could use that position to further their own ends. You want to build an audio card that plays WMA files real well? Fine, costs a buck to have it sign. You want one that plays MP3 or Apple's AAC files real well? Fine, costs a million bucks to have it signed. Now extend this thought to a place where Vista-based media centers (which is something MS have been actively pushing for quite some time now) have largely replaced ordinary TV sets, where it's far cheaper to sell equipment using audio and video formats where Microsoft owns the patents (and rakes in license fees) than other formats and so on, and you have a situation that looks very much like Bill Gates' wet dream. If they manage to take control of the distribution chain between the large media/gaming companies and the consumers, they can really make some money.

As I said, this is looking at it a little bit conspiratorially. But it is a real possibility, and it is a sufficiently attractive one that it can almost by itself explain why Microsoft wants Vista. What remains to be seen is if they can use their current very considerable market power to force everyone to switch to Vista or not. Personally, I hope not.

So, in the end, the answer is that Vista certainly is good for something -- it just isn't good for you.