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Time:
20:30 EST/01:30 GMT | News Source:
Ars Technica |
Posted By: Andre Da Costa |
Microsoft has been hard at work trying to bundle a set of special goodies to reward people who shelled out the cash for Vista Ultimate, such as Dreamscene, a bundle of animated wallpapers that uses Vista's advanced compositing display engine.
Well, the hackers have been hard at work dissecting how Dreamscene works and have come up with a method to run the program under any version of Windows Vista.
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#1 By
1401 (65.255.137.29)
at
5/10/2007 9:51:38 PM
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So remind me again? What makes Vista Ultimate so ultimate?
Texas Hold Em...
BitLocker (ok - no one will use that)
This post was edited by chrishedlund on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 22:49.
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#2 By
7754 (216.160.8.41)
at
5/10/2007 10:40:35 PM
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No kidding... I mean, I don't really expect them to put in some elaborate system to prevent Ultimate Extras from running on other versions of Vista, but I DO expect them to release more than this. Otherwise, it seems like they introduced it just to charge more... well, I know they introduced it to be able to charge more, but it's like they've forgotten about the Extras that were supposed to make it worth it.
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#3 By
3 (86.1.34.106)
at
5/11/2007 1:06:54 AM
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Have to say I expected a lot more from Ultimate in terms of the extras, they have basically been a waste of time and Dreamscene has been the only reasonable looking thing on it so far, and even that is still in beta.
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#4 By
44902 (213.182.214.94)
at
5/11/2007 3:25:49 AM
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Who needs this crap?...
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#5 By
18033 (194.106.62.200)
at
5/11/2007 5:14:27 AM
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Personally I'm glad they are putting their dev time into making the platform more stable than releasing extras.... Then again, I'm running the 'trial' and havent paid yet, (although I certainly will) so I guess I'm not bleeding like you guys.... They're all very valid points of course.
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#6 By
32313 (208.131.186.18)
at
5/11/2007 6:56:19 AM
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You gotta admit still, Vista Ultimate does bridge the gap between Home Premium and Enterprise edition. So for the user with one machine (in this case a laptop) who wants the best of both worlds, Ultimate is still a great value proposition. But I do agree that Ultimate Extras has turned out less than I had bargained for. It was insulting that you have to pay for certain Dreamscene's that were hinted as being free, like the Bliss backdrop, a StarDock exclusive.
Its only 5 months so far, so I am hoping by fall we will (Ultimate) happy set of users.
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#7 By
32132 (66.183.202.89)
at
5/11/2007 9:33:35 AM
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#1 Image backups for disaster recovery and file backups.
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#8 By
1401 (69.27.196.98)
at
5/11/2007 11:53:34 AM
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As far as I'm concerned, there should be two versions of Vista:
Vista Ultimate (for consumers)
Vista Enterprise (for business)
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#9 By
37047 (216.191.227.68)
at
5/11/2007 3:36:59 PM
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#8: Maybe 3 versions: Vista Home Basic, Vista Ultimate, and Vista Enterprise. Home Basic would be a bare bones OS, without the extras like web server, fancy UI, etc. Just something to do web surfing, email, basic productivity apps (Office, etc). No ICS, or any of that sort of thing. Just the bits required for a home with a single machine owned by a person with no interest in sharing their internet connection, running a web or ftp server, or any of that sort of extra stuff, and who doesn't care about all the aero stuff. That would all get put in Ultimate.
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#10 By
32313 (72.27.10.200)
at
5/12/2007 3:50:48 PM
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I think three editions would be appropriate:
Vista Home Basic - for mainstream consumers and emerging markets
Vista Business - for small businesses, mid-size businesses and enterprises
Vista Ultimate - Bridges the gap between consumer and business
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#11 By
2960 (24.254.95.224)
at
5/12/2007 10:41:24 PM
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The $400 I paid for Ultimate has, so far, been one of the worst computing values I can ever recall buying in to :(
Fool me once...
TL
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#12 By
23275 (24.179.4.158)
at
5/13/2007 1:30:03 AM
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#11, TL, I agree - if one looks at Ultimate in the context of Ultimate Extras singularly. I, too, expected more by now and certainly a full release of DreamScenes and related content, or at least an SDK for it that ties to Movie Maker.
However, Windows Vista Ultimate and its value to consumers has to be viewed in the larger context of what it offers over all other versions of Windows Vista.
You've been in this game a long time and from what I have read, you use your PC for business as well as for fun and entertainment - that is exactly what Vista Ultimate is all about, but it adds easy to use full image backups as well as a far easier means to enable and manage Bit Locker - which does work and as far as I can "feel" it has no effect on performance at all. Ultimate is peppered all over the place with little things like this.
A month ago I listed 17 items that Windows Vista Ultimate has that are not available in other versions of Windows Vista.
They were all the high level stuff and features, but Ultimate also avails one to some smaller features that can be very meaningful.
For one, there is full support for GPOM managed policy objects at the local machine level - so even for guys in a small workgroup at home, GPO is there to allow one to turn off the secure desktop while maintaing all that UAC offers to even admin level users - kind of a nice balance of effective UAC without the added securing and scaling of the screen. This is something that is not in Windows Vista Home Premium.
There really is only one question people who read tech boards should ask when it comes to a Vista version: "Do you have need of the media features one would have found in the older Windows Media Center Edition 2005 versions of XP?" If you do, or if you have an Xbox 360 plugged in that you'd like to leverage as a PVR/DVR and media hub, then get Windows Vista Ultimate. If not, get Vista Business Edition.
Any guy/gal that is a geek, or in this business that likes digital media might like Home Premium on one machine to use just for those reasons, but if they will be using their systems for more than that, then Ultimate is the only way to go. These same users would quickly tire of the lack of the credential cache in Home Premium - that alone moves one to Business and or Ultimate editions.
BTW.... the business edition does have access to a lot of features that are off by default - Windows Components offers quite a few options and that version may be best suited for many users of XP Pro.
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