Limits on Vista...

[AntiVirus]

It's so true.  Wtf was that?  Let me fix. :P

[nslay]

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/2240214&from=rss

That's fucking stupid as hell.

So I was examining this slashdot post ... it had a link to Vista's EULA changes.
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/archive/2006/10/11/Important-Windows-Vista-Licensing-Changes.aspx

I must say, I'm speechless ... and I thought Microsoft was a little harsh on the 20 concurrent connections limit in XP SP2.

Home Basic
Can't copy ISO to your hard drive
Can't install to a network server
You may share files, printers, etc with a maximum of 5 network devices
You MAY NOT use Remote Desktop, only Remote Assistance
You MAY NOT use in Virtual PC | Virtual Server |VMWare

Home Premium
Still can't copy ISO to your hard drive
Still can't install to a network server
Sharing for 10 network devices
Still no Remote Desktop
Still no virtual hardware
5 simultaneous Media Center Extender sessions (up from 3 in MCE 2005)

Ultimate
Can copy ISO to your hard drive
Can install to a network server (I'm assuming for Terminal Server scenarios)
Sharing for 10 network devices
Can use Remote Desktop
Can use in a virtualized environment, BUT
Can't use DRM-protected content if Vista Ultimate is the "guest" OS
Can't use BitLocker if Vista Ultimate is the "guest" OS
5 Media Center Extender sessions

While I think these restrictions are stupid ... I did highlight the ones I thought were unreasonable.
ISO files
As a home user, I find myself downloading ISO files, or ripping ISOs from badly damaged CDs.  I don't see why ISO files should be restricted at all.

Network device limit
I grew up in a house hold that had 8 computers in it as early as 10 years ago.  People (yes, even basic home users) are finding themselves immersing themselves in networking among all different types of devices.  My house hold consisted of me, my 3 sisters and my parents ... that's 6 people.  If we each had a laptop, assuming Home Basic, we could not all share files between our computers.  Keep in mind, I was around 8 computers a decade ago ... its becoming more common today(!) for people to have multiple computers at home plus miscellaneous network devices as cell phones, PDAs, and etc.

Yesterday, I wrote a response to a Windows bigot on LSX (The Linux Sucks forum ... and yes, I dislike Linux!).  His post was basically a collection of comments from the UNIX-Haters handbook, a work by Daniel Weise (a former Microsoft employee) and others.  The book was written for commical purposes ... I recommend it to everyone here (That includes Unix and Linux users).  Anyways, to make my point, a common theme seemed to be flexibility and mechanism.  I'd like to quote some of my responses here:
http://www.linuxsucks.org/read.html?postid=15781&replies=0

Unix power tools don’t fit this mold. Unlike the modest goals of its
designers to have tools that were simple and single-purposed, today’s Unix
tools are over-featured, over-designed, and over-engineered. For example,
ls, a program that once only listed files, now has more than 18 different
options that control everything from sort order to the number of columns in
which the printout appears—all functions that are better handled with other
tools (and once were). The find command writes cpio-formatted output
files in addition to finding files (something easily done by connecting the
two commands with an infamous Unix pipe). Today, the Unix equivalent
of a power drill would have 20 dials and switches, come with a
nonstandard plug, require the user to hand-wind the motor coil, and not
accept 3/8" or 7/8" drill bits (though this would be documented in the
BUGS section of its instruction manual).

While a Windows power drill will have only an On/Off switch and choose for you how you want to drill.

The inventors of Unix had a great idea: make the command processor be
just another user-level program. If users didn’t like the default command
processor, they could write their own. More importantly, shells could
evolve, presumably so that they could become more powerful, flexible, and
easy to use.
It was a great idea, but it backfired. The slow accretion of features caused a
jumble. Because they weren’t designed, but evolved, the curse of all programming
languages, an installed base of programs, hit them extra hard. As
soon as a feature was added to a shell, someone wrote a shell script that
depended on that feature, thereby ensuring its survival. Bad ideas and features
don’t die out.

Mechanism vs Policy. While UNIX might be too much for Mechanism, Windows certainly likes to choose how you should use your computer.

These responses were exaggerated to fit the context of the handbook (they are quotes from the handbook).  That's beside the point.  Windows is becoming more about policy - how one should use their computer - rather than providing generality.  While I can understand that they wish to separate server, workstation and home use, to sell each at their own price ... I do not understand why Microsoft should place any restrictions on concurrent connections, ISO files, or limits on network sharing.

If you want my opinion ... I forsaw this shit storm when DRM became a big topic two or so years ago, especially with the Sony rootkit that used Microsoft's media protection technology to permanently damage XP!  This was the ultimate motivator for me to make a transition to an alternative OS (in this case, a Unix, FreeBSD).  I don't hate all Microsoft products ... but the Windows OS is something I can't stand to use and this new one looks to be worse!

[Hitmen]

ISO files
As a home user, I find myself downloading ISO files, or ripping ISOs from badly damaged CDs.  I don't see why ISO files should be restricted at all.

I think they mean the ISO of Vista.

[iago]

ISO files
As a home user, I find myself downloading ISO files, or ripping ISOs from badly damaged CDs.  I don't see why ISO files should be restricted at all.

I think they mean the ISO of Vista.

I was pretty sure it meant ISO's in general.  But I could be wrong..

[MyndFyre]

I noticed you highlighted the 10 network share connections.  That's also the limit on Windows XP Professional, and 5 on Home.  The default installation of Windows Server 2003 is 5.  In order to have more connections you need to have more CALs for the server.

Note that this is concurrent network connections so it's not that big of a deal.

[Warrior]

http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_licensing.asp
It's Paul Thurrot, a well know Apple/Windows zealot so take it with a grain of salt.