Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft for consumers on January 30, 2007, has been widely criticized by reviewers and users.
Due to issues with new security features, performance, driver support and product activation, it has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups.
Security researchers Alexander Sotirov and Mark Dowd have developed a technique that bypasses many of the new memory-protection safeguards in Windows Vista, such as address space layout randomization (ASLR).
"[11] Another common criticism concerns the integration of a new form of digital rights management (DRM) into the operating system, specifically the Protected Video Path (PVP), which involves technologies such as High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) and the Image Constraint Token (ICT).
[13] Before playback starts, all the devices involved are checked using a hardware functionality scan (HFS) to verify if they are genuine and have not been tampered with.
[13][14] Peter Gutmann, a computer security expert from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, released a whitepaper[15] in which he raises the following concerns against these mechanisms: The Free Software Foundation conducted a campaign against Vista, called "BadVista", on these grounds.
Ed Bott, author of Windows Vista Inside Out, published a three-part blog which rebuts many of Gutmann's claims.
Microsoft published a blog entry with "Twenty Questions (and Answers)" on Windows Vista Content Protection which refutes some of Gutmann's arguments.
[27] A subset of the benchmarks used were provided by Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (or SPEC), who later stated that such "results should not be compared to those generated while running Windows XP, even if testing is done with the same hardware configuration."
"[28] However, the Tom's Hardware report conceded that the SPECviewperf tests "suffered heavily from the lack of support for the OpenGL graphics library under Windows Vista".
[29] The report also concluded in tests involving real world applications Vista performed considerably slower, noting "We are disappointed that CPU-intensive applications such as video transcoding with XviD (DVD to XviD MPEG4) or the MainConcept H.264 Encoder performed 18% to nearly 24% slower in our standard benchmark scenarios".
[36] Early in Vista's lifecycle, many games showed a drop in frame rate compared to Windows XP.
[40][41] By the time Service Pack 1 was released in mid-2008, gaming benchmarks showed that Vista was on par with Windows XP.
[42] However, games such as Devil May Cry 4, Crysis and Left 4 Dead stated that their memory requirements on Vista were 1.5x–2x higher than XP.
Speaking in 2007 at the University of Illinois, Microsoft distinguished engineer Eric Traut said, "A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit."
"[53] According to Gartner, "Vista has been dogged by fears, in some cases proven, that many existing applications have to be re-written to operate on the new system.
"[54] Cisco has been reported as saying, "Vista will solve a lot of problems, but for every action, there's a reaction, and unforeseen side-effects and mutations.
"[55] According to PC World, "software compatibility issues, bug worries keep businesses from moving to Microsoft's new OS.
"[56] Citing "concerns over cost and compatibility," the United States Department of Transportation prohibited workers from upgrading to Vista.
[65][66][67] The differences in pricing from one country to another vary significantly, especially considering that copies of Vista can be ordered and shipped worldwide from the United States; this could save between $42 (€26) and $314 (€200).
[73] A Microsoft white paper described the technology as follows: The default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key.
[74]Some analysts questioned this behavior,[75][76][failed verification] especially given an imperfect false-positive record on behalf of SPP's predecessor,[77] and given at least one temporary validation server outage which reportedly flagged many legitimate copies of Vista and XP as "Non-Genuine" when Windows Update would "check in" and fail the "validation" challenge.
Instead of the reduced-functionality mode, installations of Vista left unactivated for 30 days present users with a nag screen which prompts them to activate the operating system when they log in, change the desktop to a solid black colour every hour, and periodically use notification balloons to warn users about software counterfeiting.