6. Media Center isn't all there and falls flat.

I have no problems with the way Microsoft has implemented Media Center in Windows Vista Beta 2, except for one little detail: On my three-week-old Media Center test machine, the act of launching any kind of live TV in Vista Media Center brings down hard the device driver for the PC's ATI X1400 128MB/256MB video card, which fully supports Aero Glass. The picture displays for a split second and then the screen goes black, which was not exactly the transition I was hoping for. The same PC displays live TV perfectly when launched in Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition. The drivers for the TV tuner and remote control and other Media Center goodies configured impressively and rapidly under Windows Vista. But if it doesn't display TV, well, what's the point?

1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.

Windows Sidebar (Click image to see larger view)

Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X. The User Account Control features, especially with the Vista Standard log-in, look a lot like Apple's user interface design. Too bad Microsoft doesn't let you lock and unlock things (leaving those settings permanent) the way Apple does. More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials. With some notable exceptions (including IE7+, where it copied Mozilla, and the Windows Sidebar, where it bests Apple, Google and everyone in user-interface design), Microsoft is belaboring the point by reinventing the wheel, often with an overall reduction in productivity and usability.

I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple's or any other company's best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What's really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.

The bitter end

After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn't just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.)

It's also intent on raising the bar to 64-bit architecture, driving the need for advanced video hardware and dual-core motherboards, and pushing the RAM standard to 2GB -- all to help spur hardware and software sales over the next several years. Even though there are many great aspects of Windows Vista, taken as a whole, this next one could be Microsoft's first significant operating system failure in quite some time -- at least, as it's configured in Beta 2.

Here are the 20 Vista behaviors and functionalities that could turn off Windows users. Windows newbies may not mind some of these things, but they will definitely try the patience of the millions of Windows users who've got real experience and muscle memory invested in Microsoft's desktop operating system.

Back to the book analogy, its as if the book will not open and let itself be read unless you can prove to the publisher that you are keeping the book in a locked room so no one else will ever read it.  And it is Microsoft who has enabled this, by providing the the tools to do so in their operating system.  Remember the fallout from Sony putting spyware, err copy protection, in their CD's -- turns out that that event was just a dress rehearsal for Windows Vista.

As Rosoff's statement implies, many of Vista's DRM technologies exist not
because Microsoft wanted them there; rather, they were developed at the behest
of movie studios, record labels and other high-powered intellectual property
owners.

"Microsoft was dealing here with a group of companies that simply don't trust
the hardware [industry]," Rosoff said. "They wanted more control and more
security than they had in the past" -- and if Microsoft failed to accommodate
them, "they were prepared to walk away from Vista" by withholding support for
next-generation DVD formats and other high-value content.

Microsoft's official position is that Vista's DRM capabilities serve users by
providing access to high-quality content that rights holders would otherwise
serve only at degraded quality levels, if they chose to serve them at all. "In
order to achieve that content flow, appropriate content-protection measures must
be in place that create incentives for content owners while providing consumers
the experiences they want and have grown to expect,"

Nope, no arrogance here.

Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts that
this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray and
HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with DRM
technology. "I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the DRM
included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint," Rosoff
stated. "It's so consumer-unfriendly that I think it's bound to fail -- and when
it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are trying to
impose."

What an incredible day.  CBS Evening News was in my classroom today to film my classes playing Making History and it was FANTASTIC.  The entire day was perfect.  No tech problems, kids were not freaked out by the camera, and the life and energy in the classroom was fabulous.  CBS filmed two of my classes during game play and then did some interviews with students.  After that they interviewed me and then I got to “teach” Daniel Sieberg, the reporter from CBS, how to play Making History.  That was great fun and I hope they use that in the story.  But the best aspect to the entire day is that everyone got to see why I am so excited about using games in the classroom.  I hope that comes through in the story.  The energy that the game brings is what I desire and I think that will show.  I do not know when the story is going to air on CBS but I will post that information when I have it.

The local media was also there for the event.  Stories are supposed to run the Marion Chronicle and the Peru Tribune on Thursday.  I also did an interview with the local radio and that story should run all day tomorrow as well.  I will post the links here when they run.