Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grey Wolf on February 19, 2006, 03:48:21 pm
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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1928547,00.asp
Turns out they're required to release WMP-less versions due to EU rules. Also, out of those 8, at least three are useless (Starter, Home Basic, and Home Basic N).
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Well, that'll make pirating it slightly more confusing, I guess.
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Can anyone tell me why the WMP thing is a big deal?
At any rate, I'm fairly sure that we're going to be enjoying the Ultimate/Buisness ones at large, aren't we?
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Can anyone tell me why the WMP thing is a big deal?
Because if you can't beat them, sue them. Anyone with a common sense though would realize that a free product competing with another free product isn't exactly a big deal.
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Can anyone tell me why the WMP thing is a big deal?
At any rate, I'm fairly sure that we're going to be enjoying the Ultimate/Buisness ones at large, aren't we?
MS were punished for including media player in Windows, as (IIRC) Real complained it was unfair competition; the EU ordered MS to remove WMP (I think they may have had an option to bundle other players as pre-installed, not sure), and I believe were also ordered to open up their APIs (IIRC - again - there was a complaint that Ms weren't releasing enough of the windows API information to allow developers to release competing products)
EDIT; incidentally, MS OEM licensing now means you need to buy a new copy of Windows if you change your motherboard (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/17/microsoft_oem_shocker/)
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The API battle is still going, MS has offered to license parts of the source concerning these APIs (mainly networking as I recall), but the EU on it's part is adamant that it wants documentation, not source, and so far MS has been unable or unwilling to provide that.
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Yeesh... all these different SKU's just reek of what M$ did with the 360's.
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2 =/= 8.
Sorry, but no.
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He didn't say it was the same exact situation. he said it seems similar. And maybe it does to him.
you = fail at the internet.
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This isn't anything new, you know. Here are the current versions of Windows:
XP Starter
XP Home
XP Home-N
XP Pro
XP Pro-N
XP MCE 2005
2003 Small Business
2003 Web Edition
2003 Standard
2003 Enterprise
2003 Datacenter Edition
2003 Compute Cluster Edition
2003 Storage Server Edition
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to see Vista versions of the last three SKUs, as well as the announced versions.
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You missed out XP Tablet PC Edition and WinXP OEM Tablet PC Edition.
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Variety isn't necessarely a bad thing.
But crap wrapped in a dozen different kinds of gift papers still remains crap.
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It is gonna confusing and annoying, espescially since some versions will have stuff the other versions won't if what I hear is correct.
I can't really complain 'tho - Linux Distro's are far worse ;)
My great hope is that the Windows API is forced open and then people can write clones of Windows in the same way we had clones of DOS!
That would rock.
WINE might actually be usable for games!
ReactOS might actually come in to existance before I die!
But also Apple might take over the world (If a Mac would run Windows apps, a huge number of people could switch... and Apple would be far *far* worse than Microsoft if they held the monopolising position that Microsoft hold now...)
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You missed out XP Tablet PC Edition and WinXP OEM Tablet PC Edition.
You're right about missing the Tablet PC version, but the OEM versions are, in general, the same as starndard.
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Its not quite as bad as it seems.
Basically the actual options available to us in North America are a Home Edition, a Home Edition + Media Center, Business Edition, and Ultimate.
The EU versions obviously will be swapped for the NA versions so you don't get any repeats there in actual fact and the rest of it is not something you're likely to see on shelves.
Ultimate I have no idea what its going to have...sound silly.