I'm beginning to think that Microsoft are starting to operate in similar way to AOL several years ago. Back in the day, an AOL account didn't connect you to the internet: it connected you to AOL. You saw the sites that AOL allowed you to see, and it was all very safe and secure - but your access to the wealth of knowledge that the internet presented was severely restricted. It was popular because it was aimed at a user base of people who didn't know a lot about computers, which at the time was most people. Microsoft are kind of like that now. A Vista user will use Windows Firewall to regulate internet traffic (and thus, potentially, what they can and can't see), Windows AntiVirus subscription & Windows Defender for spyware (as opposed to 3rd party apps - so much for the Internet Explorer anti-trust case), User Protection to regulate which executables they can run, and so on. DRM (coupled with hardware protection - and I thought Palladium had been dropped) will decide what DVDs, CDs, MP3s, etc. you are allowed to enjoy. In short, Microsoft are catering to a group who want to be mollycuddled, who don't want to have to think about security issues and would much rather that Microsoft handle all of that hassle (the kind of lazy attitude, incidently, that instantly makes your computer infinitely more vulnerable). Microsoft want Vista users to live in a Microsoft world, where everything that they do - gaming, web browsing, multimedia, etc. - is done through Microsoft means and under Microsoft control. The difference I see with AOL is that AOL were a genuine innovator: there really was a market for computer newbies, whilst a lot more people are lot more computer savvy today. AOL was the first to use a GUI for its internet access, gave away free copies of its software to advertise and encourage growth of the online communication sector, and generally helped move the technological world forward (albeit in a very different fashion to, say, CompuServe). But Windows Vista is different: Vista tells the user that they can do less with their computer today than they could yesterday. It is, ultimately, a step backwards. It encourages peole to be ignorant about computers, and ultimately stagnates technological interest, and thus progress. Don't get me wrong: Windows has generally been a revelation. Windows XP is an extremely good operating system, beaten only by a few Apple Mac OS's, and it far and away the best OS for the PC. But Vista stinks. Making DirectX 10 exclusive to Vista, hoping to lock people in to the DRM at the same time, stinks. Dropping support for existing, stable and efficient 3rd party standards in favour of its own new, untried standards, stinks.