Let's extend the analogy. If the car manufacturer brings out a replacement model with new features that can't be added to the previous model then I don't think anyone would expect the manufacturer to anything about it.You can buy DX10 by buying Vista. If your concerns are about drivers for your existing peripherals then I have to ask did the suppliers ofthose promise future upgrades to cope with a Vista. As I said in another post. If they didn't then you got what you paid for.

>Neil - >>I do not feel innovation should be free. In fact, I have, and>am more than happy to again, pay for new computer products and>technology. But to cloak it with deception? Well, frankly,>that helps explain why you think anti-Americanism is only high>amongst the groups you mention. Look outside of Fox News, The>Washington Post and CNN, and see what you find. Anyway, that's>off-topic.>>Cheers,>http://www.my-buddy-icon.com/Icons/objects/red_3d_plane.gif>>Alex Christoff>N562Z>Baltimore, MDWhat is the deception? There have been several very lucid explanations that detail why DX10 for XP either isn't technically feasible or isn't feasible for business reasons. That should be enough. No company owes you to backport new features to old products, regardless of the technical ability (or lack thereof) to do so. As Phil very ably put it (and he needs no help from me to make his points), what other industry is expected to give away new features for free and retrofit old products with them? As for the anti-American sentiments, I don't want to dive into that pit. All I can say is that I'm going to Normandy in a week and plan to visit the US military cemetery. People just have very short memories these days.

Sadly, that was a different America.

I will pretty much guarantee that 99% of you complaining in this thread about supposed problems with Vista haven't even tried it. All of my hardware works just fine - I didn't have to go buy "printers, scanners, and other hardware", in fact a heck of a lot of my stuff worked without looking for a driver at all. The only problem I've had since January is directly Nvidia's fault, and that's the slow drivers. That's about to be rectified by the new set coming out any day from what I hear though.It's laughable to me too that you guys seem to think DX10 gaming is the main selling point of Vista, as if everyone who buys and uses PCs is a hardcore gamer. Couldn't possibly be the new UI (which I'm using on a DX9 card just fine by the way), the greater ease of use for non-techies, the vastly improved search indexing, the new security system, the SuperFetch caching system that really does make most things run quicker etc...Anyone calculated how much your OS actually costs you per day over its life time? Assuming a full version of XP Pro was purchased 5 years ago, you paid something around 16 cents per day for it. Even if Vista lasts only 2 years (I think it will be more) that's still only 41 cents a day. I pay far more than that for just about everything else I use on a daily basis - food, gas, car payments, house rent etc. No one seems to think of it in these terms, they just look at how much total money "M$" makes and condemn them out of hand.

directX has always been free, what allowed us to run the latest games. Charging customers now for directX 10 specially redesigned for XP ? Even if they asked only 10 $, all #### would break loose. Flaming would be a hundred fold (I did read the word "greed" several times in this thread already) of what it is now.You say you would be prepared to pay 50 bucks ? For a little more then the double, you can find vista home premium.WITH all the added improvements under the hood. Let's face it, XP at the age of six months was not as stable and secure as Vista is today. XP came only at it's full potential with SP2.Jan

I have to agree that the ui is much much nicer - or less nauseating I should say - since all operating systems and all computers are ugly, even macs. But I did have some bad headaches from creative and netgear drivers, as well as Nvidia's. Literally in terms of the soundblaster xfi crackling and squeals. Not that that's microsoft's fault entirely, although they did axe directsound.

>you guys seem to think DX10>gaming is the main selling point of Vista, as if everyone who>buys and uses PCs is a hardcore gamer.That's a valid point. The vast majority of the public who use computers are not hardcore gamers, and for the most part are unfamiliar with even the term DirectX, and quite honestly don't even need to know.Hardcore gamers are relatively a small niche in the large pool of those who utilize the power of the PC for one purpose or another. The vast majority of general users could not be the slightest bit concerned with whether DX10 is backwards compatible with XP or not.Taking arguments on both sides into account, it strains credulity to think that that decision to make DX10 a Vista only component was essentially one that was formulated from the belief that it would massively increase sales by forcing a small niche of hardcore gamers to abandon XP and jump to Vista. It honestly does not sound plausible to me.Looking at this objectively, it seems more logical to say that it did not make sense to allocate so many resources, money, time, manpower to develop a parallel DX10 project for XP, along with a new potential list of future support issues just for a small niche of people. The worldwide transition to Vista itself alone will require an enormous development and support effort on the part of MS, and other software and hardware developers. Working to bring out compatible products and resolve bugs and driver issues are certainly intensive endeavors which will consume precious and finite resources for many companies. Tack on an additional burden, DX10 for XP, and I can see the reluctance.Sure I would like to see DX10 made compatible for previous operating systems, but looking at all the factors involved, maybe there is a valid foundation behind the "Vista only" decision?

ok

Ok, I had a think about it and maybe this will make it clearer:Say, I don't actually want DX10. Say, the only thing I want is shader 4.0 support in Win XP. Should I have to buy a new OS to actually be able to get shader 4.0 support when I use a shader 4.0 card (and with shader 4 support I mean that I can actually run the new shaders and get the graphics advantage)?To compare to the car analogy mentioned. If I want to buy a new car radio, should I have to buy a new car just because car manifacturers can't agree on a common electrical interface? Maybe I do, but do I have to be happy about it?Phil, if you reread my original blog, I never claimed that FLS will provide flawless DX10 on XP. In fact, I wrote that I doubt they will provide a robust solution, yet already their work has been broadcasted on the net and leads to conspiracy theories. As I wrote in the orginal blog, not a good situation for neither MS nor endusers. Personally, I will make the upgrade decision when the time comes (FSX DX10 patch will be released and get's consistantly positive feedback). I don't stress out about it. All I'm saying is that I can understand Win XP users who are upset about not being able to take full advantage from shader 4 (DX10) hardware or the graphical facelift FSX will get. Personally, I don't really fret about it - life's too short to get upset about little things like that!Christian

>To compare to the car analogy mentioned. If I want to buy a new car >radio, should I have to buy a new car just because car >manifacturers can't agree on a common electrical interface? Maybe I >do, but do I have to be happy about it?The short answer is that you do have to buy a new car if you want that radio so much.What people want and what others are willing to supply are two very different things. That's just a fact of real life.

>Sadly, that was a different America.It's the same country, just different people.

DX is not like a menu where customers pick a little of this and a little of that. Either you feel its worth the whole package or it's not. You can't honestly expect MS to break things up into pieces can you? The final decision is up to you!Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Christian,Before I begin, I want to make clear I am not personally attacking you and I appreciate the dialog. I hope others, in reading the back-forth, can make that distinction. Same to the others in this thread that I have responded too. And, thankfully, this thread has avoided a lot of the personal attacks that were so prevalent 6-9 months ago. The community should look at each other and smile, since that is certainly major progress. So let

>Continuing the off-topic part for a moment, me and all my>British chums don't fit in either of those categories, but a>fair number of us hold fairly negative views about American>government and corporations at the minute (although not about>Americans as individuals, you guys are just as fine as the>next country in that regard), so I think it is fair to say>there's a strong strand of anti-americanism about at the>moment.With all respect...and I mean that...who do you think makes up the US Gov't and US corporations? Canadians?

>fair number of us hold fairly negative views about American>government and corporations at the minute (although not about>Americans as individuals, you guys are just as fine Ok, we are fine .. thank you very much. But please consider that it is WE who chose the US government. I know it is a tough thing to swallow for many leftists abroad. *:-*Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg