Note: This post is outdated.

In this broadband-enabled era, more and more people turn to the full digitalization of their beloved DVD-based movie-collections. This enables centralization and streaming it to media boxes like Windows Media Center (also: XBOX360 as a Media Extender and in the future other Media Extenders), Apple TV and other platforms.

Throughout the years Internet media has dramatically gained popularity and so has DivX; the leading codec for decently compressed video. To date, DivX remains partially incompatible with Vista. Upon initialization, the installer gently warns you that some parts of the program/codec won’t work well.

After setup, you might notice your system being pulled into Windows Vista Basic-mode after firing up the DivX-player — the same scenario unfolds when you attempt to run an embedded DivX-movie on a webpage. Playing a movie from within Windows Media Player presents you with a black screen. Windows Media Center could experience the same. I’ve heard these problems are very system-specific (lucky me) and vary from system to system.

I’ve heard of a few alternatives, which could temporarily soothe your and my soars:

One solution would be to uninstall DivX and grab the previous stable version, which oddly enough doesn’t suffer from the instability issues (version 5.2.1). I’ve tried this, but to no avail. Vista’s window manager doesn’t crash, but the video doesn’t playback either. Again, this is very system-specific, so if you’re lucky, you could get it working on your configuration.
Alternative I: DivX 5.2.1 for XP SP2 (installs fine on Vista too)

Others just get rid of DivX for the time being and use the open-source solution XVid. This codec claims it will play your files, regardless of the operating system you’re on. In my case, installing it resulted into a “No codec found”-error. I was unable to resolve this.
Alternative II: XVid for Windows

There are many open-source apps out there, but the one I’m most impressed with must be VLC Media Player. Its platform-independency lets you run it on any recent version of Windows (including Vista), Mac OS, Linux and other platforms.It’ll use your current D3D-driver to visualize virtually any type of video — without codec-hell. Pretty impressive stuff.
Also, VLC also comes as a PortableApp.
Alternative III: VLC Media Player

Microsoft has gone to great lengths to keep the exact naming of the nearing next generation Windows-version obscured. Till now, only speculations could be made, though according to Microsoft’s own document (posted as a test-run for Vista’s new help-function) Vista will named according to the following scheme:

• Windows Vista Starter (comparable to today’s Windows Starter Edition, meant for less developed countries)
• Windows Vista Home Basic (down-graded version of home premium)
• Windows Vista Home Premium (comparable to today’s Windows XP Home)
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Ultimate (collection of all versions)

‘N’-branded will most likely also be offered.

Microsoft has revealed its packaging for Windows Vista and Office 2007. Furthermore, there are some screenshots available of Vista’s new organic, sleek icons (courtesy of Paul Thurrott). Box style is similar to Mac Office’s and are designed to be compliant to the aforementioned icons.

Article and images courtesy: Paul Thurrott
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_office2007_packaging.asp

There has been quite a heated discussion spread around about Microsoft’s latest publication on the licensing scheme it’ll be conducting for Vista. The corporation states that the “new” license is nothing but a clarification of certain points. It was made to allow ‘normal’ people to actually read the EULA for a change. The most notable documents on this topic were published at Paul Thurrott’s Winsupersite.com; one by Paul himself and one by Koroush Ghazi (who runs TweakGuides.com).

The issue: Vista’s license restricts itself to a “device” instead of the person who owns the device. Moreover, it limits itself to one license transfer, whereas in the past you could easily transfer your license to your significantly upgraded machine (ie. for gaming). Is an upgraded machine necessarily a “new device”, and thus, does it need a new license?

Microsoft recently released Vista RC2 (Build 5744) to testers and will soon release to the public, too. RC2 is the last interim build before Vista’s released for RTM at the end of this month. On schedule, Windows Vista will become available on January 30th, 2007.

Download RC1

Windows Vista RC1 has recently been released and will be released to the public – via download – later this week. After horrid beta-releases, the crowd was shocked at how miserable a state Windows was in. Nonetheless, faith in Microsoft’s next-gen operating system has returned, as of the excellent and bug-free build number 5536. RC1 is uniform and stable, from what I’ve been reading up on lately; stable enough for me to grab the download and install it some time around.

The consistent new User Interface, improved security and networking, integrated search and some futuristic features (like ReadyBoost and SuperFetch) are a key array of arguments made by Microsoft to justify that Windows has positively evolved. Like everything at Microsoft’s, there are flaws that are yet to be evaluated.

Nevertheless, RC1 and Vista in all seem quite worth your while when push comes to shove. Be sure to keep yourself updated and read Paul Thurrott’s review and favorite new features description.

It’s official: the minimal system requirements for Vista-capable PCs (to enable all the eye-candy and performce) have arrived:

• An 800 Mhz processor,
• 512MB of RAM,
• 20GB Hard Drive with 15GB of free space,
• 128MB Memory on Graphics Card.

I guess it’s quite clear that many will need at least a new graphics card and some additional RAM, because the recommended requirements go as follows:

• 2-2.8 Ghz processor,
• 1GB of RAM,
• 40GB Hard Drive,
• 256MB Memory on Graphics Card.

Maybe it’d be wisest to just get Vista along with a new computer or install it on a PC that’s no older than a year (max!).