Microsoft does Terminator:Hasta la Vista User Control

- Daniel Bernal

Wow? Is it about: Wow, this looks incredibly like Apple OS X? Or more like, Wow, you really can’t get it right?

Let’s decode “wow”. And I'm not referring to the acronym one uses to refer to World of Warcraft—a game said to take over your life. The little palindrome “wow” works as an interjection and expresses a feeling of strong surprise. The three letter word has been springing up all over our city (haven’t you seen it at the subway stops?) thanks to Microsoft’s marketing team who have decided “wow” is what better describes their new operating system: Windows Vista.

Vista was released on January 30 to the general public and is set to distance itself from its predecessor, Windows XP, by its elegant looks and improved security and has been dubbed my Microsoft as the most exciting OS since Windows 95. Yes, the looks, even if sometimes very similar to those long enjoyed by Mac users, are nice. However, such attractiveness comes at a cost. Most PC users won’t be able to simply upgrade to Vista, because the fancy graphics demand a lot of internal power in the form of hardware. According to research done by SoftChoice, an IT consultancy group, only 6 percent of all corporate PCs are ready to handle Vista requirements.

But, the problems don’t only come with its appearance. More troubling is what hides beneath gorgeous façade, the End-User License Agreement (EULA) or fine black print to which users usually click “agree” without even reading it.

“Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge,” says Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa and technology columnist for the Toronto Star. And this is only the beginning.

According to research done by Peter Guttman, a computer scientist at the University of Auckland, Microsoft added a series of limitations to Vista in order to serve the movie industry’s interests. In his paper “A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection,” Guttman tells us about how new DVD technologies such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, which are mostly about better image quality, the picture will be downgraded because Vista will not allow to play the new format because most computer monitors aren’t licensed to play such content.

Vista’s EULA cautions the user that Windows Defender, the anti-virus that protects the system from spyware, adware and other threats, will automatically delete certain software that it somewhat arbitrarily classifies as harmful. As a result some software wanted by the user could malfunction or be permanently removed from the PC.

Microsoft’s new OS sells in five different categories: home basic, home premium, business, enterprise and ultimate. The cheapest version, which comes as an upgrade can set you back $129, while the “ultimate” experience will cost $499.

If you don’t want to spend much money you’ll have to expect even more limitations. The EULA of the home basic and home premium versions doesn’t allow users to use Vista “virtually,” which means they won’t be able to run Vista on Macs, or have multiple sessions of Vista running at the same time.

But ultimately, why should we care about Microsoft’s user agreements? According to OneStat and Net Applications, both Internet research companies, Microsoft controls more than 85 percent of the operating system market share. As PCs are starting to sell with pre-installed packages of Vista, this new EULA will take over and with that will go a lot of user’s liberty and privacy.

There’s no arguing the important role of computers in our everyday life. According to the Computer Industry Almanac there were 822.15 million PCs in use in 2005. If global distribution of these figures was equal, that would mean one PC for every eight people.

IDC, a leading IT market analyst, estimates the PC manufacturers will ship 257.1 new units into the market in 2007. The growth of the market is calculated just above 10% and is set to remain at that rate thanks to great demand by emerging markets such as China, India and Russia, and the slowing demand in other saturated markets such as Europe and the United States.

With corporations like Microsoft writing their user agreements in a manner that benefits the content providers and not the consumer, it’s very important that the user keeps control of what goes on in their PCs. As PCs perform more of our daily tasks and are used by more people, we should be wowing about the loss of control over our desktops, rather than to stare open-mouthed at the sleek graphics of Vista.