Windows Vista Revisited

So, a while back I mentioned that the dual boot configuration on my laptop was one of the signs of a war waging between Windows (Vista) and alternatives (currently Suse with KDE 3.5). Back then I wasn't impressed with a number of things, mainly:

• Suse: not all my hardware works straight away. An nvidia driver that didn't support my graphics card (too new) was automagically installed and caused by screen to wipe out as soon as X started. The touchpad doesn't work when I'm docked, with another mouse attached. The display problem was solved in the next update to Suse.
  
• Windows: Switching the dock on when windows is on (forgetting to plug it in) crashes windows to oblivion (blue screen of death). Linux happily keeps on running, telling me the adapter is now plugged in, activating my mouse and periferals.
• Suse: multiple screens and linux still don't play nicely together.
• Windows: Some multi display settings are now arcane to set; half of the options were grayed out in one place, but not in another.
• Windows: After upgrading my RAM it told me I needed to buy a licence for windows, as my hardware had changed. (I have a removable cdrom drive and docking station. Aparently this presents windows with too many hardware configurations and it decides to deactivate itself as a result).
• Windows: Whilst trying to copy a lab audio CD (no protected content); I'm sorry dave, I can't do that. Linux happily rips the cd to disk and asks me how many copies I want to burn. This is Vista's DRM at work.

The lost two points are basically a show-stopper for me. I do NOT have time to call Microsoft every time I undock my laptop and take out the CD-rom drive, or whatever triggered the deactivation. Nor am I amused by my computer telling me that I can do something, but doesn't want to. I actually like a lot of the features in KDE more than I do the features in Windows. I actually need more linux tools than I need windows tools. In short: Windows lost. I still have the dual-boot. It now runs XP for when I need to do a very few things for work (the license is also provided to me by my work). I'm thinking of moving that into a virtual environment and ditching the whole dual-boot.

There's a very in-depth story about why Vista DRM and related 'features' suck here: A cost analysis of Windows Vista content protection.