At 03:22 PM 7/17/2007, Robert G. Brown wrote:
Another really excellent reason to go with XP. Although MS is doubtless terrified of virtualization on general principles.
I don't think that MS necessarily worries about virtualization for their own products (after all, you still had to buy that copy of the OS, and the tools). However I would assume that they want to expand into the "triple play" consumer area (cable TV, movies/audio, VoIP, etc.). In order to do that they want to be in the position of having a unified user experience between telecommunications device (running Windows Mobile), set-top box (running Vista), portable computer (running Vista), desktop machine (running Vista) and home media server/repository (running vista). (Think iPod, iTunes, etc, integration)..
However, I assume they would like to do this in a "software controlled" environment (as opposed to a proprietary set-top box) so that they don't have to be in the hardware manufacturing business, but rather, providing firmware/software/UI that runs on an appropriate hardware platform that could be made in whatever cost cutthroat factory wants to.
This wouldn't happen unless the "content providers" (who currently benefit from very much locked in hardware solutions: cable TV boxes, etc) feel comfortable that nobody is going to be able to write some Vista application that "rips" that content into a freely distributable form. This means very much controlling the hardware interface (so nobody can write a virtual layer that can "tee" off the protected content on it's way between, say, video decompressor and graphics card).
Obviously, the ability to run in a virtual machine inherently means that you've virtualized the hardware interface (something that was an essential part of Win NT from the get go, with the Hardware Abstraction Layer), and if you can do that, there's nothing stopping you from putting in a shim that siphons off whatever you need (unless you start encrypting the bus communications between CPU and graphics card, which is also contemplated...)
In a full-up business environment, MS isn't going to be under as much pressure from the content providers.. most corporate environments that fork out the bucks for Ultimate edition aren't going to be allowing their employees to randomly put protected mode drivers and such in, if for no other reason than their potential downside in a lawsuit is much larger. But in the home market, MS is going to want to discourage running virtualized, except in a very constrained way.
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