wissel.net

1 - That was one terrible article. No evidence, no details, just blame the OS when something goes wrong when he tries to crack his Photoshop CS4.

Luckily most of the subsequent comments are more sane and realize that the original poster was spewing BS.

For example, look at Sycraft-fu's reasonable reply:

From what I've seen, there are very little changes in the audio layer from Vista to Windows 7. Now in Vista, all the audio DRM stuff relates to protected audio path and only matters if you are playing a DRM's file through a player that uses it. It has no effect, whatsoever, on media you produce. I say this as someone who has actually done plenty of audio production on a Vista system.

Now as for the audio thing it sounds like one or maybe both of two possibilities:

1) Crappy drivers. Windows 7 is still in the beta stage, and thus so are drivers for it. Some companies are rather fast with drivers for that and they are essentially release quality. Other companies suck at the drivers and thus have poor (or no) drivers out. Check a hardware board and you'll find all kinds of people saying "Where can I get Windows 7 drivers for my soundcard?"

2) Crappy hardware. Not all soundcards are created equal. You will find professional soundcards on the market that can handle 96 simultaneous inputs, 96 simultaneous outputs all at 24-bit 96kHz without dropping a sample. You'll also find cheap consumer cards that can't even do what they claim on the box. One thing that cheap cards have problems with more often than they should is operating full duplex, meaning outputting sound and inputting it at the same time. Some just plain can't do it, others can do it but have to cut the input or output sample rate, others are just flaky. Just because a soundcard has inputs, doesn't mean it deals with them well, since that is a feature many users don't make use of.

So I'd want to see this done in a properly controlled setup: It a quality, current, soundcard that is known to have good input and output quality, and known to have no issues doing both at the same time. Also ensure there are beta drives out from the company that don't state any major problems. Put it in a system and try it in Vista and make sure it works. Then Put Windows 7 on that same system, and try it again. If there's a problem, ok well then maybe there is something to this (though I'd still be interested in drivers). If not, and I suspect not, then this guy needs to STFU.

I get more than a little tired of morons who have a problem on their system and instantly run and blame the OS. No, it is often NOT the OS's fault. I get even more tried of all the FUD surrounding MS and DRM. I heard all this crap about Vista's audio DRM and how it was going to not let you control your own music. Well guess what? It is all 100% bullshit. You can record in Vista, you can mix and master in Vista, you can encode to non-DRM's format, including MS's own Windows Media format (which has no DRM by default, you have to set it up yourself). Vista doesn't at all mind or interfere.

This really strikes me as more of the same. I mean the guy is clearly a moron. He goes and downloads a crack for CS4, let's not play make believe like that's what he wasn't doing, and it doesn't work. So he blames Windows? What the hell? Then a random rant about audio. Ya, I'm thinking no.

I can't for sure say he's wrong, I've not yet test Windows 7 my self, but his story has all the markings of BS.