Ahead of the Curve | Tom Yager » TAG: Windows Vista

March 04, 2008 | Comments: (0)

PCs approach Mac simplicity, courtesy of AMD

TAGS: AMD v Intel, Windows Vista

It takes a chipmaker to make PCs as easy to set up and operate as Macs, and AMD's going to do it

If the reality of the "standardized PC" were aligned with the rhetoric, no PC would ship with a separate driver disc. Windows XP would install onto a blank hard drive in the time it takes to copy the files. There would be no Found New Hardware Wizard, and if you inherited a PC with no discs or documentation, you could be certain that a store-bought Windows Vista DVD would be the only thing you'd need to make it work.

That's the reality for every modern-era Mac. A used Mac, plus nothing but a generic copy of Leopard, is a working computer. On that Mac's first connection to the Internet, all of that specific model's latest device drivers and firmware are downloaded and installed in one hands-off operation. Surely, if someone were given a chance to lay out the requirements for a PC standard from scratch, this sort of simplicity would be among them.

PC users can have computers that install from scratch with generic Vista or Windows media. If you knew that essential device drivers were on all Microsoft's install discs, and that all system drivers could be updated any time with a single download, that'd feel more like the sort of standard you'd expect. I was pleased to find that a major piece of the bridge to this future recently fell into place.

I just took delivery on a box containing a reference system for AMD's new Cartwheel (780G series) desktop platform. Inside an unnecessarily large, black, desk-side chassis was a system built around a very green (2.5GHz, 45 watt) dual-core AMD Athlon X2 4800 CPU. This system is what I now demand all desktops to be when I'm not racing them: Silent. But to my point about standard platforms: All systems built on AMD's Cartwheel, regardless of vendor, will use an identical bundle of device drivers for CPU, core logic, internal and external SATA disk controller, RAID, Ethernet, multi-display 3-D accelerated graphics (DirectX 10 compatible), DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD decoding, and USB 2.0. Any system based on Cartwheel runs Vista out of the box with the drivers Microsoft put on the disc, and runs fully optimized after one trip to AMD's Web site to download the latest driver bundle.

The problem with most attempts at platforms is that they are inflexible. For example, Intel can claim that its chipsets' benefits overlap with AMD's, but Intel's chipset-integrated graphics are barely adequate for text, much less 3-D. AMD played the trump card of engineers from graphics chipmaker ATI, so that even the least of the Cartwheel desktops will still be able to play HD and Blu-Ray DVDs, along with HD content, games, and, oh yes, Vista. While Cartwheel will get this done and establish lower price points doing it, it has another advantage that Intel lacks. For those users and system makers wanting more 3-D kick from Cartwheel than the 780G integrated graphics provide, AMD offers the unique option of Hybrid Graphics: You can add an AMD/ATI discrete 3-D graphics accelerator, ranging in power and price from bargain bin to barnburner, to your system, and when running Vista, Cartwheel systems will use the combined rendering power of integrated and discrete GPUs (graphics processing units). Even with Hybrid Graphics, the platform still uses one set of drivers common to all implementations, downloadable from AMD.

The Cartwheel desktop platform will have a Puma counterpart for notebooks, extending the reach of AMD's consistent, unified PC platform to all clients. Is this certain to carry buyers of AMD 780G systems toward Mac-like simplicity? There are a couple of major bumps in that road. One is the BIOS. Each PC maker contracts out the initial and continued development of its systems' boot firmware and arranges distribution to customers. As long as a user can be cornered into having to flash his PC's BIOS to get an OS loaded, no PC can claim to be as easy to deploy as a Mac. The other limitation is audio. Audio is not part of the Cartwheel/Puma platform, so neither AMD nor users can predict which one of many digital audio chips their system will use. Audio drivers are often missing from Windows install discs, forcing you to find them on vendor-supplied media or on the vendor's Web site.

I can still see a day when an AMD platform-based PC will boot from a Microsoft install disc, connect to AMD.com, automatically identify and download the latest unified drivers, and come to life as a fully optimized PC, all without the user's intervention. That's as it should be, and as I've said, I think that AMD is the only outfit that could pull this off. Until then, customers who buy AMD 780G platforms from whatever system makers they choose will find that their CPU, core logic (chipset), and graphics device drivers are developed and maintained by, and downloadable from, AMD. That is a major step forward.

Posted by Tom Yager on March 4, 2008 06:17 PM

February 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Vista SP1: Release to mob

TAGS: Microsoft, Windows Vista

Microsoft's community engagement for Vista Service Pack 1 spurs outrage, not gratitude

I've learned in recent days that my perceived paucity of Vista in the wild may be impaired vision (of the ocular variety) on my part. The merest whisper of the impending delivery of the first Service Pack for Vista kicked off a public rending of garments the likes of which I've not seen. Granted, Vista Service Pack 1 saves you the headache of downloading dozens of individual Vista hot fixes, and Microsoft sweetens the lot with feature and performance tweaks, but I wouldn't say it's the Second Coming. Apparently some people would, and they were pissed off that they weren't among the first invitees to the event.

I am too mystified by the big picture of the meltdown that is the public reaction to Vista Service Pack 1, and Microsoft's reaction to that reaction, to do accurate reportage on the details. Here's what I do know: Microsoft announced that the RTM (release to manufacturing) of Vista Service Pack 1 will take place in March. This I like. New Vista systems shipped from manufacturers and discs supplied to developers and volume licensees will include the Service Pack. Rolling up fixes means that new Vista users will get one big download from Windows Update instead of dozens of little ones, and there won't be any wondering about whether you've received all the critical fixes. For corporate fleets, IT typically makes sure that accumulated hot fixes are either folded into the system image that IT uses to initialize new clients, or they're pushed out from centralized management servers. But for the rest of us, a Service Pack is a major convenience. And it's free. It's not like you'd turn it down, but you wouldn't trample your grandmother to be first to get it.

Well, you wouldn't, but some people would.

The moment that Microsoft dropped a hint that a Service Pack for Vista was coming, anticipation created a buzz more deafening than that generated by Vista's release. Erstwhile leaks of Vista SP1 surfaced and were quickly put down but not before they had been dissected, screenshot, and "reviewed." For reasons that I cannot fathom, Microsoft apparently offered a release candidate of SP1 (a beta of a roll-up of patches?), and it's said that Microsoft seeded discs among favored bloggers and media outlets. The have-nots seethed as the haves boasted, and I imagine that many of my readers, like me, were too distracted by a mix of real work and real news to take notice.

Joining this party late gives me the benefit of a simpler perspective. I see this as a sequence of three events that spins a tale more cautionary than amusing. Microsoft engaged the community, as is now its laudable practice to do, on the engineering of Vista Service Pack 1. Those who had been so engaged, and others who wished they had, interpreted Microsoft's announcement of the March RTM as a signal that the software was ready, and everyone had their own rationale for first place in line. The kicker is that shortly after Microsoft told the impatient rabble to wait it out, that there were still some device compatibility issues to iron out, Microsoft sheepishly and apologetically put Vista SP1 out for public download well in advance of the RTM. Release to manufacturing became release to mob.

Microsoft has discovered the dark side of making process and engineering transparent to the public. I've praised Microsoft's trend- setting model of community engagement in new engineering efforts. The company's responsiveness to public feedback, gathered in part through unfettered employee blogs open to comments, shows in Visual Studio and Windows Server 2008. But as I said, the idea can be taken too far, and I think that's what has happened with Vista SP1. Some work at Microsoft needs to take place behind closed doors. Bug reports and feature requests brought in through tech support, work with partners and interaction with enterprise accounts, the populations that are the most informed and attentive among Windows users, are appropriate fodder for fixes and feature tweaks. Giving everybody a visitor's badge to the Redmond campus makes great PR and exciting give-and-take but not always great strategy. SP1 turned into a case of take-and- take. Making sure that those who complained the loudest got SP1 first perhaps became more important than making room for those precious final builds, that last proofing of the documentation, that one device or chip set driver that was just a day away. We can't know what got sliced out when the klaxon went off and the Vista team had to do a hasty upload of the code to Akamai.

If Microsoft did make a gift of early SP1 access to those it favors, perhaps under what it understood was nondisclosure, it may understand now that this approach to marketing and relationship building creates more liabilities than benefits. It's a lesson that Microsoft has had the opportunity to learn before. Whether or not Microsoft brought this on itself, it's clear that what good there is in Vista SP1 has been buried by bad press. I'm content to wait until March, and I believe that those who plan to put SP1 in production will likewise wait until it reaches them. As one Microsoft blogger points out, Vista without SP1 is still Vista. SP1 doesn't make it a new OS, and if you've let Windows Update auto-install your critical fixes, you're missing out on very little.

What should Microsoft brace for next? A tidal wave of moaning from the entitled over the absence of their pet fixes and features. Work should already be under way for Vista Service Pack 2, where we're more likely to see what cooler heads had in mind for SP1. I only hope that Microsoft lets its engineers, not the blogosphere, decide when SP2 is ready to ship. I'll say it again: Perhaps there are some projects that don't need a blog.

A footnote: As of February 19, Microsoft has not made Vista Service Pack 1 readily visible to members of Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). In his blog, Microsoft corporate VP in charge of Windows Product Management Mike Nash provides a link to the SP1 downloads for paying MSDN subscribers. At present, the MSDN SP1 download link is http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb898842.aspx.

Posted by Tom Yager on February 20, 2008 03:00 AM