T&T: MS Vista, A marine PC train wreck?

[Keith]

For those of you who have or are thinking about getting PC navigation, 
reprinted from: http://www.panbo.com/
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MS Vista, a marine PC train wreck?

So this morning an acquaintance who sells and services laptops and 
peripherals to cruisers gives me a buzz. He'd rather not be identified (and 
don't bother guessing, cause I know lots of guys like this), but he was some 
agitated: "This is a train wreck! This is going to shake up the whole marine 
PC world!" He was ranting about Microsoft's new Vista operating system, and 
specifically the new "security feature" whereby it will not accept hardware 
drivers unless they are "Microsoft Certified". Well, now, just yesterday I 
installed an older Deluo USB GPS on a tablet computer I'm trying, and I had 
to check a box saying that I understood that the driver is not Microsoft 
Certified, something I've done many times.
    Apparently this GPS will be useless with Vista, and a relatively small 
company like Deluo will need to fork over $40,000 minimum to get that driver 
Certification. Interfacing is the soft, weak underbelly of marine computing, 
what with all sorts of little developers making sensors, multiplexers, SSB 
modems, sat. phone data connections, weatherfax demodulators, etc. etc. that 
wire into PCs, whereas most computer users only plug in a few items, all of 
which are manufactured in huge volume. And as of about today, you'll have a 
hard time finding a new PC that isn't running Vista, though even a fairly 
high profile device like the new Globalstar GSP 1700 sat phone, supposedly 
superior in all ways to its predecessors, is not "certified" for Vista 
hook-up, and hence data comms. That's what's got my friend so seriously 
riled up-and, mind you, he's already endured several OS transitions-that he's 
hanging out at sites like BadVista.org, the folks who have been harassing 
MicroSoft's Vista tour, often humorously (above). So I'm hoping that the 
many Panbo readers who develop and/or install marine PC gear and 
applications will now speak up here about what's working, and what isn't.



Keith
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I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the 
position. -Mark Twain