soonerproud's Profile

[i]That actually depends on what version you buy. Video codecs cost money. Vista Home Basic doesn’t have the codecs to play a DVD, but every other version of Vista comes with it so those do play DVDs—Home Premium, Business, Ultimate… all can play DVDs out of the box. Of course, I don’t see Home Basic on sell in many places at retail, and preinstalled on computers, Basic seems limited to computers that sell for under $400.[/i] I also want to confirm that Vista HP has the ability to play DVD's out of the box. I bought a OEM copy of VHP to use on my PC in June. I also have the ability to play protected DVD's out of the box. I don't have any third party DVD playing software installed and use WMP 11 exclusively to play protected DVD's. I installed Vista Codec Pack, Realplayer and Quicktime prior to playing a DVD. For most people I know, the zealotry of many Mac owners is the biggest turn off to the Mac. Some Mac users tout the Mac like it is a religion and not a tool. This kind of blind loyalty to a product is unnerving to most people. Mac users will not be taken seriously by most people when they resort to these type of tactics. ( Windows and Linux zealots are guilty of this too.) I happen to be operating system agnostic myself. I use both Vista and Linux at home and find things about both I love and hate. I have used the Mac on a limited basis, but I have found nothing in it that draws me to give up the control of the hardware I use to switch. This is one of the biggest reasons many XP/Vista users don't switch. I like building my own desktops so that automatically excludes the Mac as a viable option there. I am thinking of getting a notebook for when I travel and am considering the MacBook Pro. I play WoW, so the MacBook Pro is the best option of the Mac's for doing so. I just don't find any operating system better than one another. They are just different and they all have their good points and their bad points. Vista is not perfect and neither is Linux or OSX. I just wish people in all camps would quit treating their operating system of choice as if it were a religious conversion. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds are not gods, devils or prophets. I put no faith in any of them to do any thing more than what they consider to be in their companies or organizations best interest.