Vista Premium logo requirements: no hybrid HDDs after all?

Ken Fisher over at Ars Technica has done us all a good turn and pored over the latest version of the mind-numbingly boring Windows Vista Logo Program Device Requirements documentation, summing up the key features that consumers can expect to see from machines sporting the Vista Premium logo. Effective immediately, PCs wishing to display the coveted sticker must rock only USB 2.0 ports, at least one digital output for all add-in video adapters, 100Mb Ethernet and/or WiFi (which must be of the 802.11g flavor), and HD audio quality that passes some kind of "high-fidelity audio experience test," with other requirements concerning Serial ATA drives, HDCP compliance, HD playback, and support for bootable USB drives going into effect on June 1, 2007. Also noteworthy in Fisher's analysis is his claim that hybrid hard drives will not in fact be necessary for laptops to flash the Premium logo, as previously reported by TG Daily based on a conversation with Microsoft at TechEd. Instead, Fisher argues that the so-called "Storage Requirement 0005" in question is only a list of technical standards that need to be met by hybrid HDDs should manufacturers choose to include them in their devices, which makes sense after considering how unlikely it is that Redmond would force such a new and unproven technology down people's throats.

Read- Vista Premium logo requirements [Via Slashdot]
Read- Hybrid HDDs not required after all

[James @ Jun 16th 2006 8:11PM]

"one digital output for all add-in video adapters"....does this mean DVI out from now on?
If not,will someone explain?

thx

[Evan @ Jun 16th 2006 9:28PM]

So, does this mean that if we want to instll Vist on an existing machine we have to meet all these requirements?

[Matt @ Jun 16th 2006 9:35PM]

I think this is just the requirements for new computers to have a Vista Premium logo

[Desides @ Jun 16th 2006 9:42PM]

"So, does this mean that if we want to instll Vist on an existing machine we have to meet all these requirements?"

No. It means OEMs wanting the Vista Premium label on certain PCs have to meet these specifications.

[James Smith @ Jun 16th 2006 9:43PM]

No, I think it means that if PC manufacturers want to sell a desktop pc with the Windows Vista Logo it has to meet those requirements.

[Josh Warner @ Jun 16th 2006 10:12PM]

I'm still wary of hybrid hard drives and, for that matter, Vista's usage of external flash drives as a sort of "supercache."

Nobody is talking about this, but flash memory has a limited lifetime of write/re-write cycles after which the bits just don't switch anymore. Right now not many people have hit the upper limit because we don't churn data (unless you happen to be a pro photographer). But these new uses will be hitting the flash memory hard, and it just doesn't hold up like the magnetic bits on a hard drive. In a like manner, the hybrid hard drives may have really limited lifetimes.

I hope MS allows the "supercache" feature to be turned off, or I flatly will refuse to upgrade to preserve my flash memory devices' lifetimes.

[Desides @ Jun 16th 2006 10:23PM]

"Nobody is talking about this, but flash memory has a limited lifetime of write/re-write cycles after which the bits just don't switch anymore."

Given that Vista does a lot to reduce the amount of necessary reboots and crashes, and uses the Flash primarily for boot file caching... it's unlikely someone will wear out the 100,000 read/write cycles in the operating lifetime of the average PC.

Also, I think only a certain small percentage of the memory becomes unusable after 100,000 read/write cycles.

[Neal Saferstein @ Jun 16th 2006 11:09PM]

Microsoft is to big, they have lost their focus. Time for a breakup into smaller agile units.

Neal Saferstein

[pat @ Jun 17th 2006 12:47AM]

Actually, this is a good thing, in my opinion. Microsoft is starting to force vendors from shying away from outdated technology. It's great to see that being able to boot flash drives will become mandatory (assuming oems will comply and that it will trickle down to most motherboards) to completely replace the floppy. Sure some motherboards already support it, but now it'll be better.

And it's about time that integrated graphics sees some digital output. I'm not a fan of integrated graphics, but it has it's uses. The huges turnoff though, is the general lack of a dvi port, they almost always use an analog d-sub connector. I'm sure there are already some motherboards out there with integrated dvi, but I haven't personally seen them.

Maybe we can do away with the ps/2 ports as well... well they'll be around as long as the BIOS is still around

I don't see how anyone can see this as "bad" news, it's refreshing that oem manufacturers and motherboard manufacturers will start to phase out some of the older technologies.

[Nizam Rahman @ Jun 17th 2006 3:34AM]

"...which makes sense after considering how unlikely it is that Redmond would force such a new and unproven technology down people's throats."

...

Wait... don't tell me that wasn't sarcasm, guys?

[Bigsby @ Jun 17th 2006 3:54AM]

If there was anything ever called sarcasm, this would be it, like how Vista doesn't support OpenGL, so that they can shove DirectX down everyones throats, and all of their applications which they used to be able to run fine, runs damn slow because its being emulated. But I agree, Microsoft is too big. It's so big that they're trying to force standards on people, where they aren't needed, like the browser wars back in 97-98, except the people who made netscape were morons, lol.

[Shunnabunich @ Jun 17th 2006 12:43PM]

I'm surprised anyone even still plans to upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 3 -- err, sorry, Windows Vista -- at all. I'll just say, like I have before, that it sickens me that Microsoft is so corrupted by its own influence that it genuinely thinks whatever it does can be forced on the public as a universal standard. No wonder the 5% of us computer users who have some shred of intelligence refuse to let Windows be our primary OS. Vive la différence; it's the only thing that saves us these days.