http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9882376-37.html?tag=nefd.lede

No additional info on why MS couldn't budge on the WDDM requirement for Aero glass though.

So far we are waiting to see what will become of this whole vista compatibility debacle, the next court date will be soon, and i would imagine intel and microsoft will make cases known then.

Most of the methods my team has developed to implement PS2+ in vista go right up there with a number illegal warez practices , so currently its only a matter of time before we have addiquit legal council incase we are sued.

To give you guys an example, the current and easiest way to is to easily fake vista into thinking that its infact a earlier release candidate utilizing the old (yet revamped) lakeport Vid.'s.

Which is easily accomplished and achieved by illegal methods used by most warez venus.

Just letting you guys know whats up,

Warm Regards,
XAVIER

But then the question is, why did MS have to force WDDM as an Aero glass requirement, and not throw in a usable workaround? Even something even as convoluted as their method for loading unsigned drivers would be extremely welcome.

The only reason why MS would do that is that the infrastructure behind Aero glass was too tied to WDDM for them to waste resources on supporting the XPDM model, but that idea goes out the window when you consider how close to final the last Aero-working beta was.

It seems awfully convenient for Intel that WDDM has an obscure requirement, despite its irrelevance in making Aero work, that the 915 doesn't handle.

There are basically three scenarios I can imagine:

1. Intel said, "Hey MS, let's force the consumer into upgrading their laptops by tweaking WDDM just enough to screw them!"

2. MS felt a legitimate software-engineering need to tweak WDDM in a way that breaks the 915, and Intel said, "Awesome, go MS!"

3. MS felt a legitimate software-engineering need to tweak WDDM in a way that breaks the 915, and Intel said, "Hey, that's going to break our 915! Can't you do something?" MS said, "No."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Intel-profit-reducing option #3 didn't happen.

And for those who are (rightly!) angry that Aero Glass worked in the Vista betas, but not in the final version, consider this:

The Intel 915 Graphics XPDM driver that allowed Aero Glass to work in the betas DID NOT CHANGE FROM THE BETAS TO THE FINAL VERSION OF VISTA.

If the driver didn't change, ask yourself, what changed to make those features stop working? And who was responsible for making that decision?

"In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded," Microsoft executive John Kalkman wrote in the message, referring to a class of Intel graphics technology that doesn't work with Windows Vista's most-advanced graphics technology, known as Aero Glass.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/352993_msftvista28.html

It's bad enough that the two companies conspired to deceive customers into buying the 915, but it wouldn't be shocking if the artificial limitations imposed by Vista had some Intel influence behind it to spur 945 sales.

Personally, I wasn't burned by the Vista capable logo, I got burned by seeing the 915 work with the beta and assuming that would carry over. I didn't realize that a bait-and-switch was in the offing.