The 158-page bundle of internal Microsoft e-mails (PDF) that Judge Martha Pechman ordered unsealed as part of the ongoing "Vista Capable" lawsuit contains a great deal of interesting information. We've previously covered how the e-mails within the evidentiary document describe the changes Microsoft made to the definition of Vista Capable in order to improve Intel's quarterly earnings, but that's not the only gem within the document. According to Microsoft's own included documentation, the widespread reports of NVIDIA Vista driver issues were by no means exaggerated during Vista's first months.
NVIDIA had significant problems when it came time to transition its shiny, new G80 architecture from Windows XP to Windows Vista. The company's first G80-compatible Vista driver ended up being delayed from December to the end of January, and even then was available only as a beta download. In this case, full compatibility and stability did not come quickly, and the Internet is scattered with reports detailing graphics driver issues when using G80 processors for the entirely of 2007. There was always a question, however, of whether or not the problems were really that bad, or if reporting bias was painting a more negative picture of the current situation than what was actually occurring.
Microsoft's data strongly indicates that the problems were real. Damon Poeter at CRN dug through the documentation to find that on page 47 of the PDF, NVIDIA drivers were identified as the cause of over 479,000 crashes, or just under 29 percent of all the crashes Microsoft logged. Microsoft's own drivers follow, at 17.9 percent, and the "Unknown" category takes third place at 17 percent. ATI is in fourth place (9.3 percent) and Intel in fifth place (8.83 percent).
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*Source: Ars Technica (
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...drivers.html)*
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