SoftICE DEAD?

Yes, it's really sad. I already read about it some days ago.

I believe this is one of the first "suprises" we will all get with Windows Vista.

Microsoft will not allow anybody on Vista to load a driver which was not digitally signed by Microsoft, unless you attach the Microsoft Kernel Mode Debugger. So this is the end of SoftICE. Even if SoftICE would use a signed driver, you couldn't debug your own drivers with it, since you would not be using the Microsoft debugger.

This will be also the end of many daily-use applications which need some driver, since driver signing by Microsoft is very expensive and I don't expect Microsoft to drop their prices by 99%.

We will see how our beloved Sysinternals tools will vanish, unpackers and dumpers based on drivers will stop working. They will be followed by really usefull programs like CPU-Z and Daemon-Tools. Eventually all freeware Firewalls and Anti-Virus applications will die. Finally all paid software using drivers will get more expensive.

Of course there won't be any more "beta" tests for new hardware drivers any more, no more "hacked" video drivers to get the best framerate and visual quality in games. The general driver quality will drop.

And for what? Only to allow companies like Macrovison and Symantec to buy more and more competing companies and let their software die, just be course they have the money to pay for Microsoft driver signing while the other companies do not. Finally there will be something like 10 major companies only selling crap software, but nobody can compete with their products, since nobody has the money to pay Microsoft to allow alternative applications to be used.

Maybe some day the driver protection will be cracked, but the software will already have disappeared since they are not allowed to "legally" work on cracked Windows versions.

Originally Posted by MarkusO

Microsoft will not allow anybody on Vista to load a driver which was not digitally signed by Microsoft

Well, then not in a week after the first release, several "load your own driver in Vista" howto-s and patches will show up.

Besides, on current Vista betas you can use the Sysinternal tools, and I don't expect many changes in the final version.

I consider this, as a usual MS blahblah...
They're just trying to pressurize the hw manufacturers and driver writers to get even more profit.