The one bright spot in the upgrade process has always been the monitor. Like the North Star, the monitor is always there to ease the transition. I look to it for comfort, and it stares back at me as if to say, "It"s OK, Buddy; I"m here for you. You"ll always have me." Sure, monitors can get a big dated (think dirty beige 14-inch CRT), but when have you had to upgrade your monitor to avoid functional problems in the new OS?
That all changes with Longhorn. Why? With Longhorn, Microsoft will begin pushing opium. Well, technically it"s OPM. However, opium might be a good option for those livid that the video content being sent to their pristine 24-inch Dell LCD monitors is purposefully being "fuzzed" (more on that later). So what is OPM? The successor to Microsoft"s rarely-mentioned COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocol), PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path – Output Protection Management) is the first play in Microsoft"s game plan to ensure that protected content stays protected.