Slashdot Mirror

Actually Microsoft has never had control. Pirated copies of Windows have always been able to get any Windows update they push, and for those they don't push you can find all over the net. Autopatcher rolls all the Windows updates up into a package, Windiz updates lets you get them sans validation, as do a ton of other sites. Heck, you can even setup your own WSUS with one valid copy of Windows and update all your pirated copies.

This doesn't change anything, Microsoft won't care. This doesn't break activation, or generate valid ID keys, those are some things Microsoft does care about (even if it can't do anything, both of those exploits are in the wild), but not WGA. As long as WGA keeps honest people honest (a la locks on a door) it is doing its job.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/howto-delete-xp. html That should solve it :) It uses a standard Windows mechanism, but gives you access to it.

There's little reason for anyone to still be running SP1; SP2 contained a range of improvements to XP's security.

Windows Update can't complete the install of updates required to install/download sp2...

But all is ok, I found this site http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/index.html which will allow me to download all 50+ updates manually.
But it really dosen't matter now that I use Gentoo.

WinXP Pro with bad sound and video card drivers. 150$
Gentoo with great working ALSA and working video card drivers. 0$
Knowing that you can't play Oblivion any more. Priceless

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/ will let you download windows patches and service packs, even without a valid product key. As far as I know, it doesn't phone home at all. It's not some shady executable, but just a website that works with any browser, to download service packs and the like.

The most useful feature of Nautilus is the scripts functionality, so simple & elegant.

I have a lot of iso cdrom images, that I use occasionally - I popped the iso mount script in my ~/.gnome/nautilus-scripts & off I went, merilly mounting & using iso files.

I looked for equivilant functionality under windows recently & just couldn't find it - this microsoft app wouldn't mount (map, whatever you whacky windows guys call it) lots of my isos, rar was nagware (and required you to extract, rather then giving you a virtual drive), nero's expensive, etc etc.

Anyway, back on topic - go download Nautilus scripts from g-script they've got loads of scripts, which solve a lot of problems in a very unixy way. All in all, handy.

Well, for some reason the link turn out right right, crap. Sorry about that. Trying again: Windows patches

Simple countermeasure:

Warez group hacks a copy of Windows Whatever Pro to make sure that this picacy check can't disable the TCP/IP stack, or disable the OS in any way.

The user of this hacked copy still won't be able to get updates, but that's what sites like this are for.

Riiight, like I'm going to let an ActiveX applet from Microsoft scan my system. What do they want next, a retina scan? DNA check? I don't encourage piracy (I *do* own a legit copy of XP), but forcing users to submit to this crap so they can get updates (I know, I know, *not* critical updates, but still) is just wrong. Anyway, use the links above and just say NO! to Microsoft ActiveX scanning.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/ you dont need to use windows update...

see The Software Patch