Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Backs Down on Windows 2000 EULA

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

nachoboy writes "After the fiasco surrounding the overly intrusive EULA for Windows 2000 SP3, it seems Microsoft has backed down a bit with the upcoming release of SP4. The section concerning automatic updates now states simply "You consent to the operation of these features, unless you choose to switch them off or not use them." The EULA then proceeds to list the five services liable to connect to the internet without explicit confirmation. A reference copy of the SP4 EULA may be found here. We can only hope for a similar move with Windows XP."

5 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Too little, too late... by krray · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This may be too little too late for us. With the release of SP3 for Windows 2000 "Professional" we went to a "code freeze" with Microsoft Windows (among other things).

    With this SP we also decided it was time to completely ditch them from operations and have been rolling out Linux and Mac OS.X workstations as existing systems reached their EOL.

    Fortunately we may actually use SP4 for the existing Windows boxes (about 35% left now) -- but our budget for Microsoft products has been placed at -0- per the board of directors.

    Too little, too late... (fp :)

    1. Re:Too little, too late... by krray · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It didn't take us two years to decide Windows is full of security holes and problems. I personally knew that with Windows 95 (never deployed here -- stuck with WFW3.11).

      The remains Windows boxes are primarily used for AutoCAD work. I've yet to come across a product that comes close to what we would expect for other platforms -- the exception being a outside-our-needs $40K package.

      Those remaining Windows boxes have long ago been on a segmented private subnet with NO ACCESS what-so-ever to the Internet for obvious security reasons.

      Frankly -- I don't give a rats ass what the rest of the world does (to a point -- we still need to share data). The "TCO" for Windows is a hell of a lot higher than Microsoft would like you to think it is. A whole LOT.

      Even when Windows was the #1 desktop on our network there has never been one (1) virus infection or outbreak. Of course Outlook and Explorer were banned from day one (which helped :).

      I'm still amazed by the Windows weenies out there -- isn't it interesting that a guy like me doesn't like Windows? 20 years experience "in the business", multiple computer science degrees along with accounting and business management for that matter... I like Netware, BSD, Solaris, Linux, OS/2, BeOS, and OS X among others -- it's just so obviously how fundamentally flawed Windows is.

      But I'm sure I don't know shit or what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's it.
      Too funny.

  2. Published benchmarks still "illegal?" by mgcsinc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a nice concession by microsoft, but what of the weird restrictions on benchmarking alluded to in the older slashdot article?

    'You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Framework component of the OS Components to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval.'

  3. Windows Media Player 9 alters my files? by eMartin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I installed WMP 9 the other day, and the first thing I did was go through the settings to turn off all the "features" that I don't need.

    One thing that I found interesting though, is that I unchecked the "Update my music files (WMA and MP3 files) by retrieving missing media information from the Internet" (which has an accompanying help link that explains that it would be used to add information to both the media library database and tags within the actual files), yet all the files that I played in WMP were actually still modified. Their modification dates and file sizes changed.

    Now that is enough for me to decide not to use their software for playing my music, because the way that I see it, any info that is used by the media library (such as song ratings, number of times played, etc.) belongs in the separate database that it uses, and my files should not be changed unless I click a "save" or "apply" button somewhere.

    So does anyone know what is being added to these files by WMP? I don't like the idea that it is changing my files just to add some stupid "This audio file was played by Windows Media Player" tag.

  4. Disclosing URLs IS dangerous by arth1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not that easy to dismiss.

    Example: A VPN user enters https://user@password:internalserver.company.com
    However, the VPN line has gone down and the user happens to be on the Internet, where internalserver.company.com doesn't resolve. Or the local DNS server might have a temporary hiccup. Or a variety of other reasons might cause the lookup to fail.
    IE then proceeds to send the URL to the search engine of choice. NOT good.