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Microsoft to Disable Online Windows Activation
CasterPod writes "As of February 28, Windows users who purchased their PC will no longer be able to reinstall without calling Microsoft and answering a series of questions. The move is part of an anti-piracy effort to close 'a loophole that enabled unscrupulous resellers to use Windows XP product keys that were stolen from large OEMs.' Specifically, Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels on PCs are often unused because OEMs preinstall Windows and bypass product activation. The product keys can therefore be stolen and reused. First WGA, and now this."
Just means you will have to use a corp key which does not require activation. I know as a support tech I would never sit through a freaking queue every time I had to reactivate windows.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Seems to me MS could have solved this problem by requiring the large OEM's to stop allowing their keys to be "unused" like this. And you know what, there was a time that MS could have done this, despite the added effort/headache it would have undoutbedly been for the OEM's.
Sign O' The Times?
I fail to see how this is a huge problem. I've had to call them about key problems before and it took no more than 3-5 minutes from beginning to end. Hell the Gentoo installation documentation took much longer than that to read.
Microsoft has every right to verify that people using their software do indeed have a license to use their software. And let's be honest, no matter what they do you're going to hate them and flame them.
You should be thankful they're not giving it away free or you could kiss goodbye to something other than Windows ever being on a computer's desktop.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
The content (and authors) of this report have been thoroughly discredited throughout the blogosphere. ED BOTT (http://www.edbott.com/weblog/) LAYS DOWN THE TRUTH: "IF YOU BUY A NEW COMPUTER FROM ONE OF THESE 'MAJOR VENDORS,' YOU DON'T HAVE TO ACTIVATE IT. THE SYSTEM MANUFACTURER ACTIVATES YOUR COPY OF WINDOWS WHEN THE COMPUTER IS BUILT. You can reinstall the operating system on that computer using the original Windows XP CD as many times as you want, with no activation required." If you replace your motherboard or try to install to a different system than the one that the OEM version came with, then you have to call to activate. Please stop the FUD folks.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
The corp version of Xp won't have this problem. Corps will continue to use their own canned builds and not care about activation.
:-)
And their employees will continue to use their Windows keys from work on their home PCs
They won't disable key activation, just for keys that are assigned to the top 20 OEM clients of Microsoft.
They are however planning to get rid of online activation alltogether.
Hmm, I hope India has enough people to man those call centers.
The pirates will still crack activation anyway. It's only the unscrupulous resellers of Windows that get hurt by this.
As long as the hardware hasn't changed significantly, they won't have to reactivate, even if they do a full format/reinstall.
What the catcher is, you calling them to activate is technically a support call.
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Not, that is blantantly untrue.
Product Activation is it's own group at Microsoft, seperately administered and staffed from all other units, including technical support. The call centers of PA are completely seperate from all other functions.
There is never, and has never been a charge associated with activation.
Additionally, Microsoft does not charge per minute technical support rates, and as far as I can tell, never has.
For desktop products, like Windows XP and Office for example, the fee is $0, $25, $245. Most are free, additional support - like programming a macro or something of that nature, costs $25. Dealing with server-technologies, company wide networking, or other business technologies generally cost $245. These fees are per incident, regardless of how long it takes or how many people you have to talk to. I worked with an MS support person once for 4 days, 9-5 pm, 8 hrs a day, to solve a critical problem with networking. Fee? $245.
I suggest you learn a little bit more about MS and thier support services before you go spouting off about what you remember.
Here are some links:
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=
Actually, you are really, really, really wrong.
XP has a fantastic penetration rate for MS. There are very few users not in a corporate setting using Windows 2000. Most users before XP were on 98, 98SE, or ME. As those users replace their computers, they got a big dose of XP. The die hard Windows-fanboys upgraded legally or not - to XP a long time ago.
MS sells Windows by attrition - those PII and PIII boxes out there have been replaced by newer PCs running XP.
MS hasn't released much in the way of sales numbers, but XP is very well represented in the total slice of Windows users. I the most recent PDC (Professional Developer Conference), an MS VP of Sales suggested that XP was about 60% of all Windows users. XP or 2K represented almost 75% of all Windows users. That means that the really legacy products - 95, 98, and NT4 represent less than 1 in 4. That's a damn good rate for any business.
MS is rapidly consilidating its users on the same platform. Before XP, you had two entire different product lines. MS has finally merged them into one line, and the userbase is very happily consolidating.
Make no mistake, MS is generally very happy with XP adoption rates.
That's wrong when it comes to Dell machines and the software provided with them. Whether it's the Windows OS itself or a productivity application, if it's made by Microsoft and comes from an OEM such as Dell, they can create a key for you. Microsoft provides them with a program that will generate valid OEM serial numbers that they will give you once they prove that the software came with the PC.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Now that Microsoft have made it very clear to the masses that they can't re-use OEM versions of XP, I wonder if many people will start demanding OEMs to supply full versions?
At that point in time, people will realise how much Microsoft is charging for a full version of their crappy OS and probably go to Linux or Apple instead.
I can't wait.
heres the best loophole
http://home.pages.at.nyud.net:8090/cw2k/Antiwpa/
Now that the wife is on a mac, I've had to re-install zero times. my son can do all sorts of crazy stuff on the mac and it doesn't crash. This just gives me one more reason to never buy a PC. As long I have my windows laptop for programming and work, all my other systems can be Macs.
True
You can reinstall the operating system on that computer using the original Windows XP CD as many times as you want, with no activation required.
False. I have an HP/Compaq (is this vendor "major" enough for you?) notebook which came with XP pre-installed, no activation needed. But when I did the reinstall that XP seems to require every six months or so, with the original CD, it wouldn't run before I did the activation.
Sam's is different, you signed a contract there.
If you were just reinstalling to trace this problem, you could have held off on activation until you had solved it. You don't need to activate Windows immediately after you install it, you're given 30 days until you have to. (Not that I think activation's a good thing, or that you shouldn't be able to reinstall your OS as many times as you want to.)
This comment was thought up very late at night and does not necessarily reflect my views at a more reasonable hour.
This change just doesn't affect them - and importantly - until it does, please don't expect any mass migration to other operating systems. Microsoft rightly identified an exploit that pirates are using to rip them off- why shouldn't they patch it up? It really bothers me that so many people play this out as a big bad beast cracking knuckles again - it just isn't. Since when did support piracy become so acceptable to so many people?
Because this will have no impact on copyright infringement whatsoever. People who were nicking OEM keys (or double selling them) will just switch to fake or stolen volume licence keys, which most infringers use anyway, or even copies with activation disabled.
The people it WILL impact will be people like me, a computer repair guy. Say I reinstall a copy of windows for a customer that's been crippled by spyware. I use the OEM key on the sticker on the bottom. Instead of a few seconds activation through the LAN (which is irritating, but not significantly so) I now have to sit on hold with microsoft, then probably read my key to a machine, then explain to an operative why I'm reinstalling.
I've done this in the past, and it's no fun whatsoever. Now imagine I have to spend 10 minutes on this for every machine I fix. Now imagine they ask questions about the OEM computer, where they bought it, how old it is etc. Now _I_ can't register the computer, I have to sit down with the customer and walk them through it at handover.
This is going to be a massive pain in the bum for legitimate users and small businesses, while having zero impact on copyright infringement. That's why we're pissed off.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Perhaps this is why it's less common to see this in the UK; over here there are also certain reasons for which a non-police officer can lawfully arrest you, but on the flip-side you are entitled to use reasonable force to resist a wrongful arrest. Depending on the circumstances, that could involve anything up to taking the guy out... permanently. :-/
This is probably why UK store detectives (generally a pretty professional bunch, from what I've seen) tend to steer well clear of the one that got away, and stick to pulling guys they've just watched making a poor effort to conceal nicking something that's found on their person within moments of leaving the store?
Nothing in this post is legal advice, and I'm not a lawyer anyway, but hell, don't let that stop you exercising your legal rights as entertainingly as you see fit if anyone ever tries this on you. }:-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Actually Sam's club can do this, and get you into a lot of trouble. They are considered a members only (private) club and can set their own rules. But the worst they can do is refund whatever you paid to become a member and forbid you from shopping there again.
See, that's the kind of "users are idiots _and_ thieves" mentality that's causing the problem in the first place. (And not just Windows. I wish all those idiot game publishers who now even want to install low level copy protection drivers on my machine would die a slow painful death. Cancer, for example.)
The fact is, users may not be versed in fine points like configuring a firewall or understanding security threats (then again, 90%+ of programmers have no clue about security either), but they _can_ Google, you know. You'd be surprised how finding a copy-protection crack for just about _anything_ takes mere minutes. Even little old grandmas know how to google nowadays, or get told how to real quick.
Also those users do _not_ live in a vaccuum, as the software companies and movie producers seem to assume. They seem to think the Earth is made of some 6 billion hermits, each living on a separate mountain top, and never talking to each other. If one of them found out how to download a crack or warez on P2P, surely noone else can learn that from him or her. Sad to say, that's not how it works.
If they're friends or family of a pirate, guess what? They'll get an already patched CD from that pirate. Or a CD and including the patch program separately. And then copy that CD further for others.
Or they'll get pointed at www.gamecopyworld.com, or whatever other crack site fits their particular problem, by someone who knows. E.g., someone like me.
Now I don't support piracy, and in fact I'm firmly against it, but I support idiotic copy protection schemes even less. Copy protection just doesn't work. Period. As was said, the _only_ ones affected are the honest paying customers. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna support that kind of thing.
When someone bought a product, it wasn't because they're too stupid to google for a crack, it was because they actually wanted to go buy it. Whoever wanted to pirate the stuff, actually went and pirated it.
And then going and dragging the paying users through indignities like having to call tech support to get their product activated (oops, some kiddie with a serial number generator already used yours, so more time on the phone is needed), or like having copy-protection-related trouble in the game they paid for (we'll just make your game crash because your CD drive is called "E:" instead of "D:", so surely you're a bloody pirate with CD emulator software), is just stupid and uncalled for.
Not that it will stop greedy corporate fucks from doing it anyway. There's a class of people for whom money is the only thing in life, and worth pursuing no matter what collateral damage they cause. Even when they don't even get that money.
The thought "but we could make 100 extra bucks from the only 2 guys in the world who don't already know how to download a crack" just overloads their brains. They just _have_ to get that 100$ at all cost, even if it means kicking every single honest user in the teeth. With steel toed boots.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually, stores where you pay a membership fee (Costco, Sams Club, etc) have an agreement you sign when you get a membership. One of the stipulations is that you must show your receipt to the person at the door. If you don't want to do that, don't become a member.
If a door nazi at a normal store does the same thing, you have no obligation to stop, and they have no reason to hold you unless they actually suspect you've stolen something.
As an avid VMWare user, it looks like this is going to bite me. I blow away the OEM windows install, install Linux, then install the copy of Windows that came with the PC in a VMWare session.
So far this has been easy, but it sounds like in the future I'm going to have to call to ask permission to do this.
Even Windows-using developers installing VMWare for application testing are going to end up being bitten by this one.
Absolutely true. I've worked in retail and I KNOW that there was a lot of product walking out. But our management told us, never NEVER attempt to detain someone unless you actually saw them take an item off the shelf, hide it on their person, and try to leave the store without paying. Oh, and you had to keep them under observation the whole time, to make sure that they didn't remove the item from their person before leaving. The losses are insured, the false imprisonment charges and any following lawsuits are not. :)
I think I called the police once, on a guy who stole a $0.95 auto-trader magazine. It was pretty funny
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
I will be able to activate my retail copy of Windows XP Professional Edition over the Internet, instantly and hassle free. Take that OEM theives.
Actually, this is precisely the way it works in the US. You can place someone under citizen's arrest for a misdemeanor you witness or a felony you believe has been committed. False arrest is a serious crime, and apparently a sufficient deterrent in most cases. In the US you may use necessary force to deter someone who you are placing under arrest. People near you are supposed to be legally compelled to assist you in making the arrest, and resisting a citizen's arrest is supposedly legally equivalent to resisting the arrest of a police officer. You are not allowed to resist wrongful arrest, just as you are not allowed to when you are being arrested by the police, but placing someone under arrest wrongfully is a crime and also opens you up to civil suits in our litigation-happy society.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ok, so basically you're saying this move is pointless
I agree for several reason, one there are activation cracks, and will continue to be. Two it will encourage people to switch to linux. Three won't it cost them more then the lose to hire additional phone activation people?
Signatures are so 90s
i'm posting this from a computer running windows 2003 enterprise edition. i didnt activate it at all. just installed one of the several available cracks and voila. works like a charm. no activation, no stupid questions. i can use windowsupdate to install all the latest updates (my friend using windows xp with the same crack was able to install service pack 2). this silly activation thing only annoys legitimate users. ppl who pirate windows wont be stopped by these silly activations.
anyway i already have my other two computers running linux. pretty soon i'll be saying goodbye to windows altogether.
In the US, it's absolutely legal to carry a loaded firearm on your belt. Whether the cops harrass you over it is another thing.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
He can detain you until his manager arrives, and the manager (if he wants to) can detain you until the police arrive. Now if you decide to just ignore them and run, don't be surprised when a police officer tackles you down and slaps hand cuffs on you or when they circulate your pictures (from the cameras) to the police station. Once they find out you did nothing wrong except act like a moron - they will tell you to behave. You are in a place of business, the guard was doing his job - because you know there are criminals out there - and they don't wear signs on their heads saying "I'm the bad guy." So next time you feel like being a prick to some poor schlep trying to earn a buck, think on how you would feel and just let the guy do his job - it is not that much of an inconvenience.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Speaking of reducing prices, read the latest Cringely column. He predicts Microsoft will net billions more in revenue by issuing their antispyware software free.
And here I thought Bill was finally smart enough to realize that charging for the ASW product would be a pittance in revenue compared to the bad publicity about charging for fixes to one's own flaws.
When in reality, the point of releasing the ASW software for free was to put the other companies out of business and force 100 million upgrades to XP SP2, thereby generating billions more in revenue.
In other words, as Cringely puts it, even Microsoft's "good" actions have a predatory purpose.
Fortunately Cringely also suggests this will hurt Microsoft later.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This really depends on who you ask. I, for example, am a particle physicist. Amongst my peers, written documents are exchanged in one of three formats: PDF, postscript or ASCII text. In fact, the last time I remember using MS Word was to write an english paper in college (at the time I wasn't experienced with LaTeX). Nearly all computing (number-crunching) in our field is done on Linux-based machines, and based on looking around during meetings and conferences, roughly a third of us use Macs as our personal laptops. While we may not make up a sizable fraction of the overall computer using population (which, I will concede, mostly uses windows), there are thousands of us, and nearly all of us can get by on a day-to-day basis without using a single Microsoft product. Basically, the number of Windows users is small enough that the rest of us can demand using non-proprietary formats from those people. I'm sure there are many other industries/professions in which this is possible.
I've had WPA trigger on my installed-and-activated copy each time I moved the system partition to a different drive, especially if it was bigger.
Yes, I know, I ought to totally reinstall, but when I have a drive start to give me read errors, I don't feel like risking death of data by hunting down what directories it may be in.
And when I buy a bigger drive and want to use it as my Windows system drive, and install SuSE or something on the old drive, I should be able to do that, without telling Microsoft what I'm doing.
I know this is a bit advanced so it is not for the "average" computer user. But what I do is...
/mnt/where/I/mounted/my/rev/drive (35GB) (you can use external HD, or your favorite mass storage device)
/dev/hda ...
Set up my computer the way I want it, All MS Software activated, such as office. (FYI this works with Windows Server 2003)
1. Boot to Gentoo Live CD
2. dd if=/dev/hda | bzip2 >
When spyware or just general Windows Entropy slows the system down too much, I back up my data...
1. Boot to Gentoo Live CD
2. dd of=/mnt/where/I/mounted/my/rev/drive | bzip2 -d >
3. Reboot
4. Use windows normally, have to re-install games
5.
6. Profit?
The one "Bad Thing"(TM) about this is that data has to be on a separate disk. You can also modify the above to use partitions and have all data on a different partition. Though with any windows reinstall it is a good idea to reformat, with slow version, the partition to NTFS. So you'd have to do this in either case.
Anyway This works well and gets around that stupid reactivation crap, now I'm *VERY* glad I do this.
And remember kids, ALWAYS backup your data on a normal basis. HDs will fail!!! There is no question, they will fail. If I was not clear let me repeat that, THEY WILL FAIL!!!!! You need backups, and if you do this as you should, the above process will be less of a fuss.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.