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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."
Right when I am peeved that I had to re-install, I have to get back on the phone with M$. Enough is enough - has their 'activation' programs really impacted priacy at all? Has it done anything beyond bother paying users?
right now, it was easier to spread corporate (or educational) keys. Many of these don't require activation at all. Once MS disables this, crackers will resort to patching the activation code. .. It's just a matter of time, like the XBox was cracked eventually.
On the other hand : this will just make the difference between Windows and OSX/linux even more apparent. Every user-restricting move of microsoft is, in the long run, a shot in its own foot
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Microsoft depends on the ubiquity of Windows (and Office, Outlook, et al). When everybody is using Microsoft products, everybody needs Microsoft. Their proprietary formats are a de facto standard (except Massachusetts), so if you want to do business with people who use Windows (et al), you have little choice but to also use windows.
As their piracy initiative starts to pick up steam, this will only enhance the "value" of free (or at least lesser cost) alternatives. I predict a large swell of Linux usage-- on the desktop, in these emerging markets, or other areas where the hight cost of Windows (et al) simply locks people out. With that will come a groudswell of support for open formats.
Consider what you need if you are going to do business with the government of Hamburg. You will need to provide and exchange documents and other material in a format they can read (it won't simply be Word and PowerPoint). Now the same thing will happen in these emerging markets, creating more of an interest in these alternative formats, and thus alternative applications (e.g. OpenOffice).
More choices are good for everybody. Use the application of your choice, on the platform of your choice, and produce documents and other material in a format anyone else can read. Right now, I have any number of such choices to produce graphics for a web page (jpg, png, even gif). The formats for Flash and Acrobat have been opened up, and happily they are becoming more standard. But the U.S. Government still requires all RFP submissions in Word.
More choices, however, is bad for Microsoft. They don't want open formats and lots of choices, they want (and need) everone using and exchanging MS Word documents. They want (and need) everybody using Outlook and Internet Explorer, and of course, they want (and ultimately need) everybody using Windows.
Step 1: Company implements some sort of copy protection.
Step 2: Legitimate users are hampered by the copy protection while illegitimate users breeze by it through various means.
Step 3: Company either ultimately removes copy protection with a black mark on its reputation or people just stop buying its products.
I know of no historical case that deviates from this for a major software release. Of course, you have various vertical applications that use dongles and other such things, but anything that is mass-distributed (like Lotus Notes or Turbo Tax) that has used copy protection either removed said copy protection or stopped selling their product.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I think the fanboys can be silly at times too, but lets be honest, "ever" is a very, very, very long time. Free or not, who knows? Maybe someone can come out with something better 3 years down the line. Fast, flexible, easy to use, relatively bug free - think Firefox, but an OS this time.
Then again, until I can play _all_ of my games (at least the relatively current ones) on it, I'm not switching. Although I do use Gentoo on my non-gaming systems.
Buy linux, and don't have to call anyone who will make you answer stupid pointless questions.
Instead, it'll be the users asking the stupid questions.
"I bought your Linux at Barnes & Noble. Why doesn't it work?"
"Last week I called and you told me how to install your Linux. Why doesn't my Word Perfect CD work any more?"
"The other day you made me install something called StarOffice. I think that messed up my son's Doom 3 CD. It used to work before we installed your Linux."
That'll be fantastic.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
It's not so much the phone queue thats a problem. I've had to phone-activate Windows a number of times on customers machines where for one reason or another, Windows demanded activation before logging on. Trouble was, it wouldn't install the network card driver before it logged in, so there was no way for it to get online. But I digress...
The big pain in the ass in activating over the phone is reading the installation ID. It's not an actual person you talk to- you read the number aloud (as opposed to touch tone) to a computer. You have to speak slow and deliberately for it to understand the numbers correctly, and ultimately it will read a confirmation code back to you. The whole process takes about 5-7 minutes, depending on whether the computer understood you correctly the first time. That's the part that pisses me off about this. Whenever we have to reinstall Windows at my shop, it was easy enough to plug in to our router and activate in 2 seconds (all with legitimate keys mind you). If this holds true, it will piss off many many computer shops around the world. Two seconds vs. five minutes is a pretty big deal.
If I'm going to be punished, I may as well commit the crime.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
People aren't stupid. Let me say that again: people are not stupid, they are not dumb, they are not morons (with a few exceptions - and they are _few_). What they are, by and large, is interested in other things than computing - like, for instance, the work or play they want to accomplish with their computers, rather than the machines themselves.
People are perfectly able to understand the difference between Windows, OSX and Linux - they just don't particularily care. And in that situation, yes, put up enough roadblocks to Windows use and people will gradually switch, just like US people abandoned domestic cars for Japanese ones when they became compelling enough. Not everybody switched, and not all at once (since everybody has a different tipping point), but certainly enough to change the commercial landscape.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I don't care if it takes .0001 picoseconds and happens automagically in response to my brainwaves.
It's not an issue of convenience. It's an issue of principle.
I swap hardware in and out of my PC all the time. More importantly, I reserve the right to swap hardware in and out of my PC whenever I damn well please.
Windows Product Activation limits this right by labeling me an Evil Pirate if I modify my system too much, or in the "wrong" way, and forcing me to grovel to Microsoft for permission to use my own computer again.
This is unacceptable no matter how "convenient" they make the groveling process. I simply do not accept the premise that they have the right to lock me out of my PC based on how I modify the hardware. I don't want my computer playing cop.
It's for this reason that I've kept my Windows box at home on Windows 2000, which has no such onerous "gotchas". When Windows 2000 becomes an untenable platform (which by all appearances will be Real Soon Now), it would be nice if there was a version of Windows that was compatible with my principles. If not, I'll wipe the disk and run Fedora full time, or buy a Mac.
If it comes to that, it'll be a shame; there are a lot of nice things about the Windows environment for the home user, and I'll miss being able to play the latest games. But there are some things that are simply not negotiable, and "I own my system" is one of them.
Read my blog.
I used to be a MS Windows Activation Specialist (a.k.a. the person you hate to call all the time if you format often) for a year in a call center in my hometown of Saint John, Canada. People who wanted to re-activate their Windows would have to answer my questions first. So I have first-hand experience of how much people hate having to call. To be fair, we did get calls from people who, after we checked their Product ID, knew they were using a burnt copy. From this, you would surmise that this system is helping to fight against piracy, right? WRONG! As long as you answered the questions correctly (which mostly consists of why they need to reactivate), their's no problem. Thus you could call in, give a cheap excuse (The most used one being the "had to format", and even if this key's been used a hundred times, we had to activate again.) The one thing I hated to have to tell people, and it happened often, was that they could only install a retail copy of windows onto one computer and one laptop (This policy might have changed, not too sure). I found this to be a silly rule, which often infuriated the user on the other end of the line. And if you have an OEM version on one computer but own two, sorry, your out of luck, you need to buy a retail ver. of windows for that second computer. From my experience, it is my belief that the combination of both the Windows OS EULA and the activation process most likely caused more people to get pirated versions (I've had many people tell me they were going to this over the phone.)
- "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own", Adam Savage