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WGA Turning Off PCs in the Fall?
thesaint05 writes "We all know about Microsoft's WGA initiative that started last July. Most of us were troubled to learn that the WGA has been 'phoning home' to Microsoft at every boot. Well, get ready, because eventually Microsoft may be turning off copies of Windows without WGA installed. According to a Microsoft technician, 'in the fall, having the latest WGA will become mandatory and if its not installed, Windows will give a 30 day warning and when the 30 days is up and WGA isn't installed, Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now.'" A new version of WGA was released on Tuesday and, at least for the time being, Windows users have the option of removing WGA from their systems.
What? What was that sound? Was that the sound of millions of unlicensed Windows machines all screaming out in shutdown all at once - and then suddenly silenced?
To keep the current Futurama motif running, quoth Professor Farnsworth, "The Jedi are going to feel this one!"
Seriously, though, doesn't Microsoft realize that significant number of users aren't going to go out and suddenly buy Windows? Sure, most (half?) will, but the rest will go hunting for a truly free (read: no-cost) alternative until a hack comes out.
How could this possibly be a good idea now ? Maybe if it had been there all along, or was introduced in a new release (XP, Vista, whatever)... but why spring it on the unsuspecting masses mid-cycle? That just screams massive user migration.
Not that I'm shedding any tears in reaction to that concept!
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Is there anything in the EULA that allows them to get away with this?
or we'll take away your computer...nice.
You know, I've been ranting on Slashdot and elsewhere about the dangers of XP's "product activation" and Treacherous Computing and such for years now, but few people wanted to listen. Well, one of the scenarios I predicted is coming true! Now just wait for the screws to tighten even further...
I jumped ship to Linux when XP came out. It's not too late for you to join me!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I can't imagine that Microsoft would be so stupid as to eventually start turning off people's Windows systems. Talk about cutting your own throat. Even the Microsoft fans would start thinking of turning to other OS options.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
It is their product, if you didn't pay for it I don't see how you can complain that they aren't going to support you or allow you to continue using it. If you want software to be free that much, use Linux and stop complaining.
What about all the corporate desktops which don't have direct internet access.. I doubt MS are going to try and shutdown those too, it would be business suicide.
Wait, let me read between the oh so subtle lines... You think people are going to be migrating in droves to Linux? Give me a break, people won't be moving to Linux. They'll find a hack for Windows, they'll buy Windows, or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled. Nobody is moving to Linux because the games aren't there, the thousands of cheesy little Windows applications people love aren't there, it's different (read: scary), and it's a pain in the ass for most joe schmoes to install.
Where is the genuine advantage? Can I at least get a regular advantage? Something? A bone perhaps? Why not just call it what it is: Microsoft Windows Spyware/Destruction/Shutdown/TheShaft(c) Tool?
I disagree, most users are not very bright and as such when their PC stops working they'll do just about anything to make it work... whether it be plunk down 100-300 bucks for a copy of windows or even 300-500 for a new Windows based PC.
Sure... they could go to Linux or other open source based systems but the fact that most have never heard of it and just want their PC to work exactly as it did before basically precludes this possibility.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Microsoft Windows, now comes with preinstalled rootkit for your optimal experience.
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
Lemme guess, MS is all pissed off because Vista won't ship anytime soon and they aren't making cash on it. So now they have to increase revenue by making people buy XP who may not have legit copies? I sure hope some 16 year-old hacker takes care of this problem for good.
http://religiousfreaks.com/SO if i don't agree to the new EULA (should be safe to assume it will be there) who do i call to get my money back?
:/
I am getting sick of this new habit of changing terms after i buy into something for pretty much anything anyone can apply it to
Currently one of the only PC i have access to is running XP SP1. It has all the other updates. I would update to SP2 but i can't the install errors out and i've not found any info on how to fix it. I would format it but it is not my computer and the people care to much about there data to let me format. And there is no access to a backup solution.
From Windows XP to Windows 98-SE.....
BTW, I've got a Home PC running my office's license of XP. I get some crazy messages at home from the WGA.... strangely the office PCs hardly grumble.
No wonder Gates is leaving the party...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Just watch the technology news :P It'll happen.
Well, I think I exhausted my vocabulary coming up with the subject line, so I'll wait for responses.
The latest Slashdot meme.
So to combat a minor amount of unauthorized installations, MS is going to give THIS MUCH fuel to the arguments that Windows is a horrible choice for government use? Admittedly, I'm sure MS wont require all government workstations to 'phone home'. But who wants software in which spying features are standard to be installed in government agencies. Even though most people don't really care about occasionaly privacy violations, it seems that this is severe enough that A LOT of people are going to start paying attention.
Agreed.
I predict that if this happens, my group's annual Fall Installfest will be busier than ever. Hurray!
The unsuspecting masses of copyright infringers, you mean. These people aren't giving them money anyway, and are unlikely to give them money. Microsoft must feel that they have a sufficient installed base that even when they lose the people who won't pay them, that they'll still have enough seats. However, this will definitely cause Linux desktop adoption to increase, there is NO way around that.
In fact, I'll be one of them; I'm not going to slide back to XP home with its bullshit permissions tools. (Yes, I know there's other tools you can use.) I have a couple of XP Home licenses even. Maybe I'll use one in a virtual machine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe they'll get a mac?
M$ toadies such as Paul Thurrot and John Dvorak will find a way to make this sound like a "feature" ...
people who buy VLKs will still have to explicitly allow every machine out to the net to connect to ms?
Yeah, that will fly.
Class action all over it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
First of all, they did have this all along: it's called Windows Product Activation. C'mon, you should have seen this coming from the beginning!
Second of all, doing it slowly like this actually works out better for Microsoft. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out. But if you put him in a pot of cold water and heat it up to boiling, he'll get cooked. Similarly, if you started this with Vista people would simply choose to keep their existing XP, or upgrade to Linux instead. But doing it this way, by stealthily installing it and then turning off the software they already have, you get more of them to "fix" it (by doing whatever they have to do to make it "genuine") because they're already invested.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm sure I'll just be one of a hundred or more comments along this line (but yet, give me the love anyway), but lordy, couldn't this be the biggest boon to non-MS operating systems?
When every geek out there, and every sister/mother/grandma/grandpa/etc. of a geek who installed a non-licensed copy of Windows for their family, suddenly finds Windows non-functional, and the only viable option a costly purchase of Windows, won't flocking to Linux (or picking up Mac's with OSX) be far more attractive? This could really be the turning point of the MS domination of the market.
MS knows that a large chunk of their installations out there are not legit; maybe even the majority (maybe even the vast majority). But it helps them keep their ubiquity. Taking aim and carefully shooting themselves in the foot with a howitzer, is what this seems like to me. Their cost will suddenly be far more real to people, and they will seek alternatives, and Linux (in friendly distro's such as Ubuntu) meet a large chunk of people's needs. Browsing the web, checking email, in a free OS. Good enough.
Given the effect this would have, I kind of doubt the validity of the rumour. But if it takes place, giddyup! Every Linux person out there should help everyone they know hit by this, transition away from Windows!
It's almost too much of a cliche', but "bring it on!"
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I can't say I'm surprised. They are a lot of copies of Windows out there, legit and illegit. Hell, I'm using 2000 right now :(. Microsoft wants to move copies of Vista when it comes out, and I can only guess that this might be part of some sort of plot to make that happen. Personally, I hope it disables Windows for millions of users with legitimate copies - including business boxes.
More users for OS X and Linux :).
Haiku for you!
If this is true, and that's a big if, it would raise some hard core legal questions. Can Microsoft revoke a license that's been purchased legally? I know a number of people who are having trouble with this stuff who dropped the $100+ for a sealed box copy already, and they're seriously PO'd. Talk about making OS X look good...
I'm no legal scholar, but might this not also have some sort of interplay with the anti-trust settlement? A remote kill switch sounds like it could have some major anti-competitive uses.
From a PR perspective, it's unimaginable that they wouldn't jump on a rumor like this right out of the gate. If they don't quash this in the next 48 hours, this has the potential to snowball. Stuff like this has to be squashed early or it lives forever.
Im still on SP1, i run a tight ship and have never had a problem with spyware or virii. My questions is, does microsoft have some way of forcing this on me or has the fact that i stopped using windows update over a year ago saved me?
Firstly, I would be surprised if the real pirates didn't have a crack for this less than a week after WGA is made compulsory.Secondly, the fact that people HAVE to pay for a windows version rather than just sticking on an illegal version will cause these people to migrate more and more to free OS's like linux.
People don't use windows because it is a "good" OS, they use it because everybody else does and programs are written for it. Lessen the number of people using windows, and you lessen the reason for companies/people to code specifically for it, hence you lessen the reason for using it.
This is how the loudness war is killing music.
I hope that tons of XP PCs get shut off all at once so that it will create a very big outcry. Then there would be no time more ripe for all the Linux evangelists to preach loudly and gain converts.
A couple of scenarios I typically see:
User #1: Has auto update on and is a member in good standing anyway. No problems
User #2: Has auto update off and is a member in good standing. No problems because they haven't updated their computer since they bought it.
User #3: Running cracked copy and will have a way around this doomsday scenario pretty soon.
Your user #3 is a minority in the U.S. Microsoft and every successful software company -knows- the key to making popular software is to make it easy enough to crack. So I don't see the Microsoft playing "license enforcer" anywhere except maybe the U.S.
Sensational summary though.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I agree to an extent. But the OP has a point as well. Either way, Microsoft will be decreasing their install base in order to gain a few more legit sales. Expect to see more volume license keys here and there.
This really smacks of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. If they do go through with this, I can see them losing their monopoly status within a few years.
"That just screams massive user migration. Not that I'm shedding any tears in reaction to that concept!"
Yeah, screw WGA. I'm getting a Mac! (Actually, I've got one already.)
This out to be fun to watch!
http://religiousfreaks.com/You know, about the only thing this will cause me to lose is my ability to play WoW on my powerful Windows gaming machine. ( Since WoW is pretty much the only PC game I play anymore. ) I can play WoW on my G4 Powerbook, but it's much nicer on the Windows desktop.
So, the end result is, my nice Windows machine becomes a nice Ubuntu/XGL machine, and I buy a nice Mac desktop machine for general work and WoW. Which will work perfectly, since my G4 laptop will be slightly old by that time.
Along with all that, it gives me a great excuse to stop supporting my friends and families who are running Windows machines ( legitimate or not ), since I won't have Windows myself to test against.
So this whole WGA issue that looked mean and bad in the beginning is now looking really good for me!
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
Now they know that they really do have the world by the balls, and they've decided to squeeze.
Let's face it -- the MS fans will bitch and whine, then they'll do as they're told. This is going to be a very good bottom-line move for Microsoft.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
And they'll have to buy a new machine too. Everybody wins. Well, except the consumer.
They'll find a hack for Windows, they'll buy Windows, or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled
More likely, they'll upgrade to pirated Windows 98 SE. Problem solved.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
They'll beat a path to SkyOS!
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Honestly, I hope this happens (I will be investing in a transgaming account again, but eh). It will help curb my gaming habit. I hope it does the same thing for a lot of other people (if I dont see some more support for Linux and Mac in the gaming world then game developers are going to stop making money off of me)
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
If this is all true, I'll eat my hat.
The thing to look it is how this might affect legitimate corporate versions of XP--and by that, I mean VLK versions actually being used in an enterprise setting.
The company for which I work has more than 100,000 copies of XP running in offices on six continents, participating in one of the largest Active Directory installations in the world. Every system's load is tightly controlled and managed, and I can tell you that there are no copies of WGA anywhere on any of those desktops (I've seen the SMS reports). Nor will there ever be.
People say to "vote with your dollars", but your dollars, and my dollars, don't matter. Large corporate dollars matter--like the kind of dollars that can outfit a company's world-wide IT needs. WGA has no place on a configuration-controlled and managed enterprise desktop, and MS would never risk upsetting their real customers--corporate Windows & Office sales--to emplace something like this.
The unsuspecting mass of legitimate users that WGA erroneously labels as "pirates", you mean. That's the best part of this: the more they tighten their grip, the more star systems... err, the more legitimate users get pissed off.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Before you get too excited, this is a slashdot link to a zdnet story that links to a blog called Interesting People that posted an email from an end user named David Pollack who got this information from a guy at an 800 number at Windows support. I'll wait until I learn more before making a judgement.
It will just give balmer your address and at christmas he'll come down your chimney and throw chairs at you. Chairs with spikes on them and laser beams.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
I resent the implication that Windows isn't scary and a pain in the ass to use. It's just what everyone's accustomed to.
Big difference. (not that I don't see and agree with your point to some extent, however!)
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, the zip file attached in the article outlines how to get around it. http://seclists.org/lists/fulldisclosure/2005/May/ 0534.html
"You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just becuase some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
What about my two perfectly legitimately licensed machines at home that fail the "Windows Genuine Advantage" test every time they update WGA? Considering that one of them is my copy of Advanced Server 2003, I won't be exactly happy when it gets killed this fall. (Hey, I just use it for the mail server program because I can't stand sendmail.)
And I'm just a little bitty guy with one server running. What happens when this hits some company's server farm and they all shut down? How much liability is MicroSoft going to have when that happens?
And every time they "fix" my copy after the new WGA comes out, I have to make manual registry changes. Can you imagine having to do that on a 500 machine server farm?
Great idea MicroSoft, if your product actually worked.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Here is a funny related story to this. I have 3 PCs. 2 self built monsters for my personal use both with cracked copies of Win XP. The third is a Dell Laptop that I got from my company to use for DR. After the patch a few weeks back that started checking for "genuine" copies of Windows guess which one doesn't like me now?
...the US's Northeastern Power Grid problem is solved.
Helping people obey the law is a good thing. It seems most corporate IT people are either too lazy or too careless about their jobs to actually read and obey the license agreements of their software vendors; and I strongly encourage any automated tools to make this easier.
With automated tools to help them, perhaps more people will realize that the license agreement is one of the most important aspects of a software package, and with Windows it carries incredible risk -- both legal risk because Microsoft likes suing its customers and technical becausde thier EULA gives them the right to shut down your machines at their will with no due process or trial or anything.
But bottom line -- if you're not doing anything illegal you have nothing to fear from these microsoft programs, so quit complaining. If you are illegally copying Windows I have no sympathy for you. If you aren't sure (as most companies are), I recommend you switch to software with a license you can understand (like Red Hat's -- you bought the software - you can install it wherever you want).
Fortunatelly more of our critical systems are moving to Linux so not at risk from either of those legal and technical vulnerabilities.
Sure... they could go to Linux or other open source based systems but the fact that most have never heard of it and just want their PC to work exactly as it did before basically precludes this possibility.
Money is a suprisingly efficient motivator.
If someone could hack the warning so it says "you have 30 days to switch to Ubuntu".. that'd be great.
But seriously. Each one of you will know of someone who this is going to hurt. Download Ubuntu iso tonight and have the disk ready for D-Day, or get them switched over beforehand. Every time M$ make it harder for people to use 'that copy of Windows they found', is another opportunity to have them ditch Windows altogether. Usually the only question is: "what is the alternative"
Now we have one: http://www.ubuntu.com/download
meh Disclaimer: I have it installed on two of my machines at home, but still have a xp machine for CS:S... (i wish i could give up CS:S so I could ditch Windows altogether...)
I have a windows xp pro box which is fully licensed and activated however, the WGA spyware keeps bugging me at startup and accusing me of being a criminal just because it cannot connect to the mothership. The reason why it cannot connect to the mothership on startup is because I activate my internet manaully and not have it set to run on startup.
I have removed the WGA crap and will not be re-applying it nor any other windows update post SP2 for that matter.
I am a legitimate customer of MS and they accuse me of not having a genuine version of their product. I do hope the WGA comes back to bite them in the ass.
Now, where did I put that Ubuntu DVD?
What are you going to do about it? Hold your breath until you turn blue?
No, I'm not trolling -- the reality is that Microsoft has the whip hand and all the sound and fury is coming from people who know that in the end they're going to do as they've been told.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Get your Linux distros ready. Prepare some simple FAQs for lusers (like me). If Microsoft really pulls off this stunt, it could be the greatest opening FOSS has ever had to get onto Joe Average's home PC. The Linux community really needs to unify and prepare for this opportunity.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I have a Sony Vaio laptop at work. It came with XP Professional, hologram sticker and everything. WGA doesn't work on it.
No-one knows why and I certainly don't have time to figure it out. If they try this, I will just switch to Apple at work. I will simply not spend time to fix their stupidities.
- Paul
This reference to a destroyed boot sector has me worried, because that is exactly what happened to me the other day. I have a disk with one big partition, but it started showing up as two partitions and all hell broke loose. Never seen this happen before. I reformatted and re-installed, and touch wood everything is ok so far....
Wait, wait, wait... Apple just convinced me that my Mac was a PC... 'cause it can run Windows... how does getting a Mac help if I still install a pirated copy of Windows under Boot Camp?
Oh... wait, right - I'm *NOT* supposed to use/install Windows, I've already got Mac OS...
(Okay... so this post was *pure* sarcasm. Spoken like a true self-deprecating confirmed Mac user for many years...)
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
What drove me to linux on the desktop was my increasing unease at the amount of stuff windows was sharing with MS. That was about 3 years ago, I suppose. I don't think people will move in droves either , but if the threat of it was enough to push me over the edge, I'd imagine there's plenty more people not too unlike me that would move as well. I'm not -that- unusual.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
So some of us who didn't like the idea of Windows continuously phoning home and didn't install WGA. What exactly will be enforcing this automatic shutdown? Which other misrepresented update will they release near fall that adds this "feature"? Is it a security release we've already received, or one to come in the future? I don't know many people out there who would install "KB 999666: Windows Anti-anti-WGA Automatic Shutdown Update" if they've already made a conscious decision not to install WGA.
Or, was this part of SP2? SP1? Built into XP from the start? We got complacent to secret codes for installation. Some people got complacent to "Activation". Now we're supposed to get complacent to automatic shutdowns?
Oh well, I'm not too worried. Even if I screw up and accidentally install this auto-shutdown update and they erroneously decide that my completely legit copy of XP is bootleg, the hack community will have a fix before the sun goes down.
I disagree, most users are not very bright and as such when their PC stops working they'll do just about anything to make it work... whether it be plunk down 100-300 bucks for a copy of windows or even 300-500 for a new Windows based PC.
Ahh, so the "bright" thing to do would be to go out and install a brand new OS that you've never used before (and hope it installs in such a way that it will leave your current partition intact so you can get to your data files), install a bunch of software that you've probably never used before, live with the fact that you possibly won't be able to use some of the software packages that there is no OSS counterpart (or the OSS counterpart sucks), that you may have hardware that may or may not have Linux driver support. All that to save $100? I guess there is a faction of users out there who thinks that that is a reasonable trade off, but I'm guessing that many/most would say "hey, my time is worth waaaaaay more than that. Doesn't seem so "not very bright" to me to just spend the damn money and get on with life.
Since WGA is not a default part of windows XP (being that is did not exist when XP came out) eactly how can windows turn round and refuse to run if it isn't there?
Surely therefore it will just be another update that people won't install. Maybe a few pirates will have to re-install windows and not download the patch at most.
Sure does suck though, glad I just made to move to a mac mini for my main computer.
Still my windows box runs windows XP64 and there is no sign of WGA on that as yet unless i missed something!
So the way I see it, some peecee's get switched off, the pirates re-install, a few might buy windows and some might go, hey these mac's are nice (sorry I just like my new mac, never liked the pre osx ones but osx seems likea proper os, even reminds me of amiga os in some ways!)
Er what was I on about? Nah I'm not sure either, anyway I can only see this hurting microsoft, after all it was the we want everyone to run windows even if they don't pay etos that got them where they are today.
+----------------- | What is the question!
Making WGA mandatory doesn't mean ALL illegal copies of windows will be shut off, only the ones that have WGA installed.
You can do a fresh (and illegal) install of Windows from the leaked corporate verion floating around, load SP2 on it (you can download SP1 and SP1, directx, media player 10, etc as 'standalone' installer packages and get around the whole WGA issue), and just completely turn off automatic updates. Without WGA installed, the OS will never phone home and will never be deactivated. Problem solved?
However, not having WGA installed will prevent future security updates and bug fixes, which means you'll have to take care to use a firewall and/or anti-virus apps accordingly, and install apps which won't bog you down with spyware/malware/adware (which unfortunately the general public mostly doesn't do, but this solution works for any semi-intelligent individual).
Chums up, let's do this!
What if your're running Win2k & have never installed WGA?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Face it -- Microsoft knows quite well how much market this will cost them and it's too low to be a concern even to the ultimate "there can be only one" company. Even the false positives (shutting down legit systems) will end up being a net revenue enhancer.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
...For those who have data which is being 'held hostage' by a purposefully non-booting system.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
They are going to switch off all European computers soon.
Some of us are forced to use MS Windows because our jobs demand we use products like Visual Studio which only runs on it.
First off I did pay. Second I do not like having to have it call home and it giving them any personal information including my IP and prod ID to activate which seems to happen every time a tech savy person does anything significant to their computers. Third, I do not like having them infect my computer with endlessly growing DRM shit to support all this. Forth once you grant them this right you give them the power to do so much more than they are currently claiming they are going to do. Imagine forced DRM installation, expiring software leases, and complete user tracking from purchase to forced obsolescence. Fifth, we are the customer, it is their job to meet our demands, not make us their slaves.
I don't see how that is possible if you never get updates. Unless our Windows PCs are contacting microsoft without our permission.
Also, what Microsoft is doing will be a good incentive to migrate towards something else like Linux. At least Linux will not expire on you like Windows will. Linux does not require activation.
Let me see, pay tons of money and be treated like a rat. Or get Linux and treated like a king.
Its your choice.
That it's time to go cold turnkey. Silence the last Windows box (XP Pro which is a legit license, but I got for free) I own and strictly use Linux. 2 out of the 3 PC's I own are already using Linux. I was holding on to my XP box for my gaming desires. You'd think Mircosoft would realize when a large percentage of the PC's out there stop working, people would say, "You know what, fuck that!" and switch to Apple or *nix based products. Yeah OS X costs money, but at least Apple won't be plagued with the "XP phone home syndrome" which sounds like it's migrating to "XP suicide". I think I may have to make my XP box a Martyr and pull the plug before M$ even has the benefit of installing this WGA garbage on my machine. I mean, they might as well log keystrokes as well why they are at it!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
I haven't had a legitimate copy of Windows since 3.1, so I guess it's time to cave in and buy a license.
People seem to be missing the point here -- according to the article, it is not the installs that fail the WGA-check that will be hosed, it is the ones that refuse to install WGA. Thus, MSFT plans to enforce the carrot of regular updates with the stick of bricking your Windows install. Who knows what they might try once they set a precedent for retroactive changes to the license agreement, enforced by threat of the Windows Death Penalty? (Yes, I know that they may already have legal standing to do this through the EULA -- I think they are testing the waters with their users.)
Then again, it could be a trial balloon. The quote is attributed to "a Microsoft technician" and it would be easy for Corporate to deny, deny, deny in a few days.
Now they seem to be telling us, "Oh, no, Activation never really worked. We need to continuously validate the system."
No. You don't. And you won't.
I just built a brand new machine, primarily for gaming. Oblivion has been fairly sweet. But it looks like I won't be playing those games anymore -- not unless the entire game industry decides to support Linux.
This is morally and ethically reprehensible, and Microsoft knows it, and apparently doesn't care. Well, I do care. I do not, and shall not, grant consent to Microsoft to remotely snoop on my machine, regardless of their ostensible reasons. If my copy of Windows stops functioning as a result, I will take that as a maliciously incorporated product defect, and respond accordingly.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
This is /., right? Since everyone here is so bright, why would anyone stoop so low as to run Windows anyway? Who would even want to run a hot copy of Windows? Just to up your quota of snorts, laughs, and derisions? Hardly. MS doesn't deserve to make any money off of Windblows anyway. Besides, Linux is taking over the world. I've got the proof! At my little ole web site that only gets about a million hits a month, Linux is clearly surging ahead! Last count it represents .41% of all OS used! (That's POINT four one percent: Mac is 7.2%) Clearly the fact that XP phones home (using all that PRECIOUS bandwidth needed for stolen music downloads) is irrlevant. .41%! At last the monster is about to be slain!
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
What about the guy who DID buy his copy of Windows, or got it bundled with his machine. If his copy got turned off by mistake, he will be QUITE unhappy to pay again for something that he already owns. In some circles this is called "extortion" if done intentionally. This will breed a LOT of ill will.
The other thing that totally honked me off is that WPA was supposed to reduce piracy. If it actually worked, Microsoft would lose less to piracy. Shouldn't the consumers get reduced prices to compensate for the inconvenience? After all, Microsoft is now making more money, right? Somehow, I bet that Microsoft will not lower the Vista prices even after WGA turns on fully.
Personally, I am grabbing some popcorn and am going to enjoy watching the meltdown of Microsoft if this thing happens. If I were suddenly forced to give up Windows, the only thing that I would miss besides games is my accounting package (and no, Gnucash can't replace that until it learns how to handle inventory tracking).
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
I dunno. The people who have a non-legit copy of XP and don't know what Linux os OSX is probably have it because a geek friend built their computer. When this happens, hopefully those geeks will just say, "Well, it's time for me to switch you over to Linux".
Since I'm no longer a poor college student, when I build my next computer I've decided I'm going to go ahead and pay microsoft for vista.
However, if they disable my poor college student era computer in the meantime, and I have to buy the license for that, I'll much less inclined to pay for an upgrade. On the other hand, I may go ahead and pay microsoft the copy I have now anyway.
Eh, we'll see how it goes.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I, for one, applaud M$'s evil WGA initiative. I suspect that there will be many dissatisfied Windows users out there who will finally decide to step over to Linux and other operating systems because of this. Earlier, I did not believe this would happen until after Vista got rolled out, but perhaps I was wrong.
:-))
Personally, I'm happy that I'm still able to run the few Windows apps that I must on Win98 with VMware.
Incidentally, I ran into an old friend the other day. He knows little about PCs, but he said that he got more work done than ever these days on his Windows PC... by booting it up with a Kubuntu Live CD!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921914/
If so, they're telling us how to turn it off but threatening to shut down our PCs if we follow their own instructions??
Or does that support article not really mean what I thought it meant? I'm so confused!
But that's not what WGA does (yet?) It just confirms that you're genuine and thus can use windows update and download windows defender etc. It doesn't stop you from running non-genuine windows. Maybe they're planning to keep allowing non-genuine windows to run, but only get updates through the automatic updates feature. That will reduce their traffic. Of course, first they'd have to fix the issue that WGA can be compromised.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oh yeah, tons of potential for the average gamer THERE. I roll my virtual eyes.
Bill
How? I stopped getting updates months ago. I sit behind a firewall, am very restrictive about what my Windows Desktop is even used for, most things pass through my linux system first, I have anti-virus program running...so if I do not update Windows, how do they intend on shutting it off? I imagine they intend on sneaking this into a "Critical Update" to get people to "fix" a problem, so they can shut off their machines if they don't get WGA.
If this is true, it will only hasten my departure from Windows. I have a single valid 2k license (and license for home which came with my Dell laptop). I was debating getting XP-64 when I upgrade my PC in the next month or so, but if they do this...forget about it. I will just load Ubuntu and create a small, 10-20GB partition for Win2K so I can play the like three or four games that won't work in Wine.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Maybe not so stupid.
It would be the perfect way to get thousands of people to switch over to Vista when it comes out. Lots of people won't fully understand why their computer have stopped working and the shops will be recommending new computers to all.
Except that just because you don't run WGA doesn't mean you're not legit. Yes, in many cases you wouldn't use it because you don't have a licensed copy, but in other cases maybe people just don't want software that calls home or does other suspicious things on their computer. Legit or no, I'd rather avoid having WGA snooping around my machine.
Nobody is moving to Linux because the games aren't there, the thousands of cheesy little Windows applications people love aren't there, it's different (read: scary), and it's a pain in the ass for most joe schmoes to install.
They might move to MACs. I've been doing windows support for decades and in the last several months, I've actually had some users ask about hooking their MACs into our network....I was shocked because these users are not savy with the tech. I would have thought moving to a MAC would be a big deal for them...but it wasn't.
I helpped them and I am hopeful about Apple's new sleek laptops. Doesn't hurt that they have such nice ads for the MACs now....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I'm sorry, but my bullshit meter is pegged on this story. While Microsoft may be evil, they aren't that stupid, and the story is completely unsubstantiated - TFA is a blog that is linking to another unsubstantiated blog that alleges that some first line OneCare peon told him this.
It wouldn't be surprising if the whole thing was a hoax. At best it's some OneCare peon trying to socially engineer a customer into installing WGA.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Please, Slashdot submitters and admins, PLEASE -- give us the courtesy of defining uncommon acronyms the first time they are used. It is not good editorial practice to force the reader to look up unfamiliar terms on their own in order to understand the content.
You can argue that most Slashdotters should know what WGA stands for already -- but should we? This is one of the more Linux-centric sites on the internet. It's far from a given that we would all be familiar with a Windows-based authentication system, even among those of us that are Windows users.
You can argue that it only takes 5 seconds to slap the acronym into Google and find out what it means -- but that doesn't change the fact that the effort would be better made by the one than by the many. Ten thousand Slashdotters Googling the answer is a net loss of 13+ hours of time that could be better spent on other things.
Every thing MS can do to further alienate their customers brings the monopoly closer to its demise.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You all pointed and laughed at me while I continued to use OS/2. Now who is laughing at who! Ha Ha!
Damnit Presentation Manager locked up again time to reboot.
Ever try 2000?
A pirated copy is still genuine, according to the makers themselves!
I hadn't heard. Can we get a roll call or something?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"Ok, we are going to use WGA to shut down all the non-legit intalls of XP!" - Ballmer
"What if we accidentally kill off legitimate systems?" - Concered MS exec
"Friendly fire? It's all part of war. Surely we'll get some heat." - Ballmer
"Won't this hurt our bottom line of real users? What do you think the shut down pirates will do?" - Concered MS exec
"Naturally they'll rush out to buy a shrinkwrapped copy of Vista. Papa needs a new bag (Diamond Vutton)!" - Ballmer
"No, they will all move over to Linux/OSX, you tard, along with all our friendly fire victims. We'll also incur their wrath in the courts" - Concered MS exec
"Hrmmm......developers, developers, developers, developers! I love this copmany!!!!!" - Ballmer
"Um..... Dance monkey boy?" - Concered MS exec
Before this becomes a nice way for some happy character to have a field day with shutting down machines at random. Off switches via the net suck.
This raises antitrust questions, especially if Microsoft treats as "malicious software" valid programs by competitors that are only 'malicious' to Microsoft's bottom line.
Alternate office software, VMWare and Win4Lin come to mind.
Now I didn't RTA, but this makes no sense. How are they going to know to shut down? Will it come through Windows Update? What if the computer isn't on the Internet? You have to install WGA, then uninstall for it to disable?
Sorry for grammar or spelling, I'm on my Zaurus.
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
I'm also sure that Microsoft has a very good idea how many there actually are and is isn't concerned.
In other words, they have the whip hand and this is just them cracking the whip.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
So far no one mentioned what will *really* happen. People will re-install windows and not update like 80% never does anyway. I see this affeting a really small percentage of unlicensed windows users.
That's a great illustration, but the fact about frogs is, when it gets uncomfortable, they will jump out either way. Frogs allowing themselves to be boiled is an Urban Legend. But the illustration works somewhat. Surely someone who has already started down the MS road would not turn tail and run as fast as someone who has not yet made an operating system choice.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Since WGA only applies to XP, it might be time to reinstall Win2k. However, if you're still running Win2k, then no worries, as the WGA doesn't apply according to Microsoft - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921914#appliesto
Lets say I have a virgin install of windows XP original or even SP for that matter and no updates. Auto updates are toroghly disabled and the box is behind a firewall. How is it going to just shut itself off. pirates can simply just not update there computer. Yea I know security this and that but most people have no clue about it. Out of curiosity I installed my windows XP Pro that came with my HP laptop onto my freinds home made desktop with the laptops CD key and it activated automaticly without even calling microsoft and bullshitting them. I reinstalled and re activated my laptop until it refused to and I had to call MS just to activate my legit copy but on a whole new comp it just works for some reason. MS is really screwed up and eventually I hope they get some serious compitition from someone so they can clean their shit up properly. Apple has the best chance I hope they get 10% of the market share so this bullshit stops. I honestly think due to microsofts recent bullshit from all directions people will start buying macs or the more savy ones looking into linux.
This has been a totally non MS shop since 2003 and I don't intend to ever have to wipe/reinstall/upgrade a Windows boxen ever again.
.. a personal .. assistant .. with experience of setting up a small network .. Some knowledge of French helpful ..
--
part time barman IT manager wanted
Small luxury hotel seeks
davecb5620@gmail.com
Advantage to whom?
Money is a suprisingly efficient motivator.
If the pirate knew everything that you and I know, including (1) how to install, configure, and use linux, and (2) how to recover all his important files and make them work in linux, then he might consider switching to linux full-time.
Unfortunately, I don't know the profile of the average windows pirate, but I would assume that he doesn't know the things that we know, and that retaining access to the files that are important to him and the other software (office, iTunes, digital camera, etc.) that he is used to - and may have paid for - is going to outweigh the cost of purchasing windows (which is like $88).
1. Encourage folks to run WGA
2. Do not disclose functionality of WGA publicly, wait until it gets leaked by whistleblowers to the press
3. Shut down Windows
4. Watch Linux and OS X market share climb (or the Windows 2000 pirate market skyrocket)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Mircrosoft: "All your Windows are belong to us!"
Slashdot: Flame on!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
I might be missing something, but what's bothering me is this:
How is my current copy of WindowsXP supposed to know that it must shutdown?
I have *NOT* installed WGA... so it does not contact Microsoft or anything...
Which program already installed in my current Windows machine will generate the 30 day warning?
Was XP expecting to have WGA installed by Fall 2006 since its conception?
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
And since when does a retail version of Windows cost $100??? Oh wait you are talking about an OEM version. Thing is people with OEM versions have reported problems with MS's WGA and the response from MS is buy another version.
As far as your rant on OSS - pure fucking FUD moron. Go out and use the stuff first before you start mouthing off.
Jackass.
Dude, if you're going to linkspam, at least put two hyphens above it so it looks like a valid sig. It pisses me off to look at it.
Sergei
--
My experimental search engine
So if we're to believe that not having WGA installed will disable windows that would mean that microsoft would already have a backdoor into windows XP that could disable it. I call BS.
I think people will buy windows xp instead of moving to linux. Most of the expensive hardware becomes useless if you install linux. People don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to get their tv card to work. I would love to completely switch to linux, but I have only been able to switch my laptop so far. I have trouble getting my video card to be recognized properly. But my problems aside, windows offers a standardized way to look at a computer, from a user and a programmer's perspective. It might be shitty but its still the same on any windows pc you go to. A user is not going to try to relearn the interface and everything else, especially older people.
The reason people won't switch to linux is because it is designed by professionals for professionals. And I am pretty sure if you measure the professional to non professional ratio amongst computer users, it will probably be equal to (linux):(microsoft + mac).
...if you think this will trigger the downfall of Microsoft, but millions of Windows users will (if they haven't done so already) will just click on the "Download important security update" button and remain blissfully unaware of all this kerfuffle - and if they have any problems they will simply get whoever already re-installs their 'doze system (when its arteries get all furred up after six months of light use) to fix it. The only hope is if MS screws up and turns the lights of at a big corporate customer (...but don't they have a different activation system anyway?)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If MS goes through with this, how many foriegn governments (and even major corporations, etc) are going to use this as a reason to completely migrate away from MS products? Government X can see this as a weapon the US government could use. If relationships between the US and GovX turn sour then this could potentially be used to cripple all GovX Windows computers. The US just tells Microsoft to disable all WinXP boxes in the IP netblocks of GovX. Hell, it could be used just to send a "warning message" to politicians of other countries... MS just says "Whoops, we accidentially disabled systems in Kreplanistan for 24 hours due to a software glitch in WGA" and the US government protects them.
This is completely unsubstantiated. Netcraft hasn't even confirmed it.
This isn't going to happen, certainly not to XP.
If nothing else, making this sort of drastic after-the-fact change to the EULA is precisely the sort of thing that will get definitive court decisions handed down against MS. As someone else has already said, this has class action written all over it.
And that's ignoring the obvious problems of a) how you manage this in the first place, b) what your response is for people who are firewalled/not on the internet, and c) the potential of losing government security certifications.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Windows XP (no SP) or XP-SP1 machines to be turned off. These are the ones that after being (easily) infected by botnets, spread spam and perform DDOS attacks.
How does one move to one of these Media Access Control devices? Or do you mean Mac, as in "Macintosh Personal Computer"?
Spend $500-3000 to save $200? Not likely.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
So is Halo x.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
What the hell are you talking about?
One percent of the people who have those unlicensed copies will actually go out and buy one. The rest will simply wait 6 hours for the hack to come out.
Non-admins may get the euphemistic warning of possessing pilferred software, http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowPost.aspx? PostID=370244&SiteID=25/
Notice the MS solution, delete this, open up all permissions on that (good idea?), read, write, execute, delete for everyone! Or pay-up to get your copy of MS Winders to shut it up.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
That's like selling me a car and telling me that if I refuse to put a spoiler on the back that I won't be allowed to drive it.
:)
Well, that's what EULA's are for. Surprise!
Is there any confirmation that this is really Microsoft's plans? FTA mentions the deactivating windows came from a tech support rep and we all know how reliable they are.
so this post was *pure* sarcasm
I'm not sure which word you don't understand, so here are some definitions for you:
Pure: Having a homogeneous or uniform composition; not mixed
Sarcasm: A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound
I don't see anything I'd classify as sarcasm, but maybe there was something in there you intended sarcastically. I'm not sure what it would be, or how you could intend it sarcastically, but there's always the benefit of the doubt. However, there's no way it's all sarcasm.
It's cool, though, I know a lot of Mac users who drastically overapply the word sarcasm. Maybe it's one of those weird correlations that people love so much.
Oh yeah, tons of potential for the average gamer THERE. I roll my virtual eyes.
Uh... the average gamer will find a hack for their copy of XP, Turn off windows updates, and firewall the microsoft domain.
Non gamers, on the other hand who might be inclined to buy a new computer after microsoft decides to hold the one they have for ransom may very well be inclined to buy a mac. Especially as it will give him the satisfaction of giving the company that reached into his house and took his data hostage the one finger salute.
Frankly though I'm surprised MS would be stupid enough to disable XP BEFORE VISTA ships though. People would be more inclined to buy a NEW product when their computer demands money than to fork over money to use a product they've had for free for 4 years.
I suggest you read the article -- or at least the Slashdot headline -- because the entire issue is that they're NOT going to keep doing that!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I guess its time to get the World of Warcraft running under Linux.
Wine can't run as fast as a native port, so look here:
so I am signing the BlizzPub World of Warcraft on Linux petition
Here is the pointer that lead me to the petition.
Are you saying that Windows users are like cold-blooded animals? Because if you are, I might just agree with you.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
The way these things usually work out is that plenty of "User #1"s will be shut off accidentally.
I don't know about "plenty" but quite a few. The good news is it will be enough for some of them to switch to another OS. The others will buy a new PC.
Good point.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
They just haven't taken into account false positives. And cracks around it to prevent much profit. And lawsuits about false positives to completely negate any profit.
It's just a myth. Even frogs aren't that stupid. OTOH, it's a great metaphor. Anyone have any ideas for a good replacement?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Why Wine when you can Wii?
Does the forthcoming Linux based PlayStation 3 console count?
Apart from the fairly obvious point that Microsoft would not tell this to a fount tier support tech before they had sounded out their corporate clients, this would be mind numbingly stupid.
/. picked it up)
Microsoft make a lot of money because Windows is a monopoly, they know this, we all know this; they are not going to do anything to stop anyone using Windows, irrespective of whether that person's OEM paid the $10 Microsoft tax.
I can forgive the ZD-net journalist for submitting such a stupid story (he had just been on the phone to Microsoft Support!) but why on earth did they run it??? (no need to ask why
The problem is that this has nothing to do with copywright infringement - it is shutting off PC's without WGA installed, whether it's a legal install or not.
The people who *knowingly* run illegal copies of Windows won't be affected by this in the slightest. These people have been cracking WGA since it came out, first with Javascript, then later with cracked DLL's. I'm sure there will be a crack for this within 24 hours of it being released (there always has been in the past), and these people will able to get it very easily. The only people that this will affect are 1) People who think they have a legal copy of Windows but really don't because whoever they bought it from screwed them, and 2) People with legal copies who either don't want to run WGA for some reason, or 3) People with legal copies who run WGA and it mistakenly identifies their machine as "not legit". In short, the "pirates" (their term) will continue on unaffected as they always have, while the "legitimate" users will get screwed.
How could they disable a machine that /doesnt/ install WGA? Wouldn't the 'kill switch' need to be installed for it to happen?
FWIW, I seriously doubt that the primary claim of this story (ie, lack of WGA will result in a disabled system).
Lets see, buy an entirely new PC which will not run my software or games out of the box. In order to do that I will have to get a copy of Windows - why wouldn't people just do the latter instead? Mac fanbois are true idiots.
A solution to the Linux pricing problem.
What's that? The Linux pricing problem?
Cost of Linux = Cost of Pirated Windows. As such, many, many, many, many home users continue to use Windows.
Bring up the cost of Windows?
Cost of Linux 35 percent of PC software is pirated. I'm guessing that Windows XP is highly represented in that group (of pirated software; i.e. at least 30% of worldwide Windows installs are not legal). If even 10% of that user base decides to switch to Linux rather than pay the Windows tax, it'll be a substantial marketshare boost.
And the remaining 90%? They might decide that the MSRP cost of Windows is too close to the MSRP of a brand new dual core Mac.
I'm thrilled. MS has ridden on piracy marketshare for far too long. I hope they do every thing they possibly can to stamp out software piracy, and I hope they succeed.
Opensource Zealots, take heart; Our strongest licenses are copyright based. Should we wish to see the GPL upheld, we should support upholding MS's copyrights. The beauty of the OpenSource ecosystem is far easier to explain to people when they can't get pirated software free or for a minimal $1. Although Free is about Freedom, not Beer, it's much easier to explain that to the layman when it is Free, as in Freedom AND Beer.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
What he means is, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Doesn't hurt that they have such nice ads for the MACs now....
They stopped running those annoying, smug and arrogant PC versus Mac ads? God, I hope so. I can't believe those ads sold one Mac, though I could believe it turned off a lot of people.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
X43B wrote:
- I legally paid for my copy of windows and this does not effect me.
- I have a infringining, illegal copy of windows and now I will either have to stop or find a new illegal copy that gets around this.
I'll add 3. I legally paid for my copy of windows and WGA is malfunctioning.Oh, I've still got XP on a tablet. Too bad the inking and character recognition were better on Linux, or I'd switch that over too.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
I agree with you in principal.
In practice though these end-users don't know if or how or why they could be compromised. They will call when their system is -really- slow.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
That was 1998. Welcome to 2006.
You know some of us who pay for our windows are geting the noose ufairly... "Cannot install Windows Geniune Advangtage (Unknown error 0000x0 contact your local store)" Gotta love when it takes longer to do such a simple task.
What if someone looks at the side of my computer and writes down my XP key and then puts it out on the internet and 10,000 people find it and attempt to activate a copy with it?
first off, remember Y2K? (I'll come back to this)
Okay #1, how do they expect to break the copies of windows anyway? are they going to send a command over the internet? what if you're not connected to the internet?
#2, If they've hidden a piece of code to do it to any machine which has update X, are they expecting to have it go by the date on your computer clock?
What's to stop you from setting your calendar back 10 years or something funky like that? Wasn't that a common solution back from the Y2K panic days?
On another note I remember sitting there in front of my 486 on New Years Eve 1999 hoping to watch my machine burst into flames sending laser beams searing through my eyes. I was disappointed when my machine continued doing what it was doing, the same way it had been doing for the previous 6 years.
I say that this is more than likely BS scare tactic, to try and get people to panic and go and buy windows before hand. Hell it might not even be perpetrated by Microsoft at all!
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Indeed it is.
Especilally to a user with a ten to fifteen years investment in Windows software and hardware to protect.
To him migration to Linux has all the appeal of root canal.
I'm suprised it took this long. Do I like it, no. But take a step back: Are they really doing anything that bad? Are you prevented from making archival copies? Are you prevented from using the software in accordance with the license you agreed to? Are they threatening to sue home users? Is it illegal? Is it immoral? No, but they are protecting their property, or at least trying to.
We're back to the same-old argument: Do I "own a copy" of windows or do I "own a LICENSE" of windows?
I own a license of Windows, that's what the EULA tells me, and that's what I traded somebody some of my money for. By purchasing it I agreed to use it in accordance with the license. Did I have much of a choice? No, not really. Based on the hardware I chose, the software I want to run, and the time I have to spend (outside of work) tinkering with computers, I chose a Windows license. Based on my needs, neither MAC or Linux works for me.
Remember, too, that the license gives you some rights to updates and upgrades. You don't have those same options on the "copy" of your car you own, or the "copy" of any book in your library.
----- Connection reset by beer
Likewise, the EULA already has language covering product activation.
I can't be the only person this has happened to :
Reinstalled windows from the CD that came with the computer, entered the OEM key off the sticker on the computer. The install goes perfectly.
Then after installation I try to (re)activate windows and get a message saying "Your windows license key is invalid" and I'm prompted for a new one. WTF?!
Windows every 30 days?
Isn't this recommended anyway for all Windows installations?
First off, I hate the thought of anything "phoning home" on my computers... Windows or otherwise. When I originally purchased Windows, I was not under any... read that ANY duress or instruction that I would have to be subjected to "monitoring" in order to use this software. To me, the original license agreement is still standing and fully in force. This works two ways Microsoft.
I triple dare you to turn off my machine! Go right ahead and do it! Please... I'm looking to get rich rather quickly and so is the lawyer friend I have who will tell you the same thing.
If I choose not to have this parasite on my box... for any reason what-so-ever, I can remove it at NO penalty or cost. You have absolutely NO SAY IN THE MATTER.
If I remove this parasite, and your company turns off my legally purchased and licensed copies of the OS, you will be summarilly dragged through the court system. Oh, and I have a news flash for you. Everybody knows your tactic of your company has more lawyers and enough money to keep it tied up in court for years, Guess what, knowing there is a giant carrot at the end of the line, you'll be in court spending all your money on the lawyers, while these will be operating on the promise of huge payoffs at the end.
YOU TURN OFF MY LEGALLY LICENSED COPIES OF WINDOWS, YOU ARE IN BREACH OF YOUR OWN EULA. You will be paying me back a whole lot more than the cost of the OS!
Cheers.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
that'll happen only if there's a Linux LiveCD that'll migrate their existing data, use their hard drive for a persistent HOME and SETTINGS location and provide the option of bringing their 'old' operating system back up in a virtual machine.
Otherwise, people will pay the Redmond Ransome just to get their data and settings back. But there still will be a goog number of Linux people getting calls asking about 'that thing called Linux' and asking if it'll run on their computer. Hey, the viruses and spyware are already doing that now so having their OS shutdown by its manufacturer and owner isn't going to make them any happier.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
If I switch to Ubuntu and send my used flatbed scanner that has no SANE driver (Microtek Scanmaker 4850), do I get a discount off buying a Linux-compatible scanner?
Aye.
My parents run Linux now, as do my aunts and uncles. Family members that purchase new systems with XP preloaded do not get support from me. Older systems are grandfathered in.
My GF is happy with her new-ish powerbook, and I'll be having her dump Windows on her Desktop for SuSE; the only game she plays is World of Warcraft, anyways. Oh, and she uses Picassa. Which is on Linux now.
People don't get Windows support from me anymore. I don't help people pirate software anymore, either. I purchase a couple pieces of software for my Mac and Linux, run FOSS when possible, and refuse to subsidize the Microsoft monster with my time in tech support.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Too bad that won't work for many Windows XP pirates, like the ones using Corporate Edition, which cannot be registered with a home or a pro serial (I have tried). This is a major pain in my ass because I have valid Windows XP Pro keys but none that will pass the WGA on corporate edition. When they roll this out hopefully they will provide a way for people who have a pirated copy of corporate edition to validate using a regular windows xp pro key. Also I'm sure there will be some users who have pro and go out and buy home only to find the serial number still won't validate.
Frankly though I'm surprised MS would be stupid enough to disable XP BEFORE VISTA ships though. People would be more inclined to buy a NEW product when their computer demands money than to fork over money to use a product they've had for free for 4 years. You forget the whole point of a monopoly. Why make money forcing people to buy one product, when you could make more money forcing them to buy two?
You'd be surprised, I spoke to one guy who bought a new PC because he was having problems with malware!.... Really!
CN=poolmeister.OU=lurkers.CN=slashdot
Then what's next you ask? My guess is a yearly OS rental fee, enforced by threat of imminent shut down otherwise, instead of the current single purchase arrangement now. Expect to pay a lot more to Microsoft in the coming years if you can't find a way out from under them entirely first. Linux should be making the biggest push of their life right now to replace Microsoft wherever possible.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
However, this will definitely cause Linux desktop adoption to increase, there is NO way around that.
I agree, but it'll only help by a *tiny* amount. Most people will just pony up and buy copies where they're lacking (I know that I will if I have to). A few of the poorest of the poor consumers (after all, a copy of Windows is less than most people's monthly cell phone bill... it's cheap) will try Linux, and out of that, a tiny fraction will stick (as has been Linux's history). Windows' price is not nearly enough to make Linux worth the trouble for the vast majority of people (me included).
A Windows XP Home OEM version (that my local computer store will sell along with a power cable) is $100. For me, that's certainly not worth spending more than maybe an hour dicking around with a PC to get it to the same level of usefulness that I had before. Last time I tried Linux, it took me about 4 hours just to get any kind of basic functionality.
Unfortunately, I don't know the profile of the average windows pirate, but I would assume that he doesn't know the things that we know, and that retaining access to the files that are important to him and the other software (office, iTunes, digital camera, etc.) that he is used to - and may have paid for - is going to outweigh the cost of purchasing windows (which is like $88).
I agree... some people will think it is worth it and others won't. Some people just want to browse the web in firefox, occassionaly create a letter or resume in openoffice, and sometimes play a little game to pass the time. And maybe they will want to edit an image occasionally in gimp, or do something else in the many applications available for linux for free. Those people will be quite content with a ubuntu based desktop computer for $50-100 less than a properly licensed ms windows based computer. Heck if I were a parent buying a computer for a kid, I might just choose linux to avoid having to get nickel and dimed to death with third party software.
Sure, making Windows a pain for pirates isn't going to be a panacea for linux, but that doesn't mean the windows user base won't shrink a little. Microsoft really have nowhere to go but down.
I've got a perfectly legal copy of XP Pro, and I have no intention of ever installing this WGA stuff. It's not a crticial security upgrade, and I have too much specialized hardware and software on this thing to risk a complete meltdown like other people have had problems with. So my EULA is perfectly valid and doesn't seem to contain anything that gives MS the right to stop my computer from functioning. The burden of proof is on Ms on this one. If they can prove somebody is running an illegal copy of Windows, shut them down. Fine by me. But blanketly turning off everybody who doesn't agree to run a little memory hogging, system crashing widget is a no-no in my book. I was strongly considering moving over to a Mac w/ Boot Camp now that I can get my software to run (hardware is going to be a different story, so I might need a linux box for some of it), but is MS does this, I'm going to be going down to my local Apple Store the day they confirm it.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
...to be deployed in 3...2...1...
Hacking this will be painfully easy.
..etc.
A) Packet sniffer, anyone? The check to see whether WGA is installed can be bypassed through cracking windows update. If they are smart enough to use unique keys per release of windows and base the check on that key(rather than a standard WGA response), then the windows update can be cracked to avoid recieving the fatal shutdown command. You will stop getting updates, which is good.
B) You can alternatively stop microsoft from sending data to your computer through a wonderful invention called a firewall. Again, you will not recieve updates, but strong philosophically minded hackers will probably target updated systems only if this crazy thing ever happens. Most serious problems will still be helped via AVG anti-virus, Norton
C) This scare will never be acted out. Most people I know do not have original windows CDs. And those who do make copies of them all the time. Millions of computers worldwide are not MS licensed. Some universities..etc use a central server for managing updates, but many do not.
A fallout of this size could be what FOSS geeks have been waiting for for a very long time. Good night and good luck.
Wait.. so we get 30 days to back up our important files, download the latest ubuntu release, and subscribe to cedega? Sweet -- that's more than enough time. A little going away gift from Gates to me -- Thanks Micro$oft!
Of course it raises a security threat, but it's enough to say, "I'm not going to upgrade windows anymore" and just turn off win update. I have no plans to migrate to Vista either. I wonder if this is Bill Gates' final parting gift or an even harder line from the new regime. Either way, forcing people to use your product doesn't work.
Look at me teaching my mom how to use Linux.
My guess is they will not turn anyone's lights off until vista is shipping...then they can forcibly inflate their upgrade numbers.
The idea of giving a corrupt corporation (or anyone for that matter) control over my computer, my data, my work, and all that imporant stuff just makes me want to hurl. I won't tolerate it. I think my windows partition is about to get deleted... oh no... ooh I can't hold back my finger much longer! Oops, good bye, Bill. Good thing there is now another viable alternative on the Intel-based platform, in addition to Linux/Unix of course.
Great, so basically microsoft is gonna scare people away from using the update site, so all the pirated copies out there will now be even more insecure since they won't be using patches for fear of getting the GWA software install :o/
I can almost hear the matching of the botnet armies, heading for my firewall, oh and I must remember to buy a couple of 300G hard drives to handle the extra spam on my mail server.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
Are you frieking kidding me?
You never cook the whole frog. You usually just cook the legs, cos that's where the good stuff is at.
On top of which the frog should be dead and the legs sure as hell won't be alive since they're not attached to the frog.
Also, who boils frogs? that's so extremely common, only the homeless plebs do that. Everybody knows, fried frog legs are the best.
Pshh.
Liberty.
I know alot of people that have payed to get a legal copy of XP, and they have problems with WGA saying its not a valid key or whatever.
it pisses me off that MS is doing this to try to squeeze a few more pennies out of us.
(i give it a week before its cracked anyways)
Because we all know the people over at MS can bairly make enough to buy bread and milk for their familys living in the ghetto.
Nobody is moving to Linux because the games aren't there
Okay... however those in the F/OSS crowd are looking at the potential opportunity here. I know tons of small and medium sized shops (and by the way, take a look at the figures, business is where MS makes their money, not home users) that have already been on the fence of switching their desktops to linux if they can still do everything that's needed for work purposes. Generally these are: keep the books, work with spreadsheets, word-ish docs, email, browsing, and so on.
Linux can do all of those things, won't fall to viruses or "hackers" as easily, and allows a greater amount of lockdown for a reduction in general employee-fucking-around-installing-spyware-and-gen erally-making-a-mess-of-the-lan. Not to mention a longer life on hardware and a much cheaper software upgrade cycle.
All it will take is for the WGA "lockdown" (if this isn't in fact a bunch of damn hooey, which I actually suspect) to take out a few critical systems, say the bosses' or bosses' secretaries' machines, to get these fence sitters to wake up and smell the source code.
To most of the business world, these "disadvantages" you mention are actually favorable.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Theyll know how to deal with this, youll see ...
Read radical news here
Where are the feminists?
Or do you all not CARE when we're talking about frogs and/or the French?
Why the hell would MS care if they move from a pirated version of Windows to something else? Big whoop, they aren't making money either way. And if someone has critical data on a system running a pirated OS, I'm not inclined to feel much pity.
Last time I tried Linux, the only problem was with the install, and on relatively older hardware. Ubuntu has really made huge leaps and bounds. The first time I tried it (first public release) it wouldn't even boot on three different machines I tried it on, all fairly standard. Now, it not only installs, but works very nicely once it's there. Your mileage may vary but to me, Ubuntu is the first credible "desktop linux".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This cannot possibly be a good idea. Let me tell you about my WGA experience. I bought a legimate copy of WIndows XP Pro from Insight Computers in (about) 2002. Full copy (not an upgrade) and it cost me $300.00. About 6 weeks ago I came home to a notice on my computer saying that I might be the victim of piracy and that my copy of Windows wasn't genuine. I KNOW that it was. I bought it form a reputable vendor, I activated with MS, the whole thing. I searched Google, I read everything that I could find about why it would say it wasn't genuine when it was. I called Insight, I called MS. Any time I told anyone about my problem they IMMEDIATELY assumed that the copy wasn't genuine and that I was pirating software. We do a lot of business with Dell so I called the MS Rep with our Dell team and got the same thing. No one even considered the fact that this problem could be malware related or a problem with WGA. I was furious. I do not pirate software. Finally I found an obscure post on MS website that said something about deleting the WGA directory and rebooting to reset WGA. I did and haven't had the problem since. No one at MS pointed this out to me, I had to stumble on it myself after weeks of searching. I nearly threw the computer out and bought a mac. If anything lie this happens again, I will buy a mac. I can understand MS wanting to protect their investment but they really error on the side of caution. Incorrectly accusing their customers of piracy is not a good business move. And what will happen when the deadline passes and the malware triggers this same scenario?
This definitely ratifies the icon that /. has been using for some time now... The one with Billy and the half cyborg face. I would really love to see /. start using the old photoshop of Bill Gates being made out to be the Hitler of the computer world. http://www.geeknewz.com/imagedb/albums/userpics/co mputer/gates_hitler.jpg
Sort of like "Touché"?
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
"Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now"
Windows will stop working, so you might as well install Ubuntu now.
There, that's better...
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Why can't I get customers like that? :D
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Anyone know the URL that this phones home to? Why can't you just block it at the gateway? (apparently this bypasses the hosts file) I haven't been able to find the phone-home URL anywhere, and I'm not uber-cool enough to decipher all those packets using ethereal! (I tried running ethereal for 10 minutes, then searched for microsoft, but all i got was a bunch of WebDAV matches).
Approx. 130,000 pages containing the word "cool" at microsoft.com (courtesy of ).
Makes the cynic in me think they're trying to refute those clever Mac commercials...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
MAC is not capitalized unless you're talking about http://www.auditmypc.com/acronym/MAC.asp
a ge
It's just Mac, same capitalization as Perl. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth#Modern_us
Chances are, the windows pirate who knows nothing about his system had somebody, who did know what they were doing, install it for them as an upgrade from 98, Me, or 2000.
no, you sure know M$ is doing this to make for an easier Vista upgrade. timing is essential...
I don't feel like it...
Probably everyone should reinstall windows with SP2 and never talk to Windows Update. That way no WGA issues will ever arise.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
I recommend doing that regardless of WGA -- Macs are better anyway (just don't buy stuff from iTMS, because that would be supporting DRM).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
User: "You can't possibly attack us, we are peaceful and have no defenses!
Bill: "You prefer another target, a litigious target, then name the systems!"
Bill: "I grow tired of asking this, so it'll be the last time. Where are the cracked installations of Windows XP Professional Edition?"
User: "Pirates' PCs... they're on Pirates' PCs."
Bill: "You see, lord Ballmer? They can be reasonable. Continue the operation, you may update when ready."
User: "What?!"
Bill: "You're far too trusting. Pirate PCs are too remote for an effective demonstration, but don't worry; we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough!"
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Has anyone managed to hack WGA so that each time it calls home, it automatically sends Microsoft a message of your choice?
There will definitely be a crack for it, because although it may take a while now-adays for a crack for WGA to surface, if Windows decided to shut down illegitimate XP copies, that would turn off nearly all the computers in countries such as India and China... these countries are full of very smart people, so there would be many more people trying to break WGA so they can go back to using their pirated copies. I think its quite possible even that the government would work on cracking this... m$ shutting down PCs could wreak havoc with their economies. (That was a guess, dont quote me on it)
Exactly. Did anyone really NOT see this coming? Now the question is, what will they actually do about it? My guess is whatever it takes to keep on using Windows.
Don't know why. It is a legit copy of Windows (came with the computer).
I guess I am shit out of luck.
Or maybe it is my lucky day!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
You say your Windows Vista/XP/Win2k3 server has stopped and no longer boots and you need your data. No problem. Boot with Knoppix (or similar), move the data to a handy FTP server, blow off Windows, replace with Linux/Unix with Samba and we're good to go.
Oh... you say that the developer of your most critical application switched to a MSSQL run-time and not to an open source database lke MySQL so you're locked in to MS operating systems?
Too bad for you. And probably too bad for that developer, too. Especially when MS decides that all those cheap run-time databases could be a cash-cow like Office.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
In a contest between you and they, I'd suspect Microsoft is in the better position to understand the nature of the addiction they have created. And I'd feel safe saying that even if you yourself had succeeded in completely breaking your addiction to Windows, which I suspect you haven't.
Most people, most businesses are so hopelessly addicted to Windows that they literally can't even conceptualize their own survival without it. I'm always amused when I read the latest rant about a Windows vulnerability on an IE-only site, or read about some program manager publishing their "Linux Strategy" document as a PowerPoint chart.
Think of all the hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Office documents the average business has, or the potential millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and business intelligence those documents represent.
Now, even if they have the skill and determination to propose leaving Windows behind, think of the complexity of dealing with a customer base which might not be as skilled, or determined.
I suspect we may see a lot of people get pissed-off at Microsoft over this, temporarily. Then, as soon as they realize just how screwed they've allowed themselves to be, it's "how do I get a legitimate license again?"
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
So call Microsoft and get a new one. I'm sure you're supposed to be able to do that :)
I'm just glad I'm on Linux... Don't have to go through Microsofts crap no more. Please people, leave Microsoft, come use Linux or Mac.
Linux, because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
Exactly! Legitimate Windows owners are to be held hostage. Either let M$ steal your bandwidth and potentially invade your privacy or else your computer will no longer load the OS, denying you access to your data and rendering the PC useless. Somehow I doubt that M$ is stupid enough to alienate their customers in this way.
If you haven't installed WGA, how would they disable your system?
I tell you, I came from Linux to Windows XP, and Windows is just as Strange, Scary, and Wrong as Linux was. However I keep using it because my laptop works better this way.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Your right about application choice...
But windows takes away your operating system choice, since there is no other OS which is compatible with it in either source or binary form.
Most unixes at least are source compatible, and many can execute alien binaries (FreeBSD can run linux binaries for instance)..
What we really need, is an os-independant binary format and set of APIs, so that a program can be written/compiled once, and then executed unmodified on any OS running on compatible hardware... Kind of like java, but using native x86 code so as not to suffer the performance and resource usage penalties...
There is such a project, called X86ABI, but it's in a very early development stage right now.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Let's not get stupid here. A "front-line tech-support drone" who gets paid $12 an hour to read the support script is somehow going to know what sort of top-secret plans Microsoft has for the next six months? I highly doubt it. It sounds more like the sort of thing that a helpdesk drone would say to try to persuade a clueless computer user to do things their way.
Then, of course, there's the fact that if you install WGA today on a pirated copy of Windows, all you get is the notification message that pops up. You don't get shut down, and you don't even get cut off from Windows security updates (which are truly the only updates that matter, and even they aren't that good). I find it very difficult to believe that Microsoft is going to go from "Hey, your copy of Windows doesn't look genuine, but you can still install our security updates" to "I don't know if your system is pirated or not because you haven't installed WGA, but even if it is a legitimate copy I'm just going to shut you down simply because I have no way of verifying it." Especially not in the span of 6 months.
Let's think about this for just a second. If this shutdown is a function of WGA, and you don't install WGA, then how are they going to a) know that you don't have WGA and b) shut down your PC? Assuming that you only install security updates to your copy of Windows (legitimiate or pirated), then it seems that the only way they can get this "remote killswitch" functionality is to hide it in a security update. You know, kinda like a Trojan horse. Which would of course be unethical at the very least, and most likely illegal. Especially if they killswitched a legally licensed copy of Windows who just didn't have WGA installed.
But hey, it's Microsoft. So let the FUDslinging begin.
Doesn't hurt that they have such nice ads for the MACs now.
Wait, nice? Are you talking about the recent ads with, for example, John Hodgman falling over when he "crashes"?
The recent ads have perhaps done more than anything I can think since the introduction of the iMac* of to DAMAGE my opinion of Apple. I feel like I'm watching the worse of the negative ads during a political campaign.
(It's been a while (about a month and a half) since I watched almost any TV at all, so there might be newer ones.)
*I don't mean to say that the iMac was a mistake on Apple's part; I'm actually saying that that's really when Apple started going RIGHT again.
3 words if that happens.
Class Action Lawsuit
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Also, who boils frogs? that's so extremely common, only the homeless plebs do that. Everybody knows, fried frog legs are the best.
Please... Everybody knows there's only two real types of frog dishes. There's frog a la peche, which is a frog done in Cointreau and with a peach stuffed in its mouth and, ah, then, of course, there's peche a la frog, which is really not much to write home about. A waiter comes to your table with a tray. He's got this huge peach on it, which is covered in boiling liqueur, you see, and he slices it open to reveal about two thousand little black tadpoles squiggling about. It's one of the most disgusting sights I've ever seen. God, it turns me over to think of it.
Fresh installation with SP2 streamlined in.
Put this beast on a direct IP to the 'net with no updates. 5 minutes later, disconnect it. Run a virus scan. 5-10 viruses detected.
Put it behind a router with not NATing. Don't do any Windows Updates. Don't worry about a firewall, it's not important. 5 months later, disconnect it. Run a virus scan. 0 viruses detected.
Seriously.
My parents switched their ISP a while back, and in the course of getting their stuff working, I removed a $30 router that I'd placed there over a year earlier (firewall features DISABLED), not thinking anything of it (I mostly run Linux). They'd had AVG scanning every night, nothing detected over that whole time. Day or two later, I get a phone call. Yep, suddenly AVG is finding all kinds of crap.
Oops.
Point is, use Firefox and a $30 router and you can forget about updates entirely. Most (all? I've never seen one get through) of the no-interaction-required sorts of attacks are pretty fragile, and will break in this setup.
So yes, it is VERY possible to run an XP machine with no updates (hell, you can probably just run it stock without SP2) without issue. I'm sure that many people do this without realizing it.
So, unless WGA is included in SP2, lots of people will have no worries. It's not, right?
90% Not really. Most of them would have to be hippocrites, or surfing from work.
I've been running a website for the past month, and most of my hits have been from Slashdot readers (339 referrals from slashdot vs 80 from elsewhere). Most of my hits have been from Windows XP machines (1591 WinXP vs 276 other Windows vs 401 *nix vs 632 others). Most of my hits have been Firefox users (1654 Firefox vs 538 IE vs 628 others.)
So, except for standing behind alternative Browsers, it seems most Slashdot readers use Windows XP. Granted, there's just barely enough UNIX hits for all of the Slashdot referrals to be UNIX users. But that would mean virtually none of them continued past the first page they saw. You get a little more room if you add in the other versions of Windows (276 total, 112 W2K plus 48 Win98 plus 16 WinME plus 12 Win2003 plus 5 unknowns plus 2 NT4 plus 1 Win95), but not much.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Microsoft are probably hoping that everyone is going to run out and buy XP now and ALSO upgrade to Vista giving 2 sales for the price of one.... if they waited till Vista was live they would only get 1 sale.
I think however that they are rather deluded....
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Yes thoes Cheesy lil apps that make lives easier for Business IT guys such as myself.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
oh... i wasn't supposed to like those ads? that mac guy is so cute though!
Frogs allowing themselves to be boiled is an Urban Legend.
No, it's a metaphor for us stupid people.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
No... they won't need to migrate anything. Some fortune 500 company who didn't install windows correctly is gonna have all their computers shut off at once and MS is going to get sued like there's no tomorrow. And that'll pretty much be the end of WGA.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Exactly. So, I gave Steve a call.... here's my suggestion to Apple:
THREE DAY SALE! 50% OFF A NEW MAC!
Run exactly the day Microsoft cuts on the "Fuck-your-PC-with-WGA" functionality. Talk about the economics of volume over profit margin....
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
This just screams lawsuit. If you have a legit copy that gets disabled and causes you any harm or loss in productivity, sue Microsoft (keyword is "legit"). This is a direct aim they are taking, not on the same level as a system crash. They truly would be causing your pc to fail, not a bum hard drive or bad drivers. I personally have legit Windows Installations, but do not have WGA installed since I would rather use my PCs resources my way. I will be royally pissed if my machines stop working because I did not install a patch. Microsoft is going to have a very bumpy road ahead if they continue in this manner.
Cheesy Movie Night
*acknowledges inevitable downvote*
Stop treating your customers like criminals. As a legitimate Windows XP user I find this treatment to be incredibly offensive, and it seriously makes me want to stop using Windows. I'm tired of this crap getting shoved down my throat, and if they expect me to shell out for Vista they can think again.
I realize that requiring WGA is meaningless in the long run, since WGA has already been cracked and any changes to it will also be cracked, but it really goes to show how much Microsoft trusts their users and how inept they are at actually combating software piracy.
Oh shit, you're gonna get it now. MODBOOOOOMB! Hit the deck!
How hard is it for someone to pirate windows?
X P_SP2_Gold_Reloaded_Edition_Unattended_Install
G enuine_Advantage_WGA_v3_3_1_5_540_0_Taag
Grab a copy of XP from here..
http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/781830/Windows_
then run the WGA crack that you got from here..
http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/782179/Windows_
Most pirates, don't need to know anything about cracking/pirating other than "what bitorrent" is..
MABASPLOOM!
Man, don't bash those ads! Those are pretty much the first ads I've ever actually liked! I'm the kind of person who religiously uses Adblock, a PVR with automatic commercial removal, rips DVDs to remove PUO's and trailers, mutes commercials on live TV, etc. We need more good ads like these!
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Did you actually read the post you quoted? It doesn't say Linux is scary, it says that Linux is different (people are scared of different). I guess I just don't see the "Big difference" between being "different" and not being "what everyone's accustomed to".
If it was only pirates having trouble, they might not.
OTOH, if you've been paying attention, you know a lot of legitimate users run into trouble too. When you're sitting there with a legitimate copy and the best MS support can tell you is buy another copy, that's a problem.
I run a cracked version of Windows XP. I have been slowly migrating programs I know I can havein Linux, ie using OpenOffice, running GAIM, using Inkspace, ie slowly opting for the OpenSource versions of programs because I know eventually getting a cracked version of Windows will be seriously hindered in some fashion. When my computer turns off due to this issue, I won't be looking for a new version of XP, Ill probably be running Unbuntu instead. Linux is still too much of a pain for me to work with at times for me not to be running it now. But finding and getting XP again is more of a pain I would think.
I loved the one that basically said 'Mac OS never crashes'.
Why didn't Apple just announce, 'free handjob with every Mac'?
I'm guessing it's because they limit the handjob to the commercials only. It's after you get your new Mac home that you discover your wallet was raped instead.
Actually I had root canal once, and I prefer it to the pain I suffered before having it. Yes it is painful, and it cost a lot, but the pain is only temporary, with regards to not having the root canal. So I would say it would make a good argument for switching :)
become a valid source of information. If I post on my livejournal site that Slashdot is being purchased by SCO will I get picked up and put on the frontpage?
Umm, didn't you see that update Tuesday? I did. It installed itself except for the new EULA. At least the new EULA recinded several onerous bits the old one tricked me into agreeing to by masqerading as a normal security fix and hiding the bad parts deep within a morass of legalese (who knew that a deceptive "security fix" was going to take away so many rights?)
Anyhow, just FYI, WGA checks for updates and can install them without any user input. That's right--nothing. When I put "arbitrary code execution" in the story I submitted on this, folks laughed, but think about it: any auto-update function from an untrusted source *is* arbitrary code execution! They could send you a freaking "format the PC" program and your system, like a dumbass, would simply run it! Now, I *hope* they won't go that far, but how can we trust them? You can't. I won't play WoW for the same reason (their "warden" program may currently only snoop on a few things, but *nothing* prevents them from modifying that, and it's damned hard to reverse since it's only ever memory resident, etc. so only cheaters were monitoring it...).
You can say that I'm paranoid or whatever, but it's *my* computer and I sure as hell don't like giving untrustworthy people the ability to silently install software on it. For the same reasons, I will never support DRM. It's all about their ability to control my computer. I won't stand for it. It's mine and they can go screw themselves if they want to pretend otherwise.
I think you meant "drive 50 miles to save $0.05/gallon on gas".
>> Money is a suprisingly efficient motivator.
:P
But not an important one in this case, because most people will have bought their PCs with WinXP preinstalled and so the cost is hidden. In contrast, the pain and distress of their property being willfully disabled (because they've avoided WGA) will be immense, and a very strong motivator. The question is, motivator for what?
Well, some will no doubt relent and let the evil bastards install WGA. Some will see it as the last straw and migrate to Macs. Those of us who already use Linux or BSD will laugh and see it as confirming their views about MS, and no doubt the Unix-oriented FOSS movement will see some new recruits.
However, this is where I see the most exciting effect of MS's moronic action: ReactOS.
If Microsoft's product facism becomes too much of a pain for too many people, a direct replacement will start to become extremely appealing. For the non-technical MS masses, that O/S with a familiar face will become a far better proposition than submitting themselves to the fear of the unknown with Linux and Co.
It's still early days on the ReactOS project, but draconian measures of the kind suggested by TFA could swell the ranks of their developers and users very nicely.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Turn off windows update, Why update ??? Why not use Firefox instead of IE? Why update? Why not use Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express? Why not firewall instead of being exposed? The reasons to update are clear Windows is a security nightmare. But if you dont use the Security defect software, Dont update, and Firewall .. How the Hell will Gates and Company have any way of disabling anything?
The entire article, and this entire story, is based off of something someone supposedly heard from a Microsoft Support Technician and a vague nonstatement by a Microsoft spokesman. Its not verifiable, so until Microsoft issue a press release about these plans, you might as well consider it myth.
The world does not get to hear about this sort of massive policy change from a support technician who probably has had a lot of emphasis put on getting you to install WGA in his weekly performance meetings.
I recommend that you play a wait-and-see game on this one, Im willing to lay down hard money that it most certainly doesnt happen.
Given the usual Microsoft Delay (tm), it will be November. In early 2008 Vista comes out. And I'm quite sure that, if you license XP this Fall, you get a free update to Vista bundled with it.
Or do you think anyone who has a working XP will update to Vista any time soon by themselves? But, if you HAVE to buy a system anyway...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not quite.
1998 at least had gnucash (a whore to get built on any modern linux distro).
"They stopped running those annoying, smug and arrogant PC versus Mac ads? God, I hope so. I can't believe those ads sold one Mac, though I could believe it turned off a lot of people."
I've had conversations about those ads with probably a dozen people - none of them Mac users; most are Windows people - and all of them LOVE them. A few of them have wondered aloud why Microsoft, with all its millions, can't produce engaging ads like that.
I wonder if maybe, just MAYBE, the Slashdot crowd isn't the target audience...?
<aside>My brother is an ad copywriter/director and has worked on some Microsoft campaigns. He tells me there are just too many people within MS that have to give their "thumbs up" before a campaign gets the go-ahead, which pretty much guarantees banality.</aside>
#DeleteChrome
Hello!
The pirates WON'T be the ones encountering this problem.
The folks running pirated corporate editions or counterfeit install keys? They already work around WGA as it is. They know the score and will not be affected in the slightest.
End result? Microsoft will alienate legitimate customers. They're taking cues from the RIAA in the worst possible way.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Indeed. I think it's safe to say that Linux supports far more devices out of the box than Windows does (even with SP2). That's why almost all hardware you buy nowadays comes with either a business-card CD or a regular CD with drivers for the hardware that Windows inevitably doesn't support. Even your fancy nVidia or ATi graphics card works just fine with their respective Linux drivers from their respective companies, and there's even the "nv" driver for nVidia cards (which can't do 3d acceleration yet, but it's still good for the rest of the graphics-related processing when you want a free driver).
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
>and it's a pain in the ass for most joe schmoes to install. I may agree with you that people won't be migrating to Linux but that last line, come on, wake up, it's not '90 anymore, Linux isn't more trouble to install (on most hardware) than Windows and you even can try it with a LiveCD in '5 minutes without any installation process.
La vida no es una pastafrola.
What is to stop some punk from figuring out how microsoft does it and doing it themselves?
Ive used PC for over 20 years, and Im afraid to say it but it might be time to go MAC. They even have those snazzy comercials making fun of PC's.
However, MS may see some benefit in allowing the rumour to circulate. MS has made no statement, but now there will be some real fear that unlicensed machines will get shutdown. This won't scare many individuals with unlicensed copies, but it will scare businesses that are running lots of machines with unlicensed copies. As long as the rumor seems reasonably credible, they will have to sort out their licenses before doomsday.
I think it's a bluff. But if I were an owner of a business running unlicensed copies of XP, I wouldn't be willing to call that bluff.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
They probably got tired of waiting.
I have to laugh at this WGA "controversy" though.
I'm all for Microsoft on this one, they're just reacting to the widespread theft their product.
If that bothers you, use a different OS.
CN=poolmeister.OU=lurkers.CN=slashdot
So if you were playing EQ on a pirated copy of Windows, you just went into Evercrack withdrawal because EQ wouldn't load at all. That's a quick way to boost their sales. Most hardcore EQ players would sell their first born to keep playing. This is extremely annoying to say the least. I wonder what it will do to game companies that bundle the latest DirectX with their games to make sure you can play it on install. I can hear the tech support phones ringing now!
Yup, original poster should know that Windows lets a user activate with the same number only a limited number of times. (Think the limit is 2.)
Next time the activation system receives that number it doesn't accept it and you've got to call Microsoft, or use WPA crack to keep the system working after 30 days.
Why the hell would MS care if they move from a pirated version of Windows to something else?
windows stickyness.
Once you switch to mac, and start buying mac applications you might want to to use a mac at work, you might decide not to deploy exchange server because it won't work well with your mac, you might choose a pda with PalmOS instead of Windows Mobile 5 because Activesync won't sync to Mail.app, and when you launch your browser it will be safari not internet explorer, and you won't be taken to the MSN home page, and when you hit search you won't see MSN results. You'll probably rip your music to AAC or MP3 instead of WMA, etc.
Big whoop, they aren't making money either way.
The hell they aren't.
Why do you think dell pays like 15 bucks to install XP Home on a PC? Sure Microsoft wants to convert as many 'pirates' into paying customers as possible, but given a choice between having users run pirated Windows or Mac OS, Microsoft comes out way way ahead with pirated windows.
Their monopoly on the desktop feeds their search, advertising, applications, browser, and server divisions. Microsoft would be dead if they lost their desktop monopoly. Most of their products aren't priced competitively and most of them are not best of breed, but they perform well simply because of leverage they get from the desktop.
How many people do you know that use MSN search that do not use Internet Explorer?
Zero? Pretty close to it.
And if someone has critical data on a system running a pirated OS, I'm not inclined to feel much pity.
Who said "critical data". We aren't talking enterprises with pirate xp installs for servers here.
The average home user will have their vacation photos, some music, their resume, and so on. Its may not be "critical" but anyone would be pissed if microsoft tried to hold it hostage. Not to mention blocking you from doing online banking, chatting with friends, reading the news, listening to music, and playing solitaire.
I'll just keep two computers around then: one with nothing but a legal copy Windows and Firefox installed for surfing and a second for gaming and pirated software. Don't need security patches for the second computer if it has no net access, so I won't have to deal with MS and their idiocy.
You do realise that all new Intel-based Macs come with hardware DRM in the form of a Big Brother chip (a TPM), don't you?
They'll find a hack for Windows, they'll buy Windows, or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled.
Well... If you are already pirating windows, I seriously doubt you are going to have any desire to buy a license or a new computer just because you can't get security updates. Which of course means more zombie boxes for DoSers and Spammers.
But that isn't the real problem because if you pirate its your problem and not Microsofts. However, I'm more concenred about the stories I've been hearing that the WGA either breaks windows or its performation or won't accept legitimate keys of your copy of XP.
So legitimate customers who paid for their copy are getting hosed.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
That's what amazed me. Along with that goes the knowledge the "kill switch" is already there, even if you haven't installed WGA!
All of a sudden its not something you can opt-out on.
> and it's a pain in the ass for most joe schmoes to install.
Your assesment is a bit dated. Windows was designed to keep people in the dark. It's done a good job. How many people do you know that can even setup a printer driver in windows without being challenged?
Linux has come a long way since the geek-only model. I suggest you check it out. It's got everything most people need for msn/yahoo chat and email/web browsing. Openoffice will get most people by with any kind of MS Office attachments. And yes, Joe Schmo is using it. Joe needs a little bit of hand-holding at first, but when they see their system run for a month without any new surprises, they really feel rewarded for their efforts. It takes a little bit of my time to answer email questions, but that's how I put back into FOSS environment - that's the spirit of it.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
- or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled.
Which isn't really all that great an option now that people are buying new PC's that start failing WGA after running a couple of legit MS online updates.
This is nothing more than a protection racket if you ask me. When is the EFF bringing up a class-action on this one? Are they going to wait until we're all victims, or are they secretly happy that this will drive some people into the arms of OSS?
Brian Krebs over at WaPo.com's Security Fix blog is reporting that lawyers are now asking a judge to certify a class-action suit against Microsoft, charging that "the company violated anti-spyware laws in California and Washington state when it collected information about consumers without clearly disclosing that activity in its end-user license agreement."
More here: Microsoft Re-Issues Anti-Piracy Tool, Lawyers Sue
...because you never know who you're dealing with.
You know, I also heard that if I send an e-mail to a bunch of people, Microsoft will be able to track it and give me $20 for each person that reads it. Because Microsoft is all-powerful and all-knowning and can do anything as long as it involves a computer. BS So my OS is going to spontaneously self-destruct because of something that's not installed? So am I to believe this ability has been built into the operating system from day one? How is Microsoft going to just "make" WGA mandatory? If the logic isn't on the PC already, then anyone who isn't installing Windows Geniune Advantage is also not installing the logic that would make WGA mandatory.
But I liked the last sentence of that link,
The metaphor lies in the frog's ability to escape from the container: if there's no way out, then the frog's fate is a foregone conclusion.
The question being, can users escape even if they want?
If you are doing to do something decisive, you better be right. What will hurt Microsoft if this WGA implementation is as shoddy as soon of their other initiatives. For example if legal copies are disabled accidently. Yes, there is a warning but will it be enough? There isn't a lot of detail about how this killswitch would work but if MS is wise they should have an exception planned. Personally I think there will be bugs with the first implementation that are fixed in later ones. How many innocent users are doing to be hurt in that first release?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Seriously though, they could just slip the date on this "upgrade" along with Vista. I'd be a little surprised if Vista didn't end up getting released 31 days after this change.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Why would Microsoft care if people who didn't pay for their software switched to something else?
As for those cases where WGA says they didn't pay, but they did: for a company as big as Microsoft who holds a near monopoly, it probably isn't a big deal.
"you discover your wallet was raped instead"
Huh? My friend's Toshiba laptop died. Up to that point she was Windows all her life. I mentioned the new MacBook was out, and it had Intel Core Duo. She also looked at Dell and some other PC brands.
Her choice? The MacBook. Why? $1049 (after educational discount) and the only add-on needed were RAM and MS Office (educational price, $149). It beat out the PC deals we were pricing (comparably equipped, not bare-bones loss-leaders), and she liked the lack of spyware/viruses which adds to the real ongoing operating cost of a PC. So far, she loves it.
then run the WGA crack that you got from here..G enuine_Advantage_WGA_v3_3_1_5_540_0_Taag
http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/782179/Windows_
Most pirates, don't need to know anything about cracking/pirating other than "what bitorrent" is..
I have never knowingly pirated a commercial software program. Ever. And I have been using computers since 1982.
However, if this WGA thing turn out to be true (which honestly it may not), then I will have no qualms about starting. I built my own computer and paid retail for XP Pro. If they are going to screw it up, it will be the last dollar from me.
I never illegally downloaded music until I started having spyware and rootkits installed on my machine, now I never buy CD's under any circumstances.
Morally, I consider it fair compensation now. Treat me right, I treat you right. You fuck me, I fuck you. Not a pretty motto, but I've always lived by it and it has worked for me more often than it hasn't.
In 2004 I bought an Averatec laptop computer with XP Home pre-installed. I have been using it for 2 years. Just last weekend I had a WGA pop-up telling me that WGA had determined that my copy of Windows was "not genuine" and to click a box to "correct" it.
I did not click the box, and I used Tiny Personal Firewall to block the phoning home of WGA. I paid for the Windows on the machine, and I am not jumping through hoops to prove it. Now, only very select connections can use the Internet through the firewall (which can suck while trying to use Wi-Fi in the airport), and I have to make sure that it cannot possibly phone home.
My main concern is that they will find a way to make it "phone home" during boot, before the firewall loads.
In any event, if the copy is disabled, I am actually one of the few who will actually take the time out of my busy life to file a civil suit at my local courthouse. Everyone says they will do these things in internet dick-swinging contests, but I actually will. I may not win, but I will do it anyway.
Also, I will pirate the living shit out of Microsoft software.
Again, assuming this rumor us true, which it very well may not be.
If i'm going to do the time, i'm going to do the time. Period.
I wish what you were saying was true. Unfortunately, it is not.
People will TRY migrating to Linux in droves. They will be unprepared and illdisposed(sic?) to do it, but will do anyway. Then, a few days later, they will learn about a hack, and will go back to Windows, and start telling everything bad things about their "experience" with Linux.
This can end up being a major marketing blow on Linux. I, for one, won't install Linux for anyone who decided to migrate because of that little WGA stunt. My answer will be: Wait for a hack or buy.
morcego
I would be very unhappy if Microsoft turned off my copy of windows.
I did buy it, and have it authorized through MS...
In fact, I have 2 copies, one for each computer...
I don't like the idea of my windows phoning home, so I chose not to install the spyware, erm.. update...
So, will MS shut down legitamite users?
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Oh no, they're all the same right now. Young, hip Mac vs old, dork and inept PC.
Uh, and the crime too.
It's the worst move MS could make; now that, after (too) many, many years, they have to power (both technologically and legally) to make _sure_ that every copy of a windows OS playing anywhere will always be a licensed one; forget it - they'd halve their marketshare overnight. The sound you'd hear wouldn't come from thousands of computers dying, it would be from thousands of MS shares sold never to be bought again.
Sure, the button exists, and a lot of (too righteous) people within MS will want it pushed, but will they really ? I don't think so. They may be self-righteous and stupid, but they're not _that_ stupid.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
That's my Dad. When the computer gets too old and slow every few years, burn the data to CD and buy a new machine. I bet Microsoft loves the 55+ crowd.
Yeah, I know, and I'm very conflicted by it. The idealistic side of me wants to recommend a Linux box without a TPM because it's the most Free, but the pragmatic side of me wants to recommend a Mac because it works the best and the TPM isn't actually used to restrict the user [yet].
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, you're not.
But all you have to do is go buy the full retail version and install that... !@#$%^&
It appears that WGA doesn't work for me (neither does IE or any of my MS-DRMed music from a year or so ago) since I broke something to do with IE or the Internet settings about 2 months ago, sure I can't try anything like IE7 beta, but who cares if I can avoid this. For extra security I'm off to disable auto updates and kill off M$'s domain on my router, even if my copy is legal big brother can get out of my computer.
Profit!!
Man, you really need that seminar!
they're just reacting to the widespread theft their product
That's true, and I have little sympathy for the pirates who this affects. On the other hand, if I was using Windows it would not be comforting to know that Microsoft could turn off my computer. And as for the way this tells Windows to turn off, how hard will it be for hackers to access it?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I should have read the EULA before I installed it, though. Now they own my soul.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Windows will give a 30 day warning and when the 30 days is up and WGA isn't installed, Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now." Or the 30day_removal_whatever.exe crack which will come out well in advance of this.
Is there an English translation to that? This Gibson character has the writing skills of a two year old.
Why do people capitalize "MAC?" It's Mac, short for Macintosh. MAC means something else.
It's like those people who call it OS/X or OS-X. Where are they getting these magic hyphens and slashes from?
"Sufferin' succotash."
First off, there was no need to AC.
Second, just save yourself the future frustration. It sure sounds like you're already buying a Mac, and just don't know what color to get.
The sooner Microsoft flops, the sooner we can all forget how Bill Gates is so damn rich and realize how golly gosh darn NICE he is!
There's a product I use to protect the cyber cafe in my building.. its called Radix protector. It can reset your harddrive to a known state on every reboot. You can manually turn it off if you want to change your system. Otherwise, it'll reset it on every boot.
Its a PCI card that you can buy for like $100 or so. Simply separte your OS onto another drive, install whatever patches you need, and then install Radix and protect that drive. No additional software even has to be installed, everything is driven from the BIOS on the PCI card. No chance in hell will WGA be able to modify your PC again (in fact, no chance the viruses will do much damage since all you need is a reboot and the virus is gone).
Just make sure all your apps/games/documents are on a separate drive. Easy enough.
I think I've been watching too much Family Guy recently... I read that sentence twice before I realized it did not say "A Monkey is a suprisingly efficient motivator."
At the page just before the New Advanced WGA required validation page simply enter into your browser URL and execute: javascript:void(window.g_sWGAInstalled='true') Then continue to update as usuall...
Windows is not global warming.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Well... If you are already pirating windows, I seriously doubt you are going to have any desire to buy a license or a new computer just because you can't get security updates.
Or there's AutoPatcher, www.windizupdate.com, etc
I agree that microsoft would be losing more people that don't pay them.
I agree with the others that there will be cases where a person who paid for a computer with windows is going to be shafted.
However, my point is this: Microsoft NEEDS the infringers as well. If linux reaches a certain critical mass along with open document standards, then they will lose the network effect. As linux gets big enough, game companies will start producing games for it. As office's excessive profits are slashed, it becomes harder for microsoft to use their office monopoly to kill other markets.
I think all it would take is 10% of consumer desktops to be linux boxes and you could see a catastrophic drop in microsoft windows usage. This is because when someone saw you were using windows, they would be astonished that you were paying so much for something they were getting for free or nearly free.
Hell, at this point, it is beginning to amaze me that people would every pay $200+ for office when they could get openoffice for free.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If I switch to Ubuntu and send my used flatbed scanner that has no SANE driver (Microtek Scanmaker 4850), do I get a discount off buying a Linux-compatible scanner?
I don't know. If I upgrade to Windows Vista, and send in my flatbed scanner that has no Vista drivers (Canon Lide 30), do I get a discount off buying a Vista-compatible scanner?
No? Didn't think so.
Nothing to see here
That's inconceivable.
Dont get me wrong, i would love to use linux on the desktop. I just dont think its quite as there as you seem to think it is.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
(which is like $88 [newegg.com]).
I like the reviews:
****- Average Rating out of 215 voters
Pros: It's windows...
Cons: It's windows...
Other Thoughts: Did I mention it's windows.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
We've always assumed that this was the reason that Microsoft never tried to lock people out of their products. Assuming that was a correct assumption (stacking assumptions is dangerous, but it's just for the duration of this comment) then Microsoft clearly no longer feels that they need the infringers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, OK. Maybe some people would shop there more, depending on who was doing the searching. But that is another subject entirely.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
somebody get crackin.. we need a replacment of directX stat.
Everybody knows gamers push the upper tier of PC technology forward.. If the same crowd was playing these games on linux, hardware companies would cater to Ubunto or Suse instead of Windows. This is something that NEEDS to happen. I will die or gnaw off my hand before i touch a MAC
"the only thing that I would miss besides games is my accounting package"
For me it's games & my graphics software.
firewall & no updates
Kill your TV
I can imagine it now, Microsoft hits 'the big red button' and half of the PC's in the room quit working...
It's no worse than people who call it OSX or OS X. The name is MacOS X, and the X is optional. It's the MacOS, and to keep down confusion about which one, you specify the X to mean "not the old crufty one". It's also funny when people refer to the old crufty one as "OS9 version 8.6" or somesuch.
This message is brought to you by non-artsy-but-still-uppity Mac user #19980512.
Wait, does this mean a targeted DDoS isn't illigal if we can prove the target has at least one peice of improperly licenced software?
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Computer not booting today? Move to Linux! 100% Free!
YouStockIt - Education through Unorthodox Methods
Precisely.
One of the many, many reasons why Windows isn't for me or the millions of others who prefer Linux, MacOS and other *nix style OSs
CN=poolmeister.OU=lurkers.CN=slashdot
Ed Foster already wrote an article speculating on whether WGA is in fact being used to forcibly sunset WinXP.
3 /50236
See http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/6/27/054
Personally, I think he's correct -- why else would WGA suddenly become a "required" part of any update?
Furthermore, why should WGA ever need to confirm that a copy is legit more than ONCE? if a given install was legit last week, how could it possibly become pirated next week?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
People that pirate Windows have:
-
Installed their own OS (these days, it's trickier in Windows than you'd think).
-
Patched and updated it.
-
Hacked it again to get SP2 to work.
-
In this case, they've disabled the WGA update and/or disabled it in some way.
These people aren't illiterate computer users like that grandma that everyone brings up. It's very possible that they'll be smart enough to look for an alternative. And considering that many games run in Wine (so I hear, I've only tried a few (with success)), it's not really so farfetched. All told though, I would be very surprised if Microsoft did this. I'm sure they're aware of the threat and would much rather have pirates use Windows for free than abandon it in frustration forever."I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
Forget that.
I am a legitimate user of Windows. I know I am, because I bought a licenced copy from a reputable dealer. Thus, I figure, I don't need the WGA to *tell* me if I have a legitimate copy. I *do* have a legitimate copy.
And Microsoft doesn't get to know anything else about anything I do, or affect me. The idea that I can be held hostage because I don't want to trust software from Microsoft. Well, that's kind of crazy.
i would like to say that as a Slashdot reader i have no idea what WGA is. seriously. the first thing i thought of was women's golf, but i don't think that's right.
i could google it, but i don't care, either.
Yeah, just pop the disk in the system and next thing you know it's booting and you can acess your files and the web! No, you won't have to worry about Microsoft shutting it down.
They can turn off my copy of Win2k?
wait a second... I'm thinking this only applies to that graphics and DRM add-on to Windows 2000... what was it's name again? oh yeah! Windows XP.
But seriously, folks; I just bought a Media Center Laptop for $$$$; I'm going to get around this problem by never letting microsoft.com near my machine, at least not until I can figure a way to get Win2k or Debian to run all the bells and whistles.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Troll? Overrated? WTF?
GODDAMN fucking bullshit!
IANAL but how is this not retrospectively changing the terms of the already heavily criticised EULAs that Microsoft uses? For legitimite purchasers who first bought the software this was not part of the agreement/contract formed, now Microsoft is imposing this on all users. Granted I havent RTA yet!
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
i wonder if this would be the first time, the AV vendors would NOT blacklist a worm/virus which does nothing but disabling WGA and sends itselfs thru outlook like any other of this malwares. I mean, seriously, the joe doe with the disabled windows won't buy mcafee, or does he?
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
I have heard this exact same argument for key activation. Nobody sued. Nothing happened.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I can't find the WGA installation package for my SuSE Linux box. What am I going to do?
-- Will program for bandwidth
Can't you just see the headline. Followed, of course, with an explanation that the mafias and other criminal organizations (as well as all those law abiding citizens who don't want big brother to know about their porn) HAD to switch away from Windows to avoid being spied on.
This of course will be followed by legislation requiring all installations of Linux and other non-Microsfot OSes to be registered in a manner similar to firearms.
-Tim Louden
My question is how are they going to install this software that shuts down your computer? It seems to me that if you've already stopped auto-installing updates from MS, it would be tough for them to put something on your machine to shut it down (although nimda might just have solved that problem for them). And how far back are they going? Windows 2000? Windows 98?
I like sendmail. (I think there's at least three of us left.)
Or something else:
The Vista Beta is out and is usable for one year. And it is free (as in beer of course).
I guess they hope that all the pirates switch to Vista Beta - and thus become the leaders for the migration of the paying customers.
You're wrong. I've helped dozens of people, young and old, experienced and inexperienced switch to Linux, and people have very few problems getting used to Linux. What does hurt them is peripherals and other add-ons that only work with Windows. I make absolutely certain that everyone for whom I install Linux understands that:
1. Software is a process not a product, so learn to live with change. Software is like a city -- continuous change that works.
2. Hardware should be checked for compatibility before buying. What doesn't work now might work in 3 or 6 months. Be patient.
3. Whatever "problems" you experience cannot be so great that it is worth denying people the right to share and control software. By way of comparison: Democracy is complicated, messy, costly, inconvenient, and inefficient and means that sometimes we don't get our way. But we choose it over totalitarianism because it is a choice that preserves the freedom to choose, and that freedom is essential to human dignity (as well as to more abstract things like "the market").
You've got this all wrong people. This is just MicroGates' way of bringing the internet to shop floor pc's everywhere. Soon, there will be no manufacturing jobs left in the US because ET had to phone home to planet Redmond and our trade engineers couldn't stop looking at Paris's sidekick photos.
I saw this on digg a few days ago and was wondering about it then.
I always had XP set to prompt me for what new updates are available and from the first time I saw WGA and read its description I decided it was crap I didn't need to install.
If I've never installed WGA... then what piece of software in XP is going to detect that WGA isn't installed, and do this 30 day thing? They would have either had to plan this well in advance back to when I guess XP SP2 came out... or else they snuck some functionality into one of the other updates.
?
How, exactly, will this affect me? How will WGA magically render my computer off? What sorcery is this that will allow them to power down my computer, which has not recieved an official windows update since I got it?
Well, now that we're being pedantic, it's actually not "MacOS" anymore. "MacOS" was for the classic versions, OS X is spelled "Mac OS X", with the space, so "OS X" is correct.
-twb
I for one like the Idea for moving onto Linux. But quite possibly other users may start to realize that running 2000 and NT4 may be viable alternatives, provided the drivers for all their hardware is available on these platforms. I for one would still be running NT (dodges a flying tomato) if they would have gotten around to releasing SP7. But M$ needed a new cash cow forcing the installed base to move onto 2000. Also, with 2K,NT,9X the security schemes are weak at best, which allows you to run multiple machines without having to face the wrath of Bill.
No; the best part is going from basic functionality to Killer System without investing any more money in software. Electronics simulation? Virtualization? Bioinformatics? Come on in, the water's fine.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Why would people choose not to buy Vista if this feature was introduced there? WGA would not affect people choosing to purchase legal copies of Vista unless they were concerned about WGA 'phoning home' which isn't really the discussion here.
Just got one. Once the quad intel macs come out I plan to switch 90% of my operation to Mac. So far I've had one crash on Final Cut and one on Modo in a month of use. I'll blame the Modo one on Modo since it can be a bit twitchy. I sometimes have three or four an hour with windows machines depending on software. Now they want to force feed me updates. Bite me Bill. Macs are more stable and once a few settling in issues get resolved I'm migrating everything I can. I'll keep one windows system for the few things I need that don't run on Mac but I'm jumping ship. I think my first windows machine ran DOS 3.0 to give you some idea how far back I go with it. Just tired of the BS and crashing. Macs are a bit more expensive but pay for themselves in stability. Could be a big shot in the arm for Mac all the crap Microsoft is pulling.
Sure MS might kill off Joe Sixpack's Windows box, and Joe isn't going to like that, but what interests me is "how dead" will the Windows install be, and what will Joe do to get his data back?
I know a lot of "non-technical" folks who had boxes built by geeks who probably didn't install a licensed version of Windows. These folks are going to be mighty surprised and unhappy if the "genuine advantage" of Windows turns out to be the inability to access gigabytes of digital images of their kids that they took with that "works for sure" camera. Most of these folks wouldn't be savvy enough to buy a new machine and put their old drive into it to salvage the "lost" images.
I really don't see how this can possibly benefit Microsoft. If you could buy a retail box of Windows and use the key on your "dead" box, then maybe Microsoft would make a few extra sales (along with the millions of enemies they are about to make). But most folks are going to see this as "My Windows broke again" and ask a geek friend to come fix it. My suspicion is that a lot of non-technical folks will at this point get a) a hack to work around the "genuine advantage" software and b) advice that their next PC should be a Mac or Linux box.
With the current state of Linux distros, it seems like we're approaching the point where you could sell non-technical people on Linux, since the disadvantages (UI differences, some application types are harder to find) are starting to weigh less than the advantages (never by AV again, free as in beer, geeks friends are happier to support you)
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Treat me right, I treat you right. You fuck me, I fuck you. Not a pretty motto, but I've always lived by it and it has worked for me more often than it hasn't.
Also known as "tit for tat", which turns out to be the best strategy in a repeated "Prisoner's Dilemma" scenario. (Although that also requires being able to forgive after retaliating.)
-- Alastair
Well who with a pirated version of XP was stupid enough to download the WGA package in the first place?
If you didn't get that, how are they going to shut you down?
You know this because you tried to cook a frog alive?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Who said "critical data".
Gee, I don't know...maybe the guy that I was replying to?
The average home user will have their vacation photos, some music, their resume, and so on. Its may not be "critical" but anyone would be pissed if microsoft tried to hold it hostage. Not to mention blocking you from doing online banking, chatting with friends, reading the news, listening to music, and playing solitaire.
If that's all that he's doing, I can think of a nice OS that handles all of that just fine and doesn't cost any money. Again, if the guy is running a pirated OS, he just doesn't have any room to bitch if it shuts down. Particularly if he endured 6 months of nag screens before it got to that point.
"Frogs allowing themselves to be boiled is an Urban Legend."
It's just misquoted. Frogs will allow themselves to be boiled if:
1) They are lobsters, not frogs, and
2) You keep the lid tightly on the top of the pot.
One is a factory installed (Gatway laptop) with winXP home. (when I came in this morning it was frozen with a warning that the software was fake. On about the sixth time I was able to reboot, got the new WGA - which removed the mesage, then no more rebooting sucessfully. (BSOD, I'll work on it after I back up the last weeks work.))
... This is not an uncommon problem. Apparently a large number of non-ms ide drivers (Via, Nvidia, ...) cause the machine to entirely bork. You have to get MS apprived drivers, copy them to the borked machine, boot in safe mode, wave a dead chicken, dance.....
The other machine is a Homebrew (Asus, AMD 1700ish, 1024MB) - I suspect the via ide drivers....
Take a look at google for WGA and crash
Gates shed some light on his own hard-nosed business philosophy. "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Then, they include WGA with Vista when it's released because users are already used to it.
I defend Microsoft a lot here. I think a lot of MS bashing is unjustified here.
I'm not defending them for this.
If this is true, games be damned. I'm jumping ship to Linux first chance I get.
I run a legal copy of WinXP and I have the cracked DLL's.
I just wanted to cut through the bullshiat.
Same thing with WPA.
I cut that shiat off right quick, just on principle.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
People who do SERIOUS work can turn off the GUI and enjoy the speed and stability of a bash shell.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
... that nobody really cares about anymore. Not only is this story not interesting, but its OLD. Nobody gives a crap about how many Futurama references you can pack into an article about a wearable chip that happens to run Linux or about the complete lack of enthusiasm or industry adoption of Novell's vaporware. This is really sad. Slashdot was never that spectacular, but its reached a point now where there might be one article a week that I am actually interested in enough to click on and read. It's not that there just aren't interesting things to read anymore, its quite simply shit editing by the editors.
/. bashing rant. Be my guest and destroy my karma b/c I likely won't be needing it anymore. Insert obligatory 'I'm moving to digg because slashdot blows and is poorly maintained' comment.
Ok, I'm done with my
I guess I will need to block a range of IP addresses on my router. Anyone have the range used by WGA? Note: I have 2 copies of XP that are legally licensed. I still object to them wasting my CPU cycles, and my bandwidth, and I object to them spying on me... no matter what the reason. This is a crock.
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
IFF this should really happen... then PCs are affected that don't have WGA installed (obviously, because then they weren't affected)... and that have auto updates turned off (since WGA comes through auto update)...
now since this CAN ONLY affect machines which have not been updated lately - this means the code, that disables your copy of windows, MUST have been in there for some time longer (some older update (I doubt this) or SP1, SP2 or directly from the start (thats what I'd beleive, because these are the versions everyone has and that are shipped on cd)). this is an information they legally would have had to supply... they didn't, therefore it would be illegal.
this also means that thousands of machines which are not connected to the internet or are behind restrictive firewalls, inside of intranets, have auto update turned off for security or traffic reasons... why ever... this will cause LOTS of damage to corporations...
these two things will lead to BIG antitrust lawsuits, microsoft loses hundreds of millions - maybe billions... I don't think they are THAT stupid...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The/magic Slash-dot sla\sh - and \hyphen/ generat-or.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
No, you might as well buy a Mac ( or install bsd, linux, etc etc )
Anyone who didnt see this coming is either a fool or a moron.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ok, the thing with the pirated copies of windows xp. A lot of people have it, an insane lot of people. Now should windows cut the cord so to say its not going to be the people who own the computers who make the decision on what operating system, its going to be the geeks that shall inherit the earth. I do "tech support" for a lot of people on the side, and a few of them will have pirated windows, law of averages and all that. When the time comes I'm going to put it on the table for them. I can buy windows and install it for them. BUT, I'ts gonna cost, heavy time. Or,I can stick a user friendly distro of linux on it for free. Most of them aren't going to pick the xp. Plain and simple. These people didn't choose xp cause it was windows, they did choose it because it was free. Most of them only use it for the internet anyway, and are pretty used to firefox to begin with. So a vaguely windows looking OS with firefox, and maybe thudnerbird will be enough to satisfy them. They won't be able to install any bought games, but most of them don't know how to install games anyway.
It smacks of MSFT needing to find a way to boost stagnant earnings and keep their quarterly numbers up and that's exactly what it is.
All they can do is squeeze existing users for a few more pennies and try to generate sales with the strong arm product activation requirements. The security package is one way to extract a few more dollars from your wallet, racheting up the EULA restrictions so you can't transfer Windows between machines you own is another, and trying to sweep in sales from those using a pirated copy of Windows just to play games, which is the only reason many of you want Windows around at all. I've seen similar tactics going on on the commercial side of the house as well. Many of my business customers are flat unhappy with MSFT license fees and restrictions.
It's an interesting spiral. The more people switching to open source, the more MSFT has to squeeze their remaining customers for revenue, which always pisses off a small fraction who then jump to OSS. Rinse, lather, repeat.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Her choice? The MacBook. Why? $1049 (after educational discount) and the only add-on needed were RAM and MS Office (educational price, $149).
And after the educational discount on the Toshiba? No, of course, you didn't mention that.
Points:
A. How much would it have cost without the educational discount? How much is a Toshiba with one?
B. How much did you have to pay to get a new copy of Office when the one you had worked fine?
C. How many other apps did you have to buy or re-buy?
Sounds like a handjob to me.
My point is that for the cost of a Windows license ($100), the thing has to pretty much install and configure itself to make it worth the trouble to switch. Besides, our most important apps don't run on Linux, so it's really a moot point. $100-$200/machine makes using Windows, as a business decision, pretty much a no-brainer. It's cheap enough that any hassle, whatsoever, is really a waste of time and money.
I have XP SP0. It's NEVER allowed me to update, and I've never wanted to. I have 4 firewalls, and two NATs. How exactly do they plan to get this WGA onto my computer? Oh, and wouldn't some virus scanners pick this up? I mean, come on, a program trying to disable your entire computer...sounds like something Norton's Bloodhound would pick up pretty easily...
Check out my cross-platform apps
"we are sorry, but you have used XP too long and we no longer support it, thus we are deactivating your computer. Please purchase a new one with microsoft Vista.. thanks and have a nice day"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How many people do you know that use MSN search that do not use Internet Explorer?
Zero? Pretty close to it.
You know people that use MSN Search?!? Seriously? Maybe I need to make more friends, but all of my imaganary ones and my not-made-up dogs swear they use Google.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What's your point? Yes, we are all accustomed to using Windows. That makes the reality of "switching" to Linux of Mac difficult and expensive. Your point is irrelevant, if you have to make a decision based on business (money and time) as opposed to idealism (freeeedom).
Probably the same reason people BiCapitalize Firefox or Microsoft.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I would imagine that's because corporations get activation-less corporate versions.
Insert obligatory 'I'm moving to digg because slashdot blows and is poorly maintained' comment.
I'll see that "I'm moving to digg because slashdot blows and is poorly maintained" and raise you an "I came back to slashdot because digg has more dupes, more inaccurate headlines, and even dumber comments". Taco may need a grammar coach, but at least you don't see many "ZOMG free energy from water!!!1" articles on the front page here...
0 1 - just my two bits
Um, that's a 13.3 inch laptop with 512MB you quoted there.
Dell 14 in dual cores (Inspiron E1405 Dual Core) start at about $830, same ram/speed. So, about $219 more for a silver apple logo and the fun of re-buying all your apps.
Seriously, though, doesn't Microsoft realize that significant number of users aren't going to go out and suddenly buy Windows? Sure, most (half?) will, but the rest will go hunting for a truly free (read: no-cost) alternative until a hack comes out.
Just how much hunting can you do in five minutes?
I build a tinfoil hat for my machine because I KNEW this day was going to come! First they start by remotely shutting off your computer, then they take control of your car and force you to shop at designated outlets, and then finally they mandate a brain implant for full mind control! THE CORPORATIONS! THE GOVERNMENT! ITS COMING!
I can hardly wait for those 60000 computers at GM worldwide suddenly turn off because someone shared out the key. Hmmm, that gives me an idea. everyone post volume licence keys for corporations they don't like (or work for) and get them all blacklisted.
Spend $500-$3000 to save $200 and not have your computer call up a giant corporation a couple times a week?
What do you tell users whose software and services can't be ported to Linux?
How many free and open source programs of interest to non-technical end users have been ported to Windows or began as native Windows apps? Pretty much all, I've come to think.
4) or people who "borrowed" a copy from work to install at home, and are worried that WGA will notify Microsoft and the count of active machines running from that license will be off.
It's a moot point. By definition, pirates know how to get around stuff like this.
I remember when XP first came out the people I knew who installed it were complaining that it turned itself off after they made a lot of changes... it thought it had been copied over to a new computer or something and so disabled itself until you called Microsoft and complained.
How much do you want to bet this turning the computer off thing won't work quite perfectly?
Besides, I wouldn't want my computer providing MS with a back door and calling them up every week anyway.
If that Fortune 500 company is letting their PCs get updates directly from Microsoft, rather than rolling them out in a controlled fashion on their network having tested them thoroughly first, then WGA enforcement is only one of their many problems.
There are other sites that host the DX update. I got the June Update from one of the sites I check daily for software updates and had no idea that I needed WGA to get it from MS. And on a grander scale, lets not forget Autopatcher and http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/ Only the meek shall perish, and that will free up a lot of bandwidth for torrents. :)
They might as well change the message to "You have not installed WGA because you are smart enough to realize that Windows is not worth money. You have 30 days to buy a Mac or switch to linux."
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Who said "critical data".
Gee, I don't know...maybe the guy that I was replying to?
Er... you originally replied to -me-, and I didn't mention "critical data".
If that's all that he's doing, I can think of a nice OS that handles all of that just fine and doesn't cost any money.
Me too. But he probably hasn't and the salesrep at the computer store probably won't bring it up either, preferring to peddle him a shiny new Mac or PC.
The TPM is already used to control the use of OSX... and it is only a software update away from being used for iTunes. For example: Apple's recent moves to close OSX completely are part of it being rearchitected around Trusted Computing (signed binaries). "Trust" (in the TPM sense of the word) starts with the hardware, the bios and the kernel. Anyone who thinks Apple isn't doing exactly the same thing as Microsoft is kidding themselves.
and the hardware, for the most part, will work with anything.
Except for the cheap WinModem that came in their PC, the WinPrinter which was £5 cheaper than the "real" printer, the wireless network card which doesn't even have Linux drivers, the host of games (which despite having been pirated, they still want to play) and the software (which despite having pirated, they still need to use).
If a Windows machine suddenly becomes something that cannot be unplugged from high speed always-on internet for 30 days or more, than I will need to switch OSes.
:)
They FINALLY made a version of Office that is sanely priced, and Mac is ready to eat their sack lunch on most issues, so now they do this... Interesting...
Mac can do what Vista does with much less capable hardware, so ironically, they'll be the econobox of 2006 rather than WintelAMD. So I see smarter people eventually getting Windows only for a game machine and work, and using Macs for everything else, including non-game entertainment.
However, the backlash factor, much like is now impacting Sony, is probably going to push the technorati to Mac because spite is a huge motavator - and if the technical people move, the friends/relatives who ask our advice move eventually as well. So Microsoft talk of Vista being "the last Windows" may be more true than Microsoft knows itself.
We'll all still own an XBox 360, though.
Yet there are still plenty of pimly 14 year olds who provide the "tech support" for their circle of friends, and said pimply faced youths may know nothing but windows - rather than go the Linux way, they'll find a crack.
Right but 99% of business users probably have a real license - they come with the PCs, if nothing else. Not all of them though; Aristocrat, which makes our casino management software, uses unlicensed windows on their lab systems - just because it's too much effort to deal with having them all have a legit reg code. This is mostly going to impact home users.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Who said that an autumn date was set in stone?
Wouldn't surprise me if it happens a month after Vista is released to OEMs.
Agreed.
I work as IT manager in a small shop - so small that we haven't got around to setting up our own centralised roll-out of Windows Updates yet, mainly because that requires a Windows server - and most of my customers (drug dealers have "users", thank you) would switch over to Linux in a heartbeat.
But they can't. They use a specific development tool which needs Windows. (Well, TBH, I doubt it does. But they like being able to call for support of the dev environment, and if you're developing on an unsupported platform, "being able to call support" will cease to be an option).
Now this concerns me a great deal. If every other PC in the office (despite having been purchased with XP Pro licenses) shuts down never to return in a few months time, muggins here is going to have some lovely explaining to do. The temptation to close off access to Windows Update at the firewall is strong.
Others may have made similar points, but here's it is in a nutshell. Microsoft's claim to fame is that people don't know anything else. They are dependant upon Windows because they know that if they need help, most of the people they know use windows, and can't help with anything other than the few pieces of software that came prepackaged with their previous purchases. They do it because tech support personell are just looking for any excuse to say "not my problem", and if they find out you're not using Windows, hot damn, will their eyes light-up. In short, they are in the Windows camp because they have nowhere else to go.
If other operating systems start to creep their way out of the "niche audience" category, and into the "mainstream, yes, my freakin' grandmother has a copy (and no, i didn't install it for her)" category, then microsoft will soon find themselves competing again.
Right now, Windows' main competitor is piracy, which still gives them a monopoly. So, if half the world steals Windows, and the other half buys, then, no biggie; they can just charge double. But, if half the world uses the competition, they can't raise prices, for fear of losing the customers they have left.
Got one for you. I get a finders fee though. Okay? Here it is: http://www.opengl.org/
Why is everyone just assuming that people running a pirated copy of windows is just going to switch to mac or linux?? Pretty sure these people know that linux is free right now, yet they still use windows (which is free to them anyways) I wouldnt be surprised if a good majority of the pirates need windows, and end up paying for it.
Well, OK. Maybe some people would shop there more, depending on who was doing the searching. But that is another subject entirely.
Or for other reasons, like a game of gross out ala Calvin and Hobbes.
1. do not use windows microsoft update at all. go to technet security and hand pick the updates you actually need on the computer. /. crowd, not joe sixpack) it will only get better and better. then at that point it will be hey, this is free AND runs all of the software i already have, and it just works.
2. if for some that fails, set your location to a european one. as i understand ms is not pushing this out to anywhere besides the united states. reason being is that they would be commiting suicide in europe, considering thier current anti trust suit. it would only be adding fuel to the already blazing fire they have in the eu.
3. react os can run alot of windows applications quite successfully. if more user switch, and contribute (i am speaking for the
People are getting too much "+5 insightful" modifiers for trolling...
.isos already come with everything and serial code. It won't take much time before the XP_no_WGA.iso becomes available for torrents.
Nobody is going to buy windows, I am sure that the guys with pirated copies will just get a hack-fix . They will be really easy to find. The XP
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Well I don't. It isn't their product. It belongs to whoever bought the copy of WindowsXp, it'is not Microsoft's anymore. If Vista comes with WGA built-in, and people are well aware of that (sort of what happens to HL2 now with Steam) - then be it. But noone who bought XP originally ever agreed to that. I hope someone in your convoluted legal system has the sense to stop what is clearly a tour de force by Microsoft, and serve no practical purpose other than to annoy the legitimate buyers.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
WGA still checks them. Oh, didn't you know that? Gosh, what a surprise.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
OK, WGA, if installed, checks to see if your copy of windows is properly licensed.
Let's say, that my copy is not properly licensed.
I haven't installed WGA, because I know my copy is not properly licensed. WGA cannot notify MS that my copy is not licensed.
Windows does not currently contain any code that makes it "shut down" if WGA hasn't reported in. I know this because WGA has been available for quite some time, and my windows has not become inactive.
In order to achieve this, MS will have to DEPLOY some sort of update that that will do this.
Hell, if I can prevent WGA from being installed, what is to keep me from just NOT INSTALLING this new piece of code?
Surpising - the prices of Windows 2000 have started trending up on eBay. Maybe the market is already talking about this
...but only if you pronounce it "OS ten" instead of "OS ecks".
Really?! All of your hardware?? Firewire, any external video output, all the power modes including suspend and sleep, HD spindown? Low power management, CPU throttling, battery monitor? IR, trackpad (including tap) - all the screen resolutions? And sound? Internal wireless and ethernet? Docking station?
What model Asus and what version Ubuntu? I've been looking for a *fully* supported laptop for years. What I keep hearing is "it supports almost everything I use, kinda, except these three things don't work and you have to use an external wireless card".
KeS
Also the sort of person who doesn't have a legitimate copy of windows is the same person who had their PC custom built (probably by themselves.) That means they have some technical contact who'll happily hunt down and supply them the patch which will be out long before any Microsoft expiry date. Microsoft don't seem to realise their patching culture has made many users comfortable with running -any- kind of patch to keep their machine running, including those that do not come from Microsoft.
This is hardly going to force droves of users to any particular platform, the typical Mac switcher is a user who is frustrated with their store bought PC(this kind of user has a legit copy of windows and they'll just install WGA like any other patch.), home-built jobs aren't big "frustration switchers" because they assume that the bugs are issues they had developed by poorly matched hardware and drivers which aren't 100%, so they are happy to work around little quirks to pretend that they didn't fail at building a computer. If they switch they are usually a switcher due to freedom of choice or technical grounds. (E.g. they'd switch for a better security model, nicer gui, iApps, exposé and spotlight. An almost bug free experience just comes along for the ride. Vista has been in the publicity so much as to help stem the flow of this kind of switcher market, as MS is trying to promise that all these features are just around the corner, when they simply aren't. "Don't leave, look we have this Vista thing it's getting released soon, here are screen shots, don't go!")
This won't see any home adoption to linux at all. Most users are comfortable with their software choices (even if it's only word, internet explorer, msn messenger and itunes.) So they'll happily ask around to get the system fixed rather than throw out what they are comfortable with and pick up a copy of one of the trillion linux distributions. Most people see Linux as out of their technical reach and the stuff for nerds or people who like to fiddle under the bonnet.
So in short, when Vista comes out, show them what you think of WGA with your wallet.
Because they've read too many tech documents? ("It's three letters, therefore it must be a TLA...")
People will find a hack to Windows. Almost nobody will go with the other options.
But they will never trust MS again (yes, lots do trust now). That make it much easier to switch.
Rethinking email
> somebody get crackin.. we need a replacment of directX stat.
...but a functioning FOSS replacement for DirectX would be nothing less than TOTALLY FRIGGIN' AWESOME, DUDE!! :D Goodness knows it would give the ReactOS project one hell of a boost.
Well, technically no one *needs* it
> I will die or gnaw off my hand before i touch a MAC
Couldn't agree with you more one that one. I'm a disgruntled Apple II user with a *very* long memory. Damn you to hell, Steve Jobs! Fuck you *and* your [PowerPC/i]Mac! Wozniak was the true creator of Apple! Long live The Woz!!
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
If you know much about installing linux, then you should show up at the local linux user group meeting when they start shutting peoples computers off, so we won't get overwhelmed by the crowds. They may be kind of small crowds, but it should be a nice little boost for free software.
Umm, people who do serious work and don't need a GUI in the first place won't be installing MacOS. They'd run a BSD or Linux and only install what's needed.
Exactly- that's what I meant. MacOS doesn't ship with the bash shell by default anyway (it's xterm.) However, you could likely install bash on a Mac if you wanted to.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Cool, then I can make lots of money installing WGA-Killer...
Oh well, what the hell...
Just to let you know, Windows Server 2003 doesn't require you to install WGA to get updates.
And it's pretty much an XP.
This (the kill switch date) is just in time for the fall elections. All those Windows based voting machines will have to be running the new WGA or they could be killed off by Microsoft or the l33t h4q0rz that have cracked the code.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Windows 2000 won't be end of life'ed until 2010. Earlier ones are unsupported and won't get new security fixes.
I think Microsoft's "Start Anything" ad campaign was good. It just does not get as much hype as the new "Hi, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" ads because they don't try to be put people down. Apple has a superiority complex. When was the last time you saw a Microsoft ad that was like that? I can't remember any. It seems to me that Microsoft marketing concentrates on the good points and possibilities of its products. Apple on the other hand seems to concentrate on how it is different, because different better and different is cool.
Next thing you know it is more secure than it was.
All those capable of withholding their bypass techniques please do so now...
I come here for the love
Massive user migration - yes. Guess where? My money is on Vista.
Microsoft is famous for using a stick rather than a carrot to 'encourage' upgrades. With all the bad press Vista is getting for removing features, Microsoft knows DX10 isn't going to be enough to drive people to upgrade. This might just do it.
Where are they getting these magic hyphens and slashes from?
I'd tell you where they come from, but you'd probably never eat another one afterwards.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Maybe they play too much X-Box
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Look, they're funny, they're well done and all, but the thing that truly SHITS me up the wall about those ads (do note that we don't have them in Australia, I've only seen them on the Mac site), is that they try to imply that:
* Macs never crash, windows does: Erm... ok, here in the office we have a mac and the rest are PCs... the mac is running OSX and has crashed a couple of times and is hardly ever used (It's a demo machine for our product... it's looks purty)... so it's couple of crashes are a pretty high percentage. The XP laptop I'm using right now... I cannot for the life of me remember when it crashed last. I can't. I don't think I've EVER seen a blue screen on this machine, not once... and I develop code on it, running a java app server, a web server and a db server along with an IDE, while reading email and surfing the web and listening to email... IT DOESN'T CRASH. I HATE that they are trying to continue the myth that Mac don't crash and PCs do... it's shit. ALL personal computers crash or foul up at one stage or another and since XP, Windows hasn't been any worse than OSX.
* That iTunes is the bloody be all and end all of music management software. Well... I tried to like it, everyone else seemed to, but I can't. It's interface is horrible and cluttered and lifeless and, well, just not how I like my music library to be displayed. Up until really recently I was using Winamp with it's great little media library. That was until Media Player 11 came along... man, I love this thing, really nice interface, great way to view my library (many different options)... it's really nice, and it synchs up nicely with my MP3 player too. (although to tell you the truth, I've always prefered to just drag and drop... that seems simplest to me.
Ergh... I can't be bothered doing there other ones... but you get my drift. They really prey on the bullshit impressions people may still have about pcs, but they almost flat out lie about how the mac works in some situations.
Yes...
Aside from possibility of some SNAFU where thousands of paying customers get shafted because of some minor incompatibility or the PR nightmare when word-of-mouth goes around the world saying "beware! windows will shut down on you!" (tactfully omitting the "pirated" part) - it's a great idea. It will surely hit the illegal users hard, just like activation did...
I wonder what happens if some keygen generates the same key as a honest customer has. My bet so far would be on "all copies with suspect key are deactivated".
So... "Microsoft activates latest anti-piracy measure. Hilarity ensues."
Anyway, I don't think this will drive significant number of users towards Linux. Linux is still niche on the desktop side (dire lack of games and other unproductivity software) and Linus' stance towards drivers isn't helping. Rather a good chance for Apple.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
You can come out now, it's safe.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You're forgetting hardware. Sometimes you simply cannot afford to replace hardware that there is no driver for in *nix -- the kids need school supplies, maybe doctors need to be paid, medicine you literally cannot live without needs to be paid for, plus you need food and shelter to boot. Even some people who actually make a good amount of money have it tied up in medical bills; I've seen this before. These people are often still using a computer they bought before whatever financial problems they have set in and literally cannot replace hardware with *nix-friendly hardware.
And frankly, now, I don't know what to tell newbies even if they have compatible hardware. There's no OCE of Xandros 4 and they're using product activation now. Why bother to switch from Windows product activation to Linux product activation? Mepis has a reputation for supporting more hardware than any other distro, but the free version is ad-supported (install it and you'll find a sign-up to Earthlink icon on your desktop) and just getting a bit sleazier every time I hear anything about it IMO. The pro version of Mepis uses validation via your MAC address to make sure you're eligible for updates before you can download them. Again, why leave this crap behind on Windows just to put up with it on Linux? And (K)Ubuntu? Lots of people swear by it, but when I downloaded the latest version and tried to run it as a live cd, it couldn't mount the file system -- it just froze and did absolutely nothing. So I can't recommend it either. In addition, right now everything Debian-based is giving me trouble with internet access (slow as a 28.8 modem) and does it with different comptuers with different ethernet cards, so I can only conclude that their some kind of problem with my IPS's broadband servers and how Debian uses a browser (download speeds are the same as with Windows). MY ISP is the only broadband provider in this area so everyone I know with broadband will have the same problem. PCLinuxOS? Tried to isntall it once, very carefully. I couldn't log in as root because it claimed my root password was invalid -- using the same one I've used many times and having to had type twice I'm very sure it was valid -- and several paritions weren't writable. I know how to partition a hard drive as I've been doing so since years before PCLLinuxOS existed, so I don't think I would make such drastic mistakes. Thus, no PCLinuxOS either; great as a live cd, but no permanent installs. Linspire? Don't make me laugh. SuSE? Fedora? Mandriva? Those aren't as newbie-friendly as what I would need to recommed to others (I'm checking out Gentoo for myself).
If you've got any recommendations I'd love to hear it, especially if you can figure out what the browsing problem is with Debian. No one else has been able to help so far.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Ah, but isn't it obvious; the hyphens are from hyphenspace...
EXCELLENT JOKE.
You can install and use bash as your shell on windows. All you have to do is install bash from your provider of choice and then set a single registry key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\System\Shell or HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\System\Shell to point to the bash executable.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"a) know that you don't have WGA ..."
Becasue when you conet to do an update, it checks to see if WGA is responding.
"...b) shut down your PC? "
Who says its the WGA program they need in order to shut down your PC?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Indeed, they'll find a hack. But let's assume they won't...
You're seriously out of your mind.
The is only one thing people praise most then conformity, and is their pocket, that's for sure. They won't spend anything beyond $50 to get their computer up and running. In fact, most people I know doesn't even know how much a fresh licensed copy of Windows costs and when I tell then "the facts" (pun intended) they mostly get surprised/scared. Right before that they change the subject.
The best thing ever Linux could have for its user base are effective counter piracy measures from Redmond.
But looks like MS is well aware of that, as all those attempts to turn the Pirate John Doe into a well trained customer are, for a lack of a better word, lame.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
Well, it's certainly better than my former "tit for cash" philosphy which turned out to be the best strategy in a repeated "Embarassing Moment" scenario.
Why does everyone seem to think Apple is better then Microsoft? They are one in the same; Apple is smaller, that's the ONLY reason you don't see Microsoft-esq BS coming out of them 24/7. I bet you 8,000$ that the second Macs become the main OS (computer?) they would become just as bad, if not worse, then Microsoft; only this time with control over the platform (can you imagen Microsoft owning Dell, Sony, HP, Gateway, etc, then making it impossible to build your own? That's the Apple of your dreams and my nightmare). OS monopoly isn't half as terrifying as platform monopoly. Anyone that thinks Apple is really better needs to think long and hard about them and Microsoft. Ask yourself, is Microsoft any different then Apple? Do you really think Apple will care to be "revolutionary" (I would debate them being so now, but that's not the point) if they were as big as MS? We already know they like their DRM like their beer; mixed in with everything. I know I am going to get modded troll, but oh well.
Great Intellect...
Wrong link to the "Embarassing Moment" scenario, but that's the least of my problems.
I would, but there's something about yelling "Oh, sex!" every time that I just can't help but love.
Osma?
Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency?
Ohio State Medical Association?
it is a mystery.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
My bet is that no sys admin is stupid enough to do that... then again...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=921914If this is Microsoft's intent, then why do they have this?
What I don't understand is how they even are able to do this. I mean, if a user doesn't have WGA, it means he hasn't updated his Windows, right? If he hasn't updated his Windows, how is Microsoft supposed to get the software that can turn Windows off onto the user's system? Is it already there by default?
But he doen't. And bet my balls that he also doesn't not how to install, configure (and sometimes even USE) Windows, and how to recover his importante files and make then work in Windows after a new install or upgrade.
C'mon, is everybody here so naive to believe that once Windows locks and tells "You are a Pirate. Go to a software house and buy a licenced Windows, you wimp!" all those winusers will do exactly this? They'll most likelly call you, me or the nearest slashdotter to have his computer "fixed".
And unless the next WGA_Fixer.zip is avaible on Mininova you'll have to tell him that "You're a pirate. Go to a software house and buy a licensed Windows, you wimp!". Of course, you might add:
"... But till then I could have your computer up-and-running with this new operating system..." (takes an Ubuntu CD from the pocket). "just as a temporary fix, you know..."
If he can turn on his computer, check email on Thunderbird (or Hotmail via Firefox), logon in MSN (and even see those god damned custom smileys) on Gaim and write his cake recipes on OpenOffice he'll be happy like a dolphin (but not as smart as one).
- Please, ignore everything written above.
Just goes to show that Richard Stallman has a point. Free as in speech. If you do not want to be owned, be free. I know where I work, I will use this as a selling point in order to get "free" software installed in the enterprise. I believe that there is nothing wrong at all with Microsoft enforcing this, they invested the money and they own the rights. They certainly do not own me and this is going to make people really think hard about the difference between "owned" and "free" software. Software thieves can cop it sweet.
Yet.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
As far as I can tell, any hardware that costs more than Windows, runs nicelly on Linux.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
I don't know about you, but anyone who asks me to help them fix their pirated copy of Windows is going to be in for a surprise. Whatever they install is going to have to be legal. I can give them a Linux install for free, and help them get everything going, or they can go buy whatever they're going to use. We'll see what happens.
GPL: Free as in will
Or at least he will after he reads of this reaction: I for one will be disabling WGA on all three my 100% LEGAL WINDOWS boxes. It phones home? Cooked, OFF my system you invasionware! And that will be the last time I will EVER bother keeping my machines' OS "legit". Greed is answered by turning to the enlightened side - in this industry, the hacks and cracks.
"MacOS doesn't ship with the bash shell by default"? WTF are you smoking
/bin/*sh /bin/bash /bin/csh /bin/ksh /bin/sh /bin/tcsh /bin/zsh
$ ls
Face it, it is as close to UNIX as you'll likely ever get. What do you think xterm would run? xterm is not a shell, it's a terminal.
I would like to see mass migration, but the folks running warezed copies can just reinstall and never install the updates that will break their systems. OTOH, I'M sure I'll make money fixing borked boxes, so I'll adapt. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
except it's not affecting the pirates. they crack it and it's business as usual
...and that's all there is to it.
I'm no lawyer, but the first question that comes to my mind is this:
Seems like just about every update from windows update has a click-through licence. Don't know what's in them, I've never read one. But, by definition, a click through gives you the choice of agreeing (installing the update), or disagreeing (and continuing to use the non-updated software under the original, unmodified EULA licence).
But the description of WGA in the original post sounds like it's a mandatory update, i.e. either you accept it, or you stop running windows. If there's also a click-through licence associated with it, that's equivalent to Microsoft saying: "You must agree to modify the licence agreement, or we won't uphold our side of the original licence (i.e. let you use the software you paid for)."
Isn't this coercing acceptance of a contract under threat of unilaterally breeching an earlier contract? How is it legal?
I suppose it's possible that WGA is an exception to the rule, and doesn't have it's own click-thru licence. But that seems highly unlikely. I've yet to see _any_ update from windows update that doesn't require a new click through.
Anyone know the answer?
Think about this more carefully. The story says "load WGA or you will; be shut off."
Q: How does that work, exactly?
A: Obviously, Microsoft has shipped the killswitch in some other part of the base OS (XP and maybe 2000) and it knows to look for WGA approval in Fall 2006.
Q: What was the original target ship date for the next major revision of Windows (then called Longhorn?)
A: For about 2 years, the date was "2 years from now" and that included a lot of time before Fall 2006 for people to be running Longhorn/Vista.
If this story is true (and I have my doubts, even though I am not a fan or even a customer of MS and do not think that any sort of misbehavior is beneath them) then the killswitch clearly went into the OS (not WGA, WGA is the anti-killswitch) before the phrase "Longhorn Release Date" became a bad joke and "Vista Release Date" a worse one.
If you have a router (e.g. the WRT54G from Linksys that runs Linux) where you can edit the hosts file, I'm sure you can do it there. If you can't redirect it via that, you can use iptables on said router to remedy the problem.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I'll take yet. I won't condemn you for betrayal before you do it. But once you do it (or threaten or even suggest it) I'm not going to shrug it off and I'm going to regard you with much greater suspicion in the future.
If everyone took that approach maybe corporations would have a little more respect for their CUSTOMERS.
I disagree, most users are not very bright and as such when their PC stops working they'll do just about anything to make it work... whether it be plunk down 100-300 bucks for a copy of windows or even 300-500 for a new Windows based PC.
Sounds like an opportunity for Linux. Imagine:
1) A live CD that runs a version of linux that runs WINE and brings to life all (or most of) the stuff on their disabled computer, coupled with:
2) An install CD that installs linux on top of the disabled system in such a way as to present (or allow the launch of) the same "run the dead stuff" environment as the live CD, billed as "installing it on your hard drive so you can use your CD again".
And at that point they're most of the way converted. Then you show them how to run Linux stuff under/beside the WINE "undead" environment and they can migrate over gradually at their own speed.
Anybody know how close we are to that now?
Anybody interested in doing it by fall?
(Even if they don't kill the running windows systems this fall, or ever, that two-disk combo, with a few open source apps on it, might make a handy way to migrate people. It lets them try things out without committing. And having it available will make M$ think twice about pulling the trigger. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is great news for several reasons. 1. It's good that Microsoft is informing its customers that it has installed spyware on their computers and is beaming all of their personal information back to the Redmond Mothership! Credit Card info.? Highest Bidder! 2. People can finally (officially) get outraged at Microsoft for doing this, 3. Windows will actually *stop working* when Microsoft pulls the users pin for them. Microsofts 'automatic install' at the OEM now has a default 'automatic uninstall'. WOOT! This is great news! Further, security and privacy concerns raised over Microsofts 'taddletale feature' should get their product quickly ripped out of every municipal, law enforcement, legal/judicial, emergency service and medical system in the world!
... then you're a sad submissive defeatist.
At least we still have a cause and a hope. As for you, I guess you might as well kill yourself right now, since the future you forsee is one of inevitable slavery to a business machine.
If everyone were to give up and submit, a bleak future would certainly be guaranteed. Fortunately, not everyone is as defeatist as you.
I have to admit, you're right. The question then becomes, what do I recommend instead of Apple? Windows is even worse, and even most non-Apple PCs are coming with TPMs today. I can't exactly recommend building a custom computer and installing Linux on it to non-geeks, you know!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Ummm, so what does the 'hardware investment' have anything to do with it? Linux runs on all hardware. I've heard people yap about 'linux cant run on X...' But it must be them. I've never had any problem running all of my hardware on Linux (including video camera, sound/video, tv-tuner card, firewire, cd/dvd/rw, networking, bluetooth, printing, data backup/tape storage, serial devices... How would the hardware be lost again? As for the software investment, you can run it under wine if there isn't a linux equivilent, but check out the millions of applicaitons (for free) over at sourceforge. My bet is that there is something better than what you bought, and you won't have to pay for it. The assesment is correct. Many users are blind/stupid to try anything else, but for the 10% who do, it's 10% more for Linux and 10% less for Microsoft. 10 more stupid things like this 'call home' fiasco, and the market will be split.
It's like those people who call it OS/X or OS-X. Where are they getting these magic hyphens and slashes from?
Your mom?
Depends - if you got your corp edition from your employer, you'll be fine. If you used a widespread corp edition key, you'll get smacked down by WGA.
If they weren't already connecting their MACs to the network how the hell else were there any computers on it? Using Econet or something?
(look up what a MAC is, then look up what a Mac is. You might be surprised)
I think Microsoft's "Start Anything" ad campaign was good. It just does not get as much hype as the new "Hi, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" ads because they don't try to be put people down. Apple has a superiority complex. When was the last time you saw a Microsoft ad that was like that?
The conventional marketing wisdom is: When You're Number One, You Don't Talk About Number Two. Market-dominating brands don't do marketing comparisons, because they don't want to remind anyone that any competition even exists.
Hertz never compares itself to Avis, but Avis can tell you that because they're number two, they try harder. Coke ads never mention Pepsi, but Pepsi ads sometimes do show people choosing Pepsi over Coke. Dell tells you how great Dell servers are, but Sun tells you that Sun servers are better than Dell servers. Norelco tells you about the shave; Remington tells you how much cheaper they are than Norelco. And so on, ad nauseam.
So I don't see Microsoft's restraint as any sort of nobility or decency on their part. It's just standard marketing practice. Everybody who uses a computer has heard of Windows; Microsoft can only shoot themselves in the foot by reminding the public that there are alternatives. If you saw some shrill (but earnest) ad comparing Windows to Jim-Bob's Pocket Fisherman And Computer Operating System, wouldn't you suddenly be curious about Jim-Bob's product, even if it looked pretty bad next to Windows in the comparison?
If people are using any software illegally then the person/company who wrote it has every right to do what they can to prevent that use. Hopefully MSFT will do this in a way that doesn't compromise privacy but beyond that, more power to them. Pay up to use....Linux or some other OS that you can get without paying.
"Mac" is an abbreviation of Macintosh, not an acronym like PC is for Personal Computer.
MAC however, is an acronym for Media Access Control, as in MAC address in networking.
Sorry... pet peeve there.
Uh, that was my point. I was replying to the parent post to say that I think it's more likely that Microsoft would get sued over WGA than WPA. The poster I was replying to was saying that it seemed unlikely Microsoft would get sued about WGA since they didn't get sued about WPA. I was pointing out a difference between WGA and WPA that meant that more people will be affected by WGA, and more business-critical systems; that is, WGA checks even corporate/volume-license editions. I know WGA still checks corporate editions, otherwise I wouldn't have posted to say that there there actually is some higher chance of Microsoft getting sued for WGA than WPA due to it's larger cone of impact as opposed to WPA (non-corporate/volume-license editions).
Well, at least SuSe will still boot......
I dunno if it will help MS get sales from the clueless majority or not. I might not help sales to Vista either when they are told the same thing could happen to them in Vista too.
I can see the Geek Squad working overtime "fixing" computers when WGA goes into effect.
Who knows maybe one of these days MS will work on elimiating flaws in Windows usability instead of hearlding them as features.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
"It's like those people who call it OS/X or OS-X. Where are they getting these magic hyphens and slashes from?"
Probably from the same Place people get those Random Capitalizations of Words you see so often on the Internet, as demonstrated in this Sentence. Or worse, random capital letters in the middle of words, like DeskTop. Man that pisses me off. Learn how to write!
You think people are going to be migrating in droves to Linux? Give me a break, people won't be moving to Linux. They'll find a hack for Windows, they'll buy Windows, or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled.
I wonder if you read the article. It says that even people with factory installed Windows or legitimate disks had problems. Here's one:
I sent my Compaq Presario notebook for service repair, and it fails the WGA check. I have a legal version of windows xp professional on it. But I have no way to correct this problem.
Following some of the links in the article I found others like it, wherein the owner sent in the unit for factory repairs and when they got it back because of WGA it didn't run, even with a license key. It's not all just because it's running pirated software. As for myself, I've been using various Windows versions exclusively for a few years, but the next computer I get will be a Mac. One reason is Windows Activation. If I buy something I shouldn't have to prove I bought it, innocent before proven guilty sort of thing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Not one of these points is really valid anymore. Plenty of games work, and Cedega is much cheaper than a new copy of XP -- $55 for a whole year, then you can get Vista if you want, XP is (as someone said) $80, and there's Vista next year. That's assuming you need Cedega, vanilla Wine is getting better every day.
Thousands of cheesy little Windows applications are mostly crap like WeatherBug or some sort of AtomicClock Sync (hint: it's built-in to Win2k, enabled by default in XP.) When you explain the concept of spyware, nobody will miss them. Most of the major apps -- FileMaker, Quicken, etc -- all work well under Wine, even though there are often better alternatives.
Different isn't going to be bad for long -- watch the Mac ads. All they really need is for someone to tell them Linux is like having a mac, but it's a free upgrade for their PC.
Ubuntu is much easier to install than a copy of Windows. And who's going to install Joe's copy of Windows? Remember: His old, pirated Windows broke, so now he can buy a new Mac (or use OS X eclusively on his existing x86 Mac), or he can buy a copy of Windows, or he can get his friend Hal Hacker to install Linux.
Now if Joe Schmoe has a choice between spending money, spending more money, or grabbing some free labor, what's he going to choose?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
if cedega supported ff11 windows would not be on my pc at all.
Actually, believe it or not, you hardly even need that. You just need a rather large helping of humility, because you'll be reading lots of numbers over the phone to someone in India.
At least, that's what happened to me. I first set up Windows XP Pro on a Qemu image on my Linux install, so I could run nLite, so I could get my main XP install right the first time. I then had to explain to an Indian woman that yes, it was the same computer, sort of. (She didn't have a fucking clue what emulation/virtualization are, so eventually, I just said "Yes, it's the same physical computer.") She only needed that statement, and then a bunch of numbers -- I don't remember if she needed my product key, but I know she needed that or something from the "Activate Windows" screen. She then read me another long number over the phone, which I entered, and Windows hasn't bothered me since.
As to how I have a legit copy of XP Pro, my college paid for it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
What if they decide that WGA's default position is that you're a pirate, and XP will be disabled unless and until it can phone home? I seriously would not put it past them.
That's what Windows Activation does. If within 30 days Windows isn't activated either over the internet or by you calling MS Windows XP will stop working. Some retailers may activate computers themself, I know when I bought the PC I'm using now from Best Buy they asked me if I wanted it registered with MS. I told them in one way, shape, or form did I want MS to know anything about the computer being registered to me. All they need to know is that legal tender paid for it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm a PC user and i love those new Mac ads. Apple is correct, and PC be damned for it. Let them hammer the PC.... let them hurt Microsoft.
:)
I'm all for it frankly. More PC users should go MAC. I've begun to like Mac OS after having used one lately.
Microsoft needs to to attacked. They're lame, giant and intrusive. Someone needs to attack them publically. Us "bloggers" arent going to do much good with our silly rants.
I hope microsoft loses 3 million PC users world wide in the coming year. I want them to feel the pain. I have no love for MS any more.
They put me through hell when my activation code didnt work when reinstalling at a critical moment when i needed it to work.
Linux isnt there yet... or i'd consider it.... so there is Apple. I actually entered a contest recently to win one...
I'll gladly take a Mac these days. Microsoft needs its ass kicked for its stupidity
Looking at this I have to laugh a bit, in a sad way. I'm all for Microsoft protecting them selves, though considering I despise the company I'm more happy when they shoot them selves in the foot. This is likely to do that. How many hackers do you think will be searching for that disable code now so they can be the next thing on CNN? My bet, quite a few. One of them hits it and corps get totally shut down, that will go over real well. Then there's the other issue. How many places that requite security will want this thing around when they are told by Microsoft that it will have to be able to send data out, and you will not know what is being sent, you just have to trust us. Heh, trust, right. Any one care to make a wager on how trusting the folks at the Pentagon are with systems sending data in and out? Or even better, knowing that with one command some one could shut all of their systems down? They will sh*t enough bricks to build a new pentagon. Any one who needs security will have no choice but to drop Microsoft across the board and /fast/. Think any one in the government will like the idea of a remote kill switch in their system? Not a chance. Naw, this is one of those things that stands to be a good boost to open source. So get out there and let people know what can and will be happening, and let them know there is an other choice.
Question reality.
First of all I am really glad that I am reading this on my Linux box. As the windows users I say it is time to be proud to be a pirate and hack a way at this issue or install Linux and realize that play games on a console instead paying $500 every time a new game comes for the PC world.
Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. Except this time it isnt a bullet in as much as it is a tactical nuclear missile.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth when this wonderful change takes affect will truely be balm for the soul.
Macs never crash, windows does: Erm... ok, here in the office we have a mac and the rest are PCs... the mac is running OSX and has crashed a couple of times and is hardly ever used (It's a demo machine for our product... it's looks purty)... so it's couple of crashes are a pretty high percentage. The XP laptop I'm using right now... I cannot for the life of me remember when it crashed last. I can't. I don't think I've EVER seen a blue screen on this machine, not once... and I develop code on it, running a java app server, a web server and a db server along with an IDE, while reading email and surfing the web and listening to email... IT DOESN'T CRASH. I HATE that they are trying to continue the myth that Mac don't crash and PCs do... it's shit. ALL personal computers crash or foul up at one stage or another and since XP, Windows hasn't been any worse than OSX.
I've had 4 PCs and two Macs. Every PC I've had but one has crashed, hardware as well as Windows. The one PC that I haven't had crash on me is a DEC Alpha running WinNT and I've hardly used it since shortly after I got it because I couldn't get much software installed on it. DEC's FX!32 refused to install most of the programs I tried to install. Both my first PC and the one I'm using now has had the hd die within a year and I've had to reinstall Windows on both several tymes. The third PC I had was a laptop and the LCD cracked in less than 3 months so I didn't much use of it. The only tyme I've had a Mac die was when the floppy drive on my Mac SE30 died after I had been using it for several years, and I got it used. I went with PCs running Windows because at first they are cheaper but once I got them home I've had to put more and more money into them. I've also had the Blue Screen of Death from a Dell running XP within the first 10 minutes of using it. This was on the first day of a class I was taking in college on Java and was one the college's brand new computers. Here I was booting up at the beginning of class when I got the BSOD and had to reboot.
FalconShould there be a Law?
My main concern is that they will find a way to make it "phone home" during boot, before the firewall loads.
There's a way to beat that, preventing Windows from phoning home during bootup, disconnect from the net. I have my cable modem within reach on my desk and I wouldn't have a problem unplugging the cable from the modem. Actually I've had to do that a few tymes when I have trouble with the first modem I had, it stopped working and my ISP had me go through a bunch of tests then had to have a second modem dropped off for me.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I know this story is borderline troll, but I can't resist, so here goes:
Everyone always says how this will decrease the power of their US monopoly, but has anyone considered what it would do to the non-US market for Windows? Take China for example - nearly every copy of windows is pirated, and microsoft is having big problems getting in.
So it all boils down to this: 1 - If they keep selling their cheap, minimal windows, people will move to linux because it's so limited
2 - If they shut down all the pirated windows, people will move to linux virtually overnight
3 - They sell full-blown windows, but at a heavy discount, like $5 a copy or something
1 & 2 end badly for microsoft, and if 3 happens, US users/OEMs will buy chinese copies because they're so much cheaper, which means major decreased revenues. This is not a minor US-only type thing, this is a pretty fundamental blow to their business...
If they do the shutdowns, they will have basically guaranteed that the rest of the world outside the US/Europe/Japan will be hardcore linux only
PS - keep in mind, if Asia/China/Africa go linux, development will take off, which will pose critical long term problems for their US/Europe/Japan business.
Here's a funny thought - I run a company and for a long time we've been looking at going to Apple (one server is, a few dev machines are).
We have two older machines that are used throughout the day coming up with WGA failures. We are coming up for an overhaul and have been thinking about a change given we are no longer tied down.
At what point are we willing to have a new generation of computers using the windows platform if valid computers may be getting shut down for the wrong reason? If my hosting company took down my site for the wrong reason I would be furious. If my car dealer repossessed my car by accident I'd be throwing chairs (I'll fucking kill him!).
If windows now has the capacity of shutting itself down deliberately due to head office's command my entire company is moving.
Pity too, as for every 1 in 100 pirates who get a real copy, there will probably be people like me who will just not want the hassle and opt for getting 500 copies of another OS for their company.
"not the old crufty one"... written by Apple. You know, the new one. Based on *nix or something. I hear it's a "real" operating system. I love how the old OS flame wars have simplified now that Apple has scrapped it's OS in favor of *nix and swapped the PPC for Intel. I guess Apple subscribes to the Bugs Bunny theory of war, "if you can't beat 'em..."
Due in part to the slashdot effect, newegg's windows rating has just gone down to 0.01
Think of them as the physical manifestion of mental pauses, as the writer/speaker tries to recall the goofy versioning and the history of Apple's OSes and their release histories.
I do sorta the same thing looking at my roster of ex-wifes and girlfriends. There, I just made a personal rule to only hook up with women named Karen. With Apple OSes, over the years it hasn't been that simple.
Most find that they can do what they really need to do with free software. Is the 5% loss in convenience worth denying poor kids the right to use, share, and learn about software? Is it worth denying people the opportunity to participate in making the rules that govern the digital world? I like people to think about free software as fair trade software.
When someone (your boss, the government) isn't forcing you to use some kind of proprietary software, when you are free to choose, what proprietary software do you absolutely *have* to use? What is there that you cannot live without? Most people are willing to give up a little in convenience if they know it will make things better in the long run. Recycling works like that. So does traffic flow. A crazy driver might get where he's going sooner, but he'll cause havoc for everyone else. Most people would see behaviour like that and say, "What a jerk". The rest of us just accept the few minutes of extra driving time in return for safer, more orderly streets.
Wouldn't WGA have to be installed on my machine for that to be possible?
Now if windizupdate started installing WGA without my knowledge, I could see this as a problem.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
My desktop at home just died (hardware failure) and I have been using a old laptop for the pass few weeks (600 mhz P3 celeron / 512 mb ram).
......
Since my laptop has an optical drive problem (can't read disks properly) am "forced" to use the gentoo install I did over a year back to play / experiment with.
Guess what ? Gentoo + enligthenment works much better then XP used to run on this laptop (I got OO, etc all loaded as well).
Guess I will not be reinstalling my windows when I rebuild my desktop
How many people on dialup DON'T run Windows update? I bet my parents in rural Oregon don't, downloading like 15 to 20 megs of security updates every month on dialup would be a pain in the butt. So most likely M.S. will try to shut down thier LEGAL XP sp2 on their recently purchused computer, grrrr....
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
The idea that I can be held hostage because I don't want to trust software from Microsoft.
you already are trusting it.
and you already are hostage.
anyway, i'm sure rms could explain that in private to you =)
Rich
Maybe I need to make more friends, but all of my imaganary ones and my not-made-up dogs swear they use Google.
Us being on slashdot I belive you (my dog uses google too)...
But, not to be pedantic, most people in the outside world *think* they use Google
Now this should be interesting...
I got my hyphen from the Fairy-Hyphen Wizard who lives under the Magic-Mushroom in /. wood.
As for the other item of punctuation, I just go out into the woods whenever I need a slash!
legitimate users run into trouble too
That is such pre-9/11 thinking.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Tell me more about this 'Jim-Bob's Pocket Fisherman And Computer Operating System', I am intrigued, as I like both fish and computers.
On a topic with this many replies, another is not likely to be read...
But I can't believe that nobody has cited the issue of what WGA installation and updates would mean to non-US governments.
If you were to be paranoid enough, you'd start to wonder what capability the US Government had here and if they could send out some magic update (via Microsoft using WGA) to automatically disable all of...say...the computers in than Iranian government running Windows with WGA installed.
This poses a very real and dangerous risk that I just can't see being acceptable or accepted by foreign governments. Either they will demand (and get) a special version of Windows (or WGA) or some way to disable WGA.
Of course this requires WGA to be installed in the first place...and so on...but yeah.
i've been dying to use linux 100%, if not for the sad fact that i am a gamer. the day pc game linux ports becomes standard issue is the day i will be truly free from my microsoft dependency.
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks!
I've already followed the directions posted by MS to disable it.
H.
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
It's easy to avoid WGA. I run Windows XP with NO service packs. Yep, naked. Never have a virus/trojan/worm problem, and it's fairly stable (at least compared to XP).
Been doing this for years - get a good hardware firewall, install Firefox/Opera as the browser, Thunderbird or equivalent for email, and VLC for Video, and your problems go away.
Oh, and turn off Automatic updates. Do that before you do anything else. The first time I installed XP on this computer (in place of XP SP2 - which is a dog) I forgot to turn off updates, and I had to reformat and reinstall the next day.
This would be a great time for IBM to bring back OS/2. Maybe open-source it. WGA got you down? Windows deactivated? Want superb compatibility with your old Win-16 and DOS programs you're using because there are no 0-day exploits for Lotus 1-2-3 2.2 and WordPerfect 5.1 does everything anyone ever needed a word processor to ever do? OS/2 is the answer! A really clever advertising campaign would have a 1-800-WGA-HELP telephone number for people to call when Windows quits working, and have an OS/2 install CD overnighted to them. Port Firefox and Thunderbird to it and you're ready to go.
Easy to do, too. Convice the user to run an executable (or use Yet Another IE Security Hole[tm] to run it), and have it change their licence code to a known blocked one. Force a reboot, and blammo...
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Wrong.
except it's not affecting the pirates. they crack it and it's business as usual
...and in the mean time, legit users like half of Proctor and Gamble's installed PC base get hit with false notifications accusing them of piracy. This is going to get interesting.
I love WGA. It got me to install Ubuntu.
I was under the impression that WGA was required only when the browser didn't support the windows update process. If you have IE6 then an activex control will validate your system, but if you use Netscape you have to install WGA. This discriminates against other browsers which is wrong.
Frankly though I'm surprised MS would be stupid enough to disable XP BEFORE VISTA ships though
I think they want your $200 (or whatever) for XP right now in addition to the Vista licence, which you will buy with your next computer once Vista ships. Dunno if they're suddenly starting to run low on cash, but that's the only thing I can think of it.
It's like those people who call it OS/X or OS-X. Where are they getting these magic hyphens and slashes from?
From my iBook keyboard? It is so messed up compared to the standard issue Win/Linux/105-key keyboards I've used to use that I'm happy to get any separator character like dash, slash, backslash, ^C or null-byte to go between the characters. From my point of view the Apple laptops are disasters (I do java development), but for our pointy-haired business-people they are just right, and are only missing a decent cup-holder for their "I'm the boss" giant coffee mugs.
Your logic would also support illegal domestic spying (since the government would never abuse this power) and DRM (since it always functions perfectly and never prevents someone from using media they have legally purchased).
Hell, let's fire up the SONY rootkit again since it too must be perfect and would never compromise a user's system.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I do a lot of residential computer repairs and there are a lot of people out there running pirated xp copies without even knowing it. There are a lot of backroom builders out there who find it quite a money saver to install the same winxp on a whole bunch of machines. These people paid good money for these boxes, and are totally unaware that they are doing anything wrong. I guess that "buyer beware" applies here, but a lot of these folks only know how to turn it on and email grandkids.The very concept of "pirated operating system" or even " software" is totally foreign to them. I think it sucks that these people are going to get screwed over twice because of greed. Microsoft wants to plunder these pensioners? Makes you wonder who the real pirates are...
insert witty yet obscure comment here
It's not about XP or Vista or even Macintosh. This is a direct move against Google. Microsoft can't wait until Vista ships to sell another round of software. They need to get people financially committed to using Windows OS pronto. By the time Vista ships the only thing you'll need your OS to do is run firefox and control you're hardware. Everything else can be controlled server side by Google. Hell Google might even ship their ultra slim OS by the time Vista ships. But if you just dropped a $127 on a legit copy of Windows, a cheap webclient OS wouldn't look as appealing.
"er...xp is pretty much the best of breed operating system."
h ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahaha....
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
That's the funniest thing I've read all day.
Be careful! Bears shouldn't consume large furry dogs.
I have a customer's machine in my shop right now. It is a Gateway tower with a Pentium 4. It is running the factory-installed copy of Windows XP, for which there is a completely legitimate COA sticker pasted on the back of it (in a special plastic indent created by Gateway just for this sticker).
I have checked the version info of XP in the My Computer properties, and it not only matches the version type (XP Home) and date, it also has the text underneath stating it was the original factory install from Gateway. This is the legal copy of Windows XP Home that shipped with this machine.
But not according the Windows Genuine Advantage. According to WGA, this is a pirated copy, and there is nothing obvious that I can do about it, short of completely reinstaling Windows (which it appears I will have to do).
Granted, this machine has been damaged by a virus infestation, which is now cleaned off. But a lot of computers get attacked by viruses. If Micro$oft decides to start shutting these machines down, instead of just shutting them off from security patches, then they're going to be defrauding a lot of their legal customers. The viruses, identified by AVG, were "Trojan Horse Generic.YRZ", "Trojan Horse Generic.APU" and "Exploit.MS04-011". All identified as being used to download other malware, which has also been removed, probably by the customer before I saw the machine.
I smell class action suit.
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
Oh yeah, because everyone knows Microsoft will NEVER EVER keep on doing things it's been sued for.
Touche' ???
FragHARD or don't frag at all
By "RPGs" do you mean MMO? The other two genres are heavily dependent on positional input, which until the DS and Wii has been lacking on consoles. Try Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS now, and see what I mean. Besides, most of the popular moddable FPS games (e.g. from Id and Epic) are ported to Linux.
Microsoft does this so people like my idiot brother go and buy a license for XP because they are too stupid to type 'WGA' or 'Genuine Advantage' into PB's or isohunt's search boxes. Someone that dumb isn't going to say 'gee, what a great opportunity to install Linux'. They don't search for solutions, they just sit there and bleat mournfully.
People only say that they use their computer for wordprocessing/other banal tasks - it's all porn and games in reality. Why would they switch to Linux and lose half their functionality on the spot and have to learn all new quirks just to get their fix? Not worth it!
The pirated/modified versions of Windows are orders of magnitude better than the retail product. Retail Windows is broken.
Now I have to patch my 800 workstations again in order to have them not turned off. Thanks Microsoft nothing like being punished for being a legal customer. Since when is it a good idea to punish legal customers because of the actions of a few pirates?
Trying to push me to Linux are you? You are doing a great job.
Not that I would EVER endorse Microsoft or it's business practices...
But it bears mentioning that as a gamer, and a consultant, my Windows XP license sees more hardware than 99% of computer users.
The above comment aside, I've had to call for reauthorization a few times (normally after 3 or 4 reinstalls) and they always authorize it. I do resent having to call, but I'm unaware of anyone having their license pulled unless the serial number has been dropped onto 500 machines.
Just trying to be fair here. I'd never want to drop to Microsofts level of conduct.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Remember the IBM ads with the genius kid representing linux? Well, I could imagine some interesting interactions between that kid and the Mac/PC dudes.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
I love that movie.
*Think* they use google?
I don't understand exactly. Do you mean that the user actually uses yahoo and just calls the action of making a search a "google"? Or do you mean that most people just use msn cause thats the Dell default? Or do you mean they're being secretly brainwashed by butterfies that come out of the sewer each night to sprinkle mind altering drugs on our lips as we sleep? Cause, thats what my mashed potatoes told me this morning.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
This can't be good for the environment either, lots of ill informed users could be experiencing the loss of use of their PC rightly or wrongly and will be left with little or no option but panic, worry and forget about their old computer, throw it into the trash (or sell it on ebay to some unsuspecting shopper) and eventually when they feel up to it, might go and buy another new PC, or a second hand pc, or whatever. As mentioned before, MS couldn't give a crap about the low end market, people on minimum wages, students, pensioners, the young, they're most likely to suffer from any kind of mass turn off, either for geunine reasons or by mistake.
Why does everyone seem to think Apple is better then Microsoft?
They don't have to be "better" than MS, just different. I would much rather see a market where MS has 45% and Apple has 45% than one like now where MS has 88% and Apple has 2%. Even if their goals are the same, as long as they don't work in cahoots, having real competition will produce real benefits.
That's not to say that equal footing in the market for MS and Apple is the best possible end result, just that it is better than current conditions.
What about computers that have Driveshield or Deepfreeze on them to prevent any changes to the filesystem after a reboot? Will the adminstrators of the schools and businesses that have this protection have to unlock each machine, restart, and update the WGA utility each time Microsoft comes out with a new version!? SOunds a bit annoying to me.. At any rate, for my computers, I have zonealarm locking up the internet connection tight, and I have automatic updates set to download but not install. I suppose I may eventually block traffic to www.microsoft.com as well, to prevent the possibility of my pirated copy of XP from quitting on me.. And a backup of my system..
Refusing to purchase a PC with a TPM in it is a good start.
I just did..... Xandros = Easy and I'll leave the gaming to my consoles. I think there are more people and companies like me than you know. MS is shooting themselves in the foot on this trust me. I for one will be happily telling everyone of my friends and family to switch to linux when their Windows boxes go belly up. Linux is not nearly as complicated as it used to be and there is growing support for it. This will just speed it along....
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
dude, linux is a pain in the ass for ANYONE to install, unless you get lucky. Either your ethernet card doesn't work, or your soundcard, or your vid card, or something. I've used red hat 7.2, Fedora Core 4, Suse 10, and Mandrake something-or-other, and not ONE of them installed flawlessly. Installing linux usually makes me want to murder.
but your point is well taken; nobody will be migrating to Linux. It isn't free anyway, as they say, unless your time is worth nothing.
Out of all the home users I know, very few of them pay for apps other than games. They get windows with their PC, but when it comes time to upgrade, they generally don't buy the new version - simply install a friend's copy that shipped with their PC.
It's too easy to do - and people don't like paying for an OS before they can even use their PC (linked to the old days where home computers didn't require you to buy an O/S as well).
If they're going to *have* to pay for it, they'll be more likely to shop around for alternatives, and will also be more likely to be pissed off when they hear that they're paying for a product that generally has more problems than anything else on the market in general operation.
My 2c anyway. The day Windows 2000 is no longer usable is the day i jump ship - either to FreeBSD/Linux full time, or MacOS.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I did support for many years, from Win95 to isdn adapters to routers to cell phones.
Sometimes, the temptation is just too great to resist messing with someone's head.
I once told a cell customer to be careful with his FM headset, as listening to stations outside his home area would incur roaming charges.
The tard thanked me for saving him from a large bill.
Well, for all those friends who come to me for advices on their WGA illegal copy warning, I do recommend them to get a Mac Mini or install Ubuntu / PCBSD.
Since most of them are not wanting to spend any dollar, how could I help them to get over that legally? (given that they don't want to rollback to older version of Windows that came preinstalled)
>The idea that I can be held hostage because I don't want to trust software from Microsoft. Well, that's kind of crazy.
Perhaps you shouldn't have installed Windows at the beginning.
Ohhh, I can see this one is going to be fun!
So, some time in September I'll go up to the office, hook up a perfectly legal laptop to a perfectly legal network and perfectly legally grab all updates, then perfectly legally I'll go out to the oil rig and perfectly legally go about doing my job. Then perfectly legally the perfectly legal machine will stop working, making it impossible for me to do my job.
"Hello, are you from Microsoft"
<Indian accent>"Yes"</Indian accent>
"Can you spell 'consequential losses'"
<Indian accent>"No"</Indian accent>
"OK. Well, for your information, Microsoft are running up consequential losses of the rental rate of this drilling rig, because I can't do my job. That's approximately $10,000/hour, and counting. What's the re-activation code?"
<Indian accent>"Please to be telling me your IP address and we'll see what can be done"</Indian accent>
"Please to be telling you that the machine isn't on a network of any sort, and there isn't an internet connection within an hour's flying time. $10,000 more"
<Indian accent>"Please to be connecting to the modem and going online"</Indian accent>
"Please to be booking me the helicopter at $5,000 call-out charge to be getting computers sorry arse to where there is a data-capable phone line instead of this crappy InMarSat connection. $10,000 more."
<Indian accent>"Please to be telling me that this isn't our fault."</Indian accent>
"Please to be telling you that our lawyers will be round to visit your lawyers. With cricket bats."
<CLICK>
Someone else's problem - the best sort of problem.
I told the Boss he should take the departure from DOS as an opportunity to go multi-platform.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You'd be surprised, I spoke to one guy who bought a new PC because he was having problems with malware!.... Really!
There are plenty of AARP members who do this sort of thing every 12-18 months: 1) Computer slows to a crawl, pop-up ads are everywhere, computer becomes useless (to them). 2) Buy new computer. 3) Kids get the new computer hooked up. 4) Happy! Forwarding jokes, cute stories, and terror alerts! 5) Get infected. 6) Repeat.
Got any suggestions of where to find one, then? Apples and Lenovos have TPMs; I imagine most other vendors do too by now.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm not real sure why this was modded funny...
I migrated from Linux to mac!
You're just parroting their marketing... aren't you? They got to you, didn't they? What is it? You work in Marketing at Apple? Or did they just force you to drink the Kool-Aid®? Maybe it's the new SubliminialMessaging service in Mac OS X 10.4.3 and up...
You're not a real geek anymore, are you? It's just that vacant-eyed, empty-headed, pot-smoking, hippie-loving Apple rhetoric that keeps coming out of your mouth, isn't it?
Welcome to club.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Start here: http://www.againsttcpa.com/index.shtml
You understand perfectly...
just calls the action of making a search a "google"
yes
use msn cause thats the Dell default
yes
secretly brainwashed by butterfies that come out of the sewer each night to sprinkle mind altering drugs on our lips as we sleep
Not sure... my version of reality might have been substituted for someone elses...
Hey, yeah... he's just like us Mac users... smug little bastards, aren't we?
Hell, I know I'm in need of a serious ass kicking just to wipe the smug smile off my little shit of a face.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."