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WGA Turning Off PCs in the Fall?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-more-clippy dept.

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.

4 of 857 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How is this legal? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative
    Is there anything in the EULA that allows them to get away with this?

    Uh, if you didn't pay for it, you're not a party to the EULA - and if you were, you'd already be violating the EULA, which says you have to purchase it; so you'd already be in breach if it were considered a contract - which has not been shown on a broad basis, only in a couple of lower courts.

    The EULA is probably worth more as bumwad than as a contract, and it's printed on paper way too scratchy to be good for that, either.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Re:TOLD YOU SO! by Kremit · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was in the same boat as you. I switched to Linux (on my main desktop at least -- my servers have always ran some form of *NIX) on October 25, 2001, the same day Windows XP was released.

    Now this, this is absolutely rediculous. This is going to have huge repercussions; I happened to click over to the "Genuine Windows Forum" and saw all kinds of posts there of NEW Dell desktops, valid CDs, and other licensed systems having problems with WGA. When these systems stop working, people are going to flip. To them, this will be akin to the computer crashing and taking their data along with it.

  3. what is the source here? by flynt · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:A disturbance in The Force? How stupid is this? by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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."