Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
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
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....
Maybe they'll get a mac?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You don't get it. If Microsoft has the ability to remotely disable Windows, they could do it to anyone. Today it's copyright infringers; tomorrow it could be people who run P2P apps or who use iTunes or who aren't white or any other thing. Or, for that matter, some malicious employee or outside hacker could do it. There are any number of scenarios where your computer could get disabled whether your copy is actually legitimate or not.
Apparantly you're a sheep, but I care enough about my own property that giving somebody the ability to cut off my access to it is Not Acceptable. I don't care that it doesn't affect me because I use Linux; it's still a moral outrage!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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
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).
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.
That's because you didn't notice Scenario 3:
I legally paid for my copy of Windows but WGA screws up, a malicious person gets control of it at Microsoft, or any number of other things happens and my computer gets shut off anyway.
Or, for that matter, Scenario 4:
I care about my right to property, and I have a moral objection to someone being able to arbitrarily take away my property as a matter of principle.
"[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})"
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.
They probably got tired of waiting.
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.
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.
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...