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Paul Thurrott's WGA Woes Solved
David Horn writes "Last week Slashdot ran an article regarding the trouble Paul Thurrott had with WGA. It turns out that after talking to Microsoft, he was actually running a pirated version of Windows, legitimately purchased from an online vendor. Paul admits that 'the truth is, I just made a mistake. If we learn something from that mistake, fantastic, but I wasn't trying to set up a life lesson for anyone, let alone myself.'"
Why does your unlimited package, the one you advertise in every post, have bandwidth and storage limits? That is quite a unique usage of the word unlimited.
And a mega advocate of MS is going to sound an alarm without thinking up every possible way HE could have done something wrong prior to sounding an alert.... Doesn't add up. If I'm a big advocate of something, I'm going to go thru every possible way I could have done something wrong before publicly bashing something I love so dearly.
Newegg.com has the same policy about only selling XP MCE 2005 with hardware (utilizing the loophole) and I don't think anybody on Slashdot would say they're not a reputable online vendor...
Read my blog posts on usability.
I've been down that road. I went to one of those computer shows a few years ago to look for some now-esoteric equipment like SCSI cases, various SCSI connectors, and so forth. I checked out the software deals, bought a bunch of Norton Antivirus licenses (legit) and Quickbooks Pro. Turned out the Quickbooks CD was counterfeit and wouldn't register/activate. I called Intuit and learned it was a counterfeit. Everything appeared legit to me, but I haven't studied their typefaces or anything. Turns out the "Quickbooks Pro" silkscreening was slightly flawed, and the serial number/install key sticker was a totally different style from what was supposed to be there. The manual and packaging seemed real enough though. Anyway, Quicken met me halfway and gave me a great deal on new legit licenses - three seats (which basically came to three seats for the price of two), when they could have been real jackasses and not give me any discount at all. What I did for them was give them the name, number, and (claimed) address of the dealer from whom I purchased Quickbooks, and checked various show schedules to find the next few they'd be attending so that Quicken could send reps to to bust then. If they fucked me out of $179 with very real-looking packaging, chances are I am not the only one they're ripping off. All in all Intuit was damned courteous when they owed me NOTHING for my inconvenience.
The fact that their software is badly architected and requires admin privileges though, is not so forgiveable.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Your sig contains the word unlimited - the service isn't. You can make your ad legal by removing that word.
I have trouble buying services from companies that out and out lie in their ads.
You have lost at least 2 sales that I know of because of your sig - removing the word unlimited would improve your response/conversion rate.
Firefox? Opera? Was it not compatible with anything but IE 6? Sounds lousy.
1. So which one is smaller then?
2. I find it amazing that Windows 2000 has a faster startup and shutdown time than anything. Am I alone here?
3. "The version of IE 6?" Correct me if I wrong, but I believe my IE 6 on Windows XP/SP2 saves web passwords?!?
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
I signed up for a new bank acount here in New Zealand, with "Kiwibank". I got the account just fine, I rush home to put in my temporary pin (only lasted 72 hours!) and find I couldnt change the pin. I did the new pin again and again, and typed the security letters that came up, and it just wouldnt work. I did it three times wrong, and got my account BLOCKED. I was so annoyed, I found the number and rang the helpdesk, to cut the long story short, it took over 2 hours to reset, and the guy still couldnt help. Turns out, the code for verifying and changing my pin just plain wouldnt work in Firefox! I launched IE and it "Just Worked". That is unless it was Bill Gates stealing my bank account details........
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It really doesn't make any sense. The original article also says he obtained the copy of Windows through MSDN, so is Microsoft the shady vendor that gave him an illegal copy of Windows? (Or do I not understand how MSDN works.)
There is an industry of service providers who provide opinions about products (or other services). You as the reader may be aware that the reviewer has a bias, but at least a minimum level of quality is expected. This Double-Barrelled story is *extremely* disturbing, because it involves logic flaws all across the scenario grid.
... is indeed fake. However, the story appears technically flawed. I grant he's not Alpha grade, but I would grant his technical knowledge at least a B to B+. From all kinds of approaches, his second post creaks heavily at best. This makes the Social eval very complex.
My initial opinions:
Microsoft: Huge company, containing some reasonably intelligent technical crews with a history of sloppy execution, hampered by an albatross code legacy, and a completely untrustworthy marketing department.
Paul Thurrott: A moderately skilled technical reviewer, who is financed by Microsoft-directed sources to make the process at least a little more open. Microsoft can usually take "a small amount of heat" such as the post about User Security, because the response "okay, the next build improved this" is still better than a nebulous perception of "what evil is the Redmond Behemoth up to?"
***
Episode 1: Harsh Report on WGA
A. Technics: Could be a Beta, pushed out too fast. Presumably at least "partially" operational. I understood the technical critiques as False Positives, not Silent Negatives.
B: Concern over social impact of False Positives, possibly sloppy code, and Distribution Ethics.
Eval: "Small Heat Microsoft can afford to take" to gain credence for Paul.
Episode 2: "Look, WGA found my copy was a fake!"
A: Technics: The entire point of the post is to rule out the False Positive. I would bet money that *however derived*, the copy tested
B: Social: "This post is all wrong, but *which way?*"
B1: Initial post meant as Small Heat, M$ told him it became Big Heat, and Post2 is a paid attempt to dissipate Big Heat.
B2: Paired post totally engineered by M$ over Paul's objection, with pay. This would be the variant of Straw Man, in which WGA "working" silences more serious concerns by distraction.
B3: If he did "just pick up a quick copy" which was flagged by WGA, he should have been nervous, thus avoiding the first post. If the initial post is straight up, which becomes a phenomenal technical blunder requiring the desperate "better bleed credibility fast and cauterize than let this fester". This would be "Career Ending Blunder barely saved by M$, who unhappily decides they have no one developed to fill his niche as Friendly Reporter".
B4: Some other weird mix of obscure mixed motives. Examples include: Paul takes a Faux Credibility Sacrifice. Casting aspersions on the 2005 edition, in which their lawyers failed to bust the "hardware loophole". Vague doubts about "trusted vendors". Adding to the "Ominous Mystique" of M$.
Whichever version is true, generating Warm Fuzzies for Microsoft is nowhere in sight. I'm still trapped by circumstances to Windows, but I will work to migrate to OSS replacements of office & web apps, and urge&assist others to do the same.
--TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
My in-laws bought a digital camera and a printer from Newegg, on my recommendation.
The box that the camera was supposed to be in arrived sealed and empty - the actual shipping carton had only peanuts and a packing slip, no boxed camera. Newegg denied they ever ship out empty boxes, and it took hours on the phone before they finally relented and sent a replacement camera, they acted like my wife's parents were trying to scam a second camera from them.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
As an MSDN subscriber and software license manager at my company, I actually read the EULAs that govern the use of MSDN licenses for products like the OS, Office, and everything else. It is not legal to use them for commercial purposes.
Leave Paul's little 'oversight' with MCE 2005 aside. He states in his article that he generally uses MSDN for all of his software. Given that he runs a site about MS stuff and is clearly a big user of their software, it stands to reason that he uses Windows servers, XP workstations, SQL, Frontpage for site authoring, Office for email and all sorts of other things. None of this is legal under the terms of the MSDN license.
I don't have the EULA handy, and there are many subscription types, but all that I have seen clearly state that it cannot be used for commercial purposes, or to develop/maintain your own IT systems.
Just thought I'd point this out.
# Erik
Yes, Until recently, I thought so too - I mean, how can you mistake anything else for the flashy Microsoft hologram CD and their glossy printed packaging?
I came across a bunch of Windows XP Pro boxed copies recently that are 95-99% perfect copies of the real thing.
How do I know they were dodgy? Small things like some typos in the manuals, that would never slip through on the genuine article (eg: Microsoft Ply Ltd) and the hologram CD, while it looked pretty damn convincing (all the pretty pictures and all) the rectangle at the bottom that changed between "Microsoft" and "Genuine" was just saying "Microsoft"
Oh, and out of ten copies I saw, two had the same key.
The manuals and other material in the box had all been retyped, so the text was sharp and crisp, it wasn't just a scan. The CD folder looked like the real deal, complete with the little foam thingy to hold the CD, there was the product key, and the sticker with the microsoft thread through it - everything. In one place on the back of the box, the text saying Microsoft Windows XP was in the wrong font, but only slightly so - I mean, you gotta really know what you're looking for, and for the average person who's maybe seen this all once (or not at all) before, there's no reason at all that they would even begin to imagine that it's not true blue.
If there was an altered winlogin, then it was altered on the install CD as there was nothing funky that had to be done to install the software, as far as the vast majority of people out there could tell, it was a real copy of XP...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
And yet, when the problem first came up he wrote an article about it and posted it on the Internet. That's not the action of a man who knows he is running pirated software.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
What I find interesting is that he says that it used a modified version of "winlogon.exe". To fix it though, he says he just changed the key - no mention made of fixing winlogin.exe.
Also, if he had bought it from an online retailer, wouldn't he and Microsoft want to investigate that? No mention of it though.