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Microsoft Piracy Plan Means Concerns for IT
coondoggie writes to mention an article on Information Week about possible unintended consequences of the Microsoft Software Protection Plan (SPP) discussed on Slashdot on Wednesday. The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops. From the article: "Microsoft will support SPP in current and future reporting and asset management tools such as System Center Operations Manager. 'On paper it might sound pretty good, but we have to see how it works,' says Jeff Allred, manager of network services for the Duke University Cancer Center. One of his concerns is that a reduced functionality mode kicks in three days after changing out a motherboard in a server if the software is not revalidated. 'That really jumped out at me. We change out motherboards in our servers all the time,' he says. The provision only covers a swap with a non-OEM motherboard, which Allred admits doesn't happen often."
Do you guys do that crazy thing where you, you know, verify the links in a story before clicking the Post button?
Activate it.
Doesn't seem particularly troublesome to me...did I miss something?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Protect consumers from pirated software??? What if I don't want to be protected???
To avoid all the problems with Vista, don't install Vista. Voila. Problem solved. It's like upgrading your OS every time Microsoft puts something new out is a disease that IT suffers from. There are companies who never upgraded NT 4 or 2000 who are doing just fine.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I believe this is the correct link to the story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/100506-micro soft-antipiracy.html?t5
This article can be found at networkworld.
FTA:'"I think Microsoft will have to budge on this, say worst-case scenario in Service Pack 1," says John Pescatore, an analyst with Gartner.'
Oh yeah, they're sure to 'budge'. After all, if they don't budge people will flock away from MS products in huge numbers.
"Under SPP, which debuts in Windows Vista and Longhorn Server, Microsoft software that is found not to be genuine will warn the user and eventually go into a Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) until it is activated with a product key."
RFM must be the new name for Windows XP/2003.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
My work here is dung.
Seems to me the problem here is that Windows Vista is in a Cancer center.. I'm sure vista is gonna catch enough virus's without being in a place full of people on kemo and thus have low immune systems..
Why do you think you should have a say when it comes to protection on your PC when you don't have a say when it comes to protecting your life? After all, all those cams, that screening, that data mining, all's just done for your protection!
Do you want that? Did you agree to that? Does it matter what you want?
When your consent doesn't matter in things like privacy, why do you think it would when it's only about software?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can't underestimate the lowest rank of society, but I think a large portion of the general population would understand the issue a lot more if the mainstream press were to rephrase all those headlines by one word:
[
Uh, it sounds like you need to find a better vendor if you're changing out motherboards "all the time".
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
s/protect consumers/protect Microsoft/
there, fixed it for ya.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
...from pirated software"
Yes, Microsoft designed and built that to protect us hmmhmmm.
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
Well, the article is Slashdotted, but I don't need any expert opinion or research to tell me what it means for IT. I'm the head of an IT department, and it means that I'll be avoiding updates to any Microsoft technology with any "Piracy Prevention", and when I do need an upgrade, I'll be looking for Microsoft alternatives. I have friends who head IT departments, and I'm getting the same sentiment from them.
Not because we pirate. We're too afraid of the BSA sniffing around to do that. The problem is, these things cause problems, artificially created by Microsoft, for no reason. To stop piracy? If I pirated software, then I'd know where to find cracks for these things. Microsoft's "protection" wouldn't stop me.
But I've made a general policy in my department that we've stopped purchasing or installing software that requires "activation" or any other kind of phoning-home. I've run into too many problems where an otherwise working computer breaks itself by the developers own purposeful code because I've done a normal, legal repair job. In a large organization, an instance of the IT dept. replacing some hardware or imaging a disk shouldn't trigger a flag as "suspicious activity".
In my organization, I think we're likely to have more Macintosh purchases. Users like them, they're easy to fix, disk imaging is INCREDIBLY easy, they're reliable, and they work great with our Windows and Linux servers. And we'll see more Linux servers. If Microsoft wants my business back, they can stop trying to limit their OS to do less for me, and start working on how they can improve it to do more for me.
This was effectively punishing paying customers if they did not continue to pay as often as MS wished. This is a common practice, most products go out of data in a few years, but the MS disregard for paying customers tends to be a bit more extreme. This new proposal is the ultimate indication of that. Your software, that you paid for, has a time bomb that could jeopardize your business, and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you.
MS would say, just give us a call and we will fix it. But if I need something ready 10 minutes from now, I need to know that I will not have to call MS because they won't treat me as a paying customer.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"We change out motherboards in our servers all the time."
Who supplies your hardware? I ask so I can make sure to never do business with them. Seriously. Swapping out a server motherboard should be an extremely rare event. If you have to do it "all the time", having to reactivate Windows afterward is the least of your problems.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Link.
Have you read my journal today?
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/100506-micro soft-antipiracy.html
So, eseentially, once you have everything registered to Microsoft, and then you say "you know, I think the mobo in this system sucks. I want to upgrade it for Doom 54" all of the software that you had will have to be re-purchased as the new mobo is not registered to the software. That sounds like a GREAT idea! Just like when the Xbox's were kicking people off of XBL when people had replaced their HD's, and the mobo and HD marriage number didn't match what MS's databse said it should... What a fucking disaster this will become. Bravo Microsoft. Bra-Vo.
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software
Protect the customers from pirated software?
The customers? WTF???
Zonk, can I have some of what you're smoking? Microsoft is protecting themselves from pirated software, not you or me.
Sheesh.
On a slightly related note, it appears that my XP installation is on its last legs; every Windows update makes it slower and slower. As I type this, it keeps momentarily hanging, and there's nothing running but firewall, AV, Firefox, and Winamp.
Damn I am not looking forward to reinstalling it at all. I won't be "upgrading" again; I wish my vid card would get along with Linux. Maybe I'll try Ubantu this time. Anybody know how to get ANY flavor of Linux working with an ATI with an S-video out and a really old 14 inch HP monitor?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I guess we never learned anything from the mid 80s.
Software copy protection and DRM don't work. You annoy legitimate users who have a corner case (usually enough for them to buy a competitor's product) and the h4x0rz work around it. The few pennies you save are more than made up for with bad publicity.
I've had to call Microsoft about WinXP activation a few times ... and we lease all our machines from HP. The activation code is on a sticker on the machine. There should not be ANY problems with our activation. Particularly with me because we have two other people who do desktop support. And we have just over 100 desktops.
But between key generators and lazy co-workers who use the wrong codes on the wrong machines, I've had to call Microsoft to straighten this out a few times.
And I'm in a small company.
Microsoft's stated plan depends too much (entirely) upon the honesty/skill of my co-workers and the failure of key generators.
No fucking way, dude. Why should I waste MY time (emphasis on the fact that it is MY fucking time) because Microsoft is too lazy/stupid to figure out a better way of doing this?
Novell, way back when, used to link their licenses to specific companies and you could call them and they would tell you every license you had registered with them. If you lost a license disk, they would replace it.
Microsoft refuses to do the same. Even with the improved technology that we have today. They would rather put the burden on ME to:
a. Make sure that nothing does go wrong.
and
b. Call them when something does go wrong.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
When you buy a locked down HP or whatever media center pc you have real trouble fixing or changing anything yourself, including the OS. If Microsoft were not so in bed with the hardware industry things might be different.
The smart way to sell their software would be to alow the consumer to choose. Unless Vista is released with scaled down versions that run well on older p11, p111s and athlons then the sales of vista will completely depend on consumers running out to buy a new pc. Small business and home business users will not make the change this time. Students and individuals that just use the computer for school and work will scream foul. Sales of Vista will be dismal if these consumers are forced into a hardware upgrade again.
I used to work as a subcontractor in a classified secure facility. We ran into an activation nightmare not once, but twice. The problem was that the PC I was installing onto didn't have (and would never have) an internet connection, nor was there a commerical phone in the room where the machine was. The rest of the operation was all Suns and SGIs, but my boss insisted on a Windows machine, which had to be a retail version because we weren't supported by the facility host company and we couldn't use our company's volume license because of association issues.
What ended up happening is that we had to walk through the XP Pro "enter each line into your touch-tone phone" thing without the phone, writing everything down, leave the area, call, write down everything the phone system told us, then come back into the area. Something messed up the first time and it ended up taking over an hour to get it done and working. We had a similar (but not quite as frustrating) experience activating Macromedia Flash.
Given how bad this experience was (and this was pre-WGA!), I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be if Vista suddenly decided it wasn't legit in that sort of environment. I have heard from my former co-workers that they've basically abandoned that machine and are using linux for all their day-to-day work. It interoperates better with the big iron anyway.
Too interesting. I'm glad I don't have to think about any of that stuff. I only use un-piratable software, http://www.gadgetopia.com/post/1869
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
This isn't for us, move along.
Your still reading? Fine. The truth is, it is just to instil confidence in the investors. To state that vista is not "Piratable (yeah right)" the investors will feel warm and secure to think that their product of 11110001010100010010010010010011111's has real cash value, and not just be something downloadable 15 minutes after it's release via your favorite flavor of P2P filesharing software.
INVESTORS STOP READING HERE!
The truth is, (don't act like you don't know it):
If you have access to it, its pirateable, reverse engineerable, and entirely copyable.
If you can see it, you can copy it.
If you can Hear it, you can break it's DRM.
If it has a registry, you'll find the key.
If you are a hot chick in a room full of nerds, one might try to converse w/ you.
If you can touch that, your a lucky man. etc...
Has microsoft put out one copy of software that wasn't pirated? Just curious.
Nothing [strike]I[strike] er my friend has ever used has been paid for!
(j/k) I |>0|\|+ |D!R8 N3M{}R3
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
"The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software."
Well that's putting a nice spin on it. I didn't realize consumers were so endangered by pirated software, let us step up to the plate and protect the poor things.
Hang on... this is about doing activation when you install a new OS. If you're having to install a new OS on a machine, you're already having to spend a lot of time setting it up. This is an extra minute or two on the phone. This is irrelevant. If you have a server that is down because some software on it went haywire, and you need to fix it, activation doesn't come into play. So, I'd say that this is a completely moot point in the situation you're talking about.
That has been a problem from Worries for Windows onwards. Changing a piece of hardware requires a very precise process or you end up with an unusable system, and it hasn't improved since other than Windows now at least knows more devices and won't totally collapse in a heap if you get it wrong.
But despite all that, companies will switch to Vista in droves.
The argument: other lemmings use it..
Insert
One of his concerns is that a reduced functionality mode kicks in three days after changing out a motherboard in a server if the software is not revalidated. 'That really jumped out at me. We change out motherboards in our servers all the time,' he says. The provision only covers a swap with a non-OEM motherboard, which Allred admits doesn't happen often."
Time to spend a little more and get quality hardware.
Looking through the WGA trounleshooting forums, it appears that MS is already blocking VLKs (Volume License Keys) based on their IP address. The most common way to block VLKs by IP address seems to be by region. For example, there's little chance that an OSU license would be legitimately used in Chna, so it'd block that VLK from Chinese IP addresses. If there is a legitimate need to use a volume-licensed copy there, either a VPN would work, or MS could easily issue a seperate key (and they have big incentive to do so).
It isn't even an allegation, it is a suspicion, because nobody is claiming you're a pirate... they just lock you out if they suspect it. Generally, you get the chance to respond to allegations before shiat happens to you.
Anyways, what's with all this bullshit of trying to tie your license to the hardware?
That isn't how licenses work anymore in the real world. You buy a license (a piece of paper) that says you can use 'foo' for 'bar' users/processors/whatever.
Since when did any broadly distributed piece of consumer software ever have licensing that ties it to a specific piece(s) of hardware? And in mean in current times, not during the dawn of the age of computing.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'v had customers who I hacked an old Cd-key out of their pre-build hp box, built them a pc from scratch, then installed it. The result? It worked beautifully but it wouldn't activate. I made it clear to them the cd-key may not work and if it didn't that it was their problem as they had approached me and said to me they had a valid lisenced copy of windows on their hp box. Everything, to me, looked legitimate, but the guy had a cd-key that wasn't valid anymore for some reason.
The problem is customers don't understand lisencing; they don't know where windows comes from or what it does, all they know is that it's a piece of software that'll cost them $99 or $199 in a pinch (when it dies on their prebuilt Piece of shit, they weren't given restore cd's or they lost them, and they need their computers data backed up and the computer functional yesterday). The ones who do understand the lisencing consider it so deplorable the amount they have to pay that they'd rather go without it. It's only those who can afford it who don't care.
If Microsoft is planning to put more restrictions on their software and stay an industry monopoly, what will happen is tech shops will begin either turning away business en mass because of the cost of the software or begin cracking the software for the customers. With MacOSX86 already out and the techies experimenting with it on different hardware than straight Intel, and with linux gaining a foothold in the desktop market (albiet very very slowly), it's only a matter of time before microsoft starts having problems. If Microsoft wants to rid themselves of pirates and protect their customers they can reduce the price to a more reasonable level, thus pricing the pirates out of the market.
Just wondering as I have not seen anything official on this, but what happens when a product that requires activation is EOL'd by Microsoft? I understand that support and patches will stop, but that is often less of an issue for large businesses with internal tech suport and decent security in place, but what happens if you need to reactivate a product? Will the activation system still be available or is this yet another method of forcing corporate and home customers to carry out periodic upgrades?
Anyway,
Thanks
Why would any organization be "changing out motherboards in Servers all the time"? By better servers in the first place, and establish a lifecycle.....
After listening to growing concerns that his "Developers" act was growing stale, Steve Ballmer has announced a 50 city tour to promote his as-yet untitled album. This reported was able to convince Mr. Ballmer, who now prefers to be called "Grandmaster B", to give a sneak peak:
"Are you down with SPP? Yeah, you know me!"
"Are you down with SPP? Yeah, you know me!"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The software vendors have their "BSA". It's about time all corporate IT customers need to form a new consumer trade association that looks out for protecting their interests above the interests of the software and systems vendors who've been shafting us for far too long now. Part of this new trade association would require that all members boycott purchasing all software products from any vendor who is unwilling to fix nasty problems in their products or who imposes cumbersome copy protection measures upon their software. Every software purchase needs to become a contract with terms agreed upon by both the vendors and the purchasers or no purchase shall take place. We need to turn the tables back around to where the customer is more important than the vendor. Back in the good old days, there used to be a saying: "The customer is always right". Nowadays, software vendors in general, treat their customers like enemies to be conquered and abused. That's wrong and needs to be fixed. The only way to fix it is for us to gang up against the vendors because we have allowed them to get too big and powerful.
The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software . . .
I'm so happy microsoft is looking out for me. I'm tired of turning on my computer and finding someone loaded a suite of Adobe programs on my computer that I haven't paid for.
Can I bum a sig?
The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops.
I hate to tell ya, but Microsoft's licensing has always been a major headache for IT shops.
...so you basically just admitted that you committed piracy by installing an HP-branded OEM version of Windows onto a home-made computer. Hello McFly, is there anyone at home in there???? (knocking on skull) Can you not read the f'ing EULA that explicitly states that the Windows is only validly licensed for the original pile of HP hardware that it was sold with new? Or is your pea-brain incapable of understanding that concept? Yes, we all know that the very concept sucks, but that's besides the point. The point is, that the EULA tells you what you can, and CANNOT, do with that OEM version of Windows, and the original purchaser did indeed agree to abide by it.
Why do you say the intention is to protect consumers from pirated software when you know that's not the core intent?
The intent is to protect MS.
I am actually surprised by all this have people really not figured it out by now this same thing happened with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Every release of Windows Microsoft sends out press releases talking about there new anti piracy measures then they scale them way back at release. There is a pattern here each time they scale it back the people go ok 30 days before lock out that's ok and it gets a little worse with each release and or service pack.
TheADDkid.com
I would like to draw attention to the phrase, "The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software".
HUH?
protect consumers from pirated software? Protect? Are unathroized copies of Windows raping and pillaging towns along the Atlantic coast?
To my knowledge there has never been any harm to, "consumers".
The measure is intended to protect Microsoft from losses from authorized copying.
Maybe it was simple incompetence. I have seen similar fom Microsoft (performance problems when accessing lots of files from a network share in XP. Windows 2000 is MUCH faster, and Win98 even better). Sometimes it seems that Windows is getting worse not better with new versions.
C - the footgun of programming languages
But my dilemma is this: It would cost more in man-hours to re-educate my users than it would be to just buy new machines+vista. I'd like to give MS the finger but I know I'll get smacked down.
When people ask me about the future for operating systems I tell them Microsoft is quickly moving themselves into the #2 spot behind Linux.
The time is now to start educating users about the advantages of Linux. In the last five years Linux has become more streamline, easier to install and manage, with more and more native software applications available. Compare that to Microsoft's development--Microsoft seems to have bloated the OS even more and in the proces made it more prone to problems. Anyone looked at the system requirements to run Vista? Havig to replace desktops to run Vista is not a compelling reason to switch to Vista...
Does anyone know of a reason to upgrade to Longhorn and Vista?
this year I had to do a MB swap on XP, and it puked as already installed on a different system. So they transfered me to a live body. Took almost an hour to get both of us to understand the 25? characters on my liscense and the 25 she read back to me for the activation. Got to love outsourcing to a country that doesn't speak English but the company tries to teach them to speak with a specific English accent.
I wonder if Ford or GM could get away with saying if you didn't fill out your warranty registration papers on your newly purchased vehicle and turn it in within three days, your new car will be operate in reduced functionality mode?
Seems that if crippling a piece a software against the user's wishes is a violation of the DMCA. Just because Microsoft tells you about it upfront doesn't make it okay, so did the April Fools Day virus.
I would predict that if too many legitimate purchasers are impacted by this tactic, that it won't be long before a a state AG takes action. Remember, the courts still hold that Microsoft is a monopoly.
Let me say in advance that my scruples are rather small when it comes to stealing from Microsoft... ...but it still won't be very attractive. Because as a typical Microsoft system, it will require frequent security patches, each of which can smuggle in a new anti-piracy feature. So I expect that it will be a race between crackers and Microsoft, and maintaining your illicit version might be more annoying than the activation.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Eh? What's that? You don't have an exit strategy? My God man, have you been paying no attention at all for the last four years? You've slept through all the warnings? You didn't think through XP Registration and where it was headed? You slept right through WGA? Maybe you should panic. Best get cracking on a plan. The rest of you slow down, take your time BUT GET THE HELL OFF THIS SHIP BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO STILL BE HERE IN FIVE YEARS
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
1) This is the best thing ever for Linux.
2) There will be a crack out soon. My guess perhaps a month. Six months tops. If it takes more than a year I will be very surprised, and exceptionally happy. Why happy? See point 1.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
You misspelled "Wii". Now might be the time to jump ship to that console with the funny-looking remote. You are likely to get more enjoyment out of such a "sidegrade" than you would by going to a newer Microsoft product.
That is one hell of a big "if". For my datacenter of ~650 servers, I have had to replace exactly 0 motherboards in the last 5 years. I have yet to have a single motherboard fail, and its likely that any server old enough for the motherboard to fail will have been decommissioned before then, since its costing more in power and cooling than its worth.
If my understanding is correct, virtual machines do not suffer from this problem.
In a VM, you never have to "replace the motherboard", the NIC card always appears to have the same MAC, etc.
I wonder if MS's tougher rules for Vista will help to drive significantly more people to use virtual machines.
No company with over 50 users would ever build their own windows servers anyway. They all use HP/Dell/IBM/etc. If the motherboard dies, the vendor gives you a new one, that is equal to the old. Windows wont notice any difference. Only "amateur"-built systems fail because of this. If you build your own servers to use in production, buy spare parts. It's as easy as that.. Really..
God you "men" are sure whining about M$ activation. It takes about 5-10 minutes over the phone (even doing it in a noisy server room), or instantly over the internet. Wow, that was tough!
This is the best point of all. I'm doing a study abroad in New Zealand this year. Guess what I had to go through to get my laptop with a university license of Windows XP on it working out of the country.
Pain in the ass.
Why do I keep hearing MS users insist filesystems need to be defraged constantly? Real OSes have fragmentation prevention built in. The prevention is not perfect, but it beats runing defrag every day. Even linux has had it since ext2 came out at least a decade ago. If MS hasn't done this by now, then they should be bopped in the head. Then again, they make their own users afraid to upgrade. WTF???
The need for defrag on modern systems is a myth. Read here and here
I mean does anyone really care about this anymore. If it really causes a problem ,MS will get rid of it (They've thrown out these trial balloons before). But for consultants and everybody else they'll just throw it into the mix of costs.
I used to argue with my boss about the crap MS was making us do and the problems they were creating and he would just nod his head and say "What does it really matter, we just pass the cost onto our customer or charge them for the extra hours to jump through the hoops, MS's crap is our bread and butter". He was right.
Hey and with these kind of hidden charges, you can milk your clients dry, just squeeze one teat after another.
It's like the price of gas. The price of gas goes up, UPS charges more to deliver a package.
So from an IT manager business perspective, what does it really matter? They warned us about the problem, we allow for the problem in our plans, case closed. No big deal.
I may be slightly biased though I make my living from MS products.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
This *MAY* result in the end of mainstream use of windows as a desktop (and probably any existing servers) simply because that if some people who previously owned xp but couldn't afford vista with aero, go and get one of the linux desktops (with or without a cool gui like xgl) then MS could have a problem on their hands hopefully, this could potentially make vista a flop. I mena what do the affordable versions of vista have that xp doesnt at the moment? - not aero - not winfs all they have is a locked down kernal so you cant stick AV and have MS "protecting you" sounds like you would be phoning MS a lot And how are they going to manage corporate lisences?
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
"protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops"
/puke
Somebody got this story backwards.. a good pirate makes your life easy. MS has caused every major headache i can think of in reguards to IT. pfft
long live pirates.
Kill your TV
"The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software"
I know these guys, see, and they might be able to keep out any pirated software that might, you know, just happen to drop by your hard disk. Youse don't want to surf the internets without protection, you can't be too careful. I mean, this is a nice computer, it'd be a terrible pity if something happened to it.
In a lot of cases you can just put the drives into a new box or copy an image onto it. A sendmail mail server recovery plan is trivial in the way - but as for MS Exchange OMFG! That full ecosystem of third party software you need to keep the thing running needs to be installed as well so it may be more than one phone call. Even commercial software on *nix doesn't have the problem - even if it is locked to hardware and the licence says you can only run it on a single computer with a paticular hostid then you just change the hostid to match the dead box and everyone is happy - no waiting on hold for thirty minutes while thinking of all the dollars per second of lost production on a critial box.
Form the story summary:
The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software
Could the Editors please spend a little time coming up with a summary rather than regurgitating press releases? Pretty please?
Protect consumers (customers?) from pirated software my ass. If I want marketing doublespeak, I'll go to the site myself, but please, typos and broken links aside, Slashdot is much better than this.
By the way I see a lot of call to the M$ support. :)
I hope M$ is weighting this fact: they need to have a very GOOD call center, or a storm of customer will stop using theri software.
Is it worth for some anti-piracy control?
How much corporate are used to install pirate copy of Windows?
(...ouch Linux can be pirated
-- Giovanni Daitan Giorgi http://gioorgi.com http://www.siforge.org
Why should MS be checking my hardware?
Who gave them that right?
Many people around here are saying loud and clear that if you want to continue to own your own computer infrastructure in your own terms, you should not be using MS stuff. If people don't listen I hope they do enjoy it when they bend forward.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is very easy for you to say just do the frigging pohne call and get done with it.
But if you have any sizeable amount of machines those 2 minutes in the phone (2 minutes, yeah, sure, whatever) are time imposed as a cost to me. A cost that I did not need. A cost that accumulates with each hardware problem I have. A cost that is eating on my profits.
Any responsible datacentre administrator or desk support manager should make a big stink about this kind of nonsense, I would consider it a professional responsibility to scrutinize a provider when protecting them from piracy costs *me* money.
If MS is so worried about piracy they can pay to companies to be audited for example, or they can hire PIs to tie lose ends (hmm, these chaps have 200 old boxes but have never bought a Windows license. Panic alarm). But the cost should be absorbed by them, not by me or my company.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
- And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
Already is.WinXP Home OEM won't validate if you replace a motherboard with any other than the exact OEM part. I've had to deal with this several times now, and it has involved long conversations with Microsoft reps, who cheerfully inform me that legally, the license for Windows OEM needs to be renewed (i.e. buy another copy of Windows) if you replace a part as important as the motherboard.
Since for some computers, duplicate OEM motherboards are not available at any price, this creates a very sticky situation. So far, I've been able, as a Microsoft Partner, to jawbone the reps into eventually providing a validation code that works. But it isn't an easy or pleasant process.
It's clear to me that this is where Microsoft wants to go with licensing of Windows, at least for OEM stuff. Licensed directly to the parts in the box at time of installation. Any changes result in a renewal fee. This is part of the process of changing the overall license model from ownership to leasing. Microsoft wants a steady income stream from Windows, and is sick of having to keep updating its software to get it. They just want the customer to keep paying on a yearly basis for the same thing.
With the problems I've already experienced with Windows XP Home OEM, I am very nervous about what we'll be seeing with Vista. I'm afraid they're going to make it impossible for me, a small Handyman shop, to do equipment upgrades for people, because I won't be able to afford to tack on the licensing fees and stay competitive with the national outfits that buy volume licenses and slap them onboard cheaply, while us little guys are forced to buy them at or near retail.
Dell and Microsoft win, everybody else loses...
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
News at 11.