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Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use
NiK0laI writes "TechWeb has posted an article regarding Vista's new license and how it allows you to only move it to another device once. How will this work for people who build their PCs? I have no intention of purchasing a new license every time I swap out motherboards. 'The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once. ... Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'"
Overly Critical Guy points out more information about changes to Vista's EULA and the new usage restrictions. "For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices."
Fuck that.
I "guess" I understand the motivation for restrictions at lower levels, though once again, this makes alternatives more attractive.
Load weapon
Aim at foot
Pull trigger
Profit!!!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If they make it hard enough to do your job, or piss off enough home users.. It can only be a good thing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now everyone knows we only have to bother with pirating Vista Ultimate and Vista Business.
You all know the two devices that your copy of vista will be installed on.
1. Your computer at work
and
2. Your computer at home
Which CIO of a big league organization will have the huevos to be the first to tell M$ to shove it where the sun don't shine? When are you guys gonna stop being a bunch of boot licking toadies?
You should try out this other operating system called "Linux." There ae few restrictions on the use and copying of the operating system than say, Microsoft Windows.
Impose artificial limits, period. I'm not talking about limits on CPU usage or memory for the sake of system stability, but arbitary business decision born limits. When something starts doing this, it ceases to be an operating system.
Note the difference though between not having a feature and restricting the computer.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Vista Home can't be VM'd, but Vista Business and Vista Premium can be? Why??? Are there technical restrictions in place to prevent this?
not that i am against raising the bar of open source OS themselves but some more will find it more attractive compared to all this BS of M$.
I wonder where Microsoft takes the confidence to push such measures when alternatives to Windows are gaining strength ever day -- with professionals and consumers alike. It's not hard to imagine a world without Windows these days.
If anybody actually reads and obeys the EULA of their OS, I'd be shocked!
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
Microsoft does not support an official way to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same system. This is only really an issue for web developers who need to test their websites in older versions of IE. The closest they come to "blessing" any method (short of testing on different computers) is to recommend running each version of IE in a virtual machine.
Now they're restricting virtual machines, forcing people who want to use the recommended solution to get the more expensive version of the OS.
This won't have much immediate effect. For one thing, Vista will ship with the newest version of IE, so unless you're using Win2k as your host OS, your guest systems will be older versions of Windows without the restriction. For another, it's actually easier to use the unofficial solution to run alternate versions of IE (though it's got its own drawbacks).
Something to think about, though.
This is going to be great for Microsoft's bottom line. It's like planned obsolescence for software.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
What happens when the motherboard fails (bad caps anyone?) and you must replace it with a "new device". What if that one pops too? Must buy Vista again? I think not. I'd see them in court first.
And what is a VM? Can the same guys who swore under oath that they didn't know what a browser is now define what a is VM?
I have mod pts. But this just had to be said.
Who will guard the guards?
Did anybody wake up this morning wanting to do less with their computer?
Microsoft Just Doesn't Get It.
Would be a good time for Apple to release OSX for X86 non apple hardware. I personally think this is there chance to convert a ton of users.
I hope it isn't as stupid as XP is. My PC crashed and it came back up telling me my hardware had changed significantly and I only had 3 days to register/activate. When I went through the procedure it had lost all the registration information I already had from the first install 4 years ago. Lovely.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So maybe I fell asleep in that lecture in Operating systems. But how the hell are they planning on enforcing the virtualization clause? I thought the point of virtualization was to make it so the operating system didn't know that it was being emulated.
Of course the fact that they decided to insert the clause is bad-- legally, Home-centric Vista users now won't be able to virtualize their machines.
Hmmmmm, maybe I need to help out ReactOS http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html so it becomes good enough to run my kids games, than I can purge my house of all MS products.
And how! I mean, you should see how many games it has available! Why theres tuxracer, nethack and um.. nmap! thats a game right?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
#1 Stay with Windows XP
#2 Use ReactOS when it gets a 1.0 release.
#3 Sell my non-Linux compatible system for a Linux one and run Linux instead.
#4 That $599 Mac Mini is looking pretty good despite my previous Anti-Apple rants of the past decade. This Vista Fascism may be enough to get me to switch.
#5 Buy Vista Ultimate, because all of the games and business applications and other stuff I need/want to use only run with Vista, and I cannot work with limitations.
Sadly, I think most people will opt for #5, and that is what Microsoft is counting on. That is why Microsoft cripples the uses for the lower end Vistas to force people into buying the higher end Vistas.
Anyone remember the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST/TT/Mega systems? If only they decided to port AmigaDOS/AmigaOS and TOS/GEM to the Intel platform before Windows became really really popular in the 1990's. That way there would be no OS Fascism and Microsoft would have had a good run for their money.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
... regarding my penis:
Microsoft may suck my dick (a) long, and (b) hard.
So, I can see how there's enough of a gray area with the whole "license transfer" thing where they can feel that they can impose restrictions - it's still bullshit, but it's the general direction where the industry is going.
But how on earth can they expect to dictate what hardware, virtual or otherwise, I am allowed to install their OS on?
Just Use Linux
Jeez it's nothing new either XP has the same restriction if I remember correctly.
I mean, what is Vista about these days? First, they gutted out the Monad shell and WinFS, two features that would have possibly made me wait for Vista and get a PC instead of switching to a Mac. Secondly, they add new DRM restrictions that weren't present on Windows XP. Now, you can't even run the cheaper versions of Vista in a virtual machine due to licensing issues. As a Mac user, I don't feel like installing Windows natively with Boot Camp; I'd rather use a product like Parallels so that way I can run OS X and Windows simulataneously.
I'm not trolling. I'm not anti-Windows either; I've been a Windows user up until a few months ago and liked my Windows experience. In fact, typing this in my MacBook, I miss certain Windows software, and I was looking at Vista news to see whether or not installing Vista on my computer was worthwhile. But this is my last straw with Vista. How can a company sit on their butts for 5 years, not update their operating system (other than security upgrades), and rest on their laurels with the next major version of their operating system is beyond me. Windows XP is ancient compared to OS X's and Linux's fast adoptation of new technologies, new innovative features (Expose, Spotlight or Beagle), new development tools (look at Python's and Ruby's penetration in Linux), new internet browsers (Safari, Firefox, Konqueror), etc. Five years in computing is an eternity. And after five years, all we get is a half-baked clone of OS X with more licensing restrictions, more DRM, and a higher price tag (why should I spend $399 for full-featured Windows Vista Ultimate when I can get OS X for $129 [yes, I know that $129 is subsidized by Apple, you can't run OS X on a PC legally, blah blah blah, but $129
I was looking forward to Vista until recently. Now I wish Microsoft would delay it another year so that way they can release it with all of its promised features. They also need to cut the BS restrictions with licensing as well. It looks like MS has lost me as a customer. They will continue to lose me unless they port the Windows API to OpenBSD....
Take a look at the EULA for Microsoft Flight Simulator 9 if you own it. You can only transfer license to someone else once. Latest version called FSX is coming out with activation (which amusingly has already been cracked before official release - already been distributed and some stores have accidentally sold it) and there are rumours that multiuser play is going to require a subscription.
What's new is that Microsoft seems to have convinced themselves of their own propaganda and think people will pay again and again endlessly for the same thing ala a subscription model, put up with restrictions that make the software useless in their personal circumstances, and that they'll still increase their profits because most people only do a handful of things and if they can do them will keep paying for them repeatedly.
I suspect Microsoft's going to have to deal with a rude awakening from their DRM dream in the next few years. I'll be very surprised if this tactic works. It's very much the same thing you're seeing with music and movie distributors wanting to live some economic fantasy instead of deal with the reality that some people are theives and most people won't buy things that are totally useless to them or worse actually a time wasting pain in the neck to use. In the mean time we're all in for a rough ride.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I've been burned once already by a version of WinXP that locked with the motherboard, which had fried.
"The constant here, for those who think their opinions matter, is that you don't get a vote. Learn to deal with it; after a while it will seem perfectly normal.
However, if you want to pretend to have some shreds of dignity quit the damned whining about it!"
Alternative option: Don't buy microsoft products.
Don't buy a copy to play games.
Don't buy a copy to do anything period.
Encourage others to do the same.
The individual might not have much impact on the mighty Microsoft, but we have to start somewhere.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - )
Just wonderin' aloud....
Sugapablo
So, to get the same basic functionality that I currently have in XP Home, I have to spend $450 for full version of Windows Ultimate or the upgrade at $275, that's a cool $1000 for every PC that I have now that I paid $400 for XP. Forcing abusive pricing on people just so they can use Remote Desktop and rattle off ISO's I think will encourage piracy on a much larger scale than what is going on currently with XP.
I won't pirate the product, but I sure as hell won't buy it either.
What are they going to do? Literally prevent you from copying ISOs? Can you just change the file extension and keep copying? Is changing file extensions prohibited by the EULA as well? Or will Microsoft finally include magic file(1) with Vista so they can correctly detect file types?
The only way I will be running any version of Vista is under VMware. There has to be something sandboxing this crap off for my real work, but I'm sure I'll need to test under Vista.
Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
What is needed is reverse PR on all of these items that deliberatly limit function through configuration. If everything item that has deliberatly limited functionality was described as such then the people making it would get the message and the general public would be alerted to what has been done.
Windows Vista is CrippleWare, deliberatly limited in functionality by the maker through the addition or subtraction of simple elements.
The greatest thing about windows is the registry, why? Cause the average user with Google access can find a hack to make windows do something its not supposed to do. I have Windows Media Center 2005 on my laptop. Not supposed to be able to authenticate to and join domains, but it does (Now). No point in wasting the breath to complain, they're not listening, if they were, this BS wouldn't be happening. Give it 2 months and people will be transforming Home into Ultimate versions with a few downloads and tweaks. Shame on the unformed who say Microsoft is trying to imitate Google......
Ah yes, the good ol days of XP Pro and 2000 Pro may linger on for a while!
Who in the hell wants to re-buy a Vista license for no apparent reason other than to line (re-line?) the bank accounts of Monkey$haft?!?!
WTF.
OS X isn't open source.
Face it, the only reasonable choice for most consumers is Mac, because most people(incorrectly) think the PC is a device for windows. Thats ebcasue most people get windows with a new box.
Now, if the PC makers feel the VISTA will cost them sales, you will see more Linux on the PC ads from them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And how! I mean, you should see how many games it has available! Why theres tuxracer, nethack and um.. nmap! thats a game right?
Gamers may be driving the computer industry forward, but I think they are a minority, so this isn't the concern for most computer users.
This is the time that the Ubuntu crowd will really need to step up to the plate. They offer the premiere desktop Linux distribution at this time. If any Linux distribution will challenge Vista, it will be Ubuntu or an Ubuntu-based distribution.
It'd be very beneficial to the open source community if Kubuntu could be hyped as much as Firefox was. With even just a fraction of the momentum that Firefox once had, we may see the landscape change over night.
I'd recommend Kubuntu only because it uses KDE, which at this time is a more mature and usable desktop than GNOME. I have moved several relatives to Ubuntu (using GNOME) and Kubuntu (using KDE). A couple of those relatives using GNOME visited the relative using KDE, and they wanted to switch after seeing how much better it was. So from my own experience and that of a few people I know, KDE would appear to be the best desktop to go with, thus Kubuntu is naturally the best distribution to choose.
It'd take a lot of coordination and effort to pull something like this off. But I think it is well within the grasp of the Ubuntu community to get the word out about Kubuntu. The purchase of an ad in a major paper might be a good way to start, as it did help the Firefox community when they tried it.
I recently discovered this doing a little compliance work. I double-checked the EULA.txt on a couple of XP Pro machines, they were the same and do not mention transfer of any sort. So, we can't give away old PC's with XP to employees who may want them as a CYA. (I use Kubuntu to solve this. And they are quite happy users.)
It may be a very serious issue for groups like Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/) where there are many people giving away computers on a regular basis. Probably not XP right now, but soon enough. I see a big fat litigation target on their back.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Sure you get to vote... if you buy the peice of shit, you vote for artificial restrictions, if you don't buy it, you vote against it.
I'll be guilt free when in 7 years i finally feel the need to switch to vista and download a fully cracked and DRM free version off the file sharing site of choice. It must suck to be one of your paying customers.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Is MS has been talking about a special kind of virtualization license. Like if you buy an OS for your system, you are allowed to install it in a certain number of VMs on that system at no charge. As it stands right now you need a new OS license for each and every VM which sucks.
So what they may be doing here is Home doesn't come with that, whereas Business does.
I'll wait until the OS is shipping and I have a chance to check out their EULA before I render any judgements on how it'll play with our VM setup. There's more than a little FUD and alarmism floating around about Vista right now so I'm skeptical of most any Vista news.
From AMD quad-core Opteron will support FB-DIMM
However, Barcelona will also incorporate hardware-controlled memory page nesting to accelerate the manipulation of memory addresses when the CPU's virtualisation technology is in operation.
Hardware virtualisation will kill Vista is it's not allowed by the EULA, I can't wait for some stock analyst to realise MSFT has just slashed it's own throat by making it verboten.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
We all know what piracy really does is it devalues software (by increasing supply without increasing demand - nothing at all to do with physical stealing as they would have us believe).
So to stop piracy they're going to make their software less valuable (less functional) which kinda defeats the point of preventing the piracy. Now you'll lose sales because less people will want your software because to a lot more people it's a useless piece of shit. Yep that'll teach them pirates.
Love the new MS leadership. Quick Jim, lets press the self destruct button and lets get out of here before she implodes!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
> For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives,
Am I reading that right?
So if I had an ISO file of a Linux distribution, I am prohibited from copying it to my hard drive under Vista Home Basic?
you'd discover that it says you can't run the same licensed copy on the host and the VM. You can with Ultimate and Enterprise which is a more relaxed license, not restrictive (ie one license gets you a host and a VM).
.iso to your HD, it just stipulates that home users are not supposed to backup their copy of Vista with an iso, but may do so with a disc. People should actually read this before spouting off with half-assed groupthink.
You can copy
Most peopel don't care about the filesystem.
Marketing knows that, which is why it could be cut.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Vista will never be installed on any machine I control. That is all.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Only when selling numbers are you able to dictate the exact details of how your product is used. What other marketable item exists where the seller has the full force of law behind it they say "this product can only be used for bla bla bla...". If I want to buy a sofa and use it as a bed, I can do that. If I complain to the sofa dealer about my back hurting, they won't listen to me, because they said it was for sitting, not sleeping. However, if my dealer is Microsoft, they call the FBI and put me in jail for violation of contract.
Open source is the only software. When all you pay for is arranged numbers, you forfit all your rights of ownership to the dealer. At least, that's how it works these days...
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
you don't really own it!
Isn't that exactly what Microsoft is saying?
Only one solution; don't! Just say NO to Microsoft!
And, yeah, I expect lotsa comments about "yeah, dude, but I gotta run XYZ". You cannot free slaves; they must free themselves.
Well, why not dual-boot Vista (the cheapest one) for games, and use *nix for everything else? Or why not get Xbox or another dedicated appliance for games and leave personal computers for serious stuff?
Or do they plan to restrict certain games to Ultimate?
By the way, quake runs on FreeBSD pretty well. And it plays so much better at 1600x1200!
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
What's the point? Oh, btw, does anybody know if allofmp3 is offline or something. Seems as if the server is down or something. Anybody heard anything?
- MS wants to make money - just like everybody else
- MS loses money for each support call - just like everybody else
- VM marginally increases support costs due to incompatibilities
- folks swapping hardware marginally increases support costs
You could argue that only experts would ever swap hardware or use VM and that they don't call MS support. But there are a lot of people who call themselves experts who haven't a clue. Login to whatever tech site you want and there are DIY guides for whatever hardware config you want to build. A complete moron can use those guides, fail miserably, and then call Microsoft for support. Microsoft doesn't want to pay for that and why should they unless you pay a premium for those features?In addition, MS and everybody else wants to promote a subscription model for software - the more features you use, the more you pay. How is this different than any other vendor who charges for software? Linux isn't free. Somebody has to get paid to support the software and keep businesses running. Would you work for Google and run their linux boxes for free?
You Windows fanboys. Did you really think they cared about you? Really? I don't care how deficient you say open source products are; they are a far better situation to be in than Windows shops are going to find themselves in a few months from now. Welcome to EULA Hell brudda.
Or, you can just steal Windows, like so many of you fanboys do anyway. Hahahahahahaha.
Press PageDown, PageDown, PageDown, then F8
They seem determined to wring even more money out of users and make the OS less attractive. This confirms one thing, I won't be updating to Vista.
What this about no ISOs, does it mean they're going have software to actively prevent users from getting ISOs on their machine? So if you want to download Linux in Vista Home Basic you're out of luck?
I just read through the entire EULA because I just couldn't believe they had included "Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives". Turns out I was right. As far as I can tell there is no restriction to ISO's per-se, instead the original author was attempting to infer a lack of a right of some versions to store a copy of the software [meaning, a copy of the vista DVD] on "network storage" based on the fact that this right is permitted for Ultimate. However, just because they grant a right to some versions doesn't mean you don't have that right when it isn't explicitly granted - for instance even if they only enumerated the right to backup copies for Ultimate you'd still have that right for all others, existing law generally grants it.
The translation to "can't copy [any] iso's" happened in the last step, by the comment submitter, and is as far s I can tell just a complete fabrication.
Some part of me wonders why a website full of people who swear to their grave that they'll never run a piece of software is so intent on discrediting it that they make up shit. Carry on though boys, have fun.
I would be courting game developers, big time.
Free tools, lots of give aways, maybe buy a game company.
Gaming is the only reason to go with Vista anymore.
I do know that Apple doaes have most of the major titles, but there release is late.
I would also have advertisments that are about gaming on a Mac.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So you can't download and iso to the harddrive. How long before someone figures out that not being able to download a copy of a competing operating system, when that competing system freely allows you to download a copy, and most operating systems are large enough to require a cd or dvd to install, is anti-competitive. Oh wait you could download linux system files and just run a virtual machine to install, no got that one covered to.
I'm constantly fiddling with my hardware (i.e. I change MBs every year). In fact, I believe that Vista will even force revalidation if you add enough memory to your system. This is completely unreasonable. I'm not going to buy a new copy of an OS once/year!
Evolution: love it or leave it
Linux. Or Mac OS. Or *BSD.
Stop bitching that Microsoft won't give you exactly what you want, because guess what? It's their software and they can do what they want with it. Just as it's your hardware and you can put whatever OS you want on it.
[ home ]
(pauses to open a root terminal and type #emerge --sync)
So, we can infer that there is at least one person with the attention span required to read the EULA.
Life is just too fscking short to be bored with these annoying Redmond details.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
MS makes their money from corporates who buy PCs whole. MS does not make money from the sort of people that build their own PCs and upgrade motherboards. Because these people don't make MS monet, they are a pain in the ass and there is no need, from a business perspective, to keep them happy.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
VMWare and others have not emulated the TPM chip, so this would break MS DRM.
From the license for ultimate:
6. USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may use the software installed on the
licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device. If
you do so, you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital,
information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management
services or use BitLocker. We advise against playing or accessing content or using applications
protected by other digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other rights
management services or using full volume disk drive encryption.
moi
I play loads of (very recent) games on linux and the few that don't work I can live without. Epic and ID have some very capable native releases while Cedega is making big leaps in usability and compatibility.
Quick everyone, boycott Vista and buy an Xbox instead!! That'll teach Microsoft not to mess around with us!
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium
So does this mean that I can't run them under Parallels or VMWare on a Mac? That would really piss me off.
Personally, I'm all for anything that makes Windows:
Especially if it involves Microsoft pointing the gun at its own foot.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Um... no?
Unfortunately Apple is making it harder for you. Intel Macs are PCs.
</off-topic>
This kind of crap comes up every time there's a new release of windows. Every time, the same people make the same decisions and it all works out.
The home users use the crippled versions because they don't know the difference.
The linux users keep using linux.
The pirates use bootleg copies of the ultimate edition.
Businesses pay through the nose for non-crippled corporate editions.
At the end of the day everyone gets the OS they need at the price they're willing to pay. At this point, does anyone really think that they're going to be PREVENTED from doing something, in a meaningful, absolute way? I can play dvd's from other regions, I can play my games without a cd in the drive, I don't have to activate my windows install. There are inconveniences, yes, and in theory you're doing something illegal, but honestly, when all is said and done, you do what you want. The tools will always be out there for you to do that.
Bottom line, this stuff is just talk. People who know enough to miss any restricted functionality will always know enough to get copies that have such restrictions removed. Such is life.
Why is everyone complaning... this probably affect 5% of slashdot not even... just use your favorite torrent client and download and VLK version of vista not that hard... and for IT's ok it might be a pain but eh your not the one paying for all those license and I just makes you more work... anyways I don't see how this could affect anyone on slashdot... also people that use .iso normally know how to get .iso's of windows so shouldn't be a problem same as VM machines
This a victory for open source! Looks like M$ might finally be the victim of its own greed.
Microsoft can shove their garbage, why would any person pay to relinguish their rights to do as they please with their hardware, their computers?
The software business is in a bad way, and I fear with the constant attention on piracy, its only going to get worse.
Why? Piracy is an anthill that is calm and relaxed, with few workers on the surface, perhaps reaping off the latest songs, this is nothing, it is an insignificant loss to anyone. However in recent years, the attention on piracy has peaked, and what happened? The companies that bring the attention are losing more than ever, because instead of the lone joe in the basement, downloading software off of IRC, or direct downloads. We have thousands of people running on bittorrent, with maximum efficiency reaping everything from tv series, to the latest movies, software, games, and everything else.
All of this is because of the attention, so the average guy knew suddenly, that he could go online, pick his way to a piece of file sharing software and within hours downloading his first game (not to mention first virus, the novice at computers usually do this after all.)
I say all well and good because everyone here fully expects MS to eventually tank and get soundly beaten by some *nix or other. Now, taking that as a likelihood (I do), I still don't see Linux winning this round of battles. It's too hard to copy and paste files without being "root" whatever the hell that means. Don't even get me started on native mp3/xvid support.
I WANT Linux to win. I want it to win sooner rather than later. How about an OS that is actually easy to use without all the ludicrous over the top server security built in? You know, one that plays San Andreas, opens pdfs, has nice looking fonts and is easy to use because it runs EXACTLY how we expect it to. I just don't get why so many devs are wasting their time on ubuntu/redhat/mandriva/et al when clearly joe q. public is A. NOT GOING TO CHANGE, and B. KNOWS HOW TO USE WINDOWS.
Seriously, this "battle" is like a fight between a tired old midget and a young strong UFC champion. Only sadly, the UFC champion is clearly retarded and doesn't even know he's in a fight. Linux should have won nearly half a decade ago. But instead, they keep screwing with the UI, not implementing basic things "out of box" for arcane philosophical reasons, and creating more versions of software that most people will never want to use.
I hate to say this, but the next time I try Linux and the installation doesn't go pretty much as smooth as Tiny XP, and then subsequently has an identical start menu / quick launch / control panel to vanilla WinXP, well, it'll be a cold day in hell until I try Linux and get burned YET AGAIN.
And this is a pissed off rant from somebody who WANTS LINUX TO WIN. Just imagine what the average non-political FOSS advocate is thinking when he can't do something like right click copy paste a file he downloaded off some p2p app because "Linux is different, and difference is good."
No. It's not. Difference is stupid. Now, if you're talking about rock bands, then, yeah, I want some variety. But an OS should operate as expected. Period. For the bulk of the world, as expected means JUST LIKE WINDOWS.
It's embarrasing that so many obviously bright minds are so fully entrenched in such a Quixotian enterprise.
Mod me down. Or give me a drop in windows replacement. Or shut the fuck up already, and realize that Vista already won, and that SUCKS FOR EVERYONE BECAUSE OF YOUR ARROGANT AND IMMATURE IDEALS.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Unless things change around here, who knows what all you won't be able to do in Vista 2011? Criticize Microsoft? Use it once your license "expires"? Or maybe it will only install on DRM-approved hardware, or only hardware manufactured by a limited number of companies who pony up a prohibitive licensing fee, driving the cost of hardware up? Hell, maybe the CD will erase itself once you install it, forcing you to buy it again! (And their crack marketing team will sell it to you as a "feature"!)
The grand irony is that, like Greenland not being green, Vista is named for a word that implies or suggests freedom, a boundless future. Quite the opposite. They tighten the noose because they perceive themselves to have no competition. And this will continue until the public (the 98% of their customers) start to leave their product behind.
Can't SOMEBODY put these pig fuckers out of business?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
...the faster it actually causes itself to sink into the tarpit. Although it's seven years old and somewhat numerically inaccurate, this article is becoming increasingly more relevant as time goes on.
To use plain speech rather than metaphor...Microsoft are engaging in the WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) and DRM related activities in order to stave off its' inevitable demise. The irony is that the more it uses fascist tactics in order to try and keep itself alive, these will actually accelerate the company's downfall. Already I have read reports of a mass migration to Linux because of Microsoft's jackbooted behaviour associated with the Windows Genuine Advantage program.
The Microsoft ship struck ice in September 1997. As with a much earlier case, the impact was sufficiently quiet and low-key that I'm not sure too many other people felt it at the time...but I remember it. I believed that because of the corporation's massive cash reserves and size, its' demise would take a long time...but as I believed then, so I still say now that I will be very surprised if Microsoft still exists by 2015. The company are coming up to a point that is analagous to when Nearer My God To Thee was being played during the Titanic film. They themselves just possibly aren't aware of it yet.
We've recently read about the schism between Debian/firefox. Commenters here have described it as "how free software dies"
Compare the freedoms of Free Software with the arbitrary and arrogant restrictions emerging in non-Free software. What's next?
Microsoft EULA, circa 2011:
"You may only drink Coca Cola products while using said software - consumption of Pepsi is explicitly forbidden"
Anyone know the price tag for Vista Home? The $599 price point for the Sony PS3 went over well... For all these restrictions--Home Users should be happy to pay $599 for Vista!
...that maybe, just maybe something was going to happen decent with thses guys.
/maybe/ doing what I have been saying they could do for a long time... With all the money, intelligence, and resources they have, the could revolutionize personal computing and even the desktop...
I've been keeping up with all the hype, downloaded the RC's, and was thinking to myself that Microsoft was maybe,
I guess I was wrong - back to their old tricks again. What a freakin' disappointment.
I keep VM versions of earlier MS operating systems and OSs at different patch levels (eg XP/XP S1/XP SP2) for testing purposes when I release software. I'm glad to see the Microsoft does not want small developers to test for compatibility on home versions of Vista.
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
Joe Sixpack most likely only has one or two computers so this won't impact him for the most part. He can't spell ISO so moving one to his disk is not much of a problem. How much will he be using a VM when he can only run games or browse the AOL version of the Internet. Look at the target audience.
This is geared toward 1) product differentiation, 2) providing value at the high end, 3) forcing busineses to use the high end, 4) maximizing their revenue stream. It has little to do with what technical customers like us want. I want to burn ISOs, to load drivers, to customize my box, to run Mozilla, to use VMs. However I don't want to pay for a professional version -- hence I use Linux.
Microsoft is toast. They know it and now they're going to try putting the screws to people. I've been using XP for a few years. It works well enough, and I don't see the point of buying another Microsoft OS. My next step might just be something that runs OS-X.
(Finishing your sentence)
.....and....come to think of it....well...actually your just better off using windows.
However finding support is a pain...and there isnt really alot that integrates with other devices such as mobile phones and what not...and you wont have sharepoint or CRM or anything close to that
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
The reason I will NEVER buy a Mac is because they restrict the hardware you can use. Now that Microsoft is doing it, they are just as bad as Apple. Only fools would buy from either company.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I generally like Microsoft's products. I even defend them, and think that they are in the position they are in because they make better products than the competition.
But these new license terms are bullshit. Even worse, Vista is going to have all kinds of crappy DRM stuff.
And what does the future hold? Is the next version of Windows going to require a monthly fee to keep it working? Am I going to have to pay the RIAA and MPAA a few bucks every time I watch a movie, listen to a song, or burn a CD/DVD?
I really am beginning to think the answers to those questions are "YES". It's actually scary.
Needless to say, I don't plan on buying Vista. I'll keep using XP until I can't anymore, and then it's Ubuntu from then on.
Everyone who buys it bends over and uses it the absolute way Microsloth says so. Unfrickenreal
In a word: PRIDE.
Excuse me, but I am TOO FUCKING PROUD AS A HUMAN BEING to keep doing business with a company who pissed all over me every single day.
New video card? Motherboard? Hard drive?
:(
I change hardware a lot and get stuffed if I'm buying vista every year. Could this be the end of Windows gaming reign? Yeah, I doubt it
You read the summary and/or blog post right, but the author of said post is either (at best) misrepresenting the license or (at worst) lying.
AT THE MOST it might restrict your ability to make ISOs of the Vista media itself, and I don't think it even does that.
The license says you can only transfer the software once, and with the agreement. But the person you transfer it to can also transfer it once themselved, because they are bound by an agreement between Microsoft and them, not between Microsoft and you.
Not being able to legally use Vista Home in a VM really hurts those using OS X running Parallels (and VMWare in the future). The only *legal* option is to use boot camp to install Windows on a Mac. This seems REALLY silly to me as Microsoft can easily make lotsa $$$ off these VM-based license sales. I don't forsee many people buying the Vista Business product just to run Vista in a VM...I forsee them running XP for a lonnnnnnnnng time just to run those 1 or 2 Windows apps they HAVE to run.
This is the first time in my life I've seen Microsoft limit it's sales of Windows products by it's own licensing.
I didn't fabricate it. I quoted the item from Robert McLaws, who cites page 11, that says you can't copy the software to a storage device. This means you can't copy Vista ISOs.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Made-up News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
You said copy ISO's, not Vista ISO's. here is the quote: "Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives".
Just be a man and admit to your mistake.
Good job - I certainly don't have the attention span to read through the EULA - I'm sure most people dont, which is the point for most software EULA's.
In addition to what you said, wasn't the whole custom computer thing (i.e. buy new Windows with new components) used as an argument against Windows XP due to it's product activation? I seem to recall people arguing that you would need to buy new copies of XP if you upgraded your computer (I admit that lack of attention makes me not search very hard for such posts). That didn't really end up being the case - I'd suspect that will happen now as well.
I think the limitation on Virtual Machines is in direct response to the Blue Pill malware presentation [PDF] at SyScan this year. One of the core ideas for bypassing Vista's security was to throw the OS into a Virtual Machine. Maybe this move is step towards having legal grounds against malware authors who attempt that route and get caught? Of course, IANAL, but it's still an interesting thought.
MORE microsoft CRAP. this is it. havent this always been happening before ?
So WHAT are you surprised with ?
Just DONT buy vista, and let them shove it up their arses with their "intellectual property" conspirators, the big money.
Read radical news here
OEM copies of Windows aren't "locked to the BIOS" or anything like that. I don't even know what the hell that is. You just call MS, tell them you replaced a dead motherboard, and you're set.
From now on, whenever anybody replaces a motherboard or NIC on a Windows PC, they are required to call me at 1-800-RUN-VSTA and ask for permission to continue operating their computer. That's the way it's going to be, boys and girls, from here on out. And you'd better be quiet and respectful while I have you on the phone.
What's that? "Eat a dick," you say? "What gives you the right to determine on a day-to-day basis when I'm allowed to use my computer?"
Well, at least you're asking the right questions now. You just need to ask Microsoft, instead of me.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I knew I couldn't be the only one who thought that.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
That will make it a little easier to convince people to install Linux systems.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Considering how much they lose on each one, it might. Even with the games, they haven't made money yet.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
oh wait.. wait i'm already here!
I would agree with your points, but most subscription models require a much lower inital cost...
And the 'feature' of having only 5 devices accessible over a network (home basic) seems to be a large inital price for less features.
It's a nice thought, but the implementation is not somethine I want to deal with.
"For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices."
Let me translate what this statement means to me:
"For instance, I won't be installing this crippled operating system when I've finally wrestled XP to work the way I want it to. I can copy as many ISO's as I want, I can run it in a virtualized environment, and I can share as many damn files and as many damn printers to as many damn machines as I see fit."
If this comes to pass, I can't see myself buying any version of Vista. I was "pro" XP because it was an actual improvement over 98SE, and I actually own several different, legitimate flavors. I cannot, however, fathom even considering purchasing such a restrictive piece of software. Excuse me, what I meant to say was that I won't rent a disposable license at over a hundred bucks a pop for the basic, most restricted version, all because I like to play with hardware. (I've rebuilt my system at least 6 times in the past year.)
Screw you, Microsoft, and I long for the day when I can get all of my Windows-dependent software (read: games) to work in an easy, trouble-free Linux environment. That is to say that until I can:
a: install Linux Flavor-du-jour
b: d/l and install my specific hardware drivers
c: install my game
d: install game updates
e: and play my game
WITHOUT compiling any kernels or drivers or anything, or learning how to write code. I don't plan on giving up on popular titles any time soon, so it looks like I'll be playing games on XP until something better comes along. Lord I hope they reconsider this. Sorry for the rant, but this really makes me angry. Maybe it's time to learn how to do all that crazy Linux stuff anyhow...
There is simply too much glass..
But users will switch not in upgrade cycles but when the user feels the need to change. This will be when an OS becomes so restrictive that the learning curve of a different OS becomes easier than living with the OS they already know.
/. is true when the average user is perceiving the restrictions on their own PC then their will be a call for change.
When the average user gets an error message saying "you don't have a license to play this content" or "you don't have sufficient privileges to do $WHATEVER" then they will call their geeky friend/family member to "fix" the problem. The problem of course being Vista, the solution be Linux. I suspect a similar sequence of events will occur if MS security turns out to be a dog.
If all this scaremongering about MS is untrue then these events will not come to pass but if all that has been said on
BTW, I am a Linux supporter.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I always believed the "...but the only reason I don't switch is games" argument, until I installed Ubuntu on my son's computer (dual-boot). He's twelve, likes games, but doesn't have a huge budget for the big-name games - loves Runescape. He soon discovered synaptic had screed of games that he could download and install, any time he liked, for free. It's now a couple of months since he last booted up Windows, and we have a steady stream of his friends coming round asking me to "upgrade" their computers.
Do as you would be done to.
Just wait 'til you see the license that's going to come with Microsoft's next OS after Vista: it will forbid the use of even the first copy of the OS made off the installation CD.
;-)
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The /. submitter didn't make the mistake so much as the original poster of the blog he linked to. ("Mistake" very well may be too kind, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...)
I don't even think that changing the wording to Vista ISOs make any difference.
Maybe you don't, but what if I want/need to:
- Play games (Tux Racer doesn't count)
- Use Photoshop (don't say Gimp)
- Use 3D Studio Max (yes, there are some alternatives, but 3ds Max is an industry standard)
- Etc
What's funny is that you are obviously tired of hearing people respond with what software replaces Photoshop or Half Life 2, but I'm tired of hearing comments like yours, from people who haven't been paying attention to the Linux software world while its has been catching up over the past couple years. When it comes down to it all:
*Doom 3, UT2004 and other games come with Linux support (UT2004 came with it out of the box)
*Gimp has color management support out of the box
*Blender kicks ass and is no harder to learn that 3D Studio Max (Screw industry standards, isn't "the troubles of being locked in" what this article is about)
So I think nmb3000 and all the others like them can eat crow. Linux kicks ass. If you doubt it, keep the suggestions coming and OSS programers will keep track of them and fix those problems in a year or two and we can have the same argument again.
BTW, at work we bought 4 Dell 37" LCD TVs for a monitoring display. The Windows installation that came on the Dell PC that we bought with them had trouble recognizing the resolution for the TV. Linux OUT OF THE BOX did slightly better and at least gave me some higher resolution options than Windows did OUT OF THE BOX!
If the thing is locked down via so much digital restriction management, why is the price going up?
[
From a software developers perspective, not being able to run Home editions inside a VM seems like a big pain in the ass when it comes to developing software to be used on said platform. Instead of being able to run my software in multiple environments without having to reboot, now I'll need 4 computers on my desk (my computer running a business OS, plus one each for home basic, home premium, ultimate).
You think of all companies MS would see the value in running OSes as guest OSes for development purposes. What the hell were they thinking?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Hey guys guess what. I just read that microsoft is releasing a special version of Vista that can save you 50 USD on the new operating system. All you have to do is bend over and kiss your own asshole while saying 3 hail bills whenever you login. Actually, there's some other COMPLETELY ARBITRARY BULLSHIT you have to do if you want to put more than 30 MP3s on your system or if you want to use your right mouse button in non-microsoft software products. Don't worry though, you can have unlimited WMA files, so long as they're DRM protected. It's ok though because they only protect files to help keep our costs down as consumers!
`which fortune`
As a Mac user, the thing that most seems to tempt Windows users about the Mac and OS.X is when they start bitching about malware and how complicated and time consuming it is to configure their Windows defenses and I bow out of the conversation by pointing out that I don't have that problem. Some are also tempted by the ease of use (even simple things like how easy it is to switch WIFI networks and network location profiles) and also by the iApps. Most of these people could care less about games as long as they have their Office suite and a few favorite programs which has led **a few** of my acquaintances to switch. Most continue to bang their head against the Windows and will probably continue to do so until they run into one one of these restrictions even if that seems unlikely since most of them will get a Vista instance pre-installed along with each new PC they buy and won't bother to migrate a Vista instance to a new machine. The one thing I could imagine that will really piss Windows users off about Vista is what is already pissing them off about Windows XP and that is WGA false positives. In VIsta the damn thing will disable parts of their OS and cut them off from updates unless they jump through flaming hoops to get a new activation code:
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Thing is, Windows sucks, but Xbox is a nice system.
Circumcision is child abuse.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The grandparent just said that the EULA does not say that. That was the whole point of the post. Either call grandparent a liar or bug off.
P.S. For more giggles, feel free to consult the other part of this thread where the story submitter tries to shirk blame and says it was the fault of the blogger from whom he got the bad information.
Is asinine the fucking word of the month or something?
I don't want to sound like a radical, but it really seems to me that it is only a matter of time before these practices are going to become illegal.
It seems to me that the license simply demands too much from the licensee, and that the terms are anti-consumer.
Eventually there will be some sort of legislation that defines some sort of limitations to the use of copyright in this way.
Other possibilities are that Microsoft might loosen their licenses eventually after they realize that no one can obey them, or possibly people will simply start using different software products.
"I have no intention of purchasing a new license every time I swap out motherboards."
You said it brother. If MS only wants non-techies and corporate lemmings for its OS users, then so be it. If they harbored any pretensions of gaining mindshare among innovators and early adopters with Vista, they forget it now. With Solaris now foss and excellent Linux distro's like Ubuntu (and a cool hybrid of the two, Nexenta) all available, there's no reason, no reason whatsoever to put up with restrictive licenses like this.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
This reminds me of 1996.
l es/ntwks4_2.html
l eID/2776/2776.html
MS NT Workstation 4.0 Maintaining Limitations
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/artic
Licensing Woes and Confusion
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/Artic
It sure would be nice to get someone from MS to talk to. Someone who isn't going to sputter out marketing hype and techno babble. No, just geek to geek. I would have some down to earth questions to ask instead of listening to the echo chamber. I would ask some questions I haven't yet seen on this story in addition to some that people here are asking. Honest questions wanting some honest answers.
/. as Bill Clinton is to Bill O'Rielly?
My questions would go something like this:
Microsoft, I think you got a pretty good OS and I know that you know you have one too, so let's cut the hype here and talk like normal (geek) folks instead of marketers. Now, your EULA obviously makes sense from your standpoint, but there a few of us out here scratching our heads. For example, some of us build our own machines and like to upgrade our parts fairly often. Now, when we purchase your OS, we expect that license to go with us as we make our 'rigs better. However, as I understand your license, we can install Vista and only really do one upgrade before our license goes up in smoke. From our viewpoint that really doesn't seem fair to have to spend an additional $300+ for the OS for doing something simple like upgrading a $150 motherboard, or adding an additional $100 of RAM. What options are there out there for those of us who would like to have Vista, but not substantially increase the cost of upgrading hardware? Is our market segment too small for you to worry about?
Some of us are developers and need a low cost solution to test our software against. As I understand the EULA, I won't be able to install Vista on a VM unless I buy one of the more pricier versions. I really feel like I've been painted into a corner here because buying a lesser version meets my needs as far development is concerned, but your EULA doesn't allow that. Did you take us into consideration when creating the EULA, and will any cheaper solutions exist for developing on your platform?
Etc, etc. Cmdr Taco, can you set something up??? Or are the Microsofties as repulsed by
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Not that I plan on buying Vista since my PC couldn't run it due to hardware but, the whole "only relicense it once" ordeal seems kinda, monopolistic. I mean, people who've replied have cited a dozen or more reasons, hardware failure, buying a new pc, recieving a new pc, replacing this or that etc How can Microsoft, who has teetered on the edge of monopoly even after their lawsuits thereof, say "even though your hardware fails or you build a new pc, you can only use this version of Windows you paid for X amount of times." ?
This is a lawsuit in the making imho. Kinda like the whole Jack Thompson/Bully thing demanding a copy before release right? Why can't some consumer agencey step up and say as a result of the new EULA Microsoft is basically baiting and switching customers (before the OS is even released since we now know about it ? That's what it is effectively, a bait and switch. You buy a Home edition, for your home, only to find that it's useable only a couple of times despite any number of problems out of your control, so you are forced to buy it again if you want to continue using it OR You're forced from the beginning into buying the more expensive versions that are less restrictive.
Wouldn't this also fall under a small portion of Faulty Advertising? I mean sure the Home Edition does things for just a Home enviroment, but there are so many situations where you need more than the one relicense in your Home enviroment that the Home Edition is not built for. As said, hardware fails a few times, your Home Edition is now worthless, unless you buy it again.
That's what kinda concerns me is the license stuff. Sure the DRM and virtulization could prove problems but at least you'd still be able to use the OS. A bad HDD or a mother board going out more than once kinda screws the pooch on that.
Aw Frell this
thank god for gop. Monopoly? Bah, no such thing in the corporate whore house known as the GOP. Granted the democrats aren't much better, but at least they wear a condom when they screw the public.
Who wants this software? I'll stick with XP.
On switching to Linux or Mac. Thank you Microsoft, for screwing with fair use rights enough to convince me to cease being your customer. I see Edgy Eft or Leopard in my future, and it feels good.
I'm running XP and I just recently upgraded my video card. I definitely did not have to reactivate in that situation. A while back my harddisk failed and I did have to reactivate when I installed the new one, but not for a video card upgrade.
I get a *free* copy of windows whenever I buy a new computer, so what's the big deal? You slashdot people, you always make such a big deal over the tiniest little things. Yeesh. :)
The dangers of virtualization come from the home users, because it enables them to switch easily to Linux. Some time ago Microsoft tried to prevent double-booting for that reason. Now, with virtualization it's even much easier to work with the two OS. Too many home users currently stay with Windows because of the games, or because it's too much work to rebuild a personal environment.
The threat for the Windows quasi-monopoly is the Linux box with a few Windows virtual machines for the games and legacy software, and this threat comes from the home users, not from the corporate side.
The second threat is that a VM is essentially a throw away environment, a characteristic which is bad for the Microsoft business. For example, they cannot force users to keep WGA: so difficult to eradicate from a real machine, so easy to eliminate on a VM. With VM machines it's also very difficult to track usage and personal info.
they'll come out with these little things that you attach to the back of your computer that have a unique ID and are tied to the software, since they sort of dangle maybe they'll get called dongles..
anyway, actually, between being locked to a CPU/mobo, I'd much rather have a dongle. Then I can only use one machine at a time. The dongle could be special and only allow you to only change machines once a month- eg the drivers update it with a hash of the last machine's ID.. so then you can change things up, but just not waltz between machines.
Everybody's stressing over the phrase "one time." That phrase has been used before, for example the XP EULA referenced in one of TFAs (emphasis mine):The very same phrase, and, in this usage, it seems to be emphasizing that, after you transfer your user rights to somebody else, you retain no rights yourself; as if, without the words "one time," somebody could argue "Person A transferred to Person B, then Person A transferred to Person C..." and suddenly Warez sites are legit.
Now, with regards to Vista, we have "reassign the license to another device one time." Now, considering that the EULA now requires that "(b)efore you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device (physical hardware system)," the EULA now considers the way the install is tied to a particular machine similar to the way it treats the way it is tied to a particular person. So they are using the same language for hardware as they have always used for people.
All I'm seeing here is a new way of saying "you have to uninstall from the old machine before installing on a new one" worded in a different way from they way they used to. The language (to me, at least) seems to not do anything more than to ensure that all rights a particular computer might have to the install must be transferred (including the right of transfer itself).
Otherwise, you end up with a logical inconsistency; if, by agreeing with the EULA, you can only change hardware once, what happens when you sell the license to somebody else? That new user, by agreeing to the EULA, gets all the rights you had at first purchase, including that once-only hardware transfer. So, if you give it to somebody else, and you get it back (or simply sell it to yourself for $0.01), you get your "hardware transfer" counter reset back to zero and the once-only transfer rule becomes unenforcable.
As for other things people seem to be screaming about, were the features that are denied to home flavors of Vista allowed in the home flavor of XP? I see some noise like "ZOMG! No Remote Desktop!" here and there...
Hehe, ok.
Since I've already once, I'll let you read it this time.
Where in the EULA does it specifically allow me to create an ISO image of a CD containing photgraphs I have taken and copy it onto my hard drive? If this is not expressly permitted by the EULA, does this mean you believe it's forbidden? Do you think Microsoft would tell you it was forbidden to this if they were asked? If not, where is the language written that applies to my photographs and not my legal backup? If thats not there, then where is the language explicitly forbidding the legal backup to be stored on my hard drive? If you can't find any of those, well then, you've got your answer.
However odious this practice is it doesn't qualify as bait and switch. "You buy a Home edition, for your home, only to..." No, you don't buy it for your home. You buy it for your PC. And I'm sure the box will describe the conditions of sale quite clearly with a URL so you can read it it in more detail at your leisure.
This restriction will primarly affect people who build their own PCs, users who can hardly be described as naive.
Insert witty sig here.
I am soooooooooooooooo not buying Vista.
They don't let me really "have" windows vista, as I see
Pirate edition then?
Another fatism that irks me... fat asses with handicapped parking passes, so that they can park CLOSER to their destination. Hello, fat ass... park at the FAR end of the parking lot and WALK YOUR FAT ASS across the parking lot.
And the 'grasping at straws' for day goes to....
Everquest, the projectile analysis software thats costing $4000 a year to maintain, and other industry standard software that HAS NO REPLACEMENT is worth more to me than some simple ideals. Eating > bitching on slashdot. Good day, and good riddance to your tired rhetoric.
Ya, I read that site also, but if you lookup their reference for their claims in the actual EULA, it is NOT in the EULA.
Their main page has a lot of incorrect assumptions and mis-interpretations of the EULA, to the point that many of the laid out claims are just made up.
The ISO example is one of the more egregious.
It specifically DOES NOT SAY you cannot copy the Vista ISO for backup or to your hard drive.
What it DOES say is you can't put it on a network store (like for volume installations - and this is only for the HOME and STARTER versions that have no business being MASS installed from a network location.)
Either this Website has an axe to grind or they have no technical knowledge...
As for the other issues, there have been Network connection limitations in Windows NT since version 4.0 for the desktop version. 10 Connections, and this has not changed for the professional level version of Vista either.
The Home versions are limited to 5 'concurrent' connections. Which seems quite reasonable, because if you have a big enough family that you have 5 OTHER users in your house accessing a file or printer on your computer 'at the same time' then you probably need something other than the HOME edition.
MS even upped the Media Center Extender 'allowed' connections in Vista over XP, instead of 3 you get 5 on the first tier of Vista that has Media Center.
Why not rename your post to MS increases connection limits for MCE users?
World. Of. Warcraft.
The MMO market is huge, explosive, and has not hit the consoles (probably due to the fact that it would suck to use a keyboard/mouse in a recliner). Between all the MMO's we are talking about an easy 10,000,000 players
Microsoft does not support an official way to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same system. This is only really an issue for web developers who need to test their websites in older versions of IE.
Only home edition. Get a copy of corportate. And if this is a work project you should (a) be using corporate at work and (b) get your work to foot the bill for an upgrade at home
See? Easy. Not a nickel out of your pocket.
Most of it is the same, but the virtualization thing is actually a plus. With XP Pro you couldn't legally run a vm with the same OS installed on it. If I read the license correctly, You can run Vista in a VM which is hosted on Vista using the same license. Ie it seems to grant the user 1 physical license and then you can run any number of VM's (on the same machine, using the same key).
But the limitation to this is that you can't use any drm'd content in the VM.
In terms of the software transfer, I'm not sure why everyone is complaining. I don't see too many situations where a person has to move their OS from computer to computer more than once. Most people get a new computer every 3 years or so and so in those situations they'd use their 1 time transfer. If a new version of Windows isn't out by the time you get another computer, then I guess you would have a reason to complain.
I personally sorta wonder what the OEM restrictions will be. This license seems to leave out the OEM clause.
Oh and as a plus, read the NFR clause. It is no longer for demo or eval purposes.
Even better is the fact that they left a gaping hole in their virtualization clause. The only thing they said you can't do on a vm is use windows drm'd stuff. But what if I get a quad core cpu, a hard drive for each vm and allow people to connect to the vms. There is no statement in the remote access statements barring access to virtual machines. (Notice how it specifically applies the statement to the "software installed on the licensed device."
If this truly is their license then I think they might have left some gaping holes. But then again I'm no lawyer. Guess I'll have to call them up and ask a few questions
I wouldn't be surprised if in the next version or so, they charged a per-boot fee automatically taken out of an account that you had set up. Of course installing it on another machine also means re-buying the software at full price.
They set up their monopoly, and they can do whatever they want with it. If they wanted to restrict use to machines with built-in GPS locators so that they could charge you based on county or city, they could.
The question is, what can't they do?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"TechWeb has posted an article regarding Vista's new license and how it allows you to only move it to another device once. How will this work for people who build their PCs? I have no intention of purchasing a new license every time I swap out motherboards. 'The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once.
How do you define moving to another system? What constitutes "another system"? If you swap out a video card does that make this a new system? Probably not. If you look at Windows XP and it's product activation, there are several things that can be changed as often as you wish without it being considered a new system that requires activation. There are some items that, between them as a group, can only be changed a couple of times before Windows will disable the system (CPU, mainboard, hard disk). This sounds pretty much like the same thing, so I'm not sure why people are making a stink about it now, other than the fact that the surest way to get lots of hits right now is to either extoll the virtues of or condemn Vista.
I guess that in theory, with previous retail versions of Windows you could remove it and re-install it on different machines as much as you wanted, but in practice how many people actually did that? Most home users certainly didn't. Lots of enthusiasts didn't either. If you buy a retail copy of Vista for your current PC, then pitch your current PC and build a new PC, then you might want to transfer your OS. Or perhaps if your PC died completely, you might want to transfer the license, and you would be allowed to do so once under this license. Now if you decided to add additional PCs, you would need more licenses anyway, right? When you consider that most consumers buy a PC with an OEM version of Windows already installed, and that many enthusiasts who build already buy the cheaper OEM versions, who really buys retail? Keeping in mind how many hardware changes it takes to trip up Product Activation now, how many people out there are likely to buy retail copies of Vista AND trip product activation more than once? Very few I suspect.
Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'"
There are very few home users who could even tell you what a VM is, let alone install an OS into one. And those of us who are likely to use virtualization at home (and I'm one of them who currently does do this) would likely also need/already have the business version of Vista (or in today's world, XP Pro). More to the point, when I run virtualization at home it's not usually to run a second instance of my main OS. Usually it's so that I can test some new Linux distro, or to keep an older version of Windows around for compatibility purposes. Right now I run one of the Vista RCs as a host OS, and have Windows XP Pro, Ubuntu, and Windows Server 2003 running in virtual machines. So what's the big deal here? If you get the Business edition, you are allowed to run up to 4 virtual instances of Vista on the same machine using the same license, whereas with XP Pro you were permitted only a second instance. So this sounds like a net improvement to me. If for some reason you need to maintain two separate Vista Home Edition installs on the same machine, you can still dual boot.
"For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 networ
ship hardware dongles with each paid-for copy of the OS?
Of course, dongelizing Windows would probably provide the necessary incentive for cracking the dongle and reproducing it...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I purchased a computer with windows XP, right before SP2 Came out. I Started to get into tinkering with my computer, and learning about it, which ultimately results in me breaking windows in some form, and reinstalling it. The first time this happened, I had to spend 20 minutes on the phone with some bitch who spoke broken English, re activating, She informed me I would have to do this every time I reinstalled windows. Then there was the installation of Sp2 issue. before long I found Windows Nemesis, a pirated package that does everything, installs everything, and has no activation issues. I Will no doubt eventually end up using a like version of Vista. This is Microsoft pushing me to do so with there restrictive policy's.
...then buy a Mac. There are games for Mac. There is Photoshop for Mac. there is no 3ds max for mac...but Autodesk also has Maya that does largely the same thing,and it is availablefor macOS X. Oh wait...it's also available for Linux too if Blender isn't enough for you. Maya is probably #2 to 3ds and perfectly feature-laden and some prefer using it quite a bit over 3ds.
Which brings me to another question: why isn't blender good enough anyways? Or Gimp or Inkscape? I know they aren't as fancy as the big expensive closed stuff. Are you a professional, full-time game developer rollingout the sleeping bag under your desk for the night at Electronic Arts? Or are you jsut a hardcore enthusiast with a penchant for big fancy stuff?
Seriously, if you are a hobbyist I can't think of why the Free alternatives are unacceptable. The great thing about adopting the Free alternatives is that you are doing your part to advance the cause of Free software...the "chicken and egg" theory applies and if Free software is to become (or remain) competitive then it is the enthusiasts who'll have to deal with the pain of laying the first egg...and when that chicken hatches (critical mass) it'll lay its own eggs and become more self sustaining.
I am an IT decision maker in a big Fortune500 business, among the big names in direct advertising.
We have an Enterprise agreement with Microsoft and lots of computers (servers & clients). Although it's all going slowly (just replaced all Windows XP computers) we will postpone Vista for a long time. The biggest reason is that there is no added value in going to Vista for our clients. As long as they can start Outlook, surf the net and have some business apps they will be happy.
Of course we have Mac's for the graphic editors but we're thinking about switching some people to Mac. Get them a Mini, a 19" TFT, keyboard, mouse and for less than $1000 they can run Office, all Adobe & Macromedia apps, Messenger, terminals, remote connections be integrated into AD and have a better overview of hardware/software/usage through ARD than possible with SMS. The support will cost less (currently 1 guy running a good 100 mac's and he's busy about 1-3 hours a day on that side, helping out on the Windows side the rest of the day), everybody can have their admin rights revoked without missing any functionality and they can still do their work perfectly.
Of course the problem is getting everyone over (which will probably never happen) but compared to shilling out $200-$400 for a Vista or XP license , a $100 for a new license if NECESSARY (comes with the hardware as opposed to standard pc's which come with Home) sounds pretty good
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The question is, what can't they do?
And the answer is: They can't sell *me* a copy of their legally crippled new piece of shitware.
Can they sell *you* one?
My big argument against getting a Mac has always been about hardware. With PCs, I knew I could switch video cards, network cards, sound cards, etc whenever I wanted. But Mac always had a (perceived) hardware lock in. (I'm certain that's not strictly the case, anymore... but it always felt that way).
When I found myself in the market for a laptop, I seriously considered the PowerBook/MacBooks - since laptop hardware tends to be locked down anyway. (if it weren't for the heat issues, I would've gone that route, too.)
But this? This was the last excuse I had for my desktop PC. Heck, this case has changed it's innards so often, I've had to change its host name TWICE (just for kicks, really... but I realized, twice, that the insides had been completely reworked, and it warranted a name change). With Vista locking you down, there's no reason to swap hardware. If there's no reason to swap hardware, why not just buy the Mac instead?
Besides - didn't WinXP have similar rules initially about swapping things around? Didn't most people buy a legitimate version of XP and then "borrow" their corporate license... it's ethically legit. I own a copy. I don't want the damn hassle of constantly "calling home" to say that "yes it's legit". I understand a need to protect their property (or whatever they deem as "their property"). But treating everyone like a criminal right off the bat. Ignore the little man. Ignore the hobbiest. And they were trying to NOT make it look like they were a bunch of heartless, greedy, corporate suits...
> Gimp now has colour management support out of the box? Congratulations, one feature that is taken for granted
> by every professional level piece of photo software...
If your needs ABSOLUTELEY can't be met by Gimp, Cinepaint or any of the other choices, then take a few freaking dollars out of your pocket and buy Crossover Office. It lists Photoshop as a supported app.
> And as for Blender, it is a wonderful program. It was the first 3D program I learned. However, it is not yet
> on par with professional packages like 3DS Max, Lightwave or Maya.
Well then run Maya then. Go look at the Autodesk website and count the Linux distributions supported. RHEL4, FC5 and Suse are offically supported platforms. Hint: Maya isn't the only option either.
> Well, welcome to the world of professional level software and the open source offerings just aren't at a
> competitive level yet.
Well welcome to the 21st Century, where professionals quit depending on Windows years ago and demanded the professional grade software keep up with the times. When damned near every pro shop in the movie business has adopted Linux to one degree or another it is a pretty safe bet the people making professional tools didn't write those high profile customers completely off.
And yes, several of the open source productivity tools ARE already professional grade. Film GIMP/Cinepaint had deep color support long before Photoshop got around to it.
Democrat delenda est
Can't we just combine these tags into 'FUDNOTFUD' or perhaps, 'WHOGIVESAFUD'?
I have no doubt it would cost them more in judgment + attorneys + sending a rep to appear in court (or suffer a default judgment) than the value of that copy of Vista
Yes, but the intimidation is worth much more for Microsoft than the value of one license for you...
Microsoft can appear in court for YOUR case... But for all the others who don't have time/money/energy/will to take M$ to task, Microsoft will profit. After all, isn't the RIAA doing the same thing? The RIAA can waste money suing old grandmothers (from whom they will not actually collect) in order to keep the rest of the public at bay [more or less].
Now maybe a class action lawsuit could make M$ change their ways... But (most) Windows users can't even keep their systems running, much less sign legal forms to be included in the lawsuit...
And it still seems a bit grey... After all, Windows users have AGREED to the EULA -- just or unjust.
Since I can't keep a copy of Vista running in a VM on my Linux machine, I am forced to stop helping friends and family who will decide to "Upgrade" to Vista. I keep a copy of XP and a backup image of the VM just to help out when they toast their machines. The funny thing was that when installing in WMWare, the latest Vista Build caused a BSOD on each reboot. It was complaining about USB drivers or something. I couldn't even read it, cuz I was laughing too much. A $200.00 Wal-Mart (Microtel) Sempron 2200 running Vista inside of Ubuntu without any problems except for a flaky USB driver? It was almost promising. But since I can't have a copy in a VM, and I wouldn't install something that bloated as a dual boot.... Bye Bye Microsoft. Oh, and Dell... I am not doing your tech support anymore. Stop using cheap parts that burn out, or hire mroe people for your call centers. I am not doing it anymore.
I don't think you all grasp the cunningness of Microsoft's new strategy. It's well known that Microsoft's biggest competitor is... Microsoft themselves. Convincing people to upgrade to their latest-and-greates product has always been an uphill struggle for Microsoft. Microsoft has such a stranglehold on the market that no new product -not even their own- can break that iron grip.
But with Vista, the marketing geniuses at Microsoft have come up with a plan to finally break that viselike grip. If the problem is that Microsoft's marketshare is too big, then there's only one thing to do: convince consumers to stop buying Microsoft products. Only then will Microsoft have a fair chance at breaking into the market that Microsoft now controls.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has utilized this strategy; they tested the waters with WindowsME. However, Microsoft hedged their bets back then with the concurrent release of Windows2000. But WinME proved their tactics had merit; they created such a despicable product that consumers flocked to WindowsXP.
Now, with the imminent release of Vista, Microsoft is betting the entire company; there is no "backup" product to save the day in case the strategy flops, as was Windows2000. Microsoft has put all its eggs in the basket with Vista, and they have worked hard to make sure Vista is something nobody wants. It has only the minimum of improvments while at the same time necessitating obscenely high hardware requirements to make use of those features. Microsoft is also -as this latest development shows- injected their new flagship OS with as many painful ways to restrict the consumer in how he uses the software he has paid for. So not only is it a product nobody needs, not only is it a product nobody wants, but it is also a product that doesn't do anything well. Vista is sure to flop, costing Microsoft billions of dolllars and a significant percentage of their marketshare. Microsoft has even gotten their games division involved; all future Microsoft games will be Vista (DirectX 10) only; when Vista inevitably flops, so will all those games.
And then, when Microsoft is shattered by its own incompetance, that's when Microsoft will swoop in for the kill.*
Devious and cunning. Who says Microsoft doesn't innovate?
* My brain hurts.
It seems to me like it's mostly the HDD or Motherboard that triggers a reactivation. Or reinstalling, which seems to happen all the time at work, as the effin things keep getting corrupt drivers or whatever. :-/ Can't remember. But of course there's always been a huge gap between licensing terms and practise.
Also, there are different rules for OEM XP than retail. Technically (if you read the EULA, which no-one does) OEM editions of XP are forbidden from being moved to new hardware more than 0 times. ie, it's licensed only for the hardware it was sold with. yeak. Or was that Office.
I read the first line of your post, and immediately thought, "Life's too fucking short to have to learn a lot of esoteric commands to do basic stuff in this day and age." I still don't understand you guys...
You forgot the bit about VM's. The EULA forbids the use of a second copy of the same product (under a single purchased license) running on a VM. Since MS does allow this for the higher-end licenses they probably wanted to be clear about where it was not allowed.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I make a shit load of money but not enough to just drop nearly 10 grand on the software you just
listed.....or is it perhaps you use pirated copies?
There is not a single package you listed that a home user would be willing to drop the cash on, it
just ain't happening. The only reason any of that stuff is even popular is because 90% of it in use
is pirated.
Got Code?
Not once, not twice, but thrice!!
Think I'll be sticking with XP. Next opportunity I can, I'm going with a dual-boot OSX/XP machine (because I need Windows for gaming).
What it DOES say is you can't put it on a network store ... the HOME and STARTER versions that have no business being MASS installed from a network location.)
What in the hell are you talking about? No business?
Just this past weekend, I re-did my XP HOME install on my laptop. With the desire never to go through another 12 hour install process, the first thing I did when it was done was image the hard drive to a network store. For the record, XP Home SP1 takes at least 6 reboots to patch, plus hundreds of MB of downloads, plus hours of installation time. Add in a goodly amount of applications and it's the better part of a day.
What, home users aren't allowed Samba servers anymore? Or dd?
if you have a big enough family that you have 5 OTHER users in your house accessing a file or printer on your computer 'at the same time' then you probably need something other than the HOME edition
Bzzt. Wrong. Other than this one single artificial limitation, there's no reason that pwning a whopping 6 computers means you do anything but what the HOME version offers. I've got them spread all over my house, because every few upgrades it's nice to set up a terminal somewhere. I sure as hell have never needed anything beyond a HOME Windows version to accomplish this. Hell, Windows 3.1 allowed this functionality.
Why do you people insist on defending Microsoft's ridiculous software limitations? You know this is just a flag they've set somewhere in the software, right? There isn't actually any reason to do this beyond "we don't think HOME users have any business doing these things".
And you people wonder why some of us become zealots.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
since microsoft changed the OEM lic terms to require new lic w/ mb /proc change the choice between XP pro OEM or Retail was sort of a tough call since if you just ate the higher retail copy price you could move it about to your next build no problem...
.... sigh
but now.....
since they have put similar restrictions on Vista Retail....no reason not to buy the OEM version
it does seem like m$ is going outta their way to piss me off sometimes.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Look people, there is no problem here. Just quit using all microsoft products. Who cares what microsoft does. They don't care about you and are making your life a living hell. So don't stress yourself out over it. Just stop using it. It is that simple. If companies want to pay off bill gates mafia gang. Let them. Not your problem. That doesn't mean that you the consumer should go bankrupt or put up with it. Dump bill and the mafia gang. Very simple. No brainer. Done.
Crippling an Operating System turns away users. And forbidding cheaper Vista on VM is Antitrust issue. VMware lawyers must be drooling over this.
Also, Canonical and Apple people should be happy. With this type of crippling licensing, it will force people to just use Vista for gaming and alternative operating systems such as ubuntu or OSX for mainstream use.
Apple Computer should not limit their OS sales by restricting people from building their own Macs. They need to build a bigger user base and they can't do that by turning away pc builders. They got $129/199 licensing. They can beat Microsoft easily.
\
I love non-technical limitations built into software.
"Why can't I connect this printer?"
"Vista is stupid."
"Why can't I install the operating system?"
"Vista is stupid."
Open source all the way. Where the software always works as well as possible (which nowadays is excellent).
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
I just spent a few minutes plowing through the EULA on MS site, and here's what it said under the "Virtualization" thing:
Vista Home Basic and Premium:
Use with virtualization Technologies. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system
Vista Ultimate:
Use with virtualization Technologies. You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device. If you do so, you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management services or use BitLocker.
The way I read it is as follows: If you have one license of Vista Home, and it's installed on your PC, you can not also install that same license to a virtual machine. If you have Vista Ultimate, you can also install a copy of the same license to a virtual machine. So, if you're a software dev, and want to test your software on different versions of Vista, and you have (for example) an MSDN subscription, you *can* install Vista Home into a VM, as long as it's not loaded on a "real" PC also. You could, however, load your copy of Ultimate into a VM, despite it also being loaded to a physical PC.
As for the "transfer once" clause, sounds to me like it'll be similar to when an upgrader changes his PC with XP, and has to re-activate. First one's free, second one break out the phone, call, and tell the rep you upgraded your PC. Big deal, been there, done that.
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
I've been in 3, that I can remember, class action suits.
(1) Chevy trucks (early 90's) with the gas tank mounted outside the frame. Just like the Pintos of the 70's BOOM!
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get $1000 off the purchase of a new Chevy truck. No thanks.
(2) MS windows/office Price fixing scheme mid 90's
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get something like $20 off the purchase of more MS software. No thanks.
(3) RIAA price fixing scheme more familiar to most
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get $20 to buy more RIAA musak. No thanks.
I was NOT interested in any of these settlements because I decided I no longer wanted to their products, even for free. IMHO in class action suits, only the lawyers win.
Now imagine if MS had to fed off small claims suits from just 10% of buyers. Many corporations operate on a roughly 10% profit margin (MS is an exception to that). Think about it. Class action is merely a way to silence the voice of the complainants and appease the general public.
I'd take MS to court even if it COSTS ME $ to do it. It is a matter of principle. In case you didn't know, in my state you can include the cost of your time you've spent attempting to resolve the issue and lost wages attending court (but no attorney fees). So the only argument left is people too lazy to stand up for their fair use rights. I say F^$K em.
Also to the Best of my knowledge EULA click thrus don't hold much water (SCOTUS has yet to rule on it), especially when you cannot see what you've agreed to until you've entered into a purchase agreement (retail or wholesale). And opened software is usually non-returnable. Can you say pig in a poke?
Who will guard the guards?
what if I want/need to:
- Play games (Tux Racer doesn't count)
- Use Photoshop (don't say Gimp)
- Use 3D Studio Max (yes, there are some alternatives, but 3ds Max is an industry standard)
- Etc
Well, if it's a matter of life-or-death to you, keep eating the shit you're fed, and stop complaining. If you were smart, you'd make the switch without expecting linux to be *the same* as windows, because there's *no need* to offer an inferior product. Most of the happy linux users actually are, in case you missed it, windows power users who are tired of being riped of their time by said windows, and actually like and use linux for what it does better than windows, and find ways around to achieve their work ; and when it comes to advantages over windows, linux delivers. Linux needs a less powerful processor to achieve good performances when compared to a windows box, the memory management is a whole helluva better, and network speed and stability is without comparison. Not enough for you ? Too bad. You've obviously sold your soul to some devils, and now they're claiming it - pay the price and don't complain. All your rant only shows you're just envious, and there's no way this will change until you make the move yourself.
The biggest problem with Linux is that it severely lacks blanket support[...]including solid driver support for many things
That's probably the funniest part. Considering how much support for perfectly good and sane hardware was *dropped* when XP got out, I'm looking forward for Vista because I'm sure garbage cans are going to be full of devices just wainting to be plugged in my linux boxes, just like it was 5 years ago. That's the way I got my scsi scanner, laser printer, and 35mm film scanner. They're old now, time to change, thank you for giving me out your *artificialy obsoleted* hardware.
Sony invented this first. I'm pretty sure they have a well documented and patented process.
Microsoft - driving users to Open Source since 1992 :-)
The drive in my laptop crapped out and i replaced it with a larger drive, ghosted across an image of the old drive before it died and windows didn't so much as flinch.
Six months without Microsoft and loving it! Mac and Linux and I'm not looking back :)
No, Apple coined the term PC--meaning personal computer, a generic term for computers meant to be used by one person at a time, unlike big iron servers which would be used by many people on terminals. What you said is like saying well MS Windows is the most popular OS, so when people say "OS", they must mean MS Windows. Que paso???
If you really want to distinguish IBM compatibles running MS Windows from other PCs, then just call it a "Wintel" or something. Or just the hardware, maybe IA32 systems, or x86 systems if you don't think they'll get the first one (which is more correct)
Obviously the Mac IA32 systems (they have those now?) essentialy should work the same (PCI bus and such, right?), so I don't think they need that different a title anyway. If you can slap in the same cards and use the same binaries if they have the same OS installed, then an IA32 system is an IA32 system.
Simply put, the reason MS doesn't want folks running DRM inside a virtual machine is because the VM host OS becomes a "hole" (like the so-called "analog hole") through which you can run recorders and whatnot while Vista goes on blissfully unaware of the fact that its DRM is a joke. What sense is a DRM lockdown when you can run everything Vista produces through your ALSA stack and LAME encode the resultant output to a DRM-free format? This move is *expected* because Vista has been designed from the ground up as a proprietary lockdown for the home computer and all data transfers. But it's hardly an example of fascism.
It's sheer desperation.
Since virtual computing is the biggest advance in microcomputing since the ISA bus, we can clearly see exactly where Vista DRM is going to wind up. Buried under the juggernaut, bitch. This is beyond machine gunning themselves in the foot, Microsoft has shoved a hand grenade up their arse by even drawing attention to the issue.
So all that DRM work (and the tell-tale delay its caused) for nothing, and because of a late release and an unexpected rise in virtual computing technologies, including *hardware* support for virtualization (god bless XEN 3), at least 90% of Vista's promise, for the powers that are *really* driving Vista, is an utter wash. Microsoft is going to have to *accept* virtual computing, and all they can do is try to place an artificial price barrier on it by limiting what you can do with the Home Editions' EULA.
Unless virtualization is actually made illegal in an amendment to the DMCA, or collusion with Intel makes the VT-x feature set a restricted, high-cost feature, the Vista DRM lockdown is officially moot. I don't see either in my scratched up crystal ball, do you?
-Toro
If you look at the numbers, MS could practically sell nothing, reduce staff, and still exist in 2015. They also do a lot more than sell Windows, although that is the real money maker. Whilst I am not happy at all with Vista, I am under no delusion that MS will vanish in less than a decade.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
I work for a major California university and this discussion has come up several times amone the technical support coordinators. Sadly, being a state university our current desktop computers are not capable of fulling running Vista. Most will need replacement. ... well maybe not that but web browsing). The business license costs about $400 last time I looked... and with the costs of the new systems we would have to purchase.
However since the limited licenses will not fly (speaking for the department I work for) for their limitations and after reading all the DRM and anti pirating features. And reflecting on how well Windows has worked in the past (Envisioning calls from irate professors and staff here as they can only play solitare
Well to make a long story short, we have decided it would be cheaper and easier on everyone to go Mac and we will update with 10.5.
I guess the other thing that made up my mind was the proof that MS lied about financially supporting the linux lawsuits. I know MS was not an honest company... and has fewer ethics than a dockside whore... but it did make me wonder if there are features to this new windows that were not "announced" since it is intrusive in other ways.
To make a parallel with the first "off topic" post, if people are using MS Win this is because they want it. Their unwillingness and laziness to look around push them in the arms of McDo, KFC or MSFT.
Go on diet, install Linux or FreeBSD or whatever healthy system on your PC.
Microsoft is a business. It is not their goal, necesarily, to make a small percentage (i.e. the computer nerds) happy, it is their goal to make as much money as possible. This is not evil, corrupt, or n00bish. This is business.
Have any of you actually read the EULAs of software you use recently? You'll find, if you read close enough, that many of the things you take for granted are not explicitly allowed by the EULA, or are expressly forbidden but in no way enforced. These new changes to Windows Vista are not necesarily something that will change the way we use our operating systems. For example, software like Norton, PC-Cillin, Spysweeper... they all come with one license, and their EULA states they are to be installed on only one computer. However, as far as my knowledge permits, there is no real system of stopping subsequent installations of the software, even with identical product keys.
Case in point, this entire torrent of comments and outcries is little more than gnat to Microsoft. The vast majority of XP Home users do not own 5 computers, do not swap out motherboards and video cards for fun, and certainly don't emulate OS's on a common basis. So, why would these users suddenly want all these features in Vista Home Basic?
90% of the people upgrading to Vista won't even know these "limitations" exist.
5 has been the limit for non-server editions of Microsoft's OSes forever. It doesn't mean that only 5 devices can be "approved" to talk to your computer (the way Apple does with the 5 computers that can play iTS purchases,) it's that only 5 devices can talk to the PC at the same time. (Or, in more correct computer-speak, only 5 inbound connections can be open per port.) This has long been a limitation of MS' non-server OSes.
The others, though, are new, and disturbing.
As for people saying "Isn't this just the OEM license?" about the transfers. No, it's not. OEM licenses have always been NO transfers. (i.e. If you buy a Dell, but never boot into Windows, and install Linux on it, that license STILL isn't legal to install on another computer. That license is restricted to that one Dell forever.) This has even been true for the 'white-box OEM' versions that you can often get from local computer stores or online without buying a new computer (I've heard of one online source that 'sells' you an old Pentium or 486 for one cent to make it a pseudo-legal selling of the OEM copy of Windows. Technically, to be legal, you would have to install the copy of Windows on a computer containing THAT chip.) The retail versions, though, have allowed transferring the license to another machine indefinitely. Upgrade editions have also been limited in that they can only be installed on top of a legally licensed copy of Windows. If THAT copy was an OEM that doesn't allow transfers, then the upgrade is likewise locked to the same machine. If it was an upgrade of a full retail edition that allows transfers, then in order to transfer the upgrade, you had to include the original full retail one that you were upgrading 'from' as well.
Now, the "full retail" version can only be transferred once. What makes a computer a computer, though? Tough call. People who are constantly upgrading individual parts would probably count as 'one computer' even after having upgraded every part, as long as it is the same 'initial install'. (i.e. if/when they got to upgrading the hard drive, they cloned it then erased the original, so that it was the same 'install' of Windows.) But if the computer changes enough to trigger a re-activation more than once, you'll probably have to talk to a drone at the activation center to explain yourself. (As I have had to do on more than one occassion.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Personally, I've changed my opinion on Microsoft. I was thinking of buying Vista SP1 or 2, just as a testing platform. But I won't be doing that now, as I build my own boxes, and change motherboards now and again.
But that's not really the mind-changing bit. This next bit is.
I think Apple would love to be a hardware company until the heat death of the universe, and would love to be able to go back to charging premiums for the gear. They have a responsibility to their investors to do it, if they can. Which means that if MS were to fold up, innexpensive commodity hardware could evaporate shortly afterward.
So right now, I'm in a sweet spot. I run an OS (Linux) that works extremely well for me (but I'm not a gamer), on several boxes built from very cost effective hardware. Long live Microsoft!
Sorry to hear all the cries of woe from the Microsoft tribe, or those who aren't part of the tribe, but have to use it at work, etc. But for the rest of, having Microsoft around may actually be a Good Thing. I just wish they'd sort out their stand on software patents. Love them in Europe, a slight sign of wavering in the US.
If they'd just decide against supporting software patents, I'd definitely call having them around a Good Thing. As long as I didn't have to actually run their software, anyway.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
I am not surprised at all that "they" are making up shit to discredit it. This is a common practice among bigots of all kinds - racial, religious, and these days, OS bigots. Just a fact of life, sadly. It is a very common and almost required practice of the propagandist. Joseph Goebbles would be very proud.
Personally, I found the year 2000 EULA to be sufficiently bad that I no longer run MSWind. Eventually they'll convince more people.
P.S.: I don't care whether the terms are new or not. I'd never noticed them before. If I remember them, I'll include them among the reasons that a person should not use MS software. (Generally, however, I don't get this far down the list before they are already convinced one way or the other.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Whatever happened to the
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It works fine. If you read the fine print carefully, you will find it is not actually restricted.
:)
And I have done this - I was fully expected (and dreading) to pay the MS tax, but it activated without issue.
One of the few times I have done an upgrade and not spent hours swearing about microsoft - I even had mild warm fuzzies for them for a day.
Then I went back to trying to something useful
Pick me, I'm clean
Well, why not dual-boot Vista (the cheapest one) for games, and use *nix for everything else?
Because whenever a new game comes out requiring better hardware, or y'know, my computer just gets too old, I'll have to buy a new Vista license. Unfortunately I don't know if I have any choice in the matter. I'm starting to think any company that decides to drop support for XP will have to do without my money. That makes me very sad.
Or why not get Xbox or another dedicated appliance for games and leave personal computers for serious stuff?
Because not all games out on PC come out on Xbox. There are more games I want on a computer (which serves more then one purpose) then Xbox (which serves a single purpose).
ReactOS is a Windows clone, and free to download.
To the point that it, "has an identical start menu / quick launch / control panel to vanilla WinXP."
If you think you want this, how can you even imagine a Mac?
It's just as alien to the Windows Way as Linux is.
Seriously, if you want something identical to Windows, then you should stay with Windows.
If you don't like the price, I can't help you there.
I've tried linux but i'm a mechanic in life not a CS major I don't have the time to learn how to use it i just want it to work.
Linux works fine, but you do have to learn how it works. It's the same with a Mac. You say you are a mechanic not a CS Major. Okay, so what would you have to say to someone who has only ever driven a European (right-hand drive) manually shifted 5 ton truck who sits in a left-hand drive automatically shifted Corvette for the first time, and says "I'm a CS Major (or whatever) not a mechanic. I don't have the time to learn how to use it i just want it to work."
It's really quite similar.
Only if you define better off as "buying a license every time you do a major computer upgrade."
I'd like to know exactly what's going on around there.
:)
:) gotta get some sleep... Laters all
They have the most resources.
They have the largest user base.
They have the most insane desire to extort more cash than necessary from everyone.
WHY?
Personally... I'm working a little bit at a time now to prevent having to worry about all that.
It's an excellent opportunity for anyone that's serious about working from home and tired of
all the crap out there.
If you've ever wanted to _really_ help people and get paid well in the process...
drop a request to me at slashdot_honestwealth at yahoo mail.
I'd hate to have anyone who's a self motivator miss out on this.
Meanwhile I'll continue to only use windoze for the cheapo laserjet I purchased.
(at least until I can get it to work under linux)
Anyone who knows how to set up a konica-minolta PagePro1400w and has a quick set of steps
for fedora5.. that would be handy. It's running off of a via usb-pci card as the on-board
usb on this board crapped out recently hehehehe.
Anyway.
For enterprises wishing to deploy VMware Virtual Desktop Intrastructure this means they will have to use the more expensive licenses.
Does the MSDN subscription license overide the Home licensing so that a developer can perform compatibility tests with VMware Infrastructure?
You forgot the bit about VM's. The EULA forbids the use of a second copy of the same product (under a single purchased license) running on a VM. Since MS does allow this for the higher-end licenses they probably wanted to be clear about where it was not allowed.
I do agree the non-VM part is strange, and think MS should explain this further, as I know alot of technical support companies use VM technology to host 'lower' end versions of Windows so they are testing in the same environment as the client.
I also know of several companies that have been working with Microsoft that have been using the Home Basic and other versions in VMWare and VirtualPC environments, with MS's knowledge and support. This is why this part gives me pause, becaue if it was forbidden, MS would not have been letting developers and companies run these versions in a VM environment even during the testing cycle.
I wonder if this is more about official support and MS having the ability to deny support to an individual that only runs in a VM, because MS can't control the VM hardware emulation layers.
But again, who knows and does seem strange.
Two clauses, are they still there?
The first let you install on your portable machine (laptop) under the license
The second let you get a refund if you didn't want to use the product...
Are these still both in the EULA?
I don't see that it is mentioned anywhere if this is the OEM License or the Retail License. With prior OEM Licenses, we could not install that copy/key onto another machine because they were effectivly sold as wholesale blocks intended for that machine only. If this is the Retail License then there will be severe backlash, but if this is about an OEM License, then it is better for the end user.
What I find most amazing is how computers and technology have gone from
"Yesterday you couldn't do this and that, but with this new machine you can do both, and more!"
to
"Yesterday you could do this and that, but if you upgrade to the latest version we're no longer allowing you to".
Doesn't anyone find this a bit disturbing?
Blog -
It's not about what I believe, it's not about what I think. You made a factually incorrect statement while bitching about the EULA, I corrected you. If you've already read it once then I'm not sure how you missed the clearly typed information that contradicted you. It's in the GP if you'd like to see it.
You keep making that error, too, because you asked me "do you believe it's forbidden?" What part of "you may use the software only as expressly permitted" is unclear? Or "Microsoft reserves all other rights?" It's an EULA; it's legalese. This is what lawyers use to cover their asses in court. The answer to your question, which is printed in the EULA, is as clear and encompassing as it gets.
Seriously, who modded this guy insightful? He read the EULA, decided its most clear passages on what rights are permitted and denied magically does not apply to him. It's not insightful for someone to say "Thanks for the teacup!" when you've handed them a 2x4.
I didn't say that the EULA made any sense, at all, or that it was enforceable, or that Microsoft would ever necessarily enforce any of the terms of the agreement. I did not say I agree with it. I did not do anything except show you how your argument, based as it was, did not hold up to scrutiny
Typically, if you're doing that sort of work, you have a MSDN or similar agreement that overrides the EULA. MSDN allows you to install any of the OS's in virtual machines for testing.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
In the circles I work in, "storage device" means something rather different to "hard drive". A "storage device" would be something like a NAS or a SAN - a very different thing indeed to the hdd in your PC.
Suddenly, the implied meaning changes from "you can't store ISOs on your PC!" to "you can't store the Vista ISO for the Home editions on a network storage device", which is totally, totally different.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
So I cannot run Vista in the Parallels virtual environment on my Intel Mac; I have to use dual-boot? How inconvenient! Is that to make sure that users don't defect to Apple too quickly? Because I have to tell you, it's nice to run in Mac OS X all the time, and just fire up a virtual machine for the occasional Windows-only app. Rebooting is a heck more tedious.
Of course, I suspect that Microsoft's real reason for this is to make sure that enterprises cannot get the benefit of virtualization without paying Microsoft an extra fee (by buying the unencumbered version).
Microsoft's changed a lot over the last few years. In the early to mid 1990's, there were a lot of occasions when Microsoft was openly stating that it was okay to install its applications in multiple places, such as at home and at work, without paying for a second copy. The only catch was that it was only running in one location at a time. It was perfectly okay to install an application (or OS) on a new PC, as long as it wouldn't run on the old PC any more. Backup copies? Sure, in fact they probably recommended it.
This was when the people at Microsoft were probably thinking a lot more philosophically about what intellectual property actually was, including how they'd like to be treated when they bought software. ie. They were licensing it to a person for use forever. Maybe this was when Microsoft still had a lot more people at the top who were actually interested in the software development, instead of simply generic managers who want to run a business in a generic make-money way. The irony is that even then, we thought it was a bit totalitarian, but compared with today it was very generous.
Since the more recent management has worked its way into the fold, Microsoft has changed to a much more business-oriented commercial approach, which seems to be more interested in sucking as much from the market as is possible, instead of treating it with respect. Instead of licensing software to people, it's being chained to specific PC's so it can't be re-used anywhere else. If a person wants to use it in additional places, they have to pay for the same thing over and over again. I find it irritating that they're claiming it's all because of piracy. Perhaps it prevents some piracy, but nearly all the time, these restrictions seem to also ensure that people have to keep re-purchasing the same thing, whether it's retail or OEM, instead of just re-using the same software on new (or alternative) PC's.
The frustrating part is that many people I know see absolutely no alternative to Microsoft, because practically there isn't much. "The Microsoft way" of doing things gets treated more and more as if it's normal, irrespective of how totalitarian and unfair it really is, simply because no other methods are above the radar to compare it with.
I think what the license says is that if you own Vista Business/Pro/Ultimate, you can run one copy on a real machine and a second copy (from the one licence) in a VM. But, if you own Vista Home, you would need to purchase a second licence for it if you want to run one copy on a real machine and one in a VM.
So they advertise endless possibilities which you can't do. That will push away more and more people.
I run XP in a virtual machine since I don't bother to give it an on partition on my laptop. I don't bother to stop Linux to do a few tasks I can't do on Linux the way I would like to do (for processing my raw pictures the way Nikon Capture can). So for what reason do I need an operating system like Vista? To let me tell what I can't do? No thanks.
Why would anybody upgrade to Vista? For: Fancy GUI* (* for high end machines who bought the high-end vista and haven't had a false positive for piracy) Against: Can't do this Can't do that Can't do anything All we seem to hear about Vista is things you CAN'T do in the new version. They should change the name to Windows DRM.
So what you're saying is that you don't care what the actual limitations are, or what the intent of the authors of the documement is, or how the company itself would interpret the document, or what they might plan on enforcing. You only care about a single sentence in a 30 page document that appears to contradict me, even though you agree that if it does it wasn't their intent and would never be enforced? Do you actually think you're contributing anything by being so pendatic?
+1, Burn.
Ignore this signature. By order.
You may not install unsigned kernel drivers on Vista 64.
Vista has the ability to mark a process as "protected". Such processes cannot be tampered with by anything, regardless of privilege level. The only right granted to administrators to such processes are "terminate" and "set priority". The kernel, in ci.dll ("Code Integrity"), continuously hashes the code pages of all such protected user processes. If any page changes, the kernel immediately bugchecks. This mechanism is severely obfuscated so as to make it difficult to work around. The mechanism has absolutely no value to preventing malware; in fact, it gives an opportunity for malware to hide if they can get around the digital signature requirements.
If this isn't DRM, what is?
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
For those of you who modded me troll (seems obvious that the bias here would cause that), you have to be kidding. LOTS of people have the complaints that I have when they try linux.
For those of you who doubt the authenticity of my aborted Linux attempts:
I just tried Ubuntu, Ultimate Linux, and Fedora about 6 months ago. I had huge problems with all of them, and never found satisfactory solutions either by hunting, F1, wikipedia, or the forums.
For those of you who don't get my motives:
I like FOSS. I like the idea behind it (both political and as far as code quality and peer review), and nearly every app I use in windows is FOSS. As an admin for many computers, my own included, but also about 50+ family and friends, as well as some professional work on occasion, I've switched 100% of users to Firefox. I've switched about 80% of users to Thunderbird. About 50% use Gimp now, and the only WYSIWYG web people I know are on Nvu. I've also installed Gaim, GSview, Utorrent, Open Office, Abiword, and dozens of other FOSS games and apps (and Filezilla, which is great, can't go unmentioned).
I'm very disappointed not to have a FOSS audio program to replace windows. I'm also very disappointed in the FOSS alternative to Nero, although I see them getting closer. As somebody who does a LOT of music stuff, I'm also bummed that audacity doesn't really hold a candle to a lot of commercial alternatives, and there isn't even a SHITTY replacement for Sibelius (which strikes me as really odd. What program would be easier to write than a Sibelius clone?!?!).
Now given that most of my user base (and myself) are mostly FOSS, it would be VERY NICE to have a whole FOSS distro that I could just quickly install with some automated installer CD (a la TinyXP).
The simple fact is: I can't. I can't even think about it. I would lose all credibility with the people I help by switching any one of them to Linux. There is no reasonably good version of Linux for the home user yet. Not that I've seen. I may try the next version of OpenSUSE, as it shows a lot of promise, but if the control panel/menu system is the least bit different from windows, and wine isn't easily installed:
It's going right on the trash heap along with:
Red Hat
Fedora
Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Koraraa
Mandriva
Gentoo
Debian
Ultimate Linux
and any other version that refuses to KISS for ME and MY ENTIRE FAMILY AND FRIEND CIRCLE.
I think it's funny that so many of my responses seemed to so clearly echo the arrogant and immature reference that I made in my initial post. Another thing against Linux is what a bunch of assholes some of you Linux people are. I JUST WANT IT TO WORK, ASSHOLE.
And no, it's not like driving an automatic when you're used to a stick. It's way, WAY stupider than that. It's like taking the concept of steering wheel/gas/brakes that everyone has used and known for 100 years, and replacing it with shitty flight sim controls. Would somebody PLEASE make a linux distro that has a steering/gas/brake system that myself and all my friends can reliably use without RTFM?!? IS IT REALLY THAT FRIGGIN HARD?!?
rhY
PS ReactOS is a cool idea. Some of the lurkers in the forums there have a very similar "linux asshole" type of attitude though, and over all I don't see it being a really usable alternative to any OS for quite some time. Furthermore, I don't think it will have some of the huge advantages that Linux already has in stability and speed. If it does get further along though, I do see it dominating both Linux and Windows. It's got a long uphill battle though at this point, obviously.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
shit, I meant winamp when I said windows in paragraph 6. My bad.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Most of the facts (correct or not) were taken from Ed Bott's blog or Techweb.
So if you accuse someone of overactive imagination, it would have to be them.
C - the footgun of programming languages
This software is not allowed to be installed on any computer.
Your credit card will be billed monthly.
I don't like software piracy, and I have bough licenses for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP (x2) legitemately, but I'll be f'd in the A before I pay good money for this piece of trash. If it becomes a necessity to upgrade to Vista I'll be using a VLK copy.
I call it the Windows Not Genuine Advantage.
It's trivially easy to prevent Intel's VT from being able to emulate your OS. There's likely a way to detect the VM based on this. Just put the CPU into so-called unreal mode, because Intel's virtualization cannot handle it.
Unlike Intel, AMD's virtualization supports real mode and the segment descriptor cache holding nonstandard values.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Since there is no clause in the license that says it is time-limited, I'd expect a class action lawsuit to happen. And the users might win.
Personally, I still prefer to avoid the hassle altogether and stick to Win2000. And when WINE is mature enough someday, Linux.
C - the footgun of programming languages
because all the coolest games yet to be released are going to require DirectX 10. You geeks and gamers out there spend a lot of money on the latest graphics hardware, and you want to see those geometry shaders at work, right?
Microsoft has played it's cards well.
assignment != equality != identity
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." - Princess Leia
Just you're average nitpicker.
LOL VISTA SUCKS
Is it just me? Or does it really seem like Microsoft is just absolutely bound and determined to blow their foot right off??? Seriously. Some of the incredibly bone-headed pronouncements and "innovations" that have been coming out of Redmond of late are just mind-boggling stupid. Is Microsoft REALLY trying to tank their core business? Are they REALLY trying to screw the pooch? Are they REALLY trying to piss people off to the point that they stop buying MS's operating systems (cough) and office applications? All of their turning of screws and attacks on piracy seem to be inciting people ever more to use open systems where you don't have to worry about how many times you re-install the os... or even if you install the os a whole bunch of times on lots of systems at the same time... or if you sell the computer with the os on it... And you don't have to worry about little dastardly programs running in the background sneakily phoning home to tattle on you... or check up on you... or report things about you that you'd rather keep to yourself.... Open systems that don't require "activation" or any stupid shit like that.
I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft but lately my job has been requiring me to come up to speed on a lot of its stuff (windows server, miis, mssql, etc) so I've been slogging my way through learning all about this crap-- and just being blown away and amazed-- just stupified-- at how paranoid, locked-down and complicated it is just to set up and install microsoft's stuff anymore. And why on earth would I __PICK__ the stuff in the first place??? The only reason I'm using it is because I'm practically being forced to in order to keep my job (and I like where I work Microsoft notwithstanding). Open systems can do practically everything that we're using Microsoft for, and it can do it more easily, cheaper, and without all the byzantine bullshit and flaming hoops that Microsoft makes me jump through _just to install the stuff_ --- I haven't even _started_ to use it yet.
Are they _REALLY_ that stupid??? I just don't get it. Are they TRYING to piss people off??? Are they TRYING to lose business??? Are they REALLY so blind, narrow-minded and sanctimoneous that they think people won't switch??? Or that there aren't other legitimate offerings out there??? Or that other offerings won't come to the forefront to fill the vacuum???
I just don't get it. Can anybody explain it to me? Seriously.
What about gamers? People who change hardware more than underwear and mostly run Windows?
;-)). More seriously it could be a good idea if the gamers' world insists on having more games on Linux or MacOSX (even if the Mac should permit a more evolutive GPU chipset integration...)
MjM
They can buy a PlaySation 3
The Home versions are limited to 5 'concurrent' connections. Which seems quite reasonable, because if you have a big enough family that you have 5 OTHER users in your house accessing a file or printer on your computer 'at the same time' then you probably need something other than the HOME edition.
Yeah, like contraception.
I have some little experience with fairly draconian licenses in my time. I was quite careful to stay perfectly legal and still got nastygrams. Let me tell you, it is very disturbing to find out that the chief counsels of Microsoft and Apple have been discussing you.
... maybe ISO's can't be copied? I wonder just exactly how that was implemented? Is it a kludge just looking for filenames named "*.iso" ? That's certainly easy enough to workaround. Several solutions suggest themselves immediately, including something as dumb as using "filename.isi".
... maybe we'll find a way to muddle through. I think a lot of Windows people muddle through with third party utilities. (Winzip seems to be essential, for example).
... there's a restriction on the number of times the OS can be installed, down to one?
This new EULA seems to me the work of attorneys playing "let's see how far we can sneak it" and actually thinking it's a good idea.
However:
There seems to a law of nature that no license can be written that a reasonably clever person cannot work around. People need to have the requisite qualities of the old-school hacker: curiosity, envelope-pushing, and a feeling that information likes to be free. Before the Web it was harder to swap information, but the power of investigating things together seems to increase as the square of the people doing it.
Microsoft appears to be irritating a number of people, and that just motivates people to learn all sorts of interesting things.
So
My point is, instead of saying, oh doom, we shall all be forced to live with this, or, this will be the thing that finally forces everyone to Linux
So
I think that is not likely to stand.That's probably going to overwhelm their phone bank with irritated customers. It would be amusing if same customers started asking for refunds. For example, if I charged my OS purchase on my "worry free" Mastercard, can I apply to Mastercard for a refund that this is a "lemon" OS? Any car that failed once, then died for good, would pass the "lemon" test. Let Mastercard extract the money back from Microsoft.
Imagine what a nightmare this is going to be for repair shops. Replace the hard disk or motherboard, the Microsoft OS will not transfer, and they are going to try to pop the customer for a new OS? I don't think so.
I would imagine in the hacker talent base there are people who know _precisely_ how Microsoft hashes an ID for a machine. The hard disk info and the MAC address of the Ethernet adaptor are a big part of the uniqueness hash (that came to me from Microsoft tech support). Much is known of this process. I would imagine that a bit more investigation will tend to happen. And, maybe, we should look into registering by real slow mail. Costs far more time and money to process those.
I would also imagine there are people who know a very great deal about distribution CD's, and what makes, as a hypothetical example, a Microsoft distribution CD "unique" among CD. Should Microsoft go on with this, it looks to me that such knowledge will become quite in demand.
I think Bill Gates has completely forgotten -- or was never in touch with -- the sheer power of a number of irritated people working on fun little hobbyist projects.
I've seen it in action and am awed by it.
Again, I am commenting on what I see almost as a natural law -- when people throw restrictions on computers, it seems that a balance occurs. Other people restore the functionality that was taken away.
All of this is my personal opinion.
-- thanks,
David Small
It is common practice, both in hardware and in software, to develop just One, completely full-featured version of the product in order to cut cost, and sell 'crippled' versions at a lower price. They cripple your version, so that they can charge a business slightly more for a less crippled version, and enterprises an awful lot more for full featured versions. This process is much more cost effective than developing separate Basic- Home- Business- and Ultimate product lines.
Alternatively, they could sell only the 'Ultimate' version of the product at the cost necessary for breaking even in a certain amount of time. Enterprises would see their costs decrease dramatically, and home users wouldn't be able to afford the product.
If you don't like this practice, by all means use Linux, so that you, and only you, get to decide what features you enable.
I upgraded my machine, as i do often because i build them and MS office decided that i had pirated it and it stopped.
NO EMAIL!!!?!?! it was all waiting for me upon a new license.
So i called my lawyers and got them reading the EULA. What we discovered was that Microsoft does not specify exactly which hardware you can or cannot change and how many times you can or cannot chage that hardware.
So I called their head office in our country (spoke to someone important) and let them know that i will be suing them for loss of productivity...
They immediately sent me a brand new package, couriered to my door and she told me they new that this would start happening...
So! There you have it.
Legally threaten them, it has worked for me so far.
"You could look at BitLocker as anti-Linux because it frustrates dual boot,", Bruce Schneier
davecb5620@gmail.com
This is yet another example of Windows licensing gone out of control.
I run Linux on a bootable external USB HD. The whole OS and all my data are on there. I take it to work and boot off the drive and am in my familiar environment. At the end of the day, I take the HD home and can boot my laptop at home from the same HD, starting me up in exactly the same environment - all my editor settings, favorite buttons, bookmarks, email - it's all there, because the whole system is on removable media. Extremely convenient.
It's a neat idea, isn't it? Think about it. Your "computer" then becomes an interchangeable black box that provides processing power. Your pluggable, bootable HD becomes the brains that control the processing box. Plug your brains into any box, and you're in "your system" anywhere, anytime.
Now, have you ever tried that with Windows? Microsoft has the gall to claim "external HD's are for backups. They are not intended for installing an OS." (Taken from a MS forum where people asked about installing windows on external drives.) Of course, with Windows, that's true, because they don't want to allow you th flexibility of taking your work environment with you. Windows disables then enables USB drivers during boot, making booting from USB impossible by default. Enterprising individuals have hacked Windows so it can boot from an external HD. But now, Windows is getting even more draconian with artificially imposed dependencies on the computer it's connected to.
An OS is not installed to a computer; it's installed to rewritable media. Nowadays, rewritable media is removable, and Microsoft fears this, because it gives you, not them, physical control over the software you bought.
So you're saying that it's illegal to run Quake because it's not specifically mentioned in the EULA.
It's illegal to change your password because it is not specifically mentioned in the EULA.
It's illegal to send an email, etc..
The sentence you quote *cannot* be an all-encompassing statement. If they tried that it would be struck down by the first court that looked at it. It's either limited by other statements or it's meaningless nonsense.
>> Originally the term PC meant Personal Computer, until IBM named there personal computer a PC. Sort of like Microsoft naming their operating system Windows.
Uh, don't you mean sorta like Microsoft naming their Windows an "Operating System"?
Just out of curiosity (and I'm asking 'cause I don't know)-- how many times HAS Microsoft's EULA been challenged in court? What were the outcomes? Has anybody actually legally challenged any of it? Or is it all academic since its never been scrutinized in open court?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Microsoft is probably thinking:
A) Oh what a silly mistake, let's change the rule to one new license per year (or similar).
B) This is just a rule for normal honest people. Honest people don't switch motherboards. The motherboard-switching people are all gamers and pirates who will steal our OS however we set the rules.
Vista's new EULA is not 58 pages, its two sentences.
"You are allowed to do anything that provides us with maximum proffit. Anything that potentially deprives us of even a penny that we might otherwise get from you, you agreee not to do."
(AGREE) / (DISAGREE)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The thing that amuses me most is that they've actually gone to great effort to implement these artificial restrictions, so really the limited versions should cost more than the versions without these limitations: the cost of production was clearly higher.
Provided physical machines implement the virtual hardware environment, they ARE virtual machines.
The licence agreement is admirably clear in setting out its rather less admirable provisions.
1. If you are the first-time buyer, you may transfer the software to a new physical device (e.g. PC or motherboard) once, and once only. After that: you'll need to buy a new licence (ka-ching!) or the validation system will shut you down.
2. If you are the first-time buyer, you may transfer the software to a third party, either installed on your PC or (provided you uninstall) separately from it. If you have acquired the software this way, then you are not permitted to make a further transfer. In other words: it will not be possible to resell a PC that you have purchased secondhand, unless you or the purchaser relicense or uninstall Vista. Nice, eh? (The only good news here is that this aspect may be more difficult to police, as compared with installation on a new device, where validation will allow MS to enforce the licence restrictions.)
3. The virtualisation licence for Ultimate is not an additional licence. You are still only allowed to have one instance of Ultimate installed on the physical device; it is simply that the Ultimate licence allows this instance to be contained within a VM run under a separately-licensed OS. Plus, the VM installation of Ultimate is crippled so that you can't run DRMed material on there - presumably to stop this being a circumvention route, but having the effect of preventing people from running Ultimate as a VM on their Macs (or Linux boxen) to access DRMed material that is unplayable on a non-Windows system.
All I can say is, I'm sticking to Debian. If the worst idiocy I have to put up with is calling Firefox "Iceweasel", then that's a price worth paying compared with this insane control-freakery.
There's a lot of inevitable talk of how this is where Linux should take over on the desktop etc. And believe me, I do long for the day that it happens. Assuming the truth hasn't been bent somewhat by the biased reporting of Slashdot, this is an absolutely terrible move by Microsoft and one that will cause most entheusiasts to either pirate the OS or switch to the Mac or Linux.
:)
But Linux (by 'Linux' I mean the people developing and promoting it too) has a lot of growing up to do if you expect it to take over on the desktop.
I've studied HCI and know the philosphies behind it and completely believe it. Most computer users are not geeks or politicians. They don't care how their software works. They don't care about the political reasoning behind whatever's inconveniencing them or stopping them from playing their DVD or whatever. They don't care that there are 5000 different distros with different versions of GTK+ and GLIBC and the developer of their app can't be expected to maintain packages for them all. They don't want to hear "you can't use x because its license is incompatible with y". They don't even want to hear "you can't use x because it's illegal", generally speaking. Heck, they don't even care about the "well, it's free, what do you damn well expect?!" argument (they'd sooner pay for something better). They just want to install a piece of software and have it running and working in the shortest possible space of time in the easiest way they can. Period. End of story. The rest of it is the developers' problem, not theirs.
IMO, until the Linux advocates finally understand this, Linux is not going to get far past its 3%-or-so share on the desktop.
What's more it's also a victim of its own diversity. When you think about it, it's not one OS with a 3% share. It's mostly 3 OSes (Mandrake, SuSE and Ubuntu) with just under a 1% share and a shedload of smaller ones (Fedora, Gentoo etc) with 0.01% shares. In a sense, Linux is competing against itself! It wouldn't be so bad if they were compatible, but because of differing desktop environments and library versions and whatnot they're like completely different OSes and have to be supported separately - a complete nightmare for developers.
I'm willing to bet that a large chunk of people would rather just turn a blind eye to the license agreement or even just out-and-out pirate it, rather than mess around with Linux as it currently stands. It's still not even easy to install software; okay, it's fanstastic when "apt-get foo" works. But what about when it's a non-mainstream piece of software that doesn't have a binary package for that distro? What about when someone did maintain a package at version 0.3, but now you need 1.2 in order to get your new camera working? Suddenly you're sunk, you either switch to a distro that has a recent version of it (possibly losing something else) or learn how to compile - either way, I refer you back to the HCI paragraph. It's just not acceptable.
Now, Ubuntu has hit the nail right on the head. They get the idea. They even seem to be marketing it as an OS in its own right, rather than just "another Linux". If it continues gaining ground and popularity the way it has been doing, there *is* hope, although it needs a bit more polish before I'd call it acceptable (e.g. if it misdetects the capabilities of your monitor, you still have to hack xorg.conf manually) but it's completely on the right track and the right philosophy.
If Google buy Ubuntu, and I think that's a reasonably likely scenario, I'd put money on it gaining an incredible desktop share. It'd give the Linux base some proper direction, and some real professional backing by someone who wants to see it succeed on the desktop, which is *exactly* what it needs.
Or you could keep Linux as an OS by geeks, for geeks. A lot of people would rather see that happen. In which case, Linux in general is on completely the right track
"You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'"
What is this going to do to the millions of companies that rely on this for a QA methodology? MS is saying that if they are testing their new code and it fucks up the OS, they need to re-install from scratch, because they are not allowed to run Vista Home in a VM?
How utterly retarded.
And no, in a real QA environment, it is not a simple matter of buying a Vista Office license, because that OS is not wwhat the home user will likely be running so it's not where the application should be tested.
Bwah-ha, ha-ha-ha, oh lordie ha ha ha ha ha. H-huh. Huh. Tee-hee.
So, I guess it'll be servings of Linux and Mac OS X for all, then? See you on the other side!
These stories are free but worth money.
VM marginally increases support costs due to incompatibilities
VM decreases support costs -- no matter what kind of hardware you have, the guest OS will see a BusLogic or LSI Logic SCSI adapter; it will also see only one type of display device, one type of keyboard, mouse, CD ROM, network device and so on.
This sounds like garbage...I bet they're talking about the OEM license, just like the XP license, you can only reinstall/reactivate one time. The retail you can do it as much as you want.
Microsoft is clearly missing the mark. As Linux gains more and more acceptance and greater flexibility, Microsoft is making it increasingly harder for consumers to use their products. The greater limitations you place on consumers, the more you force their hand to alternatives. Microsoft should immediately do away with multiple versions of Vista and release one version. Allow the consumer to load or unload whatever pieces they like and drop the price to say $99 a licence. At $99 a license, you still have plenty of money left over to buy a good virus scanner, anti-spyware, etc. etc. ( Yes, I'm being facetious. ) I'm hell bent on paying $300+ for Vista when my newest commodity desktop costs merely $380 and OpenSUSE is a free download.
Just my 2 cents.
As a Linux user I haven't used Photoshop all that much, and so when I do use it I find it a little awkward and clumsy to use. However, as a longtime linux user I _have_ used Gimp quite a bit (I did web applications projects for 5+ years before I got my current job) so I am extremely familiar with its interface, tools and general methodology... and I will quite LOUDLY and VOCALLY state that it SUCKS! (DID YOU HEAR THAT GIMP-GUYS??? IT SUCKS!!!) I find it very counter-intuitive in most areas, though its reasonably useful in its basic mode. If you just want to open a picture, resize it, do some color adjustments or add a caption, gimp works pretty well for that. And its layering isn't all that bad. But when you want more-- it gets complicated and confusing-- and some dialogs/tools have persistant states and some don't and which do and which don't is very inconsistent-- and 9 times out of 10 when there is a script-foo plugin I want to use, it crashes, does something irreversibly horrible and ugly to my image, or has incredibly cryptic controls that make no sense whatsoever (has anybody ever heard of DOCS?? They're really cool-- you can READ THEM and LEARN STUFF from them--- why don't they MAKE some for these plugins???) Using gimp is, in a word, E-X-A-S-P-E-R-A-T-I-N-G !!! And I agree it has a ton of power, and that you can do tons of cools stuff with it, that in many respects its infinitely more hackable than Photoshop probably is, and that in spite of its counter-intuitive, brain-dead, dysfunctional interface-- I've actually done some really nice stuff with it-- and deep down I sorta secretly _like_ it..... and I _HATE_ it too... OOOOOH! It makes me so veeerrrryyy angry!
But hey, that's gimp for ya. What can you do? Nobody said it was easy!
NX
http://www.nomachine.com/
For Linux users, so much superior than X over ssh, or VNC.
There's also FreeNX which is the Open Source version of the same.
"You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system."
So, that means you can't use virtual memory, and can't even use modern processors (which emulate the X86 instruction set in a microcore).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"because if you have a big enough family that you have 5 OTHER users in your house accessing a file or printer on your computer 'at the same time' then you probably need something other than the HOME edition."
I call bullshit. If I have 6 family members accessing the same computer 'at the same time' and the only limitation is an ARTIFICIAL limitation, then I need a new OS!
"instead of 3 you get 5"
Yup, this mcse took his home to linux over stupid shit like this. This is the equivalent of selling me a car, and telling me that if I upgrade to the next higher version of the car, it will get better gas mileage.
Heh, if I buy a product from a company that is trying that hard to screw me, chances are they already have in ways I don't even know. No thanks. Enjoy the screwing though.
Can't you people deal with having to learn an alternate (gimp, maya, etc.) or setting up an emulation environment for a while?
Yes but, then we'd have World Peace
(And really, who wants _that_???)
OEM Licenses are bound to the hardware they came with. You can't move those even once without violating the terms.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
End of meaningful discussion.
I have trouble believing that if this information is correct, it will stand.
Microsoft is making a big push into manufacturing systems, and enterprise-to-plant-floor integration with partners like SAP, ABB, Invensys, Emerson and others...and if they make it difficult for end users to replace a PC that is running a control system which, in turn, is running a factory that will lose $250,000 a minute if it shuts down...I can see lots of Linux PCs and Macintoshes running Labview 8.20.
It has only been in the last 10 years that Microsoft has been allowed on the plant floor-- especially in distributed control systems. There are plenty Unix control systems continuing to run that could quite easily be ported to Linux or OS X implementations, bypassing Microsoft.
I think Microsoft is either floating a trial balloon, or the original poster got his wires crossed.
Walt Boyes
Editor in chief
Control magazine
www.controlglobal.com
If its illegal to run these versions of windows on a virtual machine, does that mean you'd be breaking the law if you got rootkit'd?
Electronic Arts proved people will pay for the same software over and over again. Microsoft is just removing the inconvenient step of re-branding it every year.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
Shutup fatty.
nothing
...Vista is not for computer-savvy people.
I was going to say it earlier, but now I beleive is the time...
"Hasta la Vista, baby!"
FLR
i wonder if they've figured out why their software gets pirated so often.....
The problem is that half of sleeper0's argument is correct. The license would need to explicitly deny you the right to do things like make backups of the software or use it for the purposes to which a reasonable user would expect a home OS to be put. The "all rights reserved" bit would not be interpreted to deny users the right to use the OS in reasonable ways in court, so UnrefinedLayman's interpretation is too broad. That said, sleeper0 was also trying to draw a line between the Ultimate license and Home. I'm not sure that's reasonable either, and while putting up a copy of the OS ISOs for everyone on your network might be deemed a clear violation of the home EULA, there's nothing explicit in the EULA that I see that denies you the simple right to back up the CDs.
The real problem is that the EULA is not written in English. It's written in American legalese which is a dialect of english, and can have wildly different semantics. Specifically, statements are made in the context of caselaw, and cannot be interpreted in a vacuum.
to stick with my current XP/Ubuntu combo. The next restriction in line: Windows will only be able to run proprietary binaries. No more user-written code unless it's approved by MS :D
I upgraded my machine, as i do often because i build them and office decided that i had pirated it and it stopped. NO EMAIL!!!?!?! it was all waiting for me upon a new license. So i called my lawyers and got them reading the EULA. What we discovered was that Microsoft does not specify exactly which hardware you can or cannot change and how many times you can or cannot chage that hardware. So I called their head office in our country (spoke to someone important) and let them know that i will be suing them for loss of productivity... They immediately sent me a brand new package, couriered to my door and she told me they new that this would start happening... So! There you have it. Legally threaten them, it has worked for me so far.
Yeah, that's exactly what he's saying. And with that clause in the EULA, he's right. It's just another example of how ridiculous EULA's are.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
My wife and I have been running Windows virtualized on linux since 2002. I guess this means we better get a couple copies of XP running in qemu pretty soon and figure the event horizon is about another five years of useful Windows interoperability.
That's quite a long time and should work out about right considering the steady advance of crossover office, transgaming and the remaining niche programs in development on linux.
Is Mac Boot Camp considered a virtual machine?
None. It's never been tested, and considering how windoze is sold, the first sale doctrine and standard copyright law can legitimately be claimed to override any post-sale "license" that M$ claims to have put on the software.
In other words, the EULA is likely TOTALLY invalid, other than any rights it adds in addition to those already granted by copyright law.
Class actions suits, or threat of class action suits, go a long way to forcing companies to make changes. While the group harmed doesn't always get a fair shake of the settlements society at large tends to benefit a great deal.
What's to prevent me from just hacking the DRM stuff away?
The obvious question is why move to Vista? In the short term Windows XP is supported until the 2012 (or later). The corporate world won't start serious migration until 2008-2009. That guarantees a steady supply of apps for XP through 2010-2011.
So that gives everyone at least 5 years to wean themselves off of Windows. If you really need Microsoft Office, it is available on MAC OSX.
As I am pretty sure others are thinking the same thing. Chances are good the M$ will change their tune if the upgrade from XP to Vista is slow, especially if upgrade to Office 2007 are equally slow.
EULA's only mean something if you have an auditor living on your desk... look at windows xp "you can only activate the product 3 times" well let me tell you when you call M$ for activation, they don't care.. thats all there is to it.
wait for the Chinese fork of Goobuntu.
Most Vista users will get it by buying a new computer that has it preloaded. None of these people bother to get themselves into contracts with Microsoft. The user owns that preloaded copy, and they do not have a license unless they go to extra trouble to get one (and why would they? Microsoft licenses only take away rights; they have no upside for the user). Do whatever the hell is allowed as Fair Use. Transactionally, it's not any different than buying a car that happens to contain a service manual inside the glove box -- the car owner owns that manual, and never has to make a second transaction to somehow "license" the manual.
Then, as opposed to preloads, there will be some people who will buy retail copies of Vista. Note the word "buy." Just like the preloads, these people own their copies.
Finally, there are the corporate users. Some of these actually will license Windows. They will transact directly with Microsoft, and sign a contract where they lose some rights, but also save some money. That's a real contract: it has consideration for both parties, the contract is signed, and both parties know it exists, both before and after the agreement. These types of customers can think about what they really need (i.e. do we need to run Windows under virtualization?), haggle with Microsoft about the terms, etc. They're pretty well informed about what they're getting into; they're not victims.
So quit worrying about Microsoft EULAs. If you have Windows, just ask yourself: did you obtain this software in a fashion different than how you obtained a book, such as the manual that came with your car or a purchase at a retail store? These are the same kinds of transactions, and there isn't a single word in copyright law that distinguishes between them.
Don't believe me? Read it and try to find something that says otherwise. There's some nasty, draconian stuff in there (especially around chapter 12) but nothing that says ownership of an authorized copy of a copyrighted work can't be transferred without permission from the copyright holder. You bought it? Then you own it, unless you later decided to sign away your ownership.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Are they trying to push themselves out of the market? This new wording in down right idiotic.
Messy, interfering license agreements like this:
1. Make me glad I use a Mac
2. Are another reason, when I get an Intel Mac, to run FrameMaker for Windows under WINE/Codeweavers and not klutz with the hassles of Windows. Last I heard, there was no known case of a Windows virus working via WINE and FrameMaker is so fast, the slight slowdown of an Intel on Intel emulator won't matter.
But don't expect many Windows users to protest. Long ago, they acquired the obedient, complaint, suffer-anything mindset of serfs. Microsoft knows that.
My gf has a non-pro Mac lappy, and I've been told by others that the "shut off when you close the lid"-"feature" could be switched off on the Pros.
Why that got me moderated as troll I don't know; guessing someone was mad that I said something bad about their loved ones.
Actually, This works out very well.
I have actually bought and paid for each of the OS's released by MS since 3.1
(pirated 95... said this is cool and bought it)
Now thanks to all of this DRM garbage, usage restrictions, and just general suckage I will not feel bad at all when I download the version that has been cracked to not have DRM, not phone home, and that I can gennerally use however the fsck I want...
Thanks MS for helping me justify my piracy!
If this change means that I won't be able to replace my motherboard more than once, then I won't purchase Vista, because in my XP Home machine alone I had to do it 3 times, and I don't think this rate will change. It's then a matter of waiting for the retail version to be deployed so that I can discover what Microsoft understands by a "system switch". If they understand it to actually mean two motherboards only, then I'll send an e-mail to them explaining why I won't upgrade, and keep my XP as is through my next two or three motherboards.
The most funny thing in all of this is that I was thinking on upgrading to Vista Ultimate the day it was released. Now I'm going to wait for at least six more months. Sigh...
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
re: Some of us are developers and need a low cost solution to test our software against.
MS' answer: get a MSDN subscription. Pay us $300+ per year.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Bob -> ME -> Vista
No, please don't think this way!
Microsoft manufactures one X-box -> Microsoft loses $500
Microsoft sells their X-Box for $400
You buy their manufactured X-Box -> Microsoft loses $100
Helping Microsoft to lose less money: Priceless?
So, I guess we aren't allowed to run Vista.
They're there affecting their effect.
How about those of us who (for fun and/or profit) test and review hardware?
Per these licenses, I'll need a new copy of Vista for every other system I review, if it doesn't come with a version of its own...
GEM was running on Intel hardware well before it was ported to the Atari ST. Digital Research, the authors, were embroiled in a lawsuit with Apple about how much they duplicated the Macintosh look-and-feel which blocked them from moving forward aggressively with GEM. As a result, Microsoft with their deeper pockets and willingness to fight Apple, went ahead with Windows.
DRI, already suffering from losing the CP/M86-MSDOS battle, and now losing the GEM-Windows battle for the graphical desktop, went out of business soon after.
EULAs have no real legal weight, especially EULAs with completely incomprehensible terms such as this one. The EULA, at least in this case, is only there to give MS an argument for when they sue large corporations (and universities and government, bigger targtes because they occassionally follow the law) for using licenses "inappropriately". MS believes (rightly or wrongly) that they are gettting a raw deal on Volume licensing. Basically the point of Volume licensing (from MS's perspective) is NOT to save the Volume buyer one red cent, but to make it easier to use and manage Windows in a large environment. It's a "value added" feature. Businesses see it differently, believing that by purchasing in volume they should get a discount (imagine that!). MS is going to try to force volume buyers to use "phone home" licenscing servers, but I know that breaks pre-existing agreements and won't fly (at least with some volume buyers).
So this new EULA is really only a legal hammer to use against institutions to make them fork over more money to MS when MS does one of their audits. The audits cost money for MS, so they would much rather rely on intimidation than actual work. Corporations will continue not to care, universities and governments will continue to angst.
This will have no effect on individual users. MS isn't going to file 500 million lawsuits.
As pointed out by many other posters, anyone who wants to do testing can get an MSDN subscription, which gives you perpetual licences to virtually all MS software for testing purposes. If you're too cheap to fork over the $300 or so, you're too small a player for MS to worry about.
Increasingly, security companies are adopting hard disk encryption and networking solutions that make use of VM technology to install beneath to OS- where they can't be easily disabled or modified. These are VM's. So my understanding is that the Home edition can not use security packages that have this technology as their basis.
In addition, CPU's are beginning to blur the line between a VM and non-VM. What level defines a VM? If a new CPU comes with software that emulates the instruction set (think along the lines of Transmeta), then is that a VM?
I'm glad Microsoft is increasingly restricting their products. I hope the restrictions keep coming and I hope that they secure up all the media you use with their systems. Once they stop all piracy on Windows, Linux will become everyone's platform of choice for its openness. This is the absolute end result of restrictions on Windows.
The same image, no restrictions (except I just can't sell it). It doesn't phone home. Doesn't care if I upgrade hardware.
I've got a dual-boot Windows/Linux box and run XP. I think it will stay that way.
I'm able to run more and more Windows software natively under Linux using Crossover and the apps I run do everything I need.
Linux is advancing quite nicely and is even ahead of Vista in some areas.
I'm off the MS bandwagon and putting both feet firmly into open source territory. Might have been a different story but if MS is going to get even more restrictive with their licensing, this is one frog who is hopping out of that pot.
OEM copies aren't tied to the BIOS or the board or any piece of hardware.
BUT
Many OEMs nowadays are ONLY shipping restore CDs/DVDs/images/partitions with their new machines. Replace the motherboard, and the restore disk goes "HEY! That's not my hardware!" and refuses to load.
eMachines did it back with Windows 98SE - checked for specific hardware on boot, and didn't load if it found something else.
[Update, Fri. Oct 13, 11:00 am: The initial version of this story erroneously mischaracterized the way Microsoft's Vista license applies to user of the OS in a virtual machine, stating that there was a blanket ban in effect. This is incorrect; we regret the error. The updated version of this story removes all references to a VM ban, including a change in the headline, removal of a virtual machine reference in the lead paragraph, and the deletion of the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the original story.] Now return to the normal programming ...
Topic says it all. I paid for the OS, I should be able to move it from one machine to the next. What happens if I get constant hardware failure after warranty expiration and need to build an entirely new system?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Apparently you're not aware that editors often shorten user submissions and remove words and phrases. Wanna bitch? Bitch at the editor who cut down my submission, which was longer and included more information.
"Sufferin' succotash."
A complete lie! It says right in the EULA that you cannot copy "the software" to a storage device, the software referring to the Vista installation disc. This means you cannot copy the disc image.
It says storage device, which means any hard drive or other local store. It uses a network store as an example ("such as a network store").
As for MCE, barely anyone uses it, so I didn't feel it warranted a mention.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Now perhaps he was referring to this part. "Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement." Now if it has been established by law that I am allowed to keep a backup image of software I have purchased, then this little line right here says that whatever else is stated in the EULA is trumped by the established law.
I call bullshit. If I have 6 family members accessing the same computer 'at the same time' and the only limitation is an ARTIFICIAL limitation, then I need a new OS!
Do you realize Windows is not the only OS to do this, and far from it actually, so good luck out there...
Whether we like it or not, we are paying for a *license* not an item. Big commercial products are even more rigid in their licensing, so while I don't like this I can understand and accept it.
VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.
Enough said. Tennessee has this (to a degree) as well as most of the continental USA. There is no major possibility of legal enforcement except in those states stupid enough to enforce such an irrational and constitutional violation. (Fourth amendment can be applied technologically as it is still your own property.) Once I pay for it, the only thing you can tell me to do is use it, or not use it, and not one damned thing inbetween except for those states that are stupid enough to allow it. I'll guarantee that with this new OS, people will not choose to use Vista. And, on top of that, with Microsoft currently being implicated in the SCO case (against the Antitrust ruling passd down in 2003/4) this will only hurt them more. It just takes the right "expert witnesses" to point all of this out and totally nullify anything Microsoft can do.
While I'm not a fan of Bill Gates, he was smart enough to step down when he saw massive ruin heading in the way of Microsoft. I just hope he's smart enough to figure out a faster way of leaving the company to deal with itself, so he doesn't have to deal with it, and can focus on his charity efforts.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Because EVERY time I've swapped motherboards, I've had to revalidate my system. EVERY FUCKING TIME. And it's the same license that came with the laptop I received in college. I've had three replacements for the motherboard in that laptop, and each and every time XP would REFUSE to even boot unless I formatted and reinstalled, from a damned OEM MANUFACTURER. Same thing with every system in my house that came with an XP license. So either you're getting preferential treatment, or you're using a cracked version of XP that won't pay attention. My friend Admins *ALL* of Remington College's networks and licenses across the country, and he has THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM with a Microsoft VLK.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I know. I was looking for a funny moderation, not interesting. On the other hand, you can look at it like this:
No one buys XBox -> Microsoft stops making it and loses $500 on all of them already made.
Many people buy XBoxes -> Microsoft keeps making it and loses $100 on each for many years to come.
Honestly, though, I have no problem with Microsoft making money.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
You can run any of the Vista OS's in a VM, there is no restriction preventing it. What you can't do with the lower end versions is run the same copy on both a physical machine and a VM at the same time. You would need two licenses to do that. With the higher end versions you are allowed to run a VM using the same copy that you are using on a physical machine. So if you have ultimate on your PC, for example, and you want to also run it in a VM you won't have to buy a second Vista Ultimate license. If you have Basic you will have to buy a second license (to be legal at least) to do the same thing.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Developers want to run Windows Vista Home and Home Premium in virtual machines as part of their development and test scenarios. Microsoft is not blocking the development and test scenario. The MSDN agreement enables this scenario. Developers with MSDN can absolutely install any of the Windows Vista SKUs in virtual machines for development and testing purposes.
Actually I have been ranting since 1995 against Macintoshes. I used to own a few. Oddly enough every rant I had suggested changes that Apple eventually took. In 1995 I suggested that Apple try to port MacOS to the Intel platform and see which system sold better. To add in DMA, USB, 15 pin SVGA ports, etc. After the Mactel systems came out, I really had nothing left to rant about. The Mactels ran Mac OSX, *nix, Windows, etc. The only problem was the price, and that $599 Mac Mini cuts that rant in half. Damn you Steve Jobs, for not giving me anything left to rant about, damn you sir! Can I buy a damn Mac Mini from you Steve, will I be forgiven then?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.