Slashdot Mirror
One In Five Windows Installs Is Non-Genuine
snib writes "Microsoft disclosed Monday that, according to reports collected by the notorious Windows Genuine Advantage tool on millions of users' PCs, 22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine. Quoting: 'Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent... [T]he Business Software Alliance... reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated (22 percent in North America)...'"
Or does WGA fail 22% of the time? Hmmm?
I can count 5 that fail it's validation and every one of them is a legal copy on a legal system.
I would look at there program first, then accuse everyone of steeling second.
It really does not surprise me that there are a lot of pirated copies out there.
One in five... of people who actually attempted to run the WGA. I'd imagine there's a sizable group of people who already know they won't pass it, so they never even try.
I anticipate that some folks will say 'lolz if WGA doesn't false positive!!11!!eleventy!' (translated: Assuming that WGA doesn't falsely label a machine as pirated). The number of these seems to be reeeeeally low, I'm guessing it's not a big part of the final numbers.
Actual piracy numbers are likely to be even larger.
Why? Two main reasons.
One: Pirates are probably far less likely to attempt to run a WGA certification compared to a legitimate licence holder. For obvious reasons.
Two: "Borrowed" corporate editions, etc. will validate despite being, well, "borrowed".
I bet that 22% is probably very wrong.
They say that that's 22% of those who attempted to be authenticated- anyone who knows they are using a pirated copy sure as hell isn't going to try to authenticate it. Those who failed either didn't know they had a pirated copy (installed by teenage son or shady computer store) or are really dumb pirates.
Or the third option, that WGA fails a fifth of the time. I can think of at least one instance where I have tried to authenticate a legitamite copy (which I had just unpacked from HP, and was doing updates on) and WGA said it didn't pass.
Those who insist on using proprietary operating systems get to pay for them. Yes, even when that means they pay with their time.
If your copy of Windows won't validate, that's between you and Microsoft, my friend:
Oh, and there's a Linux installfest this Thursday. If things between you and Bill don't work out, why don't you stop by and install a real 64 bit OS on your machine?
But I do hate it for the gamers, man. What are they going to do?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I wouldn't be surprised if every user whose "validation" fails tries at least a couple more times after that, inflating the failure rate.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I wonder if they plan to apologize to the 80% of their customers who got this system foisted on them without recourse (you have to enable WGA to get security fixes).
Not to mention, the 20% must be either really stupid (I wonder if my Haxxored Windows copy will validate? Gee, let's try!) or, more likely, have misconfigured Windows systems or bugs in WGA that report them as invalid when they probably own a legitimate license.
Great marketing strategy though: punish your legit user-base as the pirates work around your system. Can't wait to see how Vista improves things. I'm excited to see what "advantage" I'm "genuinely" going to get.
Disclosure: I only allow WGA on my work machine, where I have little choice and didn't pay the license fee personally.
"Oh, and apart from Windows: I don't pirate anything else"
That's not pirated, that's plain old 100% classic stolen.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
1. How many installs are erroneously flagged as genuine?
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
3. How many installs are not seen by WGA?
4. How many of those are genuine/not genuine?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Yes, I should know better. Wish SoE would provide a decent Vanguard SOH port to Linux...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
The vast, vast majority of piracy, from my experience, doesn't come from blackhats using hexeditors in their spare times wanting a free ride: It comes from moms and pops who don't know any better. If microsoft just stops THOSE, the leftovers "hardcores" (the ones that will spend all night on shady web sites and IRC looking for cracks and anonymous FTPs, or making the cracks themselves, etc) are most likely negligeable in numbers.
Its the 80/20 rule. If Microsoft can stop 80 percents of the piracy, with 20 percent of the effort, its worth it. Stopping the last 20% would cost more than the money they'd make otherwise, especialy if you consider, like you said, that a lot of those wouldn't even use it otherwise. And Microsoft (I actualy think it was Bill Gates) did publicly say before: "If they're going to pirate softwares, we'd rather they pirate ours". It makes sense: Mindshare is worth more than customers, in a way.
Excellent point. That was the first thing I thought of...of all the people who pirate Windows, how many ever subject themselves to WGA? I suspect it is a relative small fraction of them. And then there is the reciprocal question, of the 22% that report as non-genuine, how many are really valid installs that raise a false positive? If it's even 10%, that puts the false positive rate at around 2%, which would be unacceptably high in my opinion.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
I also believe Microsoft should 'suck it up' because if they have an 80% non-piracy rate for a monopolised operating system that is still very good returns, and the "20%" of pirated software merely helps to maintain that monopoly.
I'm certain Microsoft would prefer to keep those 20% on windows rather than have them on linux for example.
I never bothered with XP at all, precisely because of this product activation crap. But I too did the right thing, and legally bought a Mac. Curiously, I then started paying for all my (commercial) software - perhaps because I am older and richer than I was, but I think not having an adversarial relationship with my computer and not feeling like I was being fucked over by an abusive monopolist helped too.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Not to mention, how many don't bother with XP at all and just use 2000 instead?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
At least in this country, I find these numbers extremely hard to believe. Mostly because the vast majority of machines sold come with windows preinstalled on them. How do people then pirate it? I guess some people illegally upgrade their version to a newer one, but most people who have computers don't seem to know enough to be capable of doing this. There are the friends who might do this for them, but that doesn't seem too likely, as most people are content with their computer. . . As long as everything still works.
There's the key I guess. Most people don't care for their computer, and it shows, over time the install goes to hell, getting viruses spyware, etc. Then they may get a friend to come over and help them, and the friend may install a pirated version of windows, maybe a fancier one, maybe the same type (but not the same copy), or maybe even the same copy.
This is illegal . . . technically, but hard to really say it is, as the people do have the right to use windows on their computer, and that's often the only way they can.
With windows XP at least, I wouldn't doubt if more copies of it have been sold than their are copies currently in use! It seems like a crazy statement, but considering how many companies buy machines with windows preinstalled, and then install their site licensed copy on the machine. Plus how many people have had machines get outdated, or crippled, or break on them, and bought a new computer to replace it. How many copies of windows were thrown out because of that?
I can't speak for other countries, as I'm sure there are places where piracy runs rampant, and you can easily buy computers without windows preinstalled, or with an illegitimate copy installed, but in the US this generally isn't the case. Maybe MS should take these figures into account and say something like "-30% of windows copies in the US are pirated", after taking into account the anti-pirated cases of double licenses etc. Of course, things don't really work that way.
Now other software I imagine the number is much higher. What percentage of copies of office are less than legitimate? I imagine those are much higher, and a 20-30% install base being illegal wouldn't be too far off. of course, even here with so many copies sold to businesses, it dillutes the home market that's far more likely to pirate software than corporate ones (people can get in far less trouble generally).
Phil
I clicked on the link in your sig and I have some constructive criticism to offer your company.
> Photoshop has 20+ layer modes. We offer 70+ at 10% the cost. [blackbeltsystems.com]
Wow is that web-page UGLY. You'd think that a company offering image manipulation software would know enough about imaging to not have such an ugly webpage. Especially annoying shit like
* blue text on two slightly different blue backgrounds for the navigation links
* metalled embossed hard to read fonts as headers
* "link-heavy" text with more links than text (put it into a list of feature links)
* multi-column text that goes off-page requiring "back-scrolling" to read
* juvenile snipes at vague competitors rather than professional and objective feature comparisons
* overuse of exclamation points! Especially in testimonials! No Really!
* prominent google ads for a site trying to sell commercial software
For punishment, I suggest you make your web-page designer navigate this site for an hour or two: http://corson.tv/main/buttugly.htm
This problem was mostly caused by lazy pc repair shops and neighboorhood kids.
I can well belive that,
Its going to be so much less effort to stick in a slipstreamed pirate CD and enter your standard pirate VLK than to try and find the correct big brand oem recovery CD and try to convince it to work in a way that didn't wipe the entire system and leave it loaded with shitware or to use a generic oem CD and try to convince MS to activate the result.
At the end of the day time is money and doing it the legit way is so much more effort!
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register