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Virtualization May Break Vista DRM

Posted by Zonk on from the couldn't-they-have-just-said-that dept.

Nom du Keyboard writes "An article in Computerworld posits that the reason Microsoft has flip-flopped on allowing all versions of Vista to be run in virtual machines, is that it breaks the Vista DRM beyond detection, or repair. So is every future advance in computer security and/or usability going to be held hostage to the gods of Hollywood and Digital Restrictions Management? 'Will encouraging consumer virtualization result in a major uptick in piracy? Not anytime soon, say analysts. One of the main obstacles is the massive size of VMs. Because they include the operating system, the simulated hardware, as well as the software and/or multimedia files, VMs can easily run in the tens of gigabytes, making them hard to exchange over the Internet. But DeGroot says that problem can be partly overcome with .zip and compression tools -- some, ironically, even supplied by Microsoft itself.'"

1 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Ridiculously annoying, and sometimes impossible by lullabud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a good example, I just set up a Windows XP laptop for one of my sales associates. I spent an ungodly amount of time going thru "Genuine Advantage" this and "Genuine" that, along with some dozen or more reboots. It's ridiculously annoying...

    Being a generous IT worker, when an employee's machine goes bad I'll sometimes give them my own machine if they need something fast. Last time I did this, a copy of Vista which I purchased directly from Microsoft's website suddenly became "not genuine". Not wanting to fuss with it, hoping I'd be able to get my machine back and make my copy of Vista genuine again, I ended up passing the time frame (30 days?) allotted for using the OS, then was locked out with a red screen saying "this copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Business is not genuine". This statement was clearly a lie if taken literally, but discussing vocabulary destruction through marketing would be quite a digression.

    So, I went back to using my dual-boot linux partition and another spare PC for my day-to-day work.

    Fast forward a few weeks...

    Last Friday I got my laptop back, put the hard disk back in, and what's this? Vista still said it was not genuine. I tried to re-activate online but it said I couldn't do that because that key had already been activated. (Gee, you think? Maybe when I bought it?) So, taking the only course left, I called Microsoft on the phone and entered a series of numbers about 30 digits long. When the computer couldn't validate my install it forwarded me to some Indian call center, a place I'm familiar with because I've had to do this process more than a few times.

    But this time was different... (Don't get your hopes up, it wasn't different in a good way. I was on the phone with a Microsoft offshore call center, remember?) Not only was my personal system down, but apparently their whole call center system was down. They were unable to validate my install and told me I'd need to call back later after they got their system back up and running. Apparently there was no other backup call center online, I simply had to hang up and call back another time when their system was back up.

    Back to my trusty dual-boot Linux partition with its `sudo bash -c 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && reboot'`, or my Mac with its `sudo bash -c 'softwareupdate -i -a && reboot'`

    Oh, and Jim Allchin can kiss my ass. "It's rock solid and we're ready to ship." Rock solid as in paper weight. What good is a stable OS that won't let you use it?