Vista Pirates To Get "Black Screen of Darkness"

jcatcw writes "Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide, and sent a letter to OEMs explaining the consequences of Vista piracy. These include a black screen after 1 hour of browsing, no start menu or task bar, and no desktop. Using fear as a motivator, the email warns resellers to 'make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.'"

Comments

This should end well

[Anonymous Coward]

"To help protect honest partners and fight piracy, Microsoft will continue to block product keys that are determined to be pirated, stolen or otherwise deemed nongenuine."

So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'? This will happen and I'll bet that the least painful thing that a customer will be able to do is purchase a new copy. I doubt that M$ will go out of their way to check to see if a blocked customer has a legit copy.

"The ad concludes with "Don't risk it!" and "make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled."

So basically, M$ is going to screw customers if their OEMs screw M$. This should be fun to watch. Just another reason for linux.

Asshats

Re:This should end well

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is referred to as shifting the blame. If you're a customer of the OEM and the OEM is selling you, at full price, pirated software, it's not Microsoft who is screwing you.

Re:This should end well

[mike2R]

If you're a customer of the OEM and the OEM is selling you, at full price, pirated software, it's not Microsoft who is screwing you.

Exactly. Whatever your opinions on "information wants to be free" or whatever, if a customer has paid an OEM for software and the OEM installs a pirated version and pockets the cash, this is theft - ok maybe not legally, but this isn't a case of people who would never buy software pirating it, it is a case of people trying to buy the software and the OEM stealing the money.

It's exactly like me stealing your car. You no longer have a car. The OEM has stolen Microsoft's money.

Re:This should end well

[Ajehals]

Both parent posts are largely valid. What they fail to address, and what I believe the the GGP Post was trying to point out is that if a Key is *incorrectly* marked as invalid then they have done nothing wrong and nor has the OEM. Worse, the customer will suspect the OEM and presumably Microsoft will suspect both the OEM and the Customer. That is a quick way for Microsoft's customers, the OEM's, to lose both credibility and trust in the eyes of their customers, the consumer and businesses. Microsoft could hurt their customers by potentially hurting their customers customers. That will lead to a re-evaluation of the risks involved when dealing with Microsoft, as highlighted by recent issues with their WGA servers.

Re:This should end well

[pdboddy]

The point is that MS has already messed up, their WGA having falsely identifying legitimate customers as pirates in two separate occasions. So the question you quoted is still valid. So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'? So why are you criticizing M$. it's their business decision to adopt this model. It's their petard to be hoisted upon if it fails. They obviously think it will work and they know more than you. Sure it may fail in cases too, but if the gains are net positive do they care? Perhaps the person is a legit customer using Vista, and doesn't want to see their computers become dead boxes? Sure, MS may end up being hoisted by their own petard, but it will be cold comfort to the folks who have to purchase new OSs, or have to revert to previous OSs, and the perhaps added fun fun side quest of cleaning up a potentially nasty botnet issue. And MS will care if millions of their legit customers switch to something else, be it Mac, Linux, or even going back to Windows XP.

Re:This should end well

[Wordsmith]

Without rehashing the now-old argument about how consumers knew what they were purchasing and what price they were paying at the time ... the company made customers upset, and now it's giving them $100 worth of free stuff. You're only throwing more money their way if you spend more than your $100 credit.

Re:This should end well

[number11]

if a customer has paid an OEM for software and the OEM installs a pirated version and pockets the cash, this is theft

Perhaps. Would you agree that it is also theft if MS disables a known legit copy? Theft of the price of a retail version to replace it with, or theft of services for however many hours you spend on hold trying to get them to straighten it out.

For whatever reason. Their spyware server screws up, like it did last week. You have to change out the motherboard. You replace the hard disk. None of those are legitimate reasons to break your copy.

It's actually more clearly theft than the first instance. The first instance is copyright infringement (someone made an unauthorized copy, but MS is not then missing a copy, all their real copies still work fine). In the second instance, the legit copy has been sold to you, either directly or indirectly, and when it doesn't work you have no copy. You have a loss. You have additional consequential losses, work time lost, deadlines missed.

Re:This should end well

[slashname3]

Dissatisfied customers might decide to try something different like Mac OS X or Linux.

Uh, wait a minute, I forgot to take my meds this morning. People won't switch from Windows regardless of how bad the experience or poor the customer support becomes.

Re:This should end well

[hondo77]

So you got jacked out of $200.

Really? Apple stole the money from you? Say you go buy $500 worth of clothes on Thursday, and on Friday the store has a 25% off everything sale. Did they jack you, too? Say you buy a brand new 2007 Ford Mustang this week. Next week the dealership has an inventory reduction sale to make room for the 2008's. Did they jack you, too?

Re:This should end well

[RobertM1968]

Unfortunately, it probably wont drive consumers to other OS's... If you spend a couple hundred dollars on additional software, would you just up and switch OS's - and then have to buy all new software to run on the new OS's? And where's your copy of MS Office or IE for _______ Operating System?

Don't get me wrong, I for one am happy with OpenOffice, and many other non-MS alternatives to... well anything... but the average consumer probably won't be - or won't even equate the fact that "If Ford's cars suck, I can just go buy a Honda/GM/Toyota/etc"

Consumers' understanding and perceptions of software as a tool to enable productivity (as opposed to "Internet Explorer IS the Internet, MS Office IS part of/required by my documents") will not change quick enough to allow for any sort of mass migration. Will some people switch? Probably. Will a lot - or even a decent amount? I doubt it.

Would you? Would I? Would anyone computer saavy enough to understand that an app is an enabler - not that a specific app is the be all end all... probably. But that defines a very small part of the computer owning population.

Re:This should end well

[suv4x4]

Dissatisfied customers might decide to try something different like Mac OS X or Linux.

Uh, wait a minute, I forgot to take my meds this morning. People won't switch from Windows regardless of how bad the experience or poor the customer support becomes.

You know, the individual consumer may be dumb, but collectively they're not so dumb. They found and are going for another option: keep your XP while it works (which is for another good 5-6 years).

Then we watch early adopters get hurt by piracy missdetection, bugs, poor resource usage, lack of drivers and incompatibility, while we just enjoy our amazing XP-rience in a brand new way.

As is known for quite some time in the industry, Microsoft's biggest competitor is Microsoft.

Re:This should end well

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

Now, I realize that quality-wise Vista is the worst to yet come out of Microsoft.

Quality-wise, wouldn't you consider Windows Me the worst? Even with all the updates that OS was a nightmare.

Does vista work with Yahoo Games yet?

[obarel]

According to Microsoft, this is obviously the other way around: websites should change themselves to support the new Operating System.

Because we don't like this "OS independency" that websites seem to enjoy at the moment.

Well that's the end of Vista in a business setting

[Zelocka]

I wonder how long until some company loses a production SQL server costing millions of dollars because of this when they owned a group license. Its more then enough to stop any company from using vista if they where considering it.

I am glad that Microsoft is doing this

[Glowing Fish]

I am glad that Microsoft is actually backing up the restrictions that they say they have on their software. I've noticed that many Linux vs. Windows debates are about legitimate use of Linux vs. illegitimate use of Windows.
And when I try to point out to people that there are strict legal limits on what you can do with Windows, they look at me like I am making something up. "But, I can install Windows on this computer...I have a CD my brother-in-law gave me!"
So, I am just as glad that Microsoft is doing something to demonstrate the nature of licensed software. If people want to use licensed, commercial software, I don't object to it (even though I use almost totally free software), but they should realize that means they have to pay for it.

I CANT WAIT!

[nobodyman]

In other news, Apple, Sun, and a billion linux supporters simultaneously screamed their praise at this latest initiative by Microsoft.

Unintended Consequences

[Kelson]

So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'?

It gets worse. Let's take that line of thought a bit further. From TFA:

Titled "Don't let this happen to your customers," the advertisement indicates nongenuine copies of Windows Vista will lose access to key features, have limited access to updates, and thus risk attack from viruses, malware and spyware.

Great. Just what we need: deliberately make some machines more vulnerable to attack. As if those machines are the only ones that will suffer when they get infected.

A malware infection doesn't just impact the infected system's users. Those systems then become nodes in a botnet. They pump out more spam, more viruses, more phishing. They host phishing sites. They could theoretically be used for distributed computing projects... like cracking into paying customers' systems.

What's Microsoft going to say when a large site gets hacked, using someone else's pwned box as a launch platform, and the attacker got into that box because it was pirated, and Microsoft deliberately disabled the update that would have fixed a remote root exploit?

Re:Unintended Consequences

[darth dickinson]

What's Microsoft going to say when a large site gets hacked, using someone else's pwned box as a launch platform, and the attacker got into that box because it was pirated, and Microsoft deliberately disabled the update that would have fixed a remote root exploit?

"This is further evidence that pirating Microsoft products is harmful to all consumers."

Re:Unintended Consequences

[ScrewMaster]

Well, now that's just silly. I know you're trying to paint him into the hypocrite box, but it doesn't wash. He's selling a product to people that choose to run Windows ... that's their business, not his. The simple economics of the situation dictate that Windows is the best place to make money selling software because so many people have bought into Microsoft's drivel. The fact is that he's smart enough to realize the risks associated with running modern versions of Windows, and chooses not to take those risks himself. That's just good sense.

WGA server downtime?

[vertinox]

And what if the WGA server is down again?

What the heck??

[tgatliff]

Let me get this straight.. Not even two weeks ago, their WGA system completely blew up leaving millions of genuine users "in the dark", and now they are do confident in their system that they are going to do something like this?

I think I will just wait a few days for M$ to shot themselves in the foot... This type of poor business behavior is not sustainable longterm...

Re:I love Vista!

[kturner]

I'm honestly hoping this was typed in sarcasm.

Have they already forgotten the WGA blackout?

[Weaselmancer]

Anybody remember this?

Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Down, Taking Users With Them

Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:26PM EDT

Breaking news: Some of Microsoft's WGA servers reportedly went offline last night or early this morning. What's that mean? If your copy of Windows tries to validate itself with Microsoft, it might be marked as unvalidated, or put simply, counterfeit.

The rest of the story is here.

I can't wait until Vista tries to dial home, and they have another server blackout. I wonder if MS can be held legally liable the same way virus/worm authors are? You know, whenever some huge worm takes everybody's machines down for a day or two they tally up some outrageous dollar amount due to lost productivity? I smell a huge class action lawsuit waiting in the wings.

This is going to be seriously entertaining when it happens.

Re:2007, the year of linux.

[James_G]

I'll tell you what's making it more appealing too. It's these guys. 2 years ago, Linux on the desktop was no more compelling than it was when I first started using Slackware back in the early 90s. Getting simple things like audio and graphics working was still more of a chore than 99% of end users are willing to put up with.

It's still a long way from perfect, but the Ubuntu team are challenging all these things which should be completely hidden from the user so they don't have to know how to modify their X config, write a Modeline, or learn m4 so they can create a sendmail config. They're doing the things which have always been considered "good enough" to the hardcore, but which have prevented mainstream acceptance, and I think that's bloody great.

I recently reinstalled XP on my home machine due to a failed drive. I'd actually forgotten how horrible it was. Things like.. trying to get SP2. You go to Microsoft, and they have a whole 'SP2 is great!' page which extols the virtues of installing it, suggesting that the best way to get it is via Windows update.. So, you go to Windows update, and it says.. "Hey, you need SP2! You should check out this page which explains why it's great, and how to get it!", and links back to the first page. Took me a few hours to figure out how to bypass that one.

Anyway, my point is.. I installed Ubuntu about 3 weeks ago, at my new job. Took about an hour from when I first put the CD in the drive to the point where I had fired up Eclipse and was writing code. It used to be that Linux on the desktop was as much of a pain in the ass as Windows was, but for different reasons. That's not true any more, and it can only get better from here, and I see things accelerating with the Ubuntu team putting so much effort into it.

2007, the year of Linux? Yeah. And 2008, and 2009, and 2010, and...

Re:Insult to injury

[Dunbal]

then people would be demanding a reversal on this Genuine Advantage program.

      It's been a few decades since the people have "demanded" ANYTHING. So long as they have their beer and their sports channels and big screen tv's, the people - for perhaps the first time in history - are content to let you take everything else away from them. Or am I wrong?

NO. It is theft.

[G Fab]

If you take someone's money by using a pirated copy of Windows, that's theft of money.

Taking property by knowingly exchanging a false token for that money is theft. Read the law in your state, they are all very nearly the same.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Well split any hair you wish. This LOWERS Vista value to everyone.

I believe that Microsoft will discover that this is a tactic who's unintended consequences include a movement away from Vista - and to some extent from Windows in general.

Apple's moment to strike a hot iron is rapidly upon us.

Re:"Copyright infringement".

[mcpkaaos]

Microsoft has some pretty smart people working there.

Microsoft is driven by marketing, not by smart people.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Nextraztus]

I wish I could agree that Apple's moment to 'strike a hot iron' is a good thing -- however, Apple is just as bad about vendor lock in as Microsoft is. Some might venture to say worse. Especially in a situation like this where our main gripe is Microsoft's overall control of your computer regardless of the situation. Apple can in theory do the same thing, but so far, hasn't bothered except to make it overly difficult to run their flagship OS on standard off the shelf hardware.

Oh well, maybe someday we'll see a cool thing like Apple's hardware actually becoming as cost-efficient to own as normal x86 hardware...but I don't intend to hold my breath.