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Black Screens For Unauthorized Copies of Windows
arcticstoat writes "In a bid to deter people from using pirate versions of Windows XP, Microsoft is now updating its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool to introduce a few uncomfortable niggles for users of pirated versions of Windows. These include replacing the desktop wallpaper with a black screen every 60 minutes, although you can still replace it with your wallpaper of choice in the intervening period. As well as this, copies of Windows deemed to not be genuine will also have a translucent watermark above the system tray, which Microsoft calls a 'persistent desktop notification.'"
Too close for comfort.
Some one I know just doesn't download the the WGA notification (tells it never to download when it shows up in system updates) I... I mean he wants to know if that will still work?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I'm impressed with Microsoft's forbearance.
Black Screen of Death
Oh crap, get ready for another wave of "omg where is the start button" questions on the Ubuntu message boards.
/whisper/ Thanks for the candy!
The first thing I do after installing XP is turn the wallpaper to black.
Apparently, pirating it saves me a step after install.
WTG, MSFT!
You can have it if you want.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Question: People who annoy you?
They need to get more creative. Here's a few ideas:
1) Cause the NIC to drop random ammounts of packets at random times.
2) Change the wallpaper from Black Screen to one with a letter ending with "... The police are on their way".
3) Every 2 minutes all keys on your keyboard get randomly swapped around.
4) Swaps the mouse buttons. Or moving the mouse left, moves it right, up, down, etc.
5) All print jobs only result in large words in upper case saying "PIRATE ALERT!"
6) Boot sequence and shutdown sequence get 5 minutes added on to them. Hey MS, don't forget to make sure you cause the hard drive light LED to flicker a lot while the users wait around so they think it's something going on. While you're at it, randomly flicker that HD LED every few minutes for 20 seconds at a time.
7) Every 10th web page visited would be redirected to goatse (is that site still around?)
You get the idea... now hurry up so that people get fed up faster and switch to Linux.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
Can someone remind me why Microsoft wants to chase people off to other platforms again?
They're increasing their users' pain thresholds so that they'll find Vista's annoyances tolerable.
Because they're hoping one or two might actually end up buying Vista.
The Vista Drake Equation
N = R x fp x ne x fi x fe x L
where
N is the number of Vista sales
R is the number of reported WGA unlicensed XP install hits.
fp if the fraction of those that care about a black screen & bit of text
ne is the number of users with PCs that can actually run Vista
fi is the fraction of XP users who dont have the brains to use Ubuntu
fe is the fraction of XP users who dont use a tool to kill the WGA app
L is the fraction of XP users too lazy to get Windows Update to skip the WGA app
S - Number of sales
X - Number of illegal XP copies
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
And the answer is none. None more black.
It's a tough job handling the ubuntu IRC channel. The other day some guy was asking how to maximize firefox. We told him to click the box in the upper right corner, and he didn't understand. So someone asked what version he was running, and he gave the output of firefox -v (or whatever command it is for version). It was baffling that he could use the command line but not maximize the window. I think (hope) he was joking. Or maybe it was Richard Stallman.
Were you a victim of Linux Genuine Advantage scheme to make millions? Linux Genuine Advantage Crack will restore free as in speech rights to what should have been in the first place. Down with the man!
1: Take screenshot of desktop with dozens of files and icons.
2: Replace wallpaper with screenshot
3: Empty Desktop
4: ???
5: Tell user to reboot to fix problem, preferably 10 times.
"I once tried BGInfo but even that was a black background with green text."
Black text would have been much less obtrusive.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You missed some bits.
2.3) Set the task bar to "Autohide" and move it to the top of the screen.
2.6) If it's a desktop compter, use the monitor controls to stretch/move the screen upwards enough to hide the remaining visible part of the taskbar.
AND
Replace #3 with:
3) Right-click desktop, go to "Arrange Icons By" -> and untick "Show Desktop Icons".
FCKGW...?
"Black on black, that's how I want it... I don't care if anyone can read it. I'm the DRIZZLE!"