Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update Phones Home Quarterly
Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT. Here is Microsoft's blog post giving their perspective on what WAT is for. From Lauren's blog: "The release of Windows 7 'Update for Microsoft Windows (KB71033)' will change the current activation and anti-piracy behavior of Windows 7 by triggering automatic 'phone home' operations over the Internet to Microsoft servers, typically for now at intervals of around 90 days. ... These automatic queries will repeatedly — apparently for as long as Windows is installed — validate your Windows 7 system against Microsoft's latest database of pirated system signatures (currently including more than 70 activation exploits known to Microsoft). If your system matches — again even if up to that time (which could be months or even years since you obtained the system) it had been declared to be genuine — then your system will be 'downgraded' to 'non-genuine' status until you take steps to obtain what Microsoft considers to be an authentic, validated, Windows 7 license. ... KB971033... is scheduled to deploy to the manual downloading 'Genuine Microsoft Software' site on February 16, and start pushing out automatically through the Windows Update environment on February 23. ... [F]or Microsoft to assert that they have the right to treat ordinary PC-using consumers in this manner — declaring their systems to be non-genuine and downgrading them at any time — is rather staggering." Update: 02/12 02:08 GMT by KD : Corrected the Microsoft Knowledge Base number to include a leading 9 that had been omitted in the pre-announcement, per L. Weinstein.
The thing is, for every person who pirates Windows 7, there is a fairly decent chance that they will be doing so with an activation code which a genuine user may have purchased.
Nearly all the Windows piracy out there either uses corporate versions (hence the key is used thousands of times already) or they involve hacks that disable/neuter/replace the WGA components. As a general rule, they don't involve using the individual license keys that you get when you buy a retail or system builder version of Windows.
Not to mention that it's trivial to get your machine re-authorized over the phone if you actually did buy your copy of the OS and end up being a false positive.
Hell, Microsoft reauthorized my OEM copy of Vista Home Premium twice when I moved the install to a new system, in spite of the license saying they don't allow that. Awfully kind of them, I thought.
//Microsoft Employee here//
If you read the blog post it has some valid points about how it works:
1. Voluntary patch :)
2. When non-genuine copies deteced, OS functionality is NOT reduced
3. Yes, Microsoft does decided to notify/annoy you that you're not using genuine software which is a good thing because most people don't know they are.
4. The goal is reduce the number of Windows installations using pirated copies many of which include malicious code.
5. No personally identifiable information is transmitted. Details on this can be found in ANY of our privacy policies which are standard across all Microsoft products.
6. It does not apply to any enterprise installations where Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is used. @FranTaylor, lots of people use Windows on a server...what planet are you one?
The slashdot headline is a little too Orwellian considering the body of the blog post. Looking forward to all the responses...I think.
Get spare box (or VM, or even your own machine if it's beefy enough), install WSUS (Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Small Business Server 2008, Windows Small Business Server 2003), point clients at WSUS either with a GPO or in local policy (gpedit.msc), decline KB71033 (if it even gets pushed through WSUS, which it probably won't; WGA didn't), sit back and relax.
This is also handy for any other "critical" updates that you might want to avoid, or any updates that are incompatible with your system, or may cause errors (Like KB977165), especially in environments where other people have administrator access to your machine and like to click things without reading them or you're managing several machines (friends, family, housemates, girlfriends, etc).
Can you give me the name of the tech support people you talked to, so that I can ask for them specifically? Your experience is quite different from mine. I had Windows XP on a Dell system. I had to replace the motherboard, Afterwards, I got messages that the software was no longer valid. I called a Microsoft support number. I think I was talking to someone in India who told me I would have to speak to Dell tech support. I said I thought it was a Microsoft Windows issue, since it wasn't Dell software, but was "Windows Genuine Advantage" from Microsoft telling me the software was invalid. When I kept insisting that I thought it was a Microsoft problem, the Microsoft support person kindly gave me a phone number. I hung up and called the number. It was a nonworking number. I called Microsoft support again. A different person also seemed to want to get me off the phone as quickly as possible - I'm sure that makes their performance metrics look good when they "solve" problems so quickly. I was given another different number to call. I hung up and again found that I had been given a nonworking number. I called back again. I was given yet another number to call, but I was told that, since it was a weekend, I would have to wait until Monday morning to get anyone at that number. I've just ignored the "WIndows Genuine Advantage" message since then, since the system is a game server for friends and family where no one actually sits at the console normally.
That's not the only time when I've replaced hardware that I've encountered problems, especially when I've replaced a motherboard that wasn't the exact same model of motherboard. If you're replacing hardware in others' systems, they don't want to hear that now they've got to buy another copy of windows for several hundred dollars for a system that is several years old. In some cases, you might as well throw the system away, just because a new copy of Windows can cost more than a system is then worth, just because you upgraded or replaced a failed motherboard. Because Microsoft will say that the OEM copy only goes with the exact hardware in the system when it was purchased.