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.

Comments

False Positives?

[N3tRunner]

I wonder how many false positives this will generate? 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. I wonder if MS has figured out some way to deal with this issue? I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:False Positives?

[DeadPixels]

I wonder if MS has figured out some way to deal with this issue? I wouldn't bet on it.

Why should they, at least from their point of view? Corporate thinking here is just "well, maybe we'll get a few false positives, but gee, we'll have stopped those pirates!" They don't give a damn about catching innocents by mistake if it doesn't impact their bottom line. And it won't, because the average user is just going to phone tech support and deal with the grief and hassle, because they don't see any other option.

Re:False Positives?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:False Positives?

[calmofthestorm]

I think it's more an extortion on the law-abiding clueless to get people to pay yet again for the same software, thus moving toward the renter model MS has been after for years.

As if the windows tax wasn't bad enough. Windows 7 could be nothing more than a picture of Hitler with flashing eyes and still sell millions of copies hitchhiking on new PCs.

Re:False Positives?

[Ephemeriis]

I wonder how many false positives this will generate? 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. I wonder if MS has figured out some way to deal with this issue? I wouldn't bet on it.

If I recall correctly, there was a similar issue with Windows XP. Some OEM disc/key combination made it into the wild and became popular amongst pirates. When Microsoft eventually invalidated that disc/key combination, it invalidated a number of Windows XP installs.

Either that, or I'm completely mis-remembering something else...

Re:False Positives?

[jcrousedotcom]

Actually they do. The agency I work for has a VLK agreement with M$ and we have VLK's for both Vista and 7. They come in two flavors (just like 2008) - KMS or MAK (if you have a system that can't or won't ever see the KMS server). We've got activations on both.

Re:False Positives?

[BarryJacobsen]

Vista/7 doesn't have Volume License Keys anymore AFAIK, the "thousands of times" keys are only for XP and earlier.

I hadn't heard this before, but it's good to know that there's no way I'll ever be upgrading our systems to Vista/7 :P

Re:False Positives?

[Penguinoflight]

Actually no key is required for use of OEM installations. With a certificate and matching bios Microsoft allows the bypass of authenticity all together. Windows Vista/7 pirate releases have been more standard OEM releases with bios masking than anything else. I'd hope that Microsoft is smart enough to allow some leniency on MSDN keys, they're intended to be used for testing purposes across multiple machines, and they're used by microsoft professionals. Still the draconian hardware restrictions really get in the way of VM use should you have to change a virtual network or display adapter.

Re:False Positives?

[Targon]

A big problem isn't from those who intentionally pirate, but from those who place an illegal copy of the operating system on the computers of other people. It is amazing how many customers have had "someone come fix their computer" and that person used a Windows XP Pro CD with key to "fix" the problem. Then they turn off automatic updates. The moment the customer does an update of the OS, the key used flags the OS as not being genuine.

One thing that I feel is needed when dealing with this sort of thing is for the OS to be the same, with the key used just being used to enable or disable features. In this way, you can "downgrade" from an Ultimate or Pro version to Home if you have this sort of thing happen to you. The so-called experts who put illegal copies of software on computers are the ones who need to go away, because they cause more trouble than they solve.

Re:False Positives?

[melikamp]

Which leads us to consider the real motive for this "feature". I have to guess they call it market research, but a customer should simply regard as snooping.

It really blows my mind that people use an OS which can be rooted and/or remotely disabled by a private US company, a convicted monopolist, any time it is connected to the Internet.

Re:False Positives?

[nine-times]

Well even more than that, one of the "worst case scenarios" is going to be that a valid customer gets an error message saying, "This copy of Windows isn't genuine. Please buy a new copy." and rather than figuring out what's really going on, they'll buy a new copy.

I'm sure Microsoft doesn't mind that at all.

Re:False Positives?

[nine-times]

I believe they still have something like a "volume license key" for OEMs that checks against the firmware, and pirates have just emulated the firmware.

Either way, this won't catch sophisticated pirates. It will stop casual pirates (e.g. a home user installing on multiple systems) and it will cause problems for legitimate users.

Re:False Positives?

[julesh]

You can EASILY extract the license key from a windows machine using a registry query...

Erm, actually you can't. As of XP, the CD key is no longer stored in the registry, just the "license number" which is derived from it (IIUC) via a one-way hashing function.

Re:False Positives?

[h4rr4r]

There are two kinds of windows 7 keys KMS and MAK. I have win7 MAK keys available to me that have 5000 allowed activations. As I am not a dishonest person and have no need nor want for windows I do not use them.

The KMS version authenticates with a local server, and that could be faked to avoid this.

Re:False Positives?

[rockNme2349]

Well, at least it would be better than Vista.

Re:False Positives?

[sponga]

"grief and hassle"
Uhh last time I updated my motherboard and a couple other components I had to call in to get my key authenticated, it was hardly that painful. A lot of exaggeration about phone support around here, it can do a lot of good for your OS when people cannot even get on to a forum for help.

It is not painful to call MS and get a new key, I did it under 10 minutes a couple times when switching around Motherboards.
1.Phone in and enter your product key using the pad or read it to operator
2.Operator - "is this the only computer you will be using it on"
3.Me: "yes"
4.Operator: "ok I am going to read out your key and enter it as I say"
5.Me: "Ok its activated"
6.Operator: "thank you, come again..."

That's not painful at all and if you think that is bad than I don't really think that reflects the market/peoples opinion. On what planet do you spend most of your time on?

What is with exaggerating things around here with Windows Activation?
Obviously the false positives only get news on Slashdot and nowhere else or on the major news, get over it and accept it is a decent system. People have been predicting that even on XP WGA would be the demise of it and customers would never tolerate the false positives.

'False Positive' articles and the most random probabilities seem to happen to get modded up, such crap as "there must be some pirate out there using somebody else's legitimate key". *think of the children*(or the super small minority)
I don't even know where to start with the calculations and odds of such a thing happening, if you all of a sudden freak out like people at Slashdot do and try to concentrate all your development on this one little random problem you would have a bankrupt business.

Re:False Positives?

[Nicolay77]

As long as you upgrade IE6 to a newer version...

Re:False Positives?

[hot soldering iron]

***Warning: Linux Advocate*** ***Warning: Linux Advocate***

Sorry I'm late to the party. One of us should have been in the first 3 posts.

Users DO have an option. My wife and teenagers use Linux at home all the time (only my wife is semi-"tech savvy"). Admittedly, they do have a resident "expert" to provide support and lessons, and fix the hard stuff (drivers, etc..). But they love not being bothered by malware, not needing anti-virus software, and the systems just work. In fact, my wifes' wifi card works fine under Ubuntu, but we couldn't get the drivers to work under XP. I'm setting them up with virtual machines soon, to run optimized images of XP for their games, and whatever else they want, in a secure sandbox.

Yes, not all printers, video cards, or wifi cards are supported by all flavors. But apparently, that's the case with Windows, too. We just purchased a NAT, wifi router, and network color laser printer that all work fine with Win and Linux (the router and NAT came loaded with embedded Linux from the manufacturers). No special research involved. "Computer" doesn't have to mean "owned by Microsoft", and you don't have to worry about "drive-by" malware, or getting hijacked by cracked warez (sure, I believe your kids downloaded Visual Studio).

You don't have to get bent over by your OS distributor. But you will as long as you let them.

Re:False Positives?

[the eric conspiracy]

O RLY? How about the Belarc Advisor fiasco?

Re:False Positives?

[log0n]

There were a number of well known XP edu keys that made the piracy rounds that would automatically activate. The problem though.. once they were eventually invalidated, they killed all the real edu XP installs. I snagged both Win2k Pro and XP Pro through my schools MS Software Education Alliance (or something like that) and my XP is now useless (no SN required for the W2k).

Re:False Positives?

[thetoadwarrior]

Most people I know got their X key from various sources but it was a legit key. One guy spent sometime with a keygen but he eventually got one that worked and even had no issues with WGA. Perhaps there was something else he did, I'm not sure, but it was a piece of piss to get around Microsoft's security measures for anyone that really wanted to. WGA only stops idiots from thieving.

Re:False Positives?

[the eric conspiracy]

It's not a tax. Taxes are imposed by people you elect to their positions.

Pick another word. Fraud, Robbery, Extortion are some alternatives.

Re:False Positives?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm less concerned about the false positives than this:

"[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."

No, staggering is the number of warez installs. They wouldn't bother if it were only a few thousand, or only a few hundred thousand.

Re:False Positives?

[Khyber]

"Erm, actually you can't. As of XP, the CD key is no longer stored in the registry"

Wrong. It's still in the registry, just encrypted.

Re:False Positives?

[PRMan]

Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder seems to have no trouble getting it.

Re:False Positives?

[edmicman]

(sure, I believe your kids downloaded Visual Studio)

It could have been the Express Edition :-P

Re:False Positives?

[nurb432]

Also the huge enterprise customers will have their own local authentication server, ( which then talks to Microsoft ) so the chances that the real bread and butter customers will be burnt is slim. The home user, who cares, they can just buy a new computer as far as Microsoft is concerned.

Just another reason to 'just say no' to the company and their products.

Re:False Positives?

[t0p]

I wonder if MS has figured out some way to deal with this issue? I wouldn't bet on it.

Why should they, at least from their point of view? Corporate thinking here is just "well, maybe we'll get a few false positives, but gee, we'll have stopped those pirates!"

But it doesn't "stop those pirates" - at least, not for long. No matter what validation hoops they put up, the pirates will quickly work out how to jump through them with ease.

Anyway, I don't think pirates bother much with the illegal software business any more. It's more profitable to kidnap round-the-world yachters these days.

Re:False Positives?

[t0p]

Whatever. I don't need to know how the "pirates" get round the validation thing. All I need to know is that they get round it. I remember when WGA was going to stamp out "piracy". But the "pirates" worked around it. And they'll work around this new thing. Most people who get troubled by this will be legit customers.

Re:False Positives?

[caseih]

Well the real issue is that all this is so unnecessary. It does nothing to actually stop the "piracy problem" while at the same time simply hassling users, most of which are legitimate. And those that aren't will not be convinced to buy Windows by any of this. That's why slashdot complains about this kind of thing. It's a senseless waste on the part of Microsoft, but the cost is largely born by those of us who have to use Windows on occasion. So yes, when something like this comes along and makes it harder for me to use stuff I bought the way I want to use it, then I complain.

In the meantime, as evil as Apple is, at least I don't have to activate OS X (there's this rather large expensive dongle required though).

Now that linux runs so well on my laptop, I actually finally do have an alternative to windows, so I can say to Microsoft, "no thanks" when offered Windows 7's "genuine advantage."

Re:False Positives?

[BikeHelmet]

In fact, my wifes' wifi card works fine under Ubuntu, but we couldn't get the drivers to work under XP

I've seen exactly the same thing with flakey Atheros wireless cards. "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"

Re:False Positives?

[BikeHelmet]

People bring me quite a few XP computers that have WGA complaining. Very few are VLK installs. However, I do always wonder why a generic Dell PC has XP Pro installed rather than XP Home.

I suspect this is the answer:

It is amazing how many customers have had "someone come fix their computer" and that person used a Windows XP Pro CD with key to "fix" the problem. Then they turn off automatic updates. The moment the customer does an update of the OS, the key used flags the OS as not being genuine.

It's trivial patching an XP Pro VLK install fully, while it has an invalid key.

Re:False Positives?

[znerk]

You can EASILY extract the license key from a windows machine using a registry query...

Erm, actually you can't. As of XP, the CD key is no longer stored in the registry, just the "license number" which is derived from it (IIUC) via a one-way hashing function.

Never heard of Magical Jellybean KeyFinder, I take it?

Re:False Positives?

[TClevenger]

It is amazing how many customers have had "someone come fix their computer" and that person used a Windows XP Pro CD with key to "fix" the problem.

I think part of the problem is how Microsoft ties the serial number to the disc. For instance, you're reinstalling Windows on a Dell machine. If you don't have the Dell recovery discs, you can't use a retail, generic OEM or HP OEM disc; the perfectly legitimate serial number on the side of the machine will fail. Thus, some less-prepared folks will just reinstall with whatever pirated CD and serial number they have.

Re:False Positives?

[broken_chaos]

I'm setting them up with virtual machines soon, to run optimized images of XP for their games, and whatever else they want, in a secure sandbox.

I haven't looked at VM technology much lately, but how do you plan to deal with the issue of graphics cards not virtualising, often leaving you with something equivalent to a baseline, five-year-old graphics card inside the VM? Or has this problem been solved by one of the more recent VM software packages?

Re:False Positives?

[kramerd]

I don't follow.

If you bought XP at the release, you got 10 years of free updates. Now, you still get to use it. Your OS is not rented, but if you don't have the newer release, you don't get free updates. How is this renting?

Its not a windows tax, its a purchase of software. Believe it or not, my commodore 64 still works.

If windows was just a picture, it wouldn't work, and no one would buy it. Sarcasm or not (and I assume it must be), there is nothing insightful about your post. Just insulting to logic. I pay my local car wash place to clean and wax my car. Am I paying a polymer tax, or just taking advantage of a service? Just because people choose to pay for unecessary items that they could produce on their own doesn't mean that they were required to buy them or didn't weigh the cost/benefit of purchase vs do it yourself.

I pay a sales tax, income tax, vehicle registration tax, capital gains, currency transactions, but the cost of windows is not a tax.

Re:False Positives?

[shallot]

Yes. The documentation is public, see Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 - Volume Activation Technical Reference Guide. Applying a MAK means simply running a command:

slmgr.vbs /ipk <MultipleActivationKey>

Re:False Positives?

[calmofthestorm]

I'm not a windows user but my cash is still lining their pockets. I am prohibited from exercising my RIGHT of first sale by returning the software or selling it by their technical means, which it is illegal to circumvent by the DMCA

I see hte point about it not technically being a tax, but when you follow the chain up, it really is.

Re:False Positives?

[kramerd]

Capitalizing a word in a sentence does not provide emphasis nor does it make the sentence any more accurate when it is wrong.

Following it up the chain, you chose to purchase a service (software, by purchasing a computer that came with an OS; I know from personal experience that you can purchase a computer, working out of the box, without windows for less money than with, with minimal personal effort, much like you can purchase uncooked ingredients from which you will prepare on your own instead of buying prepared meals from a restaurant) and are complaining that you can't sell the benefits of that service. To really let this sink in, you would not hire a tax attorney and them claim that you should be able to resell the service your purchased because the IRS dropped their case against you. NOr would you purchase the services of a tax attorney to complete your return in 2005 and then ask them to represent you on your 2009 return. While they would be required to be responsible for the information you provided for 2005, even in 2009, filing future returns is not required (nor should they be expected).

Much like how you can purchase ingredients, prepare a meal, and resell it, you can purchase computer parts, a software license that you have not activated (eaten), and resell it. You cannot and should not be able to purchase a service, use it, and then resell it. From my previous example, I can't get my car waxed, and then sell the right to a car waxing (even though I can sell the car).

Purchasing software is not just technically not a tax, it is a tax in no way, shape, or form. To claim otherwise is a lie.

Re:False Positives?

[bangthegong]

Good point... Save your receipts... This will not be fun for the person who bought Windows and then is accused by Microsoft of stealing it.

Re:False Positives?

[HigH5]

*****Warning: Linux Troll***** If you are the resident "expert" then your family didn't have much choice. Just like my girlfriend didn't :)

Re:False Positives?

[taucross]

We have elected Microsoft to this position by giving them our money. You may discriminate between the power of government and the power of a corporation, but in practice there is no difference.

Re:False Positives?

[Eil]

One nice thing about running Linux natively and Windows XP virtualized (assuming you have to run XP at all) is that you can move the XP image from physical machine to physical machine without tripping the hardware configuration change bullcrap because the virtualized hardware doesn't appear to change from XP's point of view.

Re:False Positives?

[goonerw]

or getting hijacked by cracked warez (sure, I believe your kids downloaded Visual Studio).

Cracked version of Visual Studio? There's no protection on it anyway. Besides, everyone that downloads it from MSDN has the same key baked into the installer anyway.

Re:False Positives?

[dcam]

The fact that it is not terribly difficult does not mean you should be forced to do it.

Re:False Positives?

[obeythefist]

It is not painful to call MS and get a new key, I did it under 10 minutes

I agree, it's not painful. It's horribly time wasting, arrogant of the vendor, and positively user hostile. Let's multiply 10 minutes by the number of Windows licensees out there. Actually I have no idea how many that is, but certainly in the hundreds of millions.

That's how much time wasting Microsoft is inflicting on the business world. Let's be hippies for a moment. How much carbon is emitted by the fossil fuels burned to power those PC's while people are hammering in their activation codes obediently for Microsoft? Say it's just 100,000,000 PCs. That's 1,902 years of power. Let's say your average PC uses about 160W of power during this time. At 0.7kg of carbon per kW, we get a comfortable 213 tonnes of carbon emissions directly caused by Microsoft.

I'm not sure how anyone can defend this kind of behavior.

Save the environment. Use an activation hack.

Re:False Positives?

[imunfair]

Well, I work in IT so I've seen my share of people having issues, and although I've never given anyone a pirated copy of Windows it doesn't surprise me. A number of times people have hosed their system, and then can't manage to find the OEM CD that came with it. No one can make a copy of a real Windows CD for them as a replacement since OEM CDs normally don't come with Windows keys.

This leaves three options in general:
1. Someone reinstalls a cracked version of Windows (or legit version with key off the internet)
2. The person calls the manufacturer to request a replacement CD

I always advise the second option, but I can see why someone would find it easier to go with the first option - and that is partially the OEM/Microsoft's fault for not providing a full retail product with the sale of the computer. With a real product key (assuming they didn't lose that) all the person would need would be a friend to make them a backup copy of Windows to replace the lost CD.

It's a cheap shot to place blame on the people trying to work around the inadequacies of the way the corporations are doing business. If Dell or other OEMs were smart they would offer an opt-out option to pay $5 more at time of purchase for the ability to re-download lost CDs (and a online list of software product keys that came with the computer) - I bet they'd make a bundle.

Re:False Positives?

[hot soldering iron]

Actually, I ran Windows up to XP, then migrated to Linux a couple years ago. So I do know my way around Windows.
I could only find the one Windows license, so when their machines had to be upgraded/reloaded and we couldn't find the OEM disks anymore, it was Linux (free), or buy more licenses for them. Economics is pretty easy when you present it right. "No movie rentals for 6 months to pay for your disk." My kids are fiscally responsible. : ) LOL

Re:False Positives?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

http://xkcd.com/528/

Re:False Positives?

[jp10558]

What's really amazing to me is, who is doing this in the developed world? You almost cannot buy a PC without Windows, it's often cheaper to purchase a Dell/HP/Lenovo/whatever than build an equivalent from parts ignoring the license cost. So why are so many users pirating? I'd say upgrades, but Vista was a flop, and Win 7 isn't necessarily likely to run great on an existing XP computer unless it's new enough that the user COULD HAVE JUST BOUGHT IT WITH WIN 7.

I suppose there's some shops that are cheating when selling white box PCs, but I have my doubts about how many people are really buying White Box vs Best Buy or calling Dell/HP/Lenovo etc...

The home builders can't be that many people...

I suppose it could be the Mac users who want Windows also and don't like the retail cost, but really, I doubt it.

If you're a business, you ought not be pirating, though I have to guess that's where most of the stuff MS wants to catch is - but in that case, I would have thought the BSA was more than enough.

Re:False Positives?

[ImprovOmega]

But in order to work the KMS server needs 20 computers connected to it before it's considered "valid", and further the KMS server has to be "Microsoft approved" for the activation to be valid. You're still going to have a key *on the KMS server* that Microsoft can check against, and if it isn't on the approved list, *bam* invalid. You'd basically be proxying the authentication and not gaining anything (if it worked) that wouldn't be more easily done by just hacking Win7 itself to begin with.

Re:False Positives?

[WindShadow]

Of course Microsoft has figured out a way to deal with this, they will charge the legitimate user again. The object of the program is to generate revenue, not to protect the rights of legitimate users. The only question is if the false positives are accidental, or a case of guilty unless proved innocent.

Who's On First?

[eldavojohn]

Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT.

Microsoft Phone Support: Thank you for calling Microsoft, all calls may be monitored for training purposes and to ensure quality of service. Now, what seems to be the problem ...
Customer: That's right.
*pause*
Microsoft Phone Support: ... ? Sir, you have to give me more information.
Customer: I'll tell you my problem. WAT is my problem.
Microsoft Phone Support: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question, you haven't told me yet.
Customer: I didn't ask you a question.
Microsoft Phone Support: Then why did you call? Why do you need help?
Customer: WAT's wrong. I can't activate Windows 7 but I just bought it!
Microsoft Phone Support: Okay, let's try to diagnose this problem. What's wrong?
Customer: Yes, I already said that, I know WAT is wrong! That is precisely why I called!
Microsoft Phone Support: Wait, why are you calling?
Customer: WAT!
Microsoft Phone Support: I said, why are you calling?!
Customer: WAT! WAT, GODDAMNIT, WAT!!!

Re:Who's On First?

[Jaysyn]

Brilliant :D

Re:Who's On First?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be a real hit at parties.

Re:Who's On First?

[Anonymous Coward]

>enter trapdoor
Yes, probably just as well to give up looking, and heaven knows there's enough packing to do, what with the rest of the family in uproar. Oh well.

      *** You have missed the point entirely ***

In that game you scored 0 out of a possible 550, in 3 turns, giving you the rank of hapless Tourist.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, give the FULL score for that game or QUIT?
>

Re:Who's On First?

[skuzzlebutt]

Customer: What's your name? I need to talk to your supervisor.
Microsoft Phone Support: Hu.
Customer: (head explodes)

Re:Who's On First?

[rsax]

Sir, I salute you.

Re:Who's On First?

[eldavojohn]

If you're too stupid to spell it out, you're too stupid to deserve the oxygen you're breathing.

So you're that guy that repeatedly stood up in the grade school auditorium during the Abbott and Costello sketch and yelled, "The man that is on first has an uncommon given name of 'Who' resulting in the confusion that is unfolding between the two of you. Now that that is cleared up, carry on with the dialogue."

Re:Who's On First?

[gringer]

Microsoft Phone Support: Describe what Marcellus Wallace looks like
Customer: What?
Microsoft Phone Support: Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you
Customer: WAT!

Re:Who's On First?

[blind biker]

Microsoft Phone Support: Thank you for calling Microsoft, all calls may be monitored for training purposes and to ensure quality of service. Now, what seems to be the problem ...
Customer: That's right.
*pause*
Microsoft Phone Support: ... ? Sir, you have to give me more information.
Customer: I'll tell you my problem. WAT is my problem.
Microsoft Phone Support: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question, you haven't told me yet.
Customer: I didn't ask you a question.
Microsoft Phone Support: Then why did you call? Why do you need help?
Customer: WAT's wrong. I can't activate Windows 7 but I just bought it!
Microsoft Phone Support: Okay, let's try to diagnose this problem. What's wrong?
Customer: Yes, I already said that, I know WAT is wrong! That is precisely why I called!
Microsoft Phone Support: Wait, why are you calling?
Customer: WAT!
Microsoft Phone Support: I said, why are you calling?!
Customer: WAT! WAT, GODDAMNIT, WAT!!!

I nearly peed myself.
It's funny, because I can see something like this playing itself out in real life, more than once.

Now with Continuous Auditing! (aka surveillance)

[Statecraftsman]

WAT? WATTF!

Like serial numbers, product keys, and activation before, automatic auditing like WGA is proving not to be as effective as Microsoft would like... this is surveillance plain and simple. Looks like I'm going to need to update my article on problems with non-free software... (Free Software or: How I Learned...).

Son of WGA

[tepples]

I wonder how many false positives this will generate?

Probably no more than Windows XP, whose "Windows Genuine Advantage" module has the same behavior.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

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.

Re:Son of WGA

[poetmatt]

it's a lot less trivial for folks who never bought it (and thus pirated) by just disabling this WAT. Nice to know MS is treating their paying customers almost as well as it treats the ones that don't pay.

Re:Son of WGA

[jedidiah]

I am sure that will be perfect consolation to granny as she has her system disabled and then has to deal with some phone monkey.

Mandatory license management for consumer products is Brazil-type absurd. It's annoying enough for corporate products.

Re:Son of WGA

[Ephemeriis]

it's a lot less trivial for folks who never bought it (and thus pirated) by just disabling this WAT. Nice to know MS is treating their paying customers almost as well as it treats the ones that don't pay.

Yup.

Once again, the assorted DRM measures only affect paying customers.

Anyone who is actually pirating the software has already cracked or bypassed the activation process in some way. They'll probably never have to deal with this WAT stuff.

And some poor soul who actually purchased a legitimate copy of Windows (either retail, or with an OEM box) is going to get their software de-authorized because of a false positive.

Re:Son of WGA

[Anonymous Coward]

In my book, any piece of software which requires getting on the phone is defective by design. You may not mind the ridiculous waste of time and effort which is calling tech support, but I sure as hell do.

Re:Son of WGA

[smartin]

Yes awefully kind of them to let you use the software that you bought and paid for.

Re:Son of WGA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yes. I often say that of other things I buy when i need to call the manufacturer/sole sales point and get them to allow me to use MY STUFF again. Awfully kind of them. Awfully.

Re:Son of WGA

[asdf7890]

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.

That comes down to it being difficult to tell the difference between a certain amount of upgrading and a completely new machine, rather than MS being nice about it. The license says you must affix the proof of authenticity to the exterior of the machine. Upgrading the CPU which may well mean a new motherboard & RAM, which implies a new graphics card controller if you are using an integrated controller rather than a plug-in card, and may necessitate a complete reinstall - from the OS's perspective this looks no different to having been reinstalled on a complete new machine rather than an "upgraded one" where the upgrade happens to cover a large chunk of the components.

Re:Son of WGA

[click2005]

They'll probably never have to deal with This WAT stuff.

Hmm.. TWAT.. I bet that'll catch on.

Re:Son of WGA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

Yeah, because it seems perfectly reasonable for my OS to require me to call the developer periodically in order to remain functional. I'm shocked the contractor who built my house doesn't periodically change the keys to the front door so that I can validate every 6 months that I do, in fact, still own the house. Or that my car doesn't connect electronically every few months to make sure I still have the manufacturer's permission to drive it.

Why would anyone have a problem with this sort of thing? As long as any malfunction can probably be fixed with a phonecall, I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong.

Re:Son of WGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame Dell - OEM license says they'll handle all tech support queries for the software. If you're not able to accept that you called the wrong person despite being told several times, I'm pretty sure it's your problem, not theirs.

Re:Son of WGA

[Ngarrang]

Yeah, because it seems perfectly reasonable for my OS to require me to call the developer periodically in order to remain functional.

Welcome to the world of mainframe licensing. Now coming to homes everywhere. There is a solution, of course: Don't run Win7.

Re:Son of WGA

[NeverVotedBush]

Linux is always Genuine. And with the open distros, it doesn't cost a cent. You can put copies of it on as many computers as you want. You have server functionality if you want it - for free.

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

I understand that they are a company, entitled to sell licenses to their stuff, and to enforce those licenses. But this seems to be changing the rules on legitimate users after they already bought the licenses.

Doesn't matter to me. I run XP on a system not on a network and don't need to patch it for anything. Everything else I run is Linux and I haven't booted the XP box in over a year - probably more like two.

I voted with my feet a long time ago.

Re:Son of WGA

[Lord Pillage]

The reason is because its a lot harder to make an illegal copy of a house or a car. Has anyone ever thought that people in business might want to make sure that the copies of Windows they have on their machines are valid and thus would want to install this patch to ensure it. I know if I was running a business and had a software audit that I'd want to make sure everything was legit.

Re:Son of WGA

[flakrat]

It's the same mindset used by the PC gaming publishers, punish the legal users by employing troublesome (sometimes destructive) antipiracy measures. These measures hardly thwart the pirates (often NoCD solutions are found before the official release date for the game), yet the really piss off and inconvenience the legitimate owners.

Re:Son of WGA

[Runefox]

That sounds like a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of issue, to be honest. Of the years I've been activating (and transferring) licenses of all sorts in the local PC repair business, I've never once had Microsoft refuse to activate a legit license, regardless of the OEM (I also once screwed up and used a known illegit license just to get Windows installed for the sake of time and forgot to change it afterwards; The guy at the other end actually ended up giving me an activation code for it, too).

Hell, the shop I worked at bought CoA's on the side from a vendor in Ontario. They were usually pulled from VLK systems and so on, and a few of them even had OEM branding. They basically always worked if you told the IVR that you had made an upgrade. :P

Usually, I don't end up having to even talk to a rep over it. If I do, it's mostly "I'm a tech at a PC repair shop, I'm activating this for a customer after a reinstall due to [your choice of: severe malware infection, motherboard failure, hard drive failure, hardware upgrade, etc]. This is the key on the side of the system." - They usually comply.

Re:Son of WGA

[Sir_Lewk]

Well, technically all of the distros are open. Some of them just aren't gratis.

Re:Son of WGA

[DogDude]

"As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it."

It works relatively well.
It's cheap.
Every major or minor application works with it.
Every piece of hardware works with it.

Why not use Windows?

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

Has anyone ever thought that people in business might want to make sure that the copies of Windows they have on their machines are valid and thus would want to install this patch to ensure it.

No. I've honestly never thought that.

I am one of these "people in business" and I personally wouldn't trust this tool for that purpose. Microsoft could do an awful lot to make my software auditing easier, but this isn't one of them.

If this was Microsoft's intention, then they should have included a license manager in their server software that allowed me to control my level of enforcement without reporting back to Microsoft. The fact that they force you to report back to them demonstrates that their intention is not to help users or businesses.

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

Don't run Win7.

I don't.

Totally honest and dead serious: I run an IT department. I've tested Windows 7 and Windows Vista. I would considering buying upgrades to Windows 7 (I even put space in my budget for it) if not for all their "activation" and anti-piracy nonsense. For now I'm sticking with the volume licensing version of Windows XP and avoiding WGA as much as I can, while looking to OSX and Linux as possible upgrade routes *largely to avoid activation*.

I don't pirate software, but I view any activation scheme as potentially dangerous, generally inconvenient, completely unnecessary, and even insulting.

Re:Son of WGA

[NeverVotedBush]

True. I was just making the distinction of the distributions that are free like Fedora, openSuSe, Mint, etc, and those where you are paying for support like RHEL, SuSe, and others.

The free ones are totally free. Download, install, copy, and distribute as much as you want.

I really love Linux. KDE and Gnome are both wonderful desktops. And it does everything I need and so much more that I don't need - if I choose to install that functionality.

Apples are great for what they are (and I have a Powerbook laptop) but the features in Linux make it much more versatile. ;-)

Re:Son of WGA

[jmorris42]

> And with the open distros, it doesn't cost a cent. You can put copies of it on as
> many computers as you want. You have server functionality if you want it - for free.

It is even better. You can even install RHEL for free, they only charge for updates and support. Granted that only a madman would put an Internet facing server out without updates or support but RedHat won't remotely disable you.

I hope Microsoft has great success with this scheme, eliminating 100% of unauthorized copies. As a certain fictional princess noted, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Or do they plan on using geolocation tech to allow 3rd world areas to continue their rampant 'piracy?'

Re:Son of WGA

[Nadaka]

Every piece of hardware does not work with windows. There is a huge backlog of hardware that does not have windows 7 drivers and never will. Linux, for the most part, supports far more hardware than windows.

Re:Son of WGA

[butalearner]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

I've always felt it was a kind of technological Stockholm Syndrome, or perhaps it should be called Redmond Syndrome.

There are reasons to continue being Microsoft victims, of course, such as all those content providers whom Microsoft pays handsomely to ensure their products only work or only work reliably on Windows. And they provide their own proprietary development tools for everything - some of which are the best in the business, don't get me wrong - so that more and more new software (and more and more developers) only works on Windows. Other than that, people just stay because Windows is familiar. So people happily accept their abuse - indeed, they defend it - in return for these things. I'm sure people will jump in with anecdotes about "trying" Linux and failing miserably, but the counter-anecdotes are just as numerous. The only conclusion you can draw is that people accept the abuse because they don't know any better.

And if that's not just like Stockholm Syndrome, I don't know what is.

Re:Son of WGA

[torkus]

Dead on.

Remember Spore? It was released with some of the most restrictive DRM to date. PRIOR to it's release date it was easily found on P2P, cracked, and with literally 10,000+ seeders. This stopped piracy in what way?

Oddly enough the backlash from legal, paid users was so harsh they stepped back from that DRM scheme.

Of all the popular products out there only the PS3 comes to mind as not being fairly quickly cracked (though I read something recently this may have been done). Everything from hardware-interlocks (dongles) of CAD/CAM, device OS restrictions (iphone, droid, etc.), gaming consoles locks (NES to Wii), serial numbers, online registration (windows activation, etc.), DVD/Blu-Ray have all been hacked/cracked.

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends. Plus there isn't multiple versions of the same OS to worry about *AND* it's cheaper than the least expensive Win7 build. I'm not a applefag but seriously - take a hint MS.

Re:Son of WGA

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Wait what! Your actually stoked because your software overlords allowed you the priviledge to use software you paid for on a new system you bought? Really? Are fucking kidding me? Talk about low expectations.

You should try OSS your mind would be blown. Get this I know you won't believe me but the software is free and there aren't even any activation rituals. Oh and your really not going to believe this for a second but you even get the source code to read or modify if you like. I know I can see you shaking your head in utter disbelief. But try googling for Ubuntu and see for yourself.

Re:Son of WGA

[jimfrost]

I keep thinking of my in-laws, who took their (fully legal) PC that had become malware-ridden to a local "fix my PC" place and got it back with a pirated version of Windows. They obviously still have their original license, but WAT would shut them down and I'm sure the call to MS would be annoying for all involved.

As an aside, it drove me nuts that the repair place did this; the license key was pasted on the damn box, they could have done it fully legally with any install disc. My guess is that they just created a "works everywhere" image from a pirated copy. When it comes right down to it, after all, almost nobody gets a PC that doesn't have Windows already on it. Hell, it's so annoyingly difficult to buy a PC *without* Windows that I usually have a spare license or two laying around from my Linux boxen.

Re:Son of WGA

[Darinbob]

Well, if they can't get the pirates to pay, at least they'll get the honest consumers to pay twice.

Re:Son of WGA

[kevingolding2001]

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends.

This works well for Apple because their software only runs on Apple computers (ignoring Hackintosh).
So you can really only share the DVD with friends who have an Apple computer.
All Apple computers come with a copy of OS X, so your friends effectively have a licence to run OS X anyway.

Of course you can still get the next release of OS X for free, but in practice this only works for 1 or 2 releases, by which time the old hardware can no longer run the latest software release.

Re:Son of WGA

[kimvette]

I've seen driver upgrades result in a need for re-activation; video drivers, network drivers, and so forth. Microsoft usually isn't that combative when it comes to activation over the phone (unless you're an MSDN subscriber and you answer "do you have this installed on more than one machine" - I hate the wasted time but I love making the phone grunts feel like idiots for not knowing their own licensing rules).

However, who does activation (wasted time, false positives on counterfeits, etc.) hurt? Not the professional pirates. Not the people who (usually knowingly) buy cracked or leaked corporate versions of Windows. It is the legitimate, paying customer. I find the need to have to call Microsoft to activate MSDN licenses to be insulting; I shouldn't have to deal with that shit after a few installs because the license specifically allows 10 concurrent installs per subscriber.

Like the music and movie industries, Microsoft has successfully made the counterfeit product superior to the legitimate one.

What are the alternatives? Run OS X or Linux if those solutions are workable for you.

Re:Son of WGA

[torkus]

They don't even want to force you to report back to them - they want to do the reporting themselves!

I work in an enterprise level environment as well and there's no chance - ZERO - that I'd ever want to allow something that I have no control over sitting out there possibly disabling computers at it's whim. MS can't even guarantee their OS will run correctly, you expect me to believe this enforcement tool will work on top of a bug-prone OS?

MS licensing is a pain and this won't help.

Re:Son of WGA

[kimvette]

Of the years I've been activating (and transferring) licenses of all sorts in the local PC repair business, I've never once had Microsoft refuse to activate a legit license, regardless of the OEM

I have; I have five MSDN subscriptions. One of those subscriptions is mine so I often have a bunch of test and staging workstations (or servers) installed, and to install some of the updates I've had to activate workstations which are going to be wiped after a few days. I always answer honestly when asked "Is this installed on more than one system?" and one asshole on their staff argued that MSDN is no different than any other license. I had to demand to speak to that moron's supervisor and explain that the employee is an idiot and needs to learn their product lines because MSDN explicitly allows for 10 concurrent installations on all of the software (with a couple of exceptions), a couple of items are allowed for production (not Exchange or SQL Server, obviously. I think it was XP and Office), and that I should not have to deal with activation for a suite of products which is intended for use in development and testing environments where the OS is reinstalled regularly, and where imaging may not work due to varying configurations. The manager was apologetic and agreed that I was right about the MSDN licensing, but that doesn't fix things when you have to wait on hold for anywhere from a minute to 20 minutes to speak with a supervisor when the void of a phone grunt doesn't know MSDN subscriptions exist.

You could say to just lie and get off the phone quickly, but I disagree. Honesty is the best policy, and on top of that, supervisors and managers at Microsoft need to be made to feel the users' pain, and hopefully enough irate users will drive the incompetent phone grunts into quitting, resulting in a net gain for Microsoft and end users alike.

Re:Son of WGA

[Mister Whirly]

The corporate versions of Vista and Windows 7 that the University I work for is now offering (we have a Microsoft Campus Agreement for all OS and for Office products) use Windows Key Servers instead of Volume License Keys for all activations. So whereas before i could take the CD/DVD and the VLK and install on an unlimited amount of machines anywhere, now any installs have to be done on the campus network (or using a VPN to appear to be on campus), and need to check in to the servers occasionally (it was every 180 days, now it sounds like they may have shortened it) to stay "valid". As far as the University goes, they think it is wonderful becasue they are paying for a lot less user licenses than they were before, and can more closely control how many licenses are actually floating around out there. I haven't played around with trying to get around this too much, but I would guess there are ways. And is it possible to set up hidden "rogue" MS Key Servers that will validate any system that contact them?

Re:Son of WGA

[kimvette]

Mainframes are works for hire. PCs are not.

When you buy an off-the-shelf/over-the-counter good, first sale doctrine applies. On a work for hire, an EULA may hold legimate cause to restrict lessees' rights. That is not the case with commodity goods.

Re:Son of WGA

[Khyber]

"Oddly enough the backlash from legal, paid users was so harsh they stepped back from that DRM scheme."

And I FUCKING ENJOYED busting EA's ass.

Which reminds me, those bastards STILL have yet to remit my payment to me.

Re:Son of WGA

[Ngarrang]

Mainframes are works for hire. PCs are not.

When you buy an off-the-shelf/over-the-counter good, first sale doctrine applies. On a work for hire, an EULA may hold legimate cause to restrict lessees' rights. That is not the case with commodity goods.

Congrats. You just figured out the direction Microsoft wants to go in the future to assure a constant flow of cash.

Re:Son of WGA

[pwizard2]

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.

And you see nothing inherently wrong with the concept that you have to call Microsoft and essentially beg them to reactivate a product you already bought and paid for? If your Windows 7 can be deactivated and essentially blacklisted on Microsoft's whim, what exactly did you purchase? Do you actually own a copy or are you just renting it? Phone reactivation may not be a long drawn-out process, but I still oppose it on principle. It's not my problem that Microsoft is supposedly losing money on piracy, so why should I be inconvenienced in the slightest by it?

Not to mention that I would consider any program that phones home without my concept to be malware, even if Microsoft wrote it.

Re:Son of WGA

[NiceGeek]

My eMac managed to last through 5 versions. Not too shabby.

Re:Son of WGA

[markass530]

It's absolutely NOT trivial. I Upgraded my Boss's MB and had to get XP re activated for some bullshit reason. I Spent 2 hours on the phone with some asshole in india who spoke shit English. Make that 3 assholes. Got Xferred multiple times.

Re:Son of WGA

[drooling-dog]

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.

Good lord. You had to ask permission from Microsoft to upgrade your own rig, and you think they're just swell because they gave it to you.

If only there was an OS that you could install on whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without asking permission or paying a fistful of money each time. Oh, and free too. Well, that could never happen...

Re:Son of WGA

[farble1670]

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends. Plus there isn't multiple versions of the same OS to worry about *AND* it's cheaper than the least expensive Win7 build. I'm not a applefag but seriously - take a hint MS.

because you need apple hardware to run the OS, and apple is a hardware company that at best breaks even on OSX sales. they don't care if you pirate the OS because they know you paid up the arse for your sparkly new apple hardware.

Re:Son of WGA

[Fnord666]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

Maybe because for a very large percentage of the home computer owning public this has been(as WGA) and will be a non-issue?

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

...there's no chance - ZERO - that I'd ever want to allow something that I have no control over sitting out there possibly disabling computers at it's whim...

This has been one of my arguments about "activation" from the beginning: When I buy a software product, I want to know that the developers spent their time and resources trying to make sure the program *always* works properly. Microsoft should be trying to root out bugs. Instead they're diverting resources to introduce artificial bugs and make sure that your product breaks under certain circumstances. This fact shows that they don't understand their purpose and their priorities are out-of-whack, and I consider that enough of a reason to avoid that software products all by itself.

My company has a couple of products that require activation, but only when we're backed into a corner and have absolutely no choice.

Re:Son of WGA

[dave562]

Counter points... If someone else picked up your house and moved it to another lot, you'd want it back. If someone moved into your house and changed the locks on you, you'd want some sort of recourse. You probably don't own your house, the bank does. Even if you've paid off the mortgage, you still have to pay property taxes and maintenance (new roof, old plumbing, carpet, etc) If someone drove away with your car you would want it back.

When you buy a house or a car, are you buying it for yourself or are you buying it for the entire neighborhood? The problem with software is that one copy can be reproduced an infinite number of times. A company has a couple of choices. They can lock their software into their hardware like Apple does. Or they can try to find the economic sweet spot between affordability for the customer and profitability for the company. I spent my teens on BBSes downloading all the warez I could. Despite that when I found a game from a publisher that I liked, I would pay for it. I wanted the company to say in business so that they could make more games. I feel the same way about Windows. For all of its warts, the applications that make day to day life easier (and make it possible for the organization I work for to function efficiently) are Windows apps.

Your car analogy fails because you have to continually pay to keep it registered, even after you buy it. When you pay for your registration and insurance, you don't get "free" upgrades. The car just keeps getting older. On the positive side, the car pretty much just works right off of the lot. Software is a process of gradual improvement.

Having said all of that, I think that Microsoft is fighting a losing battle. The OS itself is quickly becoming obsolete. Applications are moving away from the desktop and onto the web on the front end. On the back end, developers are finding alternative platforms to develop for. Sooner or later we are going to reach the point where a "good enough" solution is provided outside of the Windows ecosystem.

Windows continues to thrive because of the applications available exclusively on the platform. Even so, those applications are being virtualized on both the desktop (think Parallels, VirtualBox, et al) and on the server (Citrix, Terminal Services, etc.) Again, the OS becomes less relevant. If I were an app developer, I'd be scared to death of developing something for Microsoft SQL Server because of the fear that someone else would develop a similar product targeting MySQL or Progres running on Linux. It would be impossible to compete on cost and it would be unfair to my clients to expect them to eat Windows licensing fees on top of whatever I wanted to charge them for my app.

I like Windows because for me it just works. I realize I'm probably in the minority, and that's why I get paid to come to work five days a week and make sure that it "just works" for close to 200 other people. As a consultant I was responsible for thousands of Windows boxes and servers for organizations that reached across the globe. I've setup Linux servers and after hours of tweaking and configuring, they continue to just work. I've worked with OSX, and it just works... until you use some none Apple software (Adobe, I'm looking at you). Like everyone else on here, I've grown up with technology. It's my experience that in this day and age, the only thing that comes close to just working is my game console (PS3). It even phones home for new firmware from time to time.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

The system is automated now, at least since Vista. Never had to talk to anyone.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

No, because I knew what the terms of the license were when I purchased the product.

My principles are this: Does the product do what I want, when I want it, with a minimal amount of fuss?

For me, Windows meets, and has met, the bill for quite a few years. OS X does to an extent, but the hardware is expensive for my needs. Linux does not.

It helps that I'm not an OS fundamentalist.

Re:Son of WGA

[Runefox]

You and I would be coming from two very different perspectives in the tech world in this case. As a developer, it's totally understandable on their end (and on yours) that you shouldn't have to be subjected to something like this, and it's quite likely to be their utmost priority to please you in whatever way possible.

I'm not actually advocating lying - I haven't actually flat-out lied in any case with regard to MSFT activation, and when prompted during a license transfer during a rebuild/upgrade or what have you will always respond that it has in fact been activated before and that significant hardware changes had occurred. Most often, that's enough for the automated IVR to proceed. Again, about the only time it actually came down to fishy business is with those sketchy CoA's my former employer kept bringing in.

In my case, as a repair tech, it's far less personal and it's not about the user's pain - It's standard procedure for us (we bear what the user otherwise would in this scenario). Still a pain in the ass, but during the course of a day, the relatively small shop I worked at (with three 4-port KVM benches for service) would probably call in over a dozen or so activations. I guess at this point, having to phone in an activation probably wouldn't bug me so much since I'm so used to it.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Who paid for the call, fuckhead?

Yeah, you got me. I'll recant everything I said now. (Technically, Microsoft paid for the toll-free number and I paid for the cellphone minutes).

Re:Son of WGA

[illeism]

Well, if they can't get the pirates to pay, at least they'll get the honest consumers to pay twice.

I've been paying for Windows for most of my IT career...

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

I keep thinking of my in-laws, who took their (fully legal) PC that had become malware-ridden to a local "fix my PC" place and got it back with a pirated version of Windows.

Amazing. If for no other reason than they actually still had access to a local "fix my PC" place that wasn't at Best Buy, y'know?

Re:Son of WGA

[ickpoo]

Hell, my copy of Windows 7 - picked it up using the MSDN subscription my work gives me - installed out of curiosity. It worked fine after installation and I was fairly impressed that the tablet functions worked right out of the box. The last time I booted it (it is installed on a rather old and unused tablet computer) it kindly told me my copy of Windows 7 wasn't genuine. I was stunned by this, I'm using the software key that the MSDN website generated, how can this key be invalid?

If it is this faulty in determining valid from invalid I shudder think of what it will be like in the wild.

I didn't bother to even attempt to figure out what was wrong with it; the machine is used purely for fiddling with different OSs.

Re:Son of WGA

[Dragonslicer]

Linux is always Genuine.

Not always, but at least you do have the option with Linux Genuine Advantage.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

You really think that with a UID this low, that I don't know anything about OSS? Please. The fact of the matter is that I'm not a software fundamentalist, and my job tasks work best using commercial operating systems. Spending time raging about licensing vs purchasing takes away from stuff I could be accomplishing that makes my life more fun.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Typically, any business of decent size will be able to get some manner of volume license that doesn't require activation.

Not to say that you're totally wrong that it might be considered useful, just that if a company has a VLK (or whatever MS calls them these days) and there's still pirated versions of Windows ending up on machines, it's a whole different problem.

Re:Son of WGA

[t0p]

The reason is because its a lot harder to make an illegal copy of a house or a car.

Uh what? It's just as easy for me to make an illegal copy of a house or car as it is for the original manufacturer to make a legal copy. In the same way that it's equally simple to make a legal or illegal copy of an OS disk.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

The current system I used was automated. I didn't have to talk to anyone.

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.

Whoever you're buying your OEM copies of Windows from is ripping you off, apparently.

Re:Son of WGA

[Comboman]

Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends.

That's because Apple is a hardware company; they don't care if you copy the OS since you need a nice shiny MacBook to run it on and they are the only ones who sell them.

Re:Son of WGA

[MrMacman2u]

Funny... My 12 year old Dual 1Ghz processor Powermac (Quicksilver) is running OS X 10.6.... Hmmmm... it seems to have made it through 6 major releases of OS X with no trouble what-so-ever.... Oh and guess what? It's still my main system. You can call me a "macfag" if you want, but OS X is powerful, much more so right out of the box than XP, Vista or 7, for no other reason than you have the flexibility of UNIX just underneath the surface. I run *nix software all the time, I work, I even play games on this ancient system and it works. EVERY. Single. Time. It hasn't given me a single instance of trouble in 12 years. When has anyone said that about a Windows based machine?

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Well, to be clear, I had previously upgraded a couple components and didn't need to do much of anything (Vista picked up the changes and I didn't need a new install).

But when I went to do the mobo and cpu update (can't honestly recall if it was a new gfx too), Vista balked on activation. Called up the number it gave me, talked to an automated system, got a verification number, typed it in, and I was off to the races (as much as Vista without any service packs can be considered to "race", anyway).

Re:Son of WGA

[starblazer]

This was the same argument with WinXP... and look where we are now? The old stuff will die, the new stuff will have drivers.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

The license says you must affix the proof of authenticity to the exterior of the machine.

Does the license say how much they're going to pay me for advertising their crappy product on my pc case? My EULA that they didn't agree to (just as I didn't agree to theirs) states my ad fees are 100% the cost of a copy of Windows. Looks like I owe them nothing.

OEM licenses are, technically, for system builders who are then reselling the system to an end user. The "affixing the sticker to the case" is to make sure that the end user has the license info from the OEM copy of Windows you used to build the machine.

But you knew that.

Re:Son of WGA

[plague3106]

Because at the end of the day the Windows box still does what people want better than a linux one.

Re:Son of WGA

[Ihmhi]

I'd love to use Linux if it weren't for the fact that I'm a heavy gamer.

Switching to Linux means abandoning my collection of 100+ games - and those are the ones I just have installed. Sure, I could use WINE, but compatibility issues abound.

I also have a ton of games on Steam which is only supported on Windows.

Until Linux somehow figures out how to woo a whole bunch o' developers to start coding for it - and I mean guys who crank out AAA titles like Bioshock, Modern Warfare 2, and Starcraft II - then I won't be able to jump on the Linux bandwagon no matter how much I'd like to.

Re:Son of WGA

[plague3106]

That huge backlog of ISA and AGP cards you mean? The stuff most people wouldn't want anymore if they have to pay for a computer upgrade anyway?

Sure its great for you if you don't mind running 10 year old tech, but for the most part people aren't upgrading components of their pc (including the os). They buy a whole new one.

Re:Son of WGA

[Grimbleton]

That doesn't require, that enables.

Re:Son of WGA

[MindlessAutomata]

Honesty is the best policy

Not according to your own story.

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

Your car analogy fails because you have to continually pay to keep it registered, even after you buy it.

I don't pay the car manufacturer for the right to own it, I pay the government for the right to drive it on public roads.

Anyway, it's an analogy. You're right to point out that the analogy doesn't fit exactly, but analogies never do. You compare buying software to buying a car in order to illustrate a point, but software is different from cars. The only thing that software is exactly like is software.

And the thing is, I don't even really dislike Windows. Various versions have had various technical issues that have annoyed me, but overall my problems with Windows are not so much about Windows, but about Microsoft. I don't like when big companies harass and abuse their own customers and treat their customers like criminals. The fact that they're big and powerful enough to get away with it only makes it worse.

Re:Son of WGA

[Architect_sasyr]

The War Against Terrorism.

There. Fixed that.

Most importantly for me - will this call back fail closed if I just put a DROP rule in my router for my Windows machines going to the net. Pirated or not I don't need someone trying that shit with my systems.

Re:Son of WGA

[Opie812]

Insightful?

Try making 9 million copies of your house or car and distribute them virtually for free....

I *AM* a windows fanboi. My OS defines me and makes me cooler than you. The Start button ROCKS-BABY. It ROCKS!! (I jest)

Re:Son of WGA

[Totenglocke]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

Because some people aren't ready to throw away their software library (such as gamers). If companies made games for Linux, you better believe I'd never touch Windows again. And no, WINE isn't a valid alternative since it doesn't run every game and even the ones it does run don't always work perfectly.

Re:Son of WGA

[amiga3D]

10.6? I was under the impression that Snow Leopard was Intel only. How is it that you are running it on PPC?

Re:Son of WGA

[UttBuggly]

Actually had to do the phone activation with Win 7 Pro 3 weeks ago.

I had installed the license I got for Xmas on a dual-core Athlon tower. It ran 4 days, then the motherboard decided it no longer had USB ports. (I live on a farm with power made by gophers pedaling bikes apparently)

So, I built a new box, salvaged HDs and GPU from the "mostly dead" PC, and reinstalled Win 7. Got the "couldn't activate Windows" message, so I called the robot in Redmond.

Took 3-4 minutes and I was "legal" once again.

The WAT bit gives me some concern that I could get ID'd as a false positive at some point.

Re:Son of WGA

[plague3106]

I can explain it; you bought a Dell, and the ENTIRE COMPUTER is supported by Dell... even the OS.

Re:Son of WGA

[dave562]

Being treated like a criminal sucks, but what is the alternative? It is human nature to share. If you have a product that you like, and you can share it with your friends for free, you're going to share it. If your friends see that you have a product that they like, and it doesn't cost you anything to share it, they're going to look at you weird if you refuse to share it with them. I really don't understand the gripe with WGA. I've done disaster recovery on failed file servers that required mainboard, disk controller and CPU replacement and after that, not been prompted to reactivate via WGA. On the other hand, I've done work on some desktops and been prompted by WGA for re-verification. In EVERY SINGLE ONE of those cases, I've called the phone number and gotten a new activation code.

It could be worse. I've worked with software that required hardware dongles to function properly. Imagine if you had to wait for Microsoft to ship you a new hardware dongle via next day air. Or even worse, the parallel port that the dongle connects to goes wonky and you have to replace the whole mainboard.

I find the perception of "being treated like a criminal" an interesting mentality. Every day I see police on the street, and sometimes they might even drive behind me and run my license plate. I don't consider myself as being treated like a criminal when that happens.

It would be interesting to see some numbers about what percentage of Windows installs actually fail WGA. It would be further enlightening to know what percentage of those failures are true failures due to piracy, and what percentage are given a new activation code (due to hardware failure, etc).

Re:Son of WGA

[wgoodman]

The problem with that is that they claim that once installed, the license is paired with the motherboard. Per their licensing rules, if you replace or upgrade your motherboard, you should buy a new license. Given, they don't enforce that overly much, but that's how they wrote it.

Re:Son of WGA

[plague3106]

The difference is that you're licensing the software, not purchasing it.

Re:Son of WGA

[KraftDinner]

The Windows Activation Technologies.

Re:Son of WGA

[monoi]

You've all forgotten the Critical Update Notification Tool, then?

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Can't say much about that. Can say that I never had another problem with the (2) Vista OEMs that I re-activated.

Re:Son of WGA

[brouski]

I've been paying for Windows for most of my IT career...

Don't you mean that Windows has been paying you for most of your IT career? I know it has mine...

Re:Son of WGA

[maugle]

Tell that to my neighbor. He bought a new computer with Windows 7, only to find that now he has to buy a new printer, because the printer he owns does not and will never have Windows 7 drivers.

Re:Son of WGA

[TClevenger]

Typically, any business of decent size will be able to get some manner of volume license that doesn't require activation.

Large businesses perhaps. For a smaller business, it's hard to justify paying for a volume license with their crappy restrictions. (The machine must have come with an OEM license, meaning you're paying for Windows twice, and whenever you junk and replace the machine, you technically have to purchase another VLK license for the replacement machine as well.)

Re:Son of WGA

[TClevenger]

If your Windows 7 can be deactivated and essentially blacklisted on Microsoft's whim, what exactly did you purchase? Do you actually own a copy or are you just renting it? Phone reactivation may not be a long drawn-out process, but I still oppose it on principle. It's not my problem that Microsoft is supposedly losing money on piracy, so why should I be inconvenienced in the slightest by it?

How long before Microsoft turns off activation servers for XP? Yeah, I "should" buy a new version of Windows, but what if I have a non-Internet-connected legacy computer somewhere that I have to reload XP onto, and Microsoft has stopped offering activation?

Re:Son of WGA

[Snarf You]

And the cliff notes:

His wife has a Linux-using friend with big tits.

Re:Son of WGA

[drsmithy]

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends.

Apple have the luxury of a great big hardware dongle called a Mac. Microsoft do not.

Re:Son of WGA

[Anubis350]

Funny... My 12 year old Dual 1Ghz processor Powermac (Quicksilver) is running OS X 10.6 Not possible, unless you work in Apple's OS dev labs. The releases of 10.6, both dev and general consumer dropped PPC support...

Re:Son of WGA

[drsmithy]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

Because the vast, vast, vast majority of people who actually own legitimate copies of Windows are never affected by it.

I understand that they are a company, entitled to sell licenses to their stuff, and to enforce those licenses. But this seems to be changing the rules on legitimate users after they already bought the licenses.

In what way ? If you have a legit copy, the worst thing that's going to happen - if you're in the tiny minority who get hit by a false positive - is that you have to ring up Microsoft and get a different serial number. It's not like they'll deprive you of your copy of Windows.

Re:Son of WGA

[ravenshrike]

The proper acronym is TWATS unless you want to add stuff every time.

Re:Son of WGA

[shutdown -p now]

all those content providers whom Microsoft pays handsomely to ensure their products only work or only work reliably on Windows.

Why would anyone need to be paid to target the platform which has over 90% of the desktop market, and disregard platforms with minuscule market share? It's not like there isn't a much bigger economic incentive to go Windows-only already.

Re:Son of WGA

[kramerd]

Your house contractor not contacting you makes sense. You bought the house, they built the front door, contract is complete, no updates are even possible, all work is done. Software doesn't work that way. Your car, on the other hand, validates your ownership every time you turn the key to start it.

A better example would be your car insurance, which provides an intangible service, requiring you to note the VIN of the insured vehicle so that they can note that you still own the vehicle when you make a claim. Much like how Microsoft might verify that you have a license for windows when you call tech support for help.

Re:Son of WGA

[ravenshrike]

Yes, yes it will, and the packet's will be cracked within a month, thus defeating the entire purpose.

Re:Son of WGA

[TheRealGrogan]

No, stuff like that isn't that important as computers with obsolete buses are likely incapable of running Vista or Windows 7 anyway.

But what about all the perfectly good sound cards that had to go in the trash because they don't play ball with Microsoft's DRM? I recently tracked down some hacked drivers so a customer could use his first generation Sound Blaster Live card in Vista. Guess what? With mere changes to the .inf files the card works perfectly.

What about perfectly good 10/100 network adapters that will never work in Vista or Windows 7 because Microsoft didn't think it was necessary to port drivers?

What about analog game ports? Some people still have those and they are unsupported. I have a perfectly good Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick and guess who doesn't support it anymore? It actually works perfectly in Linux... too bad I don't have anything I'd want to use it for anymore.

How about perfectly good USB scanners? So what if they are 5 years old? I got my parents a new computer the other day. Their HP ScanJet 2200c doesn't work in Windows 7 at all (XP is the last supported OS according to HP). I plugged it in thinking that had to be some kind of mistake but nope, it doesn't work. It's just a PlusTek scanner rebranded. There are zillions of scanners from different vendors based on Plustek. Plug that thing into a Linux computer and udev rules will detect it and with the help of HAL and friends, the appropriate SANE backend will be invoked and it just works.

I'm sorry, but Linux and Linux distros' inclusion of various userspace driver subsystems trump Windows for hardware support any day. The fact that new hardware is only supported in Windows out of the box with third party drivers is the fault of the vendors, not the Linux community and does not praise Windows in any way.

Re:Son of WGA

[brxndxn]

Here's a potentially dangerous example..

How about industrial plants.. closed control networks for automation systems that never touch the Internet.. Imagine if some contractors that don't know that Windows 7 needs to phone home every 90 days install the human-machine interface (touch-screen for the manufacturing system) on Windows 7 computers for a chemical manufacturing plant. Sure, there's e-stops and circuit breakers.. But how about the problems where there may be explosive gas build-up in a certain pipe that needs a certain valve to immediatly open 100%? Looks to me like this 'phone home' feature could cause the HMI program not to run.. and the operaters to lose visibility on their plant.. That could kill people.

Re:Son of WGA

[Arthur Grumbine]

Wait WAT!

FTFY

Re:Son of WGA

[mhajicek]

I'm stuck using Microsoft because the software I use for my job (Mastercam) only runs on Microsoft. Sure you can run it on a Mac or in Linux, on a virtual machine that's running Windows.

Re:Son of WGA

[drsmithy]

How long before Microsoft turns off activation servers for XP? Yeah, I "should" buy a new version of Windows, but what if I have a non-Internet-connected legacy computer somewhere that I have to reload XP onto, and Microsoft has stopped offering activation?

Microsoft have said they'll issue a patch when XP is EOLed that will disable activation.

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

Funny, when I go to this page, it says "buy" all over the place: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/default.aspx

Even the URL says "buy".

Yeah, yeah, I get that technically/legally I'm "licensing" the software, but let's cut the crap. When I buy software or music or whatever else, it doesn't have a little button that says, "rent" or "license", it says "buy". When I go to Best Buy and pick up a boxed retail version, the salesman most likely tell me that I'm "buying" a copy of Windows. If you ask your average consumer, they think they've bought a copy. Even if you asked a common lawyer, if he's not on his guard and being technical, he'll probably use the word "buy".

All of our conventions and expectations for this sort of intellectual property is that we actually buy something and it belongs to us. In this case, the technicality isn't the reality.

Re:Son of WGA

[VTBlue]

"Linux is always Genuine"

this is not necessarily true. You have to make sure you're getting an image from a trusted source. Would you trust the official chinese version, Red Flag Linux? The point is downloading Windows off bittorrent or from a warez site isn't safe. You wouldn't download RH, Suse, Debian, Fedora, or Ubuntu from an untrusted source. Why would you think Windows should be any different?

Re:Son of WGA

[Kitkoan]

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends. Plus there isn't multiple versions of the same OS to worry about *AND* it's cheaper than the least expensive Win7 build. I'm not a applefag but seriously - take a hint MS.

It wouldn't be so sure about the whole honor system and Apple. Steve Jobs flat up admitted that iPhone OS has a backdoor (http://news.idealo.co.uk/news/2618/steve-jobs-admits-the-existence-of-the-iphone-back-door.html) and last a remember the iPhone OS is just a modified version of the Mac OS, so if the modified version has a backdoor wouldn't be hard to put it in the full unmodified version. And they have done worse then a simple downgrade when your more or less pirating their OS by just killing it outright in consideration with patches killing various versions of Hackintosh (the one about killing the netbook Hackintosh: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181163/apple_kills_hackintosh_netbooks_with_snow_leopard_update.html)

Re:Son of WGA

[Vicegrip]

Well, it's true the OS is tied to the computer, but I'd like to point out that the kind of license checking we're talking about isn't present on any of Apple's software that I have used. iWork, Aperture, Quicktime, Final Cut Express etc .... Those do not "phone home" and check your licensing. It is worth noting the fact that Apple typically offers an attractively priced family pack for those with multiple computers to update. I'd imagine that has something to do why the license checking isn't needed.

Re:Son of WGA

[Aphoxema]

Oh, Snap, perhaps?

Re:Son of WGA

[capebretonsux]

Tell your neighbour to buy a wireless print server and be done with it, should be cheaper than buying a new printer.

Re:Son of WGA

[some_guy_88]

Because it doesn't respect your rights as a computer user to view and modify the software running on your own machine.

Re:Son of WGA

[node 3]

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.

This is not what you are thinking it is.

You're referring to having to call MS when the regular authentication fails, or if hardware changes trigger it.

This is when MS determines your OS is pirated, and it does not follow the same process of call them up, read a really long code, say you are installing on a new computer, and then type in another really long code.

The process here is that Windows demands you enter in a proper key, which means buying a new key. There is some method for proving your copy is legit, but it's nothing like what you are thinking it is.

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Sure, but at that point the solution is to pay the extra money for support from the OEM you purchased from. I can tell you that Dell's Gold-level Tech contracts are a godsend.

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

I understand you're just trolling, but I'll answer anyway:

I'm not saying I avoid activation as a matter of principle; I'm saying I have various practical concerns, including a belief that software developers who use activation have their priorities in the wrong place. When I have no practical way of avoiding software activation, I use software that requires activation. The only other option is for my business to lose money (or maybe even fail to operate).

At this point, though, I think it's only 2 software products in use that require activation, and both are semi-obscure niche products where I don't really have any other option. I also like to use FOSS when I can, again because of practical concerns. However, again, if there are no viable FOSS alternatives, I use the proprietary software. It's not ideological. In both cases, it's about using the software that's easiest, most convenient, and least likely to screw up my company.

Re:Son of WGA

[Samah]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

I will move to Linux in a heartbeat as soon as every game I want to play works flawlessly such that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference which OS I'm using (this means supporting ALL of Direct3D's features, or OpenGL equivalents). As long as even one game exists that doesn't work perfectly, I'll stick with Windows.

Re:Son of WGA

[capebretonsux]

I don't think you're trolling, because many of the things you mention are true, but I personally haven't met anyone who's installed a fresh copy of windows, rebooted and had everything 'just work.' There's always some litany of things to tweak and set up after an install no matter which OS you happen to favor. As for linux, if you use stuff like Ubuntu or any of the other user-friendly distros, a 'sudo apt-get (whatever)' is usually enough to fix many issues without much additional configuration. You have a point with gaming on linux, there isn't much out there, aside from whatever you can get running with wine. I gave up gaming on linux a while ago, and go for console gaming nowadays. Simpler than anything which may involve messing around with drivers.

I think the 'average user' has changed, though. Just using facebook, twitter, and all the other social networking crap has to have some positive effect as to their technological knowledge. Not to mention all the other assorted technological crap we all get exposed to. Smartphones, etc. I just think the 'average joe/jane' understands more now than they did even a couple of years ago, if my 70-year-old mother's recent questions regarding an iphone is any indication.

Re:Son of WGA

[Samah]

If only there was an OS that you could install on whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without asking permission or paying a fistful of money each time. Oh, and free too. Well, that could never happen...

...and could run every game you wanted to play without any problems, and had vendor-provided drivers for hardware, and didn't require editing a config file whenever you wanted to make the slightest change to your system. Well, that could never happen...

Re:Son of WGA

[initialE]

Mod up. The reason you got your windows cheap from Dell is because they willingly took on the support contract for all issues with windows. So even when Microsoft screws up, Dell is the one that has to fix your problem.

Re:Son of WGA

[markass530]

It was "automated" in XP to, but when that shits the bed phone is only option

Re:Son of WGA

[Knara]

Yes, and if you can prove you have a proper key (trivial), you can have it white listed. Helps if you registered your copy of Windows.

People's chances of actually having a pirated version of Windows from a commercially produced system these days in the US is very small. Sucks if your system builder used a pirated key, but 99% of windows users will not run into that issue. If your brother's friend built you a machine on the cheap, then it could be an issue.

Re:Son of WGA

[lump]

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.

Oh yes, lovely of them to allow you to actually use the software you bought. Perhaps we should just build windows into everyones income tax, so even if you don't actually plan on buying a PC this year you're covered, just in case? Would that be nice and convenient for you? I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind.

Re:Son of WGA

[jmorris42]

> Why would anyone need to be paid to target the platform which has over 90% of the desktop market, and disregard platforms with minuscule market share?

Just off the top of my head I can come up with one scenario that should be common but isn't. Which implies that either I'm missing something obvious or there are forces at work beyond the invisible hand of the marketplace.

Take any software category other than games, which is a special case. If there are multiple vendors servicing that market one usually dominates. That leaves one or more with less than 50% of the market, often less than 25%, of which Windows is usually 90+% of the customer base. Now just to put a number on it, lets say your company has 30%. That means the non-windows market represents a potential to add another couple percent or as much as a one third increase in sales if you do a Mac & Linux port. Ok, that probably won't be worth the extra support. But eventually somebody gets pushed down to single digits and the potential to DOUBLE sales by going cross platform should induce many to try. But it almost never happens. I say it is fear of offending Microsoft behind the reluctance, after all dropping a product line is better than bringing the wrath of Redmond on the whole company.

Re:Son of WGA

[hairyfeet]

As someone who has been working PC repair for years I can say, at least for me and my shop, false positives have been extremely rare, and the couple I did have only took a couple of minutes on the phone to get them straightened away.

So honestly I don't see what the big deal is here. I paid for mine, and you can get OEMs for $89 for XP or $104 for Windows 7, and you get...what? Nearly a decade of support? Closer to 14 years on XP. For something that is gonna last you THAT long don't be a fucking cheapskate and try to pirate it. If you really want an OS for free there is always BSD and Linux. But I honestly can't blame them from wanting to protect themselves, you should have seen how bad VLK XP Pro machines were a few years back. It got to the point I refused to touch an XP pro that didn't have a sticker or the disc, because it was nearly always pirated. Can't blame them for not wanting a repeat on Windows 7.

The only stupid move IMHO was shooting themselves in the foot by removing the $50 HP and $150 family packs. Those could have pretty much killed piracy dead, and at the same time gotten a lot of folks to buy Win7 that are now simply sticking with XP.

Re:Son of WGA

[dissy]

Being treated like a criminal sucks, but what is the alternative?

To treat as criminals those who treat you as a criminal.

This is why I pirate software. I assume (and usually correctly) that the software company is just trying to steal $50 from me or whatever, and not provide anything at all in return (Yes, software that doesn't install, run, or bitches a CD isn't in the drive when it clearly is, is all getting nothing)

So since they are criminals trying to steal money from me, I'm totally not going to be flaunting my wallet in front of them. I wouldn't flaunt cash around a mugger either for the exact same reason.

I just wait until a smart inspiring developer comes along and fixes the companies software with patches and kracks, so I know when he gives it to me it will be something that functions.

Just as if someone else saved me from a mugger, I will thank the savior and still not tempt the mugger with my money.
So thank you pirates, and fuck you software companies.

Re:Son of WGA

[Alcoholist]

They put up with it because for most people it is the least bad of the options. The problem is that Linux still isn't there for a lot of regular joe users. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of MS-fanboi, I run various flavours of Linux on most of my machines, but for a many regular users running an actual desktop of it is too unfamiliar.

It's not just an issue of training, either. You can deny this all you like, but there must be some reason why Microsoft controls most of the marketplace and it can't only be because Microsoft is this predatory evil monopolist. Here are some that come to mind:

1. Windows mostly meets most people's needs and does so in a familiar way. Even Microsoft has run into this problem trying to get people off of XP. Those needs are to run simple things like IM Clients, photo editing programs, Facebook, web mail, word processor, that sort of thing. Linux can do those things too, but it is different, and people fear change.

2. Windows stuff works out of the box. And by box I mean, the box the adaptor card or gadget comes in has a driver disc in it for Windows and maybe Mac. No Linux drivers. Now you might be able to download the drivers and use the package manager to install them... at that point you just lost half your market. Or perhaps put them in as a kernel module. Now you are up to 90% running away.

3. Some critical software is still not available. Keep in mind that only recently did CD burning software on Linux actually catch up to offerings which have been available for a decade on Windows. Quickbooks or Simply Accounting, not a chance. Convert the users to OOCalc? Not going to happen and if you have to ask why, you don't know bookkeepers. Run VMWare? Kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn't it? Plus the customer is going to wonder why he isn't just running Windows in the first place (point #1).

4. Linux Software has odd names. "Windows Live Messenger" not only trades on the "Windows" brand name, but even describes what the product does. So does "Internet Explorer". "Pidgin", while a clever title, does not. "Aero Glass" has sort of a sexy sound to it. "Gnome", to most folks, brings up visions of imaginary midgets in the bushes, not a state of the art desktop environment.

5. Linux types have always tried to sell it on the idea of security and stability. People rank that below points 1,2,3 and 4 and the Linux community still hasn't figured that out. That doesn't mean that Linux guys are wrong, just that the marketing isn't there.

6. Linux has evangelism. Worse than even than Mac users. I have tried to explain thousands of times how open source software works and people just don't get it. Conversations take on a surreal element like, "So the Mozilla Foundation is a charity? And they aren't in it for money? How do they live?" You might as well be handing out Watchtower pamphlets.

Those are just off the top of my head.

Re:Son of WGA

[yuhong]

Yea, the flaws of artificial scarcity.

Re:Son of WGA

[yuhong]

Also, last time I read, adding Software Assurance will convert a OEM license into a volume license.

Re:Son of WGA

[yuhong]

Yea, the flaws of artificial scarcity, as I said in another comment.

Re:Son of WGA

[Eskarel]

Linux supports a lot of old hardware, however it supports bugger all new hardware, and really never has and never(at least while the current political wind is blowing among the kernel developers) will.

A lot of the problems you're aluding to aren't actually the problems you think they are.

The sound card problem is really more of an issue with creative labs than anything else. In order to achieve the market position they have, creative labs built quite a number of their own proprietory systems on top of direct sound which was, prior to Windows Vista the audio stack for all windows versions going back quite a number of years. With Windows Vista, Microsoft switched their sound stack from their own proprietory direct sound implementation into one based on OpenAL which is the audio equivilant of OpenGL and as far as I can tell a free and open standard. This was a good thing, a buggy old proprietory standard was replaced with an open one. Unfortunately a lot of creative cards, given that their drivers and software were so tightly integrated with the old sound stack had rather serious problems. Creative refused to update a lot of their drivers for quite some time, presumably believing that they were big enough that Microsoft would cave and put direct sound back on, they didn't. While it's true that the original sound blasters didn't use much of this stuff and work fine on most systems(including linux) you can't really blame Microsoft for not trusting those drivers however.

I'll take your word on the 10/100 cards, I've never seen or heard of it happening. Same with analog game ports, though that might be sound cards again.

The problem with USB scanners is the proprietory TWAIN drivers. Before Microsoft implemented a halfway decent version themselves, companies used to make their own and they'd use direct kernel access and undocumented APIs to make them work, which Microsoft never has and never will support.

Most of the problems you encounter are caused by vendors giving up on a particular piece of hardware and not writing drivers for it.

Re:Son of WGA

[Eskarel]

You didn't get help because fixing your problem would have been too hard.

So their customers didn't have to authorize their copies of windows XP, Dell shipped a slightly different version of Windows XP which required different keys(they wouldn't work in non Dell copies of Windows XP). To prevent redistribution they also required a check against the Dell BIOS to prove it was a Dell machine.

When you replaced the motherboard you presumably didn't do so with a dell part, which meant that your version of Windows XP wouldn't have authorized no matter what anyone did.

The OP on the other hand, probably had just a regular OEM version.

To fix your problem the guy on the phone would have had to send you a new copy of Windows along with a new key. To fix the OP's problem they had to click a button. Can you see why you might have gotten different responses?

Re:Son of WGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you work for Microsoft's sales and propaganda dept? That "only free if your time is worthless" comment is complete bunk. With Windows you have 2 costs:

Purchase price + Your time = $$$

Linux, one cost:

Your time = $

Your comment makes the ridiculous assumption that Windows never costs anyone in downtime or requires support staff.

Re:Son of WGA

[dcam]

Screw them. I too have an MSDN subscription that recently invalidated the 2K3 key. Why on earth should I have to phone someone up to run software in a perfectly legal way? I installed the WGA crack.

Same issue with an xp license I have, not an OEM version, exceeded activations. Mostly due to being migrated through multiple iterations of hardware.

My issue is I shouldn't have to deal with this crap. You bet your ass I'm going to crack the legal Win7 install I have sitting at home waiting to be installed, just so I can be guaranteed it continues working.

Re:Son of WGA

[snowgirl]

Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends.

That's because Apple is a hardware company; they don't care if you copy the OS since you need a nice shiny MacBook to run it on and they are the only ones who sell them.

This is so true in fact, that if you look online for Server 2003 Itanium product codes, one will find that there is one and only one. Same for Vista/Longhorn, and likely for Win7 as well.

It surprised me to find this out, but if I hadn't managed to grab up a decommissioned Itanium from our lab, then it's likely that I ever would have any reason or call to actually use Server 2003 Itanium.

Come to think of it, even now, entry-level Itanium systems are close to $3000 for mobo and processor... if you're spending $3k on hardware, there really is no reason to make sure that you paid the $200 for the OS.

Re:Son of WGA

[toddestan]

In theory, you could install Windows 7 on a P3 system that originally shipped with Windows 98. In reality, there is no way you can install an Intel-only version of OSX on a PPC PowerMac.

Re:Son of WGA

[node 3]

Yes, and if you can prove you have a proper key (trivial), you can have it white listed. Helps if you registered your copy of Windows.

Not trivial. Even the standard, "you installed this too many times in too short a timespan" call is a bit beyond trivial (although I wouldn't argue the point to strongly).

As for registering, I almost never register anything. All it does is put you on a mailing list for pretty much zero benefit. If you need warranty repair, your receipt works just fine.

People's chances of actually having a pirated version of Windows from a commercially produced system these days in the US is very small. Sucks if your system builder used a pirated key, but 99% of windows users will not run into that issue. If your brother's friend built you a machine on the cheap, then it could be an issue.

False positives. They happen, I've seen it on a name brand PC.

The problem with WGA/WAT is not that it's out of line for MS to have anti-piracy measures in place. The problem is that it degrades your computer, regardless of whether you actually pirated it or not.

Any such system that can reasonably be expected to err on the side of disabling functionality of legitimate owners is broken. MS should have to have some measure of proof before doing something like this, not the other way around.

Re:Son of WGA

[complete loony]

And what's to stop them from remotely turning off all copies of windows 7 after end of life?

Re:Son of WGA

[totally bogus dude]

The key management server will only activate the hosts that are reporting to once there's a certain number. Something like 20 clients, or 5 servers, is needed before any will activate when using the KMS key. I don't know if this is implemented locally on the server (i.e. a hacked version could activate them), or if there's some kind of back-and-forth between your KMS server and Microsoft. But if you use the regular software, it's not really viable for an ordinary user who only has a few PCs at most.

The new products like Vista and 7 also have Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) in addition to the KMS keys, which work in the normal manner (activation by speaking to Microsoft's servers), for those that don't want to set up a KMS host. Likely your campus also has MAK keys so if you could get hold of one of them you'd be able to use that to activate your copy of the OS, but they might keep them extra hidden. If you're using KMS there's no need to even keep a record of your MAK key(s).

Re:Son of WGA

[drsmithy]

When I have no practical way of avoiding software activation, I use software that requires activation. The only other option is for my business to lose money (or maybe even fail to operate). So what are these unique circumstances that justify imposing the onerous burden of "activation" upon your customers ?

Re:Son of WGA

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Yep. Thanks pirates. Really, really appreciate it.

Oh and hey, why don't you just point the finger at microsoft, deflect all the blame, huh? Yeah, I'm sure they're going to listen to all their loyal customers.

Look, I'm sorry, but I'm just getting sick of this piracy thing. Neither side seems to be man enough to admit their part in this sorry state of affairs.

Re:Son of WGA

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

In my book, any piece of software which requires getting on the phone is defective by design.

Not a fan of linux then, huh?

OK, that was a blatant troll. ;-)

Re:Son of WGA

[nine-times]

No, I'm saying I'm the customer. I sometimes buy software that requires activation, though I avoid it as much as is humanly possible. I don't produce any software that requires activation.

Re:Son of WGA

[j-b0y]

I know anecdotes are not statistics but I slapped Win7 on my custom built PC and it just worked. It was extremely easy. I did not have much oddball hardware attached, but neither were any of the components Win7 certified.

Sure, there's the pain of reinstalling apps and waiting for Steam to download my game collection. But that's not really the point.

Slashdot is just a Selection Effect with nerd rage

Re:Son of WGA

[asdf7890]

The license says you must affix the proof of authenticity to the exterior of the machine.

Does the license say how much they're going to pay me for advertising their crappy product on my pc case?

No it doesn't, at least as far as I know. As far as they are concerned, if you don't want to agree to their EULA then you are free to not use the software (whether you've paid for it or not). Not that I have the POA sticker for my desktop machine at home on the case mind, though the machines at work all do for the sake of obvious signs of compliance.

Re:Son of WGA

[Rockoon]

The shareholders.

In your fantasy world, microsoft is pure evil. In the real world, its a corporation.

Re:Son of WGA

[PMBjornerud]

And you see nothing inherently wrong with the concept that you have to call Microsoft and essentially beg them to reactivate a product you already bought and paid for? If your Windows 7 can be deactivated and essentially blacklisted on Microsoft's whim, what exactly did you purchase? Do you actually own a copy or are you just renting it? Phone reactivation may not be a long drawn-out process, but I still oppose it on principle. It's not my problem that Microsoft is supposedly losing money on piracy, so why should I be inconvenienced in the slightest by it?

I bought a new laptop for my mother. Started with a reinstall for a clean system.

First thing after setup:
"You copy of Windows might not be genuine."

I find this offensive. I paid for the software, stop bugging me.

Re:Son of WGA

[Hurricane78]

Well, you usually can’t run OS X on a non-mac PC. And that PC already includes a hefty Apple tax. So there is no point in additional DRM.

Re:Son of WGA

[cynicist]

Yes, how kind of them to let you use the software you paid for on newer hardware. Personally I dislike the very thought of calling someone to ask if I could use their software, especially after paying for it.

Re:Son of WGA

[AmiMoJo]

This is not really aimed at pirates who download and install their own OS, it is aimed at companies which do it.

I used to work at a place which would install copies of Windows XP with volume license keys for customers. Sometimes it was on repaired machines, sometimes on new ones. The cost of Windows adds £60 to the price of a PC or repair so by using a pirate copy prices became a lot more attractive.

They got away with it for years until one day WGA came along and the day after a long line of disgruntled customers appeared. Few of them understood that the price they paid didn't include a legit copy of Windows, all they knew was that they paid for a PC or a repair and now it says it's counterfeit.

Companies doing that sort of thing can't keep patching their customer's machines to avoid these kinds of updates. Pirates with a bit of know-how will always get around it, but businesses can't.

Re:Son of WGA

[AmiMoJo]

But what about all the perfectly good sound cards that had to go in the trash because they don't play ball with Microsoft's DRM?

99% of copies of Windows sold are bundled with new PCs. This seems to be something which many proponents of Linux don't take into account. Very few people upgrade or even re-install their PC, they just buy a new one. Microsoft could spend time making old drivers work but there is very little need for them to.

Re:Son of WGA

[capnkr]

So, IOW - Microsoft isn't Green. Their upgrade policy *promotes* blatant consumerism and its byproduct, the creation of even more unneeded trash/pollution in the world, by their policy of premature obsolescence of 'otherwise it works just fine' hardware.

Re:Son of WGA

[Kelbear]

"I think the 'average user' has changed, though. Just using facebook, twitter, and all the other social networking crap has to have some positive effect as to their technological knowledge. Not to mention all the other assorted technological crap we all get exposed to. Smartphones, etc. I just think the 'average joe/jane' understands more now than they did even a couple of years ago, if my 70-year-old mother's recent questions regarding an iphone is any indication."

They're learning how to manipulate systems designed for consumers. There are certain design decisions that are copied out of convenience, practicality, tradition, etc. If I want to change how my program works, I should look for an menu titled as either: "Options, Preferences, or Settings". These people are used to these familiar layouts and follow them, and the GUI designers have followed the layouts because the users are familiar with them. Installation process are simple because they've been boiled down to clicking "next" until the end, then you click "finish".

Linux however is designed for the designer. Nobody is looking at the broader user experience.

None of those social networking people or smartphone users ever have to go to the command line to get things done. While some may claim that linux has moved beyond that, I was forced to learn how to use the command line within the first hour of using a linux install. Getting to the default configuration is easy(assuming the program was specifically developed for my distro), but doing anything beyond that needed me to /type out/ the commands needed. Note that it's not a menu where I just scan down the menu and pick the item that sounds like what I want. Instead, I have to /already know/ the command I want. In other words I need to switch over to my browser, search on the internet for 20 minutes, and then type in the command I need. Linux folks take pride in their esoteric knowledge, but regular users don't want to take pride in their knowledge of the system. They just want to get shit done.

They don't want to spend time researching how to do what they want, they just want to do it and move on to something more productive.

Re:Son of WGA

[NeverVotedBush]

Check out Codeweavers.com and Crossover Linux.

It's not true that you have to run a VM to be able to run Windows software. You can look up Mastercam at the Codeweavers website and see if Crossover supports it. Even if software is listed as "untested", it is entirely possible it will install and run perfectly. If it has been noted as not running, that's obviously a different story.

But you can download a copy and see if it works for you. You might not be tied to Windows. Same for Macs - there is a version of Crossover for Macs too that allows you to run Windows applications in OSX without having to install a copy of Windows.

And Crossover is a lot cheaper than a copy of Windows.

Re:Son of WGA

[NeverVotedBush]

The reason some of the media formats aren't available in the major distributions is because they are proprietary and licensing is required. Some distributions like Mint include support anyway but I don't know anything about how they handle licensing. Ubuntu allows you to purchase a codec pack and the cost covers the price of all of the licensing.

Some distros probably will play the DVD out of the box. With others, it's not that hard to download and install the necessary applications and/or codecs. But I would much rather run Amarok than iTunes anyway.

You have some good points and there are those who will probably be stuck with Windows and whatever Microsoft shoves down their throats. I wish Netflix streaming was available on Linux but I just use a Roku box - which does run Linux (not that that matters).

I think, though, that it's more the average gaming enthusiast that might be more interested in the issues you cite. But many will also have an XBox or whatever since a lot of the gaming industry is moving that direction.

I do think that for a lot of people, Linux is viable and would do everything they want.

Re:Son of WGA

[Golddess]

As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.

Games.

Re:Son of WGA

[Shompol]

How do I vote "with my feet" when every new system in sensible price range comes preinstalled with windows?

Re:Son of WGA

[hazydave]

Well, a couple of things. On the average, most of your friends don't have Macs.. they're 5% of the global desktop computer market. Secondly, it's a reasonably upgrade.. going to the new MacOS X "Snow Leopard" costs you $29. There's just one version. I thought the $50 upgrades to Windows 7 I bought last summer were reasonable-ish. So I spent $150.. with Mac, it could have been just that $29, if I wasn't honest.

But here's the thing... updating actually benefits Apple. They're not really big enough to use Microsoftian bad behavior to push upgrades, but they also don't want to support older OSs forever. So upgrades are very good for Apple, even if they don't make money on every one. Not so for Microsoft..

Re:Son of WGA

[ImprovOmega]

The problem with Win7 in the enterprise is that even if you do run your own license server (KMS is what they call it) it will periodically "phone home" and make sure that Microsoft still thinks it's okay for it to be a KMS. It's a very weird scheme to me. I generally prefer their MAK setup where the computer contacts Microsoft once for validation, but I'm beginning to wonder if that licensing scheme is actually going to end up with the computer re-validating every few months too...

Re:Son of WGA

[AK Marc]

I installed pirated software on a computer at a business. They bought XP licenses. Outright purchases of licenses, without restriction (not yearly licenses or anything). Well, apparently Microsoft lost the licenses. When on the phone, the claim is there is no license ever issued with the codes I printed from eOpen years ago. I have proof Microsoft is wrong. I either sue, or pirate. So I pirated. They slip them in as non-optional updates users will accept (it's a small business with no IT workers that is a non-profit that I help out at, so no comments on business shouldn't use auto-update, it's either that or no security updates at all).

I have proof WGA breaks legal, otherwise working computers. I'm just sad the WGA lawsuit lost. They purposefully broke people's computers. I've seen no exception in the hacking laws that say if you suspect piracy you may commit a DOS attack on a computer.

Re:Son of WGA

[AK Marc]

Blame Dell - OEM license says they'll handle all tech support queries for the software.

In the OEM error messages, they still say to contact Microsoft. I guess it's my fault for being honest and following directions. I'll make sure not to make that mistake again.

Re:Son of WGA

[LinuxIsGarbage]

KMS activation will still be good for 180 days. The "phoning home every 90 days" isn't trying to re-activate. It sounds more like an "anti-virus" for activation cracks that will TRY to download new definitions every 90 days.

For workarounds, there is currently KMS Virtual Machines floating around, there's "open" KMS servers on the internet, and I know for Professional there's a 76kB program that spoofs a KMS server and will activate Professional. However there's an ID, unique to every server, given to KMS clients when they activate. Microsoft could use this to detect if it was activated using a rogue KMS server. Though the article seems to talk more about tampered licencing files. You could probably also tunnel a connection from an offsite server to your uni KMS server by port forwarding using an ssh client on a uni PC, and an ssh server on an offsite server.

Re:Son of WGA

[EmperorKagato]

Better yet
Don't buy their shit
M$ will eventually figure it all out when sales drop

Be a true geek
Build your own box and load something very cool such as FreeBSD
Hit the fuckers where it hurts, the profit margins

I rather stay with this group of elitist pricks than go to another one.

Re:Son of WGA

[Trelane]

The parallel, then, would be a renter. No, the landlord may not randomly stop by and barge in to make sure you're still legit. There are laws about that sort of thing (USA).

Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Looks like the Win7 upgrade is off the table for me. Dual-booting XP & Kubuntu for the foreseeable future!

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[twidarkling]

Enjoying WGA that much, eh?

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, it only phones home on install. Not every 90 days.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[drdanny_orig]

As I read it, this doesn't apply to Home editions, does it?

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Ephemeriis]

Looks like the Win7 upgrade is off the table for me. Dual-booting XP & Kubuntu for the foreseeable future!

Sure it is...

And I bet you were genuinely considering upgrading to Win7 to replace your dual-boot setup... And were all set to go ahead with it... And this bit of news just broke the deal, right?

XP has had WGA for years now, which does similar things. No, not identical, which is why WAT is being rolled out. But if WAT is such a horrific deal-breaker I can't imagine you're happy with WGA either. And if you've managed to deal with WGA for all these years, you could deal with WAT as well.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jugalator]

Why does it matter how often it phones home? Isn't the only concern what *information* is transmitted? Sure, I can see it being a nuisance if you rarely have an Internet connection, but I doubt that.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

I was considering upgrading to Win7 to get DirectX 11 & be able to allocate all of the RAM in Windows. Guess I will just get WinXP 64 Pro instead & do without DirectX 11.

WGA doesn't call home repeatedly which means that MS isn't tracking my hardware changes constantly & isn't giving me multiple tickets to the false positive lottery.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Three words: False Positive Lottery. As a legit customer who has already been stung by WGA during a hardware upgrade, I don't want to even think of it being an every 3 month thing.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

I'm pretty sure WGA was optional at first too.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[eihab]

According to the article:

I’d like to stress that the Update is voluntary, which means that you can choose not to install it when you see it appear on Windows Update.

I'm running Windows 7 on my home workstation and on my new laptop (Ubuntu in VirtualBox).

This WAT thing is just stupid, all my Windows 7 installations are genuine so I don't see how they would become counterfeit in 3-6 or 9 months from now.

It's pointless and so I won't be installing it when it's offered via Windows update. Simple as that.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[CoderJoe]

Unfortunately, WinXP 64 is still limited to ~3.75GB of RAM. It is a limitation of the WinXP SKU, not the 64bit/32bit part.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Trashman]

You do realize WinXP 64 is a nitch product right? Not much Software is specifically written for it and with it being now 2 releases old, you aren't going see much.

Good luck with that.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

From Wikipedia:

"WGA also advertises the latest service pack for Windows XP, which requires manual intervention to disable. Previously voluntary, it became mandatory for use of these services in July 2005."

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Ephemeriis]

I was considering upgrading to Win7 to get DirectX 11 & be able to allocate all of the RAM in Windows. Guess I will just get WinXP 64 Pro instead & do without DirectX 11.

The problem with that is XP-64 was never supported very well. I've seen tons of issues with XP-64... Bits of hardware and software that just plain do not work right, even though they should. It's a miserable operating system to support.

The only reason I upgraded to Vista was because it had real 64-bit support. As miserable as Vista was, at least the 64-bit version worked better than my XP-64 install. And Win7-64 is absolutely terrific.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Well, I guess the Windows install will be CAD & (some) games only then. Ah well.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

BTW, it's niche, not nitch.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[techhead79]

you could deal with WAT as well.

You've upgraded through almost every version of Windows since Windows 3.1. Granted most of those were on different PCs as you purchased new PCs but the fact is you upgraded through countless versions of Windows almost every 3 or so years. If you've done that then why is having a monthly subscription to access your data all that different? If you can deal with upgrading your computer every 3 years then you can deal with paying a monthly subscription to stay current too.

See how that works...nice isn't it. As a customer you have a right to choose. Larger bloated companies have that right too but don't have that as an option. Wouldn't it be great if there were all these viruses out there in the world and people had to pay you a monthly subscription to survive. I mean they pay to goto the doctor once a year anyway...what's a monthly fee right?

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Khyber]

"Yeah, it only phones home on install. Not every 90 days."

Hahaha, sucker.

OEM VLKs never need activation.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Khyber]

"Unfortunately, WinXP 64 is still limited to ~3.75GB of RAM. It is a limitation of the WinXP SKU, not the 64bit/32bit part."

Excuse me, XP64 is based off of 2K3 kernel, not XP. It can address all 8GB of my memory perfectly.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Khyber]

"The problem with that is XP-64 was never supported very well. I've seen tons of issues with XP-64... Bits of hardware and software that just plain do not work right, even though they should. It's a miserable operating system to support."

Quit trying to locate XP64 drivers and use Server2K3 drivers - you won't have that problem any longer.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Yay, pirating.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[TheThiefMaster]

Incorrect.

"Windows XP x64 is limited to 128 GB of physical memory and 8 terabytes of virtual memory per process"

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[DrEldarion]

You do know that XP does the exact same thing with WGA, right?

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Khyber]

No, actual VLK from a University. Valid. Legal. Got sticker on side of my machine.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[RocketRabbit]

There are several easy ways to remove WGA so that it never runs, yet the machine thinks it has been activated.

Re:Well that pretty much settles it for me.

[Jaysyn]

Ah, I take that back in that case.

Note to self....

[Itninja]

...skip update KB71033.

Re:Note to self....

[Nimey]

You'll be skipping the service packs, then.

Re:Note to self....

[diamondsw]

And all subsequent service packs.

Re:Note to self....

[Spad]

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).

Re:Note to self....

[holiggan]

Indeed. Although I have a genuine Windows 7, I find this a bit too much. Now I know which update to hide and never see again.

Re:Note to self....

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, you can do that... there's usually a list of the hotfixes included in service packs, just download them manually. and if they don't hand out a list willingly, demand it. this is after all ur software that's being updated; if u want to know what changes are being made i'm sure u can obtain the legal right to know.

Re:Note to self....

[Nimey]

Your naivete is cute.

Re:Note to self....

[Aldenissin]

Does anyone know of anywhere this is already setup and can it be trusted? Or will this only work over a LAN and not the net?

Re:Note to self....

[TheQuantumShift]

Wait, I thought Linux was supposed to be difficult and time consuming for no good reason...

Re:Note to self....

[I cant believe its n]

My settings where "download but do not install patches", yet one day ago my machine declared that it was patching as it was shutting down (Windows Defender was updated). The Windows 7 Super Bing Experience Live Hotmail Artificial Intelligence Engine 2.5 must have made a decision overruling my own.

I have now switched to "do not check for updates at all", but have a bet going that this will install anyway.

Re:Note to self....

[ImprovOmega]

I guess you could hypothetically point it to a box on the 'net, but why on earth would you? The whole point of rolling your own WSUS server is having control over exactly what happens on your box (many medium and larger sized businesses do this for patch management). If you're just turning around and pointing to a WSUS box managed by someone else what have you gained?

Not affected.

[santax]

Neither should you be. Linux and BSD are yours. Truly yours.

Re:Not affected.

[ldconfig]

Thank goodness for Linux. Dell Precision M90 - Linux Mint 7 (2) Custom build quad core desktops - Linux Mint 8 4tb dual core media server - Gentoo/pytivo Dual core 2tb HTPC - Ubuntu 9.10/Mythdora 12.23 beta4/XBMC/Boxee Dual nic mini-itx Ion - Smoothwall router/firewall No mickeymousesoft tax paid on any of them (I bought the M90 used and tossed out the crap hard drive then installed a WD 500gb 2.5" and Mint 7 sweet is a under statement) Raw sockets vbs scripting ActiveX no real root = never in my home

Re:Not affected.

[JCZwart]

Except when you want to play the newest games demanding DX11 they don't...

Re:Not affected.

[ldconfig]

I agree because my wife would not understand.

Just going to annoy legit customers

[Alcimedes]

I have a machine, purchased by my employer that has to be validated against the key server at the office.

The machine however is at my house. The only way to make it validate is to ensure that I'm connected to the VPN when it attempts to find its key.

Does this mean once a quarter (if I have this update) my machine will downgrade itself, make me hop on the VPN, revalidate etc.?

That's just damn annoying. I'll probably end up cracking my legit install to stop this stupid behavior. When the cracked version of your software is less obnoxious than the legitimate version you have a problem.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[QuantumRiff]

Yes, that is the exact problem with the new Key servers for windows 7..

You have 2 choices for companies with the right licenses. Have a license server running in your org. All systems much check in every X days to make sure they are valid and counted. If you have people working offsite, they better get VPN access, and use it at least once every X days. (in the age of Webmail and stuff, actually having to VPN in is getting less common). Also, that server has to connect to MS every X days to report back, or they all start getting marked as non-genuine.

Option 2. Have all windows 7 machines report back to MS. you can have a person or two that can access the data on MS's servers.. But as far as we can tell, re-installing the OS counts as another activation.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[nmb3000]

I have a machine, purchased by my employer that has to be validated against the key server at the office.

The machine however is at my house. The only way to make it validate is to ensure that I'm connected to the VPN when it attempts to find its key.

You shouldn't be using a KMS-licensed computer away from the KMS server for such a long time. The whole point of KMS is to reduce licensing headaches by having clients automatically aquire a volume license and activate themselves, all without going over the Internet. Removing such a machine from the local network completely invalidates this.

If you have a computer at home, it should be converted to a MAK license so that it doesn't need to communicate with the KMS server. Anyone mildly familiar with Windows 7 volume licensing should know this. I suggest you (or your system administrator) take a look at the Win7 Volume Activation Deployment Guide and the Volume Activation Planning Guide. You know, the things you should read before you do a wide-scale deployment of a new system.

I'll probably end up cracking my legit install to stop this stupid behavior.

So instead of connecting to your VPN four times a year, you'll put yourself in a position of almost certainly getting blacklisted? That makes sense.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[the eric conspiracy]

What a pile of cruft. Only a monopoly could get away with imposing these sorts of self-serving costs on a customer.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[nmb3000]

All I can figure is that you're one of the upper-level MS sales execs astroturfing Slashdot.

Nope. Just a system administrator who is planning on migrating to Win7 this year. A few simple Google queries resulted in finding this page which is pretty comprehensive and has the essential information needed by any competent sysadmin planning a migration.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[Alcimedes]

Thanks for the info, I'll check on converting it. The machine isn't my primary machine by any stretch, and at the end of the day, it's the only OS that needs to phone home in order to function.

I guess one admins feature is another admins annoyance.

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[Khyber]

no cracking needed, my friend. Use a VPN to fake a local MAK authentication server and you're set.

Microsoft is totally fucking clueless - bypassed by a simple local server. Holy fuck why are they even allowed to stay in operation?

Re:Just going to annoy legit customers

[Khyber]

"So instead of connecting to your VPN four times a year, you'll put yourself in a position of almost certainly getting blacklisted? That makes sense."

Yes, it does make sense. I'd rather not have the security hole of an activation/validation check. Some hacker is going to eventually figure out a way to exploit this (or maybe I've already got the exploit and am waiting on the right price from the right bidder) and EVERY WINDOWS MACHINE IS FUCKED. It will be a non-stop DDoS against Microsoft when THE ENTIRE PLANET calls them.

Ahh, but of course you techie-types only take a very narrow view of things and can't see a bigger, more dangerous picture.

Not news

[El Gigante de Justic]

I don't see how this is in any way news or shocking. WAT = rebranded WGA.

The only major question I would have, is if it's only calling back every 90 days, how many false positives will it get from people doing major hardware upgrades over that three month span. (I'm assuming it compares the system specs with the license key as WGA did to determine if it was actually the same computer or not)

And at least they just downgrade you - they could instead just shut your system down for a suspected license violation and prevent any log-ins.

Re:Not news

[T Murphy]

And at least they just downgrade you - they could instead just shut your system down for a suspected license violation and prevent any log-ins.

I get the impression businesses don't often switch to linux because they feel it is hard to work with. If a false positive shuts down a good portion of their machines, Windows suddenly becomes the OS that is hard to work with. Customers have shown time and again they'll put up with a good amount of annoyance, so WAT just stays in that range and few people will actually move their money elsewhere.

NB: This is the impression I get from the IT types posting on slashdot. I am sure someone with actual IT experience can elaborate and/or correct what I am saying.

Re:Not news

[Stenchwarrior]

If they shut you down you wouldn't be able to follow the prompts and links to give them your money.

Re:Not news

[himitsu]

I worked at a small company that just make due with the annoying WGA messages. It's rather embarrassing when it's a machine used for customer presentations but the boss didn't want to pony up the Microsoft Fee to make the thing legit. That was a Windows XP Home machine but even with the WGA messages the machine still did the basic stuff the owner wanted.

Other than no upgrades what else does WGA disable?

Re:Not news

[CmdrPorno]

And at least they just downgrade you - they could instead just shut your system down for a suspected license violation and prevent any log-ins.

There are numerous reports of false WGA activations on machines with genuine Windows installations. Where do they stop? Why not just publish your tax returns and bank information to 4chan and then erase everything on your hard drive?

Re:Not news

[holiggan]

I might be wrong, but I don't think that WAT works the same way as WGA.

I haven't RTFA (hey, this is slashdot afterall!), but from the sumary, I would say that WAT searches for something that indicates that an exploit was used to validade a pirate windows (ex. loaders, BIOS exploits, etc.).

So, for example, if WAT finds a certain system file with a version diferent than it should be, you're "grounded". Or if the windows system files say that you "have" a Dell OEM release, and it queries the BIOS and finds it's a non-Dell computer. Things like that. Or a game, after or even before an update, checking to see if it's the genuine release, by looking at the binaries. Ops, most of them already do that.

Although the principle makes some (twisted) sense (I'm pretty sure that checking to see if people hacked your precious DRM is valid), I don't quite agree with the whole "consumers are pirates/thiefs/crooks" anyway, so I'm keeping away from this update as long as I can. And yes, I have a genuine Windows 7. And no, even though I have "nothing to hide", I don't agree with manufacturers peeking inside my system, treating me as a potencial-criminal. Let me remind you that "pre-crime" or "thought-crime" doesn't exist yet. And I agree with *ONE* "call home" when I install the software. Apart from that, let Microsoft or EA come in person to my house and I'll show them the purchase receipts.

Oh, another example: the iPhone checking if its ROM (or BIOS or whatever) is intact, and you haven't "jailbreaked" your iPhone.

Re:Not news

[El Gigante de Justic]

I agree and don't appreciate being treated as a potential criminal by every company selling software or other media either. My main point was that the blog writer (from the summary at least) seemed completely shocked by this idea when it's nothing new.

Personally, in most cases, I think that DRM actually increases the amount of piracy, or at least the use of DRM cracking tools, because even the consumers who pay for the product don't want to be tied down under the DRM restrictions, especially ones like SecurRom.

    Ultimately it will be impossible to tell the impact of this until its implemented. If a lot of false positives start getting reported, then the question will be how effectively Microsoft resolved those issues and validates those copies as legit.

Re:Not news

[Volguus Zildrohar]

And at least they just downgrade you - they could instead just shut your system down for a suspected license violation and prevent any log-ins.

At least they use some lube when they penetrate my anus - they could use a broken bottle!

Being a legitimate customer obviously has its upsides.

Hoooly crap...

[TheDarkener]

Ok, conspiracy theorist point of view here, apologies... but... I mean, they can basically disable/cripple anyone's computer for any reason without notice.

Think of what governments would like to do with this little feature, during wartimes, etc...

Do you really trust Microsoft that much? Do you really want them to have that much control over your computer at any point in time? Your ability to communicate online?

Come on, this is really getting ridiculous.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[2obvious4u]

Which is why instead of upgrading my trail version of Windows 7 I'm switching to Ubuntu 9.10.


Crap... now how am I supposed to play Star Craft 2...

Re:Hoooly crap...

[mystikkman]

I mean, they can basically disable/cripple anyone's computer for any reason without notice.

The computer is not cripped, all you get is notifications and loss of wallpaper and some always on text on the desktop.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[TheDarkener]

> The computer is not cripped, all you get is notifications and loss of wallpaper and some always on text on the desktop.

Uh huh...until they decide to change it.

"It trickles in so you don't notice where the flood came from." -- Anonymous

Re:Hoooly crap...

[TriezGamer]

If that was Microsoft's goal, it wouldn't be done through a voluntary update, it would be built in to the OS already. It is impractical and also rather unwise to publish such a feature if that was the objective, as a feature that is identified can be disabled -- a 'feature' that is completely unknown until it is utilized, not so much.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[thewils]

He's not just talking about this particular instance - this is a what-if scenario. Which Govt. in their right minds would install an OS which can effectively be shut down by an outsider (or potentially even a hacker).

Re:Hoooly crap...

[TheDarkener]

> If that was Microsoft's goal, it wouldn't be done through a voluntary update, it would be built in to the OS already. It is impractical and also rather unwise to publish such a feature if that was the
> objective, as a feature that is identified can be disabled -- a 'feature' that is completely unknown until it is utilized, not so much.

Why do you say that? Do you give no credit to psychological tactics? Pushing it out into the open makes people not worry about it so much. Most people don't know how to NOT install an update like that anyway.

Just sayin'.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[Bobfrankly1]

Which is why instead of upgrading my trail version of Windows 7 I'm switching to Ubuntu 9.10.

From everything I read on Slashdot, Ubuntu IS the windows 7 upgrade.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[DogDude]

"Do you really trust Microsoft that much?" Yes. I have no reason not to. They have money to make, and they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot. Did your tinfoil hat tell you some reason why I shouldn't trust them?

Re:Hoooly crap...

[Duncan J Murray]

I switched to Ubuntu back last March when I tried and failed to prevent WGA from installing on my legit Win XP machine.

Today, Ubuntu proved it's worth. I had a presentation to give - and I found using open office impress and word processor a pleasure to use. I exported the presentation as a pdf file, but in the end, I thought I'd just connect up my laptop to the projector. I did need to fiddle with the display settings, but it worked grand.

I still have 5 years of angst to get over from using Windows - Ubuntu is my therapy!!!!

Re:Hoooly crap...

[natehoy]

Honestly, if the government wanted to shut down communications the last place I'd expect them to bother would be at the desktop. Send marines to the major routing hubs, and you'll get a lot more bang for a lot less buck. Computers may still work, but they can't talk to each other.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[jim_v2000]

>I mean, they can basically disable/cripple anyone's computer for any reason without notice. No, they can't. They have no idea who you are or who has a specific license key.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[Leomania]

It's not as if there's no alternative if this happens. Pop in your live CD/DVD of a Linux distro, most people would be back online. Your data on the FAT32/NTFS filesystems can be read from within the Linux environment. Maybe your proprietary programs aren't there to access some of the data, but that's not blocking your communications. Those still forced to use dialup with their internal Winmodems, yes, their communications would be impacted. I suspect there are more people still forced to use dialup than we'd want in these "modern times".

Given how fast the geeks would get broadband-connected friends and family back online, I think you should be more concerned about the big ISPs being controlled. That's much more universal than just controlling ~85-90% of the PCs running a particular operating system.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[TheDarkener]

> Did your tinfoil hat tell you some reason why I shouldn't trust them?

If my tinfoil hat talked to me, I don't think it would be doing its job correctly. ;)

Why shouldn't I trust Microsoft? Oh I dunno...

- Antitrust lawsuits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
- IIS Backdoors: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/14/1858201
- OOXML bribery: http://www.wired.com/software/coolapps/news/2007/08/ooxml_vote
- Naked PC Campaign: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39261437,00.htm
- Vendor lock-in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Microsoft
- "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Those are just the ones on the top of my head. Actually, there's a wikipedia page just on criticism of Microsoft, with other resources/references, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Want more? I got plenty more.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[Nadaka]

I've been using Ubuntu on the machine I built in October. I use it for everything but a handful of games old games, for those I have an MSDN license for windows 7. It works great. I suppose I should give wine a try and see if I can cut the strings permanently.

Re:Hoooly crap...

[mystikkman]

It won't 'shut' it down, as I mentioned in my post.

What's to stop Redhat from releasing a spurious critical security update? Or Apple for OS X?

The importance of freedom

[harmonise]

I know that there is some Windows-only software that people need to use, but if you don't need such software, it's worth the effort to switch to Free Software. This issue highlights yet another reason why such a move may be important.

Re:The importance of freedom

[calmofthestorm]

VirtualBox can take care of pretty much everything but games (and more games than you think!), so I just use that for all things Windows. Also have a gaming rig set up separately for that that isn't allowed to connect to the internet. Bliss. Let's see you get into my unpatched XP SP1 without network connection.

Can it be avoided?

[Killer Orca]

You could manage to avoid WGA by unchecking the checkbox when it asked to install via update, then making sure it didn't mention un-selected updates. I wonder if judicious users can keep an eye out for this and do the same?

Re:Can it be avoided?

[mystikkman]

Yes, it's optional.

Re:Can it be avoided?

[Crock23A]

That is very well and good until SP1 comes out.

Re:Can it be avoided?

[LightningJim2]

Back with XP and WGA you weren't allowed to access to any further updates, including critical flaw patches, until you installed WGA. I'm guessing something with WAT would be similar except it would also be a downgraded Windows 7.

Re:Can it be avoided?

[julesh]

That is very well and good until SP1 comes out.

Which should give the ingenious folks who developed the cracks that it is supposed to detect to find a way of working around it... a kernel patch that causes the unpatched original files to be presented when it tries to open them, or some such hack.

The 1960s called...

[wandazulu]

...they want their mainframes back. This is not unlike IBM charging for use of their hardware and software on a per cycle basis. One of the people I worked with back in the 90s remembers earlier models of mainframes actually had mechanical car-like odometers that were read by a "meter reader" like the gas company, and IBM would send them a bill.

And it is a guarantee that enterprising individuals will come up with a solution to WAT as my former co-worker did; crack the box and reset the numbers. Not enough to arouse suspicion, but just enough that they wouldn't be charged for a huge end-of-month load on the processor.

Re:The 1960s called...

[lancejjj]

This is not unlike IBM charging for use of their hardware and software on a per cycle basis.

Yes, I remember that too. Billing by CPU time was an IBM lease option. They'd charge you back per CPU cycle. It was a great incentive for IT departments to write efficient code. If you were maxing out your mainframe's CPU, IBM would give you a more powerful one. But your goal, as a programmer, was to minimize CPU consumption.

Of course, if you outright owned the machine, there was no such chargeback.

The IBM program was used by IT departments to manage their mainframe utilization, and to effectively lease mainframe time instead of having to take the risk of buying a $250k+ machine and running out of CPU capacity.

WAT & WGA is nothing like the IBM program. At all. In any way.

Re:The 1960s called...

[secretcurse]

In what way is this like charging per cycle? MS isn't asking for more money every quarter from legitimate customers, they're trying to be a pain in the ass every 3 months to pirates. If you own a legit license and you're tagged as a false positive, you call the 800 number and run through an automated prompt that takes about 5 minutes to have your machine up and running again. Sure, that's annoying, but it's nothing like charging you for CPU cycles. You're acting like they're monitoring your Task Manager and sending you a bill for how much "Windows" you're using, the way IBM used to charge for how much mainframe time you used...

Re:The 1960s called...

[wandazulu]

I meant to imply that you've essentially got the computer "telling on you"; either my the cycle-counter from the mainframe days, or WAT going out and checking whether you're legit, and having others tell it yes or no.

Re:The 1960s called...

[VTBlue]

We have a "mainframe" of sorts...its called Windows Azure :)

http://www.windowsazure.com/

Re:The 1960s called...

[drooling-dog]

earlier models of mainframes actually had mechanical car-like odometers that were read by a "meter reader" like the gas company, and IBM would send them a bill.

Isn't that how "the Cloud" works?

Re:The 1960s called...

[vaporland]

the IBM 360 had an internal processor speed switch. if you were on a lease and wanted a faster machine, IBM would raise your monthly bill and have the technician flip the switch to increase the speed.

Re:The 1960s called...

[Rich0]

Yes, but in this case the correct buzzword would be "private cloud." What's old is new...

Statecraftsman's free software article

[tepples]

Looks like I'm going to need to update my article on problems with non-free software

I read your article. It already mentions WGA, and the auditing explained in the article is Son of WGA. But as far as I can tell, one of the big reasons to run Windows 7 instead of Brown Debian is video games. As I understand it, free software developers have historically not done a good job of making those as proprietary software developers. Part of that has to do with the lack of a high-profile free meshes/textures/audio community.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[poetmatt]

clearly you don't understand - it has nothing to do with "proprietary doing better" and everything to do with DirextX (and it's focus on all gaming) being owned 100% by Microsoft.

When does DirectX release new versions? Shortly after when wine cracks the full functionality of the existing DirectX.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[The MAZZTer]

Video gaming on Linux has come a long way thanks to Wine. I tried TF2 a few versions ago and was surprised how well it ran and how free it was of any graphical glitches. Only thing it was missing was DX9 support. The performance was almost as good as under XP.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[mystikkman]

I am sorry but there are many other reasons. Linux audio is a pain for game developers. The tools are lacking. OpenGL standards developers sided with CAD companies thereby screwing over game developers. I know I'll be downmodded for saying things that are meant to be brushed under the carpet on Slashdot but I don't care about karma.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[Kjella]

clearly you don't understand - it has nothing to do with "proprietary doing better" and everything to do with DirextX (and it's focus on all gaming) being owned 100% by Microsoft.

DirectX is the only game in town because OpenGL failed to be a viable alternative, it's two sides of the same coin. What exactly are you trying to blame Microsoft for here, they did it better and even Carmack and long since given up despite the quote that OpenGL proponents hyped while the games left.

When does DirectX release new versions? Shortly after when wine cracks the full functionality of the existing DirectX.

Whatever you're smoking, it's good. There's still issues with DX9 games and DX9 launched in 2004, and there's nothing like DX10 support while DX11 is already out. This is a poster and moderators on crack.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[chammy]

Believe it or not, most people use their computers for tasks other than playing games. The problem is the loudest people only complain about not being able to play their Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 3.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[tepples]

Believe it or not, most people use their computers for tasks other than playing games.

A lot of people use the same computer for both games and tasks other than games. They will choose whatever operating system lets them do both the games and the tasks other than games on the same computer without having to wait three minutes to switch operating systems.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[jim_v2000]

>When does DirectX release new versions? Shortly after when wine cracks the full functionality of the existing DirectX.

WINE causes Microsoft to release new versions? lol!

Wait...you're serious, aren't you?

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[Khyber]

You have no clue what you're talking about.

Talk to John Carmack, who will tell you all you need to know about gaming on linux, and he'll tell you you're full of shit.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[Khyber]

"DirectX is the only game in town because OpenGL failed to be a viable alternative, it's two sides of the same coin."

ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID?

DirectX is an entire graphics, sound, input, and networking API for games.

OpenGL is just Graphics.

What the fuck are you smoking?

Two sides of the same coin, my ass.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[mystikkman]

Bet you're not a game developer, are you?

You're the one full of shit clinging to decade old quotes. Carmack himself later said DirectX is better nowadays. Maybe the notion of some things getting better and the other things degrading is foreign to you. Anyway, read this and the comments http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/11/2135259

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=243195&Main=45784#Post243195

Stop sitting on your couch and spouting off things that game developers should do, they have their own constraints.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[zoloto]

I do the same thing with steam and half-life: counter-strike. the funny part is when I tell people I run cs on linux they think i'm hacking ;\ but hey at least I can use the X11 quick screen resolution change hotkey to zoom in for those pistol kills ;)

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[man_of_mr_e]

I'm thinking you're the one that doesn't understand.

DirectX on Windows doesn't seem to stop game developers from developing for, say, the Playstation 3, or Wii. What does DirectX have to do with it?

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[Rockoon]

..and that means what, exactly? That because you failed to make it only 64K (like everyone else in the scene) that you are somehow closer to a game developer than a decent demo writer?

The GP is spot on about OpenGL's problems. They caved in to interests that weren't game related, making OpenGL far less of a game rendering API than it could have been. This is admitted to by the OpenGL boys themselves, so its in other words a fact.

But honestly, the game industry doesnt give a shit about OpenGL or DirectX. The game industry licenses game engines because they really really really dont want to deal with either of them. So the question really is: How many game engine solutions are there that (A) support BOTH linux and windows, (B) support the latest features of video cards, and (C) is free?

None? Yeah. Thats right. None.

Because of (C) you dont get very many FOSS games at all (for any platform), and the only thing that will change that is a modernized FOSS game engine.

Discounting (C), when a developer actually has to pay for the game engine.. the last thing on his mind is supporting Linux. He wants the best of the best for the target audience, which is Windows or one of the consoles. Linux is barely a market and until that changes.. this is the reality.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[ImprovOmega]

When does DirectX release new versions?

Bi-monthly. It says as much on the download page.

Re:Statecraftsman's free software article

[Khyber]

"They caved in to interests that weren't game related"

OpenGL WAS NOT made for gaming IN THE FIRST PLACE. Holy shit, are you that dense or ignorant? It still doesn't change the fact OpenGL is superior in that it can accept new features as they come out with a simple extension, whereas Direct3D has to set its own standards first. It still also doesn't change the fact OpenGL is faster than D3D, simply by virtue of not requiring the CPU to handle some of the graphics load - OpenGL goes straight to hardware whereas D3D has one software abstraction layer to go through first. Don't believe me? Easy test - get a GeForce 1, a 233MHz pentium2, 64 megs of ram (SD or EDO, your choice) and install Unreal Tournament - run benchmarks under both D3D and OpenGL - You will always get better OpenGL performance, on the average of 20% more framerate.

This was argued about long ago, and Microsoft still hasn't changed. D3D is slower. I've written OpenGL renderers, I've written D3D renderers (winamp plugins) OpenGL outperforms D3D. Always has and always will if you KNOW HOW TO WORK WITH IT, and as long as Microsoft continues to insist upon the intermediate software layer.

"How many game engine solutions are there that (A) support BOTH linux and windows, (B) support the latest features of video cards, and (C) is free?"

Planeshift is using one! IAG is just now coming out, still in development. How about G3D? OGRE? Expression 3D? SciTech MGL (source included so Linux port easily done.)

Something tells me you have no clue what you're talking about, nor have you ever programmed any games.

Allow me to call it

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Annoyance Technologies.

Re:Allow me to call it

[FreonTrip]

No, no, it has to stay on brand - Windows Annoyance New Technology.

Re:Allow me to call it

[RightSaidFred99]

Thank god you bolded the first letters, or I never would have known what you were trying to do there.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who needs application software for which there is no reasonable Linux/Unix equivalent. Such software includes mid-range accounting systems and point of sale systems.

Bah

[T Murphy]

Windows would be so much better without Microsoft.

Re:Bah

[webishop]

It's called Linux.

Re:Bah

[twidarkling]

No, it's really fucking not. Linux is fine for what it is, but what it is not is Windows sans MS.

Re:Bah

[sorak]

No, it's really fucking not. Linux is fine for what it is, but what it is not is Windows sans MS.

Exactly. Linux does not have to try to be windows, and windows does not have to try to be a mac. Let them do what they're good at.

Re:Bah

[Smivs]

Linux is ... not Windows sans MS.

Good! If is was it'd be slow, juvenile and unreliable!

Really bad strategy

[FranTaylor]

The false positives will turn into real positives. When a machine gets marked as non-genuine, it stops receiving updates. Which means is WILL get 0wned by the next zero-day attack.

They are basically just manufacturing more spambot machines with this strategy.

Re:Really bad strategy

[ragefan]

The false positives will turn into real positives. When a machine gets marked as non-genuine, it stops receiving updates. Which means is WILL get 0wned by the next zero-day attack.

Not getting updates will not stop zero-day attacks. By definition, if there is an update available to stop it, then the exploit is no longer "Zero-day".

Re:Really bad strategy

[FranTaylor]

EVERY attack is a 0-day attack if you are not getting updates.

Re:Really bad strategy

[Ephemeriis]

The false positives will turn into real positives. When a machine gets marked as non-genuine, it stops receiving updates. Which means is WILL get 0wned by the next zero-day attack.

They are basically just manufacturing more spambot machines with this strategy.

Unless they've changed their policy very recently, non-genuine Windows machines will still receive security updates.

Re:Really bad strategy

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

When a machine gets marked as non-genuine, it stops receiving updates.

If it's anything like the issue I'm having now (gets marked as not genuine any time I'm not online), then it will stop only the optional updates. Required/security updates will continue to go through.

Re:Really bad strategy

[ragefan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_day_attack

"Zero-day attacks occur during the vulnerability window that exists in the time between when a vulnerability is first exploited and when software developers start to develop a counter to that threat."

The term "zero-day" has nothing to do with whether the updates are applied to a specific computer, only the time between an attack being found and the developers' releasing an update to fix. So once a patch is released at all, the attack is no longer zero-day.

News flash

[1s44c]

If you buy a computer with windows on it you own the hardware. You never own the software. You license it on the condition that you agree to the EULA. Microsoft's EULA states that you give up all rights, they are not accountable for anything.

Microsoft users have been and will always be slaves to the evil empire.

Re:News flash

[Orga]

Money users have been and will always be slaves to the evil empire. if you don't like it, don't use it. Nobody is forced into doing anything here, it's all personal choice (signing EULA and using software).

Re:News flash

[SakuraDreams]

Signing EULA? Where did you sign that?

Time to complain to the EC again.

Re:News flash

[Itninja]

Geez, relax junior! That decision was only covering the issue "ownership" as it relates to first sale rights and nothing else. The software purchaser still cannot legally do things like rent, lease, de-compile, etc (like they could do with property they fully owned).

Also, here is a big-boy link (seriously, you used a URL shortener?).

Re:News flash

[Dunbal]

You license it on the condition that you agree to the EULA.

      This has not been tested in court AFAIK. What if, for instance, I don't agree with their terms? I added a condition to the EULA stating that Steve Ballmer can come to my house and personally collect my copy if they disagree with my using their software under the amended terms. Oh, letting their program install on my computer signified their acceptance of the new terms.

Re:News flash

[linux_geek_germany]

Microsoft's EULA is - for example - not legally enforcable in Europe. If they shut down your software I'm pretty sure you could go to a court and get at least reimbursement. They can't override local laws with their EULAs.

Re:News flash

[advocate_one]

This has not been tested in court AFAIK.

you'll have a hard time doing that... the only jurisdiction that the EULA recognises is Washington State and Microsoft have got all the firms in that state on retainer so they'll refuse to take your case citing conflict of interest. You'll need a lawyer who is licensed to practice in that state to even bring your case...

Re:News flash

[berashith]

So if I register as a lawyer in Washington state, then I will automatically start getting paid to never sue microsoft ?

Re:News flash

[Akita24]

If you don't agree to their terms then you can: 1) Quit using the software. 2) Take them to court. Option #1 is available to most people. Option #2 is only available to people who have pockets deep enough to fight Microsoft's bazillion-dollar legal machine and the years, decades or lifetimes required to do so. I posit that the handful of people capable of taking Microsodt to court over their EULA don't need to because they play golf with Ballmer and Gates. The rest of us, outside of interesting theiry are completely and totally fsck'd. The RealWorld is not an ivory tower. Google RIAA and extortion for a small example of legal theory vs practice.

Re:News flash

[Dunbal]

No you see I don't have to play their game. THEY can take ME to court.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[FranTaylor]

And this is a nice little wake up call to those folks, telling them to get busy on their Linux port. Again yet more poor strategic planning.

Calling every 90 days

[aBaldrich]

That means I have at most 90 days left!

I'll start spinning counter-clockwise.

Re:So what do they do

[Attila Dimedici]

Steps like these need to be taken because, well, people pretty much can not be trusted to do the right thing without the fear of a reprisal looming over their head.

The problem with steps like these is that they will mostly cause problems for people who tried to do the right thing by buying Windows 7 legitimately but now Microsoft identifies it as a pirate key (either because they got it from a shady character who was selling illegal copies with some pirated key, or because the legitmate key they got has since been pirated--or at least identified as pirated). People who knowingly are using a pirated copy will either have developed a work around that avoids this problem, or will be expecting this to come up and have a plan in place to deal with it.

WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

//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.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[postmortem]

Most people know that they are using 'non-genuine' version. Ones that don't know, when they learn all they would want to do is get rid of nagging popup. As many have said, Microsoft is in denial about 'non-genuine' user base and mostly hurting legitimate users.. 99% of ones who didn't pay for genuine version will do whatever it takes to keep using whatever they have without paying your company a cent.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Civil_Disobedient]

4. The goal is reduce the number of Windows installations using pirated copies many of which include malicious code.

Ah, so you're actively trying to limit your deployment base? Microsoft is only relevant because it's everywhere. It's only everywhere because it historically has been trivial to pirate. Nice work shooting yourselves in the foot.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[karnal]

Had to do work on a client's computer. Has XP and WGA and all that.

1. User got notified every time he logged in that his copy was not genuine.
2. User could not open e-mail attachments in Outlook Express (let's not talk about how horrid this app is....)
3. User's background could not be set to anything other than MS Blue.

So the functionality was reduced here. I can't believe that they'd not do something to slightly annoy you to pay up. The cost to fix? $149, direct to MS via credit card.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I don't volunteer to allow MS to give my computer a rectal exam on any interval, not 90 days, not ever.
1a. How long before it is rolled out as a "critical" security update, or required to install a service pack or some other essential update? You and I and everyone else here know that WAT will be de-facto required at a certain point in time.
2. I (and many others on this site) consider annoying nag messages being shoved into my face repeatedly to be "reduced functionality" as it gets in the way of me using the product.
3. News flash: This WILL NOT stop any serious pirate from using the software without paying for it. All it will do is annoy the hell out of millions of people who have and continue to heap piles of cash upon Microsoft even after being repeatedly insulted.
4. The goal is to make more money for Microsoft at the expense of the time and money of millions of legitimate customers.
5. Privacy policy != source code, privacy policy != protocol, the privacy policy can say whatever the hell MS wants it to say, and the software can do whatever the hell Microsoft wants it to do now, and that behavior can be changed at any time in the future via an insidious update with an official description that is at best ambiguous.
6. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even MS isn't stupid enough to piss off their corporate customers but they will happily bend over retail customers, 99.999% of which have no idea that this is going on.

Everything Microsoft does is a little too Orwellian considering their market share for OS and productivity software and their well documented and litigated history of treating their customers like garbage.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[rjh]

Thank you for sharing this with us. I imagine you're going to get flamed into oblivion for daring to question the party line about "OMG OMG M$ is evil!", but the sane nerds here appreciate the different perspective.

(For all the raving fanboys: I'm writing this on OS X, my home server runs FreeBSD, and I avoid Windows as much as possible. I am not some astroturfer. I just believe that everyone is better for hearing and considering different points of view.)

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[dudeman2]

"Voluntary patch" ...And what happens if one does not choose to accept this "voluntary patch"? Do I lose access to other system updates, am I locked out of other Microsoft services? ... And is this "voluntary patch" going to be included in the next Windows 7 Service Pack as a mandatory component for non-corporate installs?

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[d3ac0n]

1. Voluntary patch

Well, I'm glad to see that. I am using a genuine copy, but I will still make sure NOT to install this as I don't want to be nagged for no good reason once my Key shows up in a keygen. (And it will, the keygen guys are good.)

Of course, making it optional completely invalidates the reason for even DOING this, as now that this news is out anyone with half a brain will simply skip this update and not ever install it.

So this entire thing is nothing more than a masturbatory exercise for someone at Microsoft.

Lovely.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[gparent]

So what happens if I'm not connected to the internet, ever? We do have machines like this at work, for security reasons. They also do not have WSUS hooked in.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Ahnteis]

>> Microsoft is only relevant because it's everywhere. It's only everywhere because it historically has been trivial to pirate.

[citation needed]

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Aladrin]

Microsoft's definition of 'not reduced' is rather odd. Directly from the article:

"The desktop wallpaper will be switched to a plain desktop (all of the customer’s desktop icons, gadgets, or pinned applications stay in place). Periodic reminders and a persistent desktop watermark act as further alerts to the customer."

If the desktop wallpaper is not part of the OS functionality, why is it built into the OS? By disabling that feature, you're reduced the functionality.

Also, periodic popups are a MAJOR annoyance. That is also a reduction of functionality.

I understand that you are supposedly trying to help the poor folks that paid good money for a pirated copy of Windows. 1 single notice window would do that. An icon on the start menu that performed the check at will would do that.

And let's be clear: This will stop exactly zero pirates. They will hack through this like a hot knife through butter. It is utterly ridiculous.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Ephemeriis]

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.

Very true.

Occasionally we'll get a call from someone who's become dis-satisfied with their current IT provider... They're shopping around for alternatives, maybe wondering if they've been getting screwed over the years... Maybe wondering if the grass is greener on the other side...

So, we'll go in and take a look around, do a site survey. Sometimes you start seeing a bunch of computers with automatic updates disabled... No service packs installed at all... Home-made systems... And nobody can come up with any licensing information at all...

We'll get permission to install WGA on their systems, and you'll see about 50% of them are non-genuine.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[clone53421]

Voluntary patch

Conveniently not, if they have updates turned on and automatically installed like they’re supposed to.

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.

Bullshit. Most people have a pretty good idea, most of them don’t care, and the ones who really don’t know really don’t care.

The goal is reduce the number of Windows installations using pirated copies many of which include malicious code.

That might be a convenient excuse, but it’s certainly not the goal.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Thanks for the additional info. One thing I'm not clear on -- is this really new? Since my clean install in November - I am getting told that my legit copy of Windows 7 is not valid every time I am not connected to the Internet. Within 15-20 minutes of getting reconnected, the message clears up (and I have access to optional updates again).

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Had to do work on a client's computer. Has XP and WGA and all that.

1. User got notified every time he logged in that his copy was not genuine.
2. User could not open e-mail attachments in Outlook Express (let's not talk about how horrid this app is....)
3. User's background could not be set to anything other than MS Blue.

So the functionality was reduced here. I can't believe that they'd not do something to slightly annoy you to pay up. The cost to fix? $149, direct to MS via credit card.

WGA and WAT are two different things. The behavior you described was correct. In Windows 7, the background will change and notifications will appear, but applications will still continue to work. We won't be rebooting your machines or anything like that.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[tomtomtom]

I would really pick you up on your point (1) - I'm assuming this will be like Windows XP's "WGA Notification" patch which is also "voluntary".

In that you can avoid installing it, IF you (i) don't use Automatic Updates; and (ii) remember to click "custom updates", then find it in the huge list of patches that comes up on a fresh install, then realize what it is, then deselect it, then click the box saying "no I really don't want this, don't ever show it to me again".

Oh, and if you do have the bad luck to happen to accidentally install it, you can only uninstall this patch with a third-party crack.

All in all, I'd say this patch is less "voluntary" than a lot of malware trojans are.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[stonewallred]

I owned 1 legitimate copy of a windows product. It was Windows ME when it first hit. A year and a half of BSoDs, and re-installing the OS. Lost pictures, documents, music. And then Gateway (lol remember them?) sent me an updated Win ME disc. I installed it and never had another problem. XP came out and people tried to get me to change, but I refused. ME worked flawlessly. Then my motherboard got fried. I changed mother boards, and chip and RAM, and Win ME would not load, as my copy was tied to the Gateway machine. Gateway refused to help, MS refused to help. Since that juncture, my opinion is I am entitled to any MS OS that I want for free. I paid for a legitimate copy and then could not use it. Fuck MS and I will continue to pirate their crap.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

I'll just add this is an unsupported scenario. :) If you're going to pirate Windows, at least know that the source is trusted and without malicious code. I find it laughable that people express concerns about privacy but consider pirated software safe beyond doubt.

Personally speaking, pirated software is how things like personally identifiable information is acquired in things like online indentity theft and organized crime.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

this is not really true. Bill Gates said one time when talking about Chinese piracy, and to paraphrase, "if people are going to pirate software, we'd prefer they pirate ours."

WAT simply prevents general consumers from being fooled that their computers have a legally licensed copy of Windows. Many system builders in the past have sold customers Windows in this fashion, and many have been taken to court over it.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

This is not true. Go to parts of the world where system builders sell illegal copies of Windows along with their computers and you will see that normal non-technical people wouldn't know the difference. Microsoft doesn't go after individual pirates. Microsoft anti-piracy goes after those that profit from the reselling of pirated Windows.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[PinkyGigglebrain]

For now.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Targon]

You have clearly never encountered machines that were illegally upgraded to Windows XP Pro by some "tech" who put it on the computer of his/her customers in an attempt to fix said machines. Here is how it works:

End user never makes a recovery CD/DVD set, and one is never provided with the computer. When Windows get badly corrupted(root kit, nasty piece of malware, etc), and the tech can't fix the problem without doing a clean install, many of these techs will do a clean install from a pirated Windows CD they have with them. Initially, there is no problem until that key gets flagged. The next Windows Update that comes through then sees that the machine is using a bogus key, and starts screaming about the copy being illegal.

Now, the problem is that the key that came with the computer does not work on the version that has been installed, and there is no way to fix the problem with the bogus version. So, end user calls a new tech to deal with the problem. Even if the customer has a valid key, if the OS refuses to accept it because the current install is a Pro or Ultimate version, there is no good solution. The end user never asked for the "upgraded version", but is now stuck with it, and with no way to downgrade.

What I wish Microsoft would do would be to have a downgrade method to go from Ultimate down to Home based on the key, even on a system that is up and running, just to protect end users who get scammed like this.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[adonoman]

I take it you've never bought a used computer? There's a huge market in old corporate computers. As they get obsolete, many of these get sold off cheap without hard drive or windows licenses. Guy in basement buys 20 of these, some cheap hard drives, images them with a cracked version of Windows and sells them at a significant profit. If you ask for a windows CD, you'll a burnt CD along with a drivers CD. If you ask further, he'll tell you that of course the windows installed on there is "for demonstration purposes" only. Since they're old computers selling for $50-$200, adding in the cost of a windows license would be ridiculous, but many people buy them, not realizing that Windows is installed illegally.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally speaking, pirated software is how things like personally identifiable information is acquired in things like online indentity theft and organized crime.

Do you have any evidence to back up that statement?

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Windows Update checks your PC to determine which updates it needs depending on what software and devices you have installed. The service does not collect personal information—Windows Update simply collects specific PC details needed for the update, including data such as computer make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details.

Microsoft is committed to helping protect your privacy, and does not collect your name or other personally identifiable information. For more details on how the information is protected, see the Windows Update privacy statement.

Enterprise customers who use WSUS to centrally manage Windows Update won't be affected. Also, if you are concerned about enterprise activation technology, refer to the differences between MAK and KMS.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929712

#2 it will change the background. Sorry, if you're going to pirate it, we're not going to let you make it pretty.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Microsoft is a feedback and data-driven company so the only way you'll get answer to your question is time will tell. Depends if the goals in reducing piracy are met and how successfully.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

it may not fully stop individually pirates, but it will, via purchasing reputation, stop system builders selling illegal Windows software to customers. A poor reputation can be a very good deterant, take it from a Microsoft employee :)

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

MOD PARENT UP

well said :)

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[joe_bruin]

First of all, all versions of Windows are "genuine". There isn't someone out there making a knock-off operating system and selling it as Windows, so let's stop the doublespeak.

What you're trying to stop is unlicensed installations. If I bought a machine from some vendor and he put on a copy of Windows, I honestly don't care as long as it keeps working. If this thing starts popping up, you've made your copyright enforcement problems my problems. Trust me, I have enough problems without dealing with Microsoft's.

Voluntary is another bit of nonsense. It's voluntary but you can't get updates without it. We all know how that goes, we've seen it before.

No personally identifiable information is transmitted. That is until you need to call Microsoft to get your Windows reactivated.

Pirates will work around it. Honest users will be inconvenienced. MS can keep this patch, we don't want it.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

cool...at least you're not using linux :)

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[SpeedStreet]

1. Voluntary patch => Until its included in a rollup such as SP1. 2. Reduced Functionality => Maybe, but it can amount to reduced productivity when I have to take time out of my day to fix the issue. 3. Microsoft Annoying Me => If I am provided the option to click a button that says "Make sure my computer is genuine" then that should be enough. I don't need a company telling me what is best for me. 4. Pirated Copies with Malicious Code => Blatant FUD. There has never been any data to support this and it comes from the same fear-mongering that tells us open source is dangerous because everyone has access to the code. 5. No Personal Information => You are using my bandwidth and my CPU cycles to maintain your own company's livelihood. Nor does using your software mean I should have to deliver any sort of anonymous statistics to you. 6. WSUS => So its ok to trust corporations but when it comes to the rights of the individual, we're SOL? I'm actually a Microsoft fan, but WGA and WAT have been rubbing me the wrong way for years. Had I not had "access" to Microsoft software in college to learn on, I wouldn't be in a position like I am today where I am responsible for a multi-million dollar IT budget that allows me to purchase Microsoft products. Piracy is absolutely a necessary evil.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Microsoft would never be stupid enough to do this. Even if the technology worked in the manner you describe, Microsoft would likely release a patch that disables verification. The proof is the number of customers who still use products like NT, Win9x. They are humming along just fine.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

if they are at "work" I assume you have a sufficiently competant IT admin who manages the machine...espcially since its for "security reasons." Just don't install the patch.

   

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

i could send you evidence to all your concerns, but since you're an Anonymous Coward i'll just ignore you. :) Have a nice day!

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

MOD PARENT UP

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[dltaylor]

You ARE joking, right?

NT, Win9x (and 2K) don't have a verification "feature".

OTOH, how may original XBox customers are about to lose access to all content with an on-line component?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/02/05/1727233/

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Aladrin]

And it would do the same even without reducing the functionality. Again, the solution is crazy.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[FranTaylor]

@FranTaylor, lots of people use Windows on a server

You are not refuting what I said.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

almost all corporate machines sold with windows have a sticker of authenticity on the box or laptop. If you don't have media, Microsoft can give it to you for less than $20 or you can use any VL media and input the key. This is a typical scenario. This isn't foolproof though.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Yes, feel free to read this or refer to the IDC report if you really care.

http://www.iacc.org/news/index.php?id=82

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Our two views are not mutually exclusive. By defintion a corporation is to serve the interests of the shareholders. This has its pluses and minues. The only real check against corporate power, greed, and malice is the "people" and the only entity that can enforce ethics is the Government. If you don't have people and government to check corporate power.

Elliot Spitzer discusses this in context to the Banking Industry on Fora.TV
http://fora.tv/2009/11/12/Eliot_Spitzer-Governments_and_Markets-From_Rand_to_Feinberg

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Yes, we at at Microsoft are SUCH ASSHOLES :) read the statement:

A Letter from Marc Whitten: Discontinuation of Xbox LIVE for Original Xbox Games
Dear Xbox LIVE Members,

On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.

Seven years ago we laid out our vision for the connected console when we launched Xbox LIVE. We believed then that the power of the Internet to connect people would revolutionize living room entertainment. It started with amazing multiplayer games, and we’ve since seen that bet pay off again and again with the launches of Xbox 360, Marketplace, Netflix and powerful social features like Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. None of this would have been possible without the success of LIVE as a multiplayer gaming network.

There’s no greater example of the power of the Xbox LIVE community than the “Halo” franchise. “Halo 2” has had an amazing run on LIVE, with a dedicated community more than five years after launch and well into the next generation of consoles. It has fundamentally changed the way we play video games. And while it’s difficult to see that run come to an end, the “Halo” franchise continues to act as the benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with “Halo 3,” “Halo 3: ODST” and soon “Halo: Reach” on Xbox 360.

Your Xbox LIVE community has grown to 23 million strong. And as we look down the road, we’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games. We will contact the Xbox LIVE members directly impacted by this change and if this includes you, I encourage you to check your LIVE messages and associated e-mail account over the coming weeks for more details and opportunities. We view you as a partner in this process.

We’ll share more details soon, but in the meantime I want to assure you that the best is yet to come for Xbox LIVE. I believe we’ll look back on 2010 as a landmark year in gaming and home entertainment, and I couldn’t be more excited about what we have in store with “Project Natal” and LIVE. The LIVE community is the driving force behind everything we do, and it’s because of the community that ground-breaking experiences on Xbox continue to be possible.

See you on LIVE,

Marc Whitten

Gamertag - Notwen

www.twitter.com/notwen

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

@FranTaylor, lots of people use Windows on a server

You are not refuting what I said.

okay fine, rather than pointing you to a case study or to a marketing website like:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver

I simply ask you to open your favorite web browser, enter you zipcode and/or city along with the term:
"Microsoft Parnter"

If that's not proof for you, think about all the companies that use Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, or MS SQL Server.

I have a feeling that you're not really this clueless.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[gparent]

Just like WGA was originally voluntary? Once it gets merged into the next service pack or the next version of Windows, how will that work?

You don't need to smugly quote your words, I have a MSDN license and do not need to warez Windows. Plus, it makes you look arrogant.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[yeremein]

But why does it need to phone home?

How can an installation that was activated successfully suddenly become "non-genuine"?

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[that this is not und]

Personally speaking, pirated software is how things like personally identifiable information is acquired in things like online indentity theft and organized crime.

The way you phrased that makes it sound like you're personally acquainted with online identity theft and organized crime. And based on your display of knowledge in the matter, it's hard not to conclude that you mean to imply that you've used exploits in Pirated Software this way to your advantage.

Oh, that's right. You work for Microsoft.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[TopherC]

I'm not sure asking for evidence is a reasonable objection here. Would you go to a bittorrent search, gnutella, or other p2p network to try to find a version of Windows to install on your own computer? I don't have statistics but I'm pretty sure a significant fraction of other available-to-be-pirated software on p2p nets do contain trojans. A while ago I was trying to install XP on an upgraded gaming computer, going for a clean install since so many drivers had changed and such. I couldn't get my very old XP disk to work, and was looking into warez versions of, say, XP sp3. What I found was not at all reassuring. I eventually learned from a friend about slipstreaming the service pack in to make a new install CD from my old one and SP3. What a relief!

So I can actually appreciate VTBlue's perspective here, and also have some friends from India who say that almost all software they can buy there comes on a CD-R. So whether or not it's free of trojans is actually a point of real concern for many. Or maybe it's just understood that the copy of windows is not going to be "genuine" under most circumstances, I'm not certain, but in that case the question of whether your Windows copy is backdoor and trojan-free is still not addressed by WAT/WGA.

And I still don't see how checking automatically every 90 days is really the right solution given the supposed goal of simply reassuring the product owners. And I don't think that Windows that claims it's not genuine is truly functional in every sense. Other software can refuse to install or work in this case. But still the underlying issue of validating software of unknown origin is worth addressing somehow.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[cypherljk]

1.) Voluntary in that if you know what it is then you can decline it most people won't
2.) All functions that are not 3rd party apps are part of the OS including minuscule ones such as the wallpaper
3.) I don't have an issue with that if there is an issue with the original activation
4.) That is bogus. The goal is increase revenue by cracking down on illegal copies which I don't necessarily have
a problem with as a developer
5.) Who in their right minds reads all that "fine" print? Those are only there to lay out legal escape clauses for these Orwellian tactics
6.) M$ does not want to piss off their business consumers. This is strictly a business decision and they could really care
less really if it was pushed out to biz's if they thought they would not complain

I don't have an issue with protecting product and I have designed many systems but after you validate your license, serial etc
it should not continuously "phone home" period. It is intrusive regardless of how much info is or is not transmitted back.
My main problem with this is it "detects"...!

"validate your Windows 7 system against Microsoft's latest database of pirated system signatures (currently including more than 70 activation exploits known to Microsoft). "

This is bogus. If it would check against a valid serial or key then it OK but it attempts to detect how and if your system was altered. As a developer I constantly and doing things to as I'm sure we all are. Now some change may trigger a "reduction" in functionality for a possible threat to Microsoft revenue stream. That is B.S.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

the reason i said, "personally speaking" is because I was refering to a general industry perspective, not necessarily a Microsoft view.

This is an excellent blog post about victims:

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-using-pirated-software-turns-people.html

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Megatog615]

Pirates will just run a cracked version of Windows with WAT disabled, or cracked in some way. You're severely underestimating these people.

How would it reduce the number of pirated installations with malicious code if you *don't* reduce their functionality? The normal user would just click the little X in the corner to make the annoying nag screen go away.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[alexo]

Windows Update checks your PC to determine which updates it needs depending on what software and devices you have installed. The service does not collect personal information -- Windows Update simply collects specific PC details needed for the update, including data such as computer make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details.

Microsoft is committed to helping protect your privacy, and does not collect your name or other personally identifiable information. For more details on how the information is protected, see the Windows Update privacy statement.

In other words, while MS does not directly collect my name and phone number, they can uniquely identify my computer by "make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details". Then, they can check where I am (via geolocation) and who I am by cross-referencing the information with data from data-mining companies.

Sweet.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Rockoon]

I still havent picked up Win7 yet, but it seems to me that the keyspace is probably unimaginably large. The idea that a keygen "will" come out with your key doesnt seem at all reasonable if the keys are 128-bit or larger, even after trillions upon trillions of keys generated (and then used, a requirement of you experiencing problems.)

It would be far more likely that you (or Microsofts servers) get hacked and your key gets out that way. Maybe man-in-the-middle might work too. After all, this is Windows.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Windows Update checks your PC to determine which updates it needs depending on what software and devices you have installed. The service does not collect personal information -- Windows Update simply collects specific PC details needed for the update, including data such as computer make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details.

Microsoft is committed to helping protect your privacy, and does not collect your name or other personally identifiable information. For more details on how the information is protected, see the Windows Update privacy statement.

In other words, while MS does not directly collect my name and phone number, they can uniquely identify my computer by "make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details". Then, they can check where I am (via geolocation) and who I am by cross-referencing the information with data from data-mining companies.

Sweet.

There are few ways I can answer this.
1. The most comprehensive way is to tell you to refer to http://privacy.microsoft.com/
After which point you still have concerns, please fill our our privacy questions form:
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1310&ws=1prcen

2. Microsoft complies with laws surrounding rention of customer data including IP addresses. Refer to this blog post that talks not only about Microsoft, but of Google and Yahoo as well.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10437137-265.html
Where as Google and Facebook want to redefine expectations of privacy on the web, Microsoft's privacy policy goes above and beyond the majority of companies that offer goods and services, both physically and virtually. Microsoft's privacy policy view comes from the very top from Steve Ballmer so when he says ours is better than Google's, he challenges anyone in the world to call him out on it. We do not go into your mail, we don't read your personal information, we don't access your stored content, period.

3. How you interpret Microsoft's agenda is up to you, but before trying to find any reason to fault Microsoft, I would ask you to thoroughly consider all the software you run on your environment and ask whether your information is safe with other 3rd party vendors. There are too many who do not apply as rigourous standards and in actuality, SELL your data to 3rd parties. If you play any computer game with an online component, you should be concerned. If you use extremely proprietary niche software that costs a lot of money, you should be concerned.

You should not be concerned about a company like Microsoft, a company who has billions of users and millions of business customers, about privacy. There are businesses who take security and privacy very seriously and if Microsoft were to pull this type of stuff, we'd get called out on it very quickly, and our reputation would suffer beyond repair.

Simply put, a failure on Microsoft's part to enforce a strong privacy policy would directly cause significant financial harm to the company. It's not worth it.

Hope this persuades you a little bit.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[LS1 Brains]

//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.

#1. Voluntary, meaning automatically installed if the user has auto-updates turned on, yes? That isn't really voluntary with respect to why folks want auto updates turned on (TRUE security patches, and feature updates).
#3 and #4. Not falling for that song and dance. If it were true, you could simply click a button that says "no, I know with 100% certainty my copy is legitimately and legally licensed" and that would be it. But we all know that isn't the case, don't we...

Maybe I'm bitter, but I just had to replace my motherboard, and my retail Vista Business install is now calling me a criminal, despite having the nifty plastic box and DVD key sitting right here on my desk.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

with regard to your retail copy of Vista Business, use tech support, you're paying for it as a retail customer. I think you'll find Microsoft customer support very helpful, and if they aren't let me know and I'll make sure you get help.

On point 3/4 - convincing you of these points doesn't really benefit Microsoft cause you're already a paying customer. If your experiences were the norm and you were the scenario we were wanting to improve, we wouldn't even need WGA or WAT. All I can say is read the following thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1546626&cid=31102154

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Thanks for the additional info. One thing I'm not clear on -- is this really new? Since my clean install in November - I am getting told that my legit copy of Windows 7 is not valid every time I am not connected to the Internet. Within 15-20 minutes of getting reconnected, the message clears up (and I have access to optional updates again).

call support for a resolution. this shouldn't happen. i'm a roadwarrior and disconnected for days sometimes. I've never experienced this.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[VTBlue]

Your statement about what constitutes "genuine" is not factual. 1 in 3 pirated copies of Windows actually have malicious software, malware, spyware, trojans, or other undersirable elements. Yes, I agree, they are not knock-offs because at least part of the code is from Microsoft, but by "genuine," Microsoft means untampered copy.

It is always easy to count the number of potential people inconvenienced by a method like this, but considering the number of people saved from buy dangerous software, the trade-off seems justified. Microsoft firmly believes that those who purchase counterfeit copies of Windows are VICTIMS not criminals. If we actually thought they were criminals, we would be taking grandmas and children to court like the RIAA. Just to show you how much damage can happen from illegal software, read the following article.

http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/96647/china-makes-biggest-software-piracy-bust-in-history.html

As a final point, if you consider how sophisticated the world's botnets, trojans, and online attack vectors are becoming, a significant delivery method for these loads are via pirated software, if you refuse to acknowledge this, you're being ignorant.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[byornski]

4. The goal is reduce the number of Windows installations using pirated copies many of which include malicious code.

Yes, obviously the problem is the sheer volume of pirated copies that have been added to botnets. Certainly 3 strikes deals must be approved as they are the only way to stop this! Inexperienced users could never be the problem.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[joe_bruin]

Your statement about what constitutes "genuine" is not factual. 1 in 3 pirated copies of Windows actually have malicious software, malware, spyware, trojans, or other undersirable elements.

This statement is disingenuous. That means that 2 in 3 pirated copies of windows do not have these (i.e., they are exactly as Microsoft released them) and they are still considered not "genuine". Please don't redefine genuine to mean "Microsoft got paid".

It is always easy to count the number of potential people inconvenienced by a method like this, but considering the number of people saved from buy dangerous software, the trade-off seems justified.

The purpose of this software is very clearly NOT saving people from viruses. If that were so, it would be a virus-cleaner. The purpose here is to stop piracy (most likely piracy by computer builders and fixers).

Microsoft firmly believes that those who purchase counterfeit copies of Windows are VICTIMS not criminals. If we actually thought they were criminals, we would be taking grandmas and children to court like the RIAA.

The people who paid for a computer or a repair and got a pirated version of Windows are victims. But if their computers are working properly, they are only further victimized by Microsoft invalidating their Windows license. Microsoft is not doing this for the welfare of these people. Just the opposite, they are leaning on these people to get them to turn in those that provided them with the unlicensed copy of Windows.

As a final point, if you consider how sophisticated the world's botnets, trojans, and online attack vectors are becoming, a significant delivery method for these loads are via pirated software, if you refuse to acknowledge this, you're being ignorant.

If you believe this is about Microsoft caring about the welfare of people with pirated Windows, you're being ignorant.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[dcam]

2. When non-genuine copies deteced, OS functionality is NOT reduced

I don't trust Microsoft to screw this up.

In addition I have valid XP and 2003 licenses that have exceeded activations, and like I have said elsewhere, I should *not* be required to call some number to get them working. In the case of those machines it is because they have migrated through hardware enough times. I don't see how this will be any different.

4. The goal is reduce the number of Windows installations using pirated copies many of which include malicious code.

Yeah, well the collateral damage is a problem.

I wish there was a "I am not a retard" version of windows. One where I didn't have to activate, get nagged/whatever because I know damn well I am running a licensed OS. One where the networking UI hadn't been turned into a steaming pile of crap where you have to dig through 18 screens to do something simple.

NOTE: the answer to the question is not get Linux, I'm quite happy with my linux VM host and the Linux VMs running on it.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[dcam]

Correcting my earlier comment, I don't trust Microsoft *not* to screw this up.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[Rockoon]

Sorry, how is that a scam? Because the OEM's dont provide a CD, (or non destructive CD, as the case may be)?

With the OEM license it is specifically the OEM's responsibility to provide tech support. Not Microsoft. If they didnt provide the Install CD, then it is the OEM and not Microsoft which is doing something akin to scamming (obviously they want future support money, or are making money on the payload included with the recovery partition/cd)

When a tech at the local computer shop installs a pirated copy of the OS, that is itself also a scam. They just violated the law for personal profit.

Re:WAT is Voluntary and Doesn't Impact OS Usage

[tokul]

1. Voluntary patch

Yeah. right. Voluntary patch listed as security update. It automatically voids your points no.2-5. If they say patch is voluntary and put it on Windows Update as Security update, they can also do any other shit in that patch.

WGA was "voluntary". Tried to install itself several times even after putting it on ignore list.

failure mode

[Lord Ender]

What happens if the domain name and IP addresses used for validation are null-routed?

Re:failure mode

[sconeu]

Or it's being used on a system that is not connected to the Internet?

Yes, there are systems that legally can NOT have 'Net connections.

Re:failure mode

[Renraku]

If it can't phone home, it'll assume the worst. Instead of the program phoning the MS server to check and see if it's fake and needs to stop working, it phones the MS server to check and see if it's legit and needs to continue working as intended. That's my guess how it will work.

Re:failure mode

[AgentPhunk]

Had this happen to me a few months ago while doing a migration in the Middle East. The site had been running without a firewall for long enough to get p0wned, and was being used as an open proxy, was on multiple blacklists, etc. I didn't know this until Day 3, though, after Windows Update kept bombing on all of the machines. I built a site-to-site IPSec tunnel back to HQ in the USA, and had the systems go out our domestic corporate proxy servers. Updates worked like a charm.

So indeed MS does blacklist by IP for Windows Update.

Re:failure mode

[sconeu]

People running classified networks are going to LOVE that feature.

Re:failure mode

[ImprovOmega]

If it legally can't have an internet connection then it's most likely part of a company large enough to have volume license keys which would allow you to use a MAK that you activate *once* over the phone and never mess with it again. They specifically bring up a similar scenario in their disconnected environment activations document.

Re:failure mode

[sconeu]

Nope. I ran a classified network, in an 8 person (counting the owner) company.

Say WAT again, I DARE you.

[LoudMusic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw6uZNz3i1g

Microsoft Licensing, MOTHER FUCKER, do you speak it?

Re:Say WAT again, I DARE you.

[berashith]

Does Bill Gates look like a bitch to you?

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[1s44c]

Who in their right mind would use Windows on a server any more?

Who in their right mind puts windows on a server anyway? Crazy people and masochists, that's who.

So what?

[macraig]

Where was all this righteous indignation when Windows XP was released? How many of you even remember the last version of Windows that was released without some form of this "activation"? If this is such a problem, then the people complaining should be voting with their dollars... but that isn't happening, is it?

Re:So what?

[c0d3g33k]

Yes, it is. The trouble is that not going to the polls isn't exactly counted as a vote, is it?

Re:So what?

[Microlith]

No one cared about XP because everyone who used it went for the VLK editions that did not require activation, and never installed the WGA crap. And people were quite righteously indignant about activation.

Re:So what?

[macraig]

You claim it's happening, but where's the economic consequence for Microsoft that would persuade it to stop? People have continued to buy/accept Windows in droves since activation first appeared almost a decade ago. Now people are thoroughly comfortable with the needle, so Microsoft is twisting it in a bit further.

Re:So what?

[Splintercat]

Yes, it is. The trouble is that not going to the polls isn't exactly counted as a vote, is it?

Exactly.

The other trouble is the sheer amount of non-technical users who don't know better. Not to mention trying to buy a pre-built computer without windows on it. Just because you or I can build a computer from scratch doesn't mean everyone can. (DIY laptops are out there, but still not common)

I remember seeing netbooks that came in windows and linux versions. And the damnedest thing was they were two separate products (probably to hide the cost of windows) and that the windows version had better options. The hp mini mi? Anyone get a chance to look at those? You could opt for a higher resolution screen, but only on the windows model.

Does making your own machine even count as a vote?

Re:So what?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Where was all this righteous indignation when Windows XP was released? How many of you even remember the last version of Windows that was released without some form of this "activation"? If this is such a problem, then the people complaining should be voting with their dollars... but that isn't happening, is it?

There was lots of righteous indignation. However, it's easy to be righteously indignant. It's *not* so easy to do without.

Re:So what?

[macraig]

And that "doing without" is precisely what would motivate Microsoft to reconsider.

American consumers, even when they're not ignorant, are too addicted and apathetic to do anything but whine. They file for divorce often enough, yet they can't ever seem to divorce themselves from their corporate abusers.

Re:So what?

[c0d3g33k]

The fact that they feel compelled to constantly ramp up their "force people to buy" measures suggests otherwise. Voting with my wallet doesn't necessarily mean "never give Microsoft money", but it might mean "only buy Microsoft if you have to". 15 years ago, I stood in line outside the local office store before midnight to snag a copy of the latest Windows release (Win 95, which looked much better than Win 3.1 at the time). That was the last time I deliberately purchased an MS product unless a) I got it at an academic discount, b) a discount through work, c) It came with a system I bought. For the last 5 year, I actively avoid them and advise anybody that will listen to do the same. I've since spent more money on "good will" purchases for open source products than I have on Microsoft products. They could have had that money and more if their behavior had been different. The "droves" you speak of may be just a drop in the bucket of the sales they could have enjoyed.

Re:So what?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

And that "doing without" is precisely what would motivate Microsoft to reconsider.

American consumers, even when they're not ignorant, are too addicted and apathetic to do anything but whine. They file for divorce often enough, yet they can't ever seem to divorce themselves from their corporate abusers.

I think you can strike "American" and leave "consumers". Once you get to a point where the things required to meet your basic needs and wants are readily available for purchase -- or even better, are "free" such as when installed on a purchased computer -- apathy becomes easy.

Re:So what?

[macraig]

I was avoiding presuming too much about consumers in other countries I've never even visited.

I guess I must know better what the true cost of Windows is, since I've never bought a brand-name computer until recently (laptop, used) and so the OS was always an explicit line item. I suspect I have a better grasp of the true cost of most manufactured things than most consumers, because they weren't paying attention in the high school and college classes that would have taught them how to assess those costs. We're all getting gouged right and left by those manufacturers, and by middlemen who add no value at all, and even those of us who recognize it are being dragged along for the ride because of this "apathy" or ignorance.

Re:So what?

[macraig]

I doubt that you fall within the set we would call the "rule". I know I don't. I'm not saying we should, or should want to, rather I'd like to get other people out of the "rule" set and into the one labeled "exception" (well, until the reversal is complete, that is).

Re:Now with Continuous Auditing! (aka surveillance

[Jeng]

Funny how this is happening right after Microsoft won that lawsuit regarding WGA.

They're already doing too much.

[argent]

I take it MS is supposed to do nothing and hope that you'll be nice and pay them?

Microsoft isn't "doing nothing". Even without this additional step Windows 7 is already more aggressive than any other software I own, and their profitability isn't even vaguely at risk. There is nowhere near adequate justification for them to take this additional step.

Re:Riiiiight!

[stonewallred]

Let me see if I understand this correctly. When I finally migrate to Win 7, I will download a cracked copy with all annoying and useless crap stripped out, that fast installs and does not have this call home program in it. So explain how again this stops piracy?

What if MS go bust?

[15Bit]

What happens to the authentication if MS goes out of business?

Ok, so its an unlikely scenario, but having someone as big as MS do this will set the trend for web based authentication of everything. How many small companies are going to follow this lead, forcing regular security checks down the throats of customers on the basis that it is an "Industry Standard" way of doing things. And how many of those are going to go bust in a year or two, leaving customers up s**t creak with no method of propulsion?

Re:What if MS go bust?

[maxume]

The thing notifies you and disables updates (those are the big things).

If Microsoft goes bust, the disabling of updates isn't going to be a real big deal.

Makes Sense

[dawilcox]

If you use Windows, be prepared to succumb to the conditions of the company that produces it. This includes if the company that produces it wants to assure that you actually paid for the software you installed. If you are not all right with this, don't use Windows.

So bend over and bark like a dog

[rimcrazy]

Just say NO to Micro$oft

Me I run OSX and FC8 thank you very much.

Re:So bend over and bark like a dog

[gearloos]

Well, I also run OSX 10.6.2 and Ubuntu 9.10, and I have a box with Centos 5 serving up a few things but the main problem for me is the old AOL, "me too" mentality. All my friends, family, and most of my coworkers are die hard Windows users. I try and mention things like this and I get the Mac FAN BOY stigmata. I don't understand how it came this. Just mentioning something else and your a fan boy. Oh well, I guess I'm just lucky I was sick the day they gave out the free kool-aid and stayed home.

Re:So bend over and bark like a dog

[swilver]

I would run OSX... but I can't bend over that far.

Re:So bend over and bark like a dog

[KillShill]

But you say "Yes" to O$X...

There is more than one evil empire.

Re:So bend over and bark like a dog

[Tak_1]

OSX, I pay for it, it works. No problem. I buy the OS, I install it. I don't play "mother may I?" with a phone bank in Bangalore to turn my computer back on.

I had Leopard on a Dual core G4 500, took the hard drive out and dropped it in a G4 1.4 ghz, know what happened? It started, saw all the hardware and just kept going. Do that in a PC and see what happens. Constant activation issues is why I stopped using XP in the first place.

Microsoft, you pay for it, it fails, its the end users fault or the hardware manufacturer is to blame. It is NEVER the software, just ask them!

The difference between Mac and PC ownership is, Mac packs the pain of the purchase in the original buy, Microsoft just sleazes it on with all the "extras" you need later. I'd rather pay $1300 for a MacBook Pro that Ill have for the next four years, than $400 for an Acer that will fall apart and start jettisoning keys, trim, "even hard drives" at 13 months. I was given a one year old Acer recently from a fellow I converted to Linux who wanted a "cheap" computer, its on its second hard drive, the keyboard is disintegrating, and its had three power supplies. It was 13 months old. My old Macbook Pro is three years old, with its new owner, "my brother" where it will see ANOTHER three years of use. Other than some upgrades, the only thing I ever had to do with it was replace the keyboard.

When you go to a ballgame I bet you get the cheap seats.............

Re:So bend over and bark like a dog

[Tak_1]

Do what I did. Stop giving them technical support.

I finally told my massive collection of free tech support scroungers that I won't do Windows anymore, ever. And that if they wanted my help with their computer problems I'd be happy to help them pick out a Mac OR put Ubuntu on their PCs. but never complain to me about Microsoft, or expect any Windows support. I refuse to clean up their MS messes anymore.

Its been fun, about half go Linux and half go Mac, I'm happy to help them find any non Windows solution. and so far, not a one has gone back.

after vista..

[Multiwp]

windows 7 like a heaven, after vista. :/

Re:So what do they do

[d3ac0n]

Looks like SOMEONE has forgotten the last time Microsoft tried this and hundreds of thousands of XP users were suddenly declared "non-genuine".

The problem is not that people don't want to pay. If they didn't Microsoft would already be broke. The problem is that the pirates have already figured out the algorithm that MS uses to make the keys and are already distributing keygens. These keygens are making LEGITIMATE KEYS that may or may not be out "in the wild" already. If MS chooses to block these keys, the keys already released in real Win7 packages are ALSO blocked.

Can you imagine buying a brand new copy of Win7, peeling off the shrink-wrap, going through the setup, and then having your own PC tell you that the copy of Win7 you JUST BOUGHT is "Non-Genuine"? Good luck trying to take it back to the store once you've opened it.

So tell me, genius, who suffers when MS pulls a stupid stunt like this? The pirates? HELL NO! They just re-gen another key and go on their happy way. It's the LEGITIMATE CUSTOMERS that suffer 100% of the time. They are the ones who have to sit through Microsoft's interminable hold times and be treated like criminals. Not the real pirates. A system like this is pretty much custom-made to piss off the customer base.

Say hello to Yet Another PR Disaster(tm) from your friends in Redmond.

Now THAT'S smart marketing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant, give more people yet another reason to switch to Apple. WTG MS.

Re:So what do they do

[IICV]

I take it MS is supposed to do nothing and hope that you'll be nice and pay them?

In a word, yes. Microsoft is concentrating entirely too much on a market that is simply not as large as they think it is - namely, the people who a) currently pirate Microsoft software and b) would pay for Microsoft software if pirating it was too difficult. This is a vanishingly small group of people, and in order to get these people to buy Microsoft software they are adversely affecting everyone who buys Microsoft software.

Further, this means of verifying that Windows 7 installations will simply not work. Microsoft is being nice and packaging it in one update, which means that what this update does and how it works will be easily reverse engineered. Once the pirates know how it works, there are a ridiculous number of ways to circumvent it at every step of the process - it would be relatively easy to intercept the downgrade command coming from the server, or change the downgrade routine so that it does nothing, or spoof the current signature with a known-good one (and if Microsoft bans that, they'll be banning every single legitimate user with that signature), or to do any number of other things that would be come apparent after reverse-engineering the update.

So yes, Microsoft shouldn't do anything - because doing nothing is better than wasting money and goodwill on something useless.

Re:Riiiiight!

[twidarkling]

Do you have enough reasons to quit using their shitty software yet?

Nope. Not until I can run the same software on Linux that they do at work, and it can run all my games, and I don't have to edit and compile my own drivers because the company decided not to make compatable 64-bit drivers for my soundcard for Linux.

Firewall?

[Naito]

Anyway to block this off at the gateway? then claim that your computer doesn't have internet access and thus shouldn't be disabled if they do disable it? I just don't like the idea of having ANYTHING "phone home" regularly behind my back

Re:So what do they do

[Jeng]

It will either not work because the guidelines they use will be too lenient to actually catch any piracy. (this would be the case if this is purely done to appease stockholders)

OR

It will not work because the guidelines are too strict and there will be too many false positives.

No one really cares that Microsoft is trying to stop piracy of their products, they just don't want to be a false positive.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who needs application software for which there is no reasonable Linux/Unix equivalent. Such software includes mid-range accounting systems and point of sale systems.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Windows isn't going away until Sage come out with a Linux version

I'm tired of paying money to rent software

[Anonymous Coward]

Essentially we don't buy anything anymore. Everyone out there seems to have control of my computer but me. Yes I can spend the time and disable some of the functions but it's constant cold war of disabling the latest functions only to get hit with the next round. I want to use software not fight OSs. Also I'm tired of fighting software licensing, period. I'm not from the camp that wants free software I pay for every piece, except I do love some open source like Open Office. The point is why do I constantly have to deal updates? My bloody HP Printer driver constantly demands to be updated. I'm not stupid and I know they aren't releasing updates that fast. Many of pay thousands of dollars just for our desk top let alone software and yet everyone insists they should have control of our machines at all times. 10, 15, 20 years ago this was not the case. 15 years ago due to corruption issues I used to reinstall my OS and all software once a month. The machine ran better and the software crashed less. It took me a couple of hours and gave me a fresh machine each time. These days I live in terror of redoing a machine. I have a lot of software and at best we're talking days and generally it's weeks before I can get all the licenses squared away again. It's reached the point where I dread buying a new machine.

Re:I'm tired of paying money to rent software

[chapstercni]

Windows XP - Windows Steady State works amazingly well.

Other then that... Get all the software installed. Just the way you like it, including the activation.
Make an image of this system.
Write image to system to verify it is working.
Store image somewhere safe.
Put user documents/etc on a second partition, or network.

Machine gets hosed. Reimage machine. Everything works. Drivers. Software.
Create new user, and data is still available.

Re:I'm tired of paying money to rent software

[Gaffod]

Use free software. Or alternatively, pirate everything. If the morality bugs you, buy the software, shred the disk, then pirate it.

There's an implicit guarantee in this...

[tjstork]

There's an interesting an implicit guarantee in this. By taking such steps as to certify that the software is "authentic", to some extent, Microsoft now accepts some responsibility for the state of a Windows installation.

Maybe this is a stupid question.

[Brett Buck]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question with an obvious answer, but I am not a Windows person. How does this work when the machine is not connected to the internet? Say, sequestered on it's own network, but not leaving the room.

Re:Maybe this is a stupid question.

[asdf7890]

If the system requirements say "an Internet connection", especially if the licensing agreement states the same requirement, and you don't have the resources to argue your case (through the legal system, arbitration, or some other channel) I'd say you are probably up a certain creak without access to the appropriate rowing equipment.

Caveat: I've not checked what the sysreqs or license say, I'm just speculating here.

Re:Maybe this is a stupid question.

[Animats]

Can you even have a Windows machine without an Internet connection any more?

Windows machines on manufacturing equipment often have no external Internet connection. Nor should they. They don't need to talk to anything outside, ever. Many still run Windows 2000.

Re:Maybe this is a stupid question.

[Brett Buck]

Or, secure systems that will never and can never be on an external network.

        Brett

Re:Maybe this is a stupid question.

[Moof123]

Windows is used as the OS in many stand alone products that are not personal computers. For example test equipment (spectrum analyzers, and similar). These often see networks rarely, and have access to the internet even more rarely.

Having a piece of test gear start to nag our customers after a few months is a pretty lame proposition (yes, I know that having Windows on a piece of test gear is already lame, but was not my call).

Re:Maybe this is a stupid question.

[maxwells_deamon]

They may also be firewalled away from everything not local and patched manually. you still want to keep them up to date, but you control what and when they get these updates.

Oh, sign me up for THAT!

[Civil_Disobedient]

To all the XP haters... THIS is why I will never upgrade. No tangible benefits, a larger footprint, and now a wonderful, I-never-would-have-expected-this-from-Microsoft! update to remind you just who's system you're using. Hint: not yours.

OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[tepples]

DirectX

Perhaps my point missed you. Free games don't need DirectX; they can instead use OpenGL graphics and SDL audio and input. So why aren't there more Free games?

Re:OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[tepples]

You appear to claim that there aren't more Free games because OpenGL, SDL (or Allegro), and available object-oriented wrappers aren't satisfactory. So why hasn't free software stepped up to make something better?

Re:OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[Draek]

Because there's no need for it.

I know I'm calling forth the anger of a thousand 15-year-old ricer kiddies with this, but seriously. Gamers constitute a tiny, almost negligible part of the entirety of computer users, and nearly zero percent of corporate users who are Linux's main customers.

Re:OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[aaron552]

Of course it's simply not the case that OpenGL, SDL, OpenAL, etc. aren't good enough (Many windows games use OpenGL and OpenAL). It's that most gamers use Windows. Games are developed to make money. The companies go where the money is.

Re:OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[tepples]

Games are developed to make money.

Then why aren't web servers developed to make money? (See Apache, Lighttpd, etc.) Or web browsers? (See Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc.)

Re:OpenGL and SDL instead of DX

[poetmatt]

gamers are a huge part of the entirety of computer users, and nearly 0% of the minority that doesn't include gaming wants to recognize that such exists.

See how this works? You're full of shit.

Re:So what do they do

[c0d3g33k]

Could you please be so kind as to post your name, address and phone number, please? Oh, and leave your keys under the mat.

All the people who made products you may or may not have in your house just want to stop by once a quarter to make sure they get paid for what they produce. You can't just expect them to do nothing and hope that you'll be nice and pay them. Those books you picked up at the "clearing out old stuff event" at the library? The authors deserve to get paid for what they produce. Representatives for Mr. King will be over shortly to conduct an audit. If you are found to be out of compliance, they will rip out all but the first chapter. You can use the 'downgraded' copy to decide if you want to make a full purchase.

I say just let 'em do it

[spikenerd]

If we keep making such a loud noise every time this company starts to do something so utterly blatantly stupid, they'll keep half-way back-tracking before it makes it to the consumers, and they will continue to endure this company forever. I'm getting really tired of hearing people say things like "yeah they're a little evil, but I like their products", or "they're not really that evil--it's not worth the pain of switching". I say let's just keep quiet about it this time and let the Windows users dawn the Emperor's new clothes. C'mon, it'll be fun!

Lawyers, Unite!

[TiggertheMad]

I wonder how many false positives this will generate?

I love the smell of class action lawsuits in the morning...it smells like.... money!

Blimey

[NoNeeeed]

And people think that Apple are control freaks.

I mean, Apple *are* control freaks, but even they don't do stuff like this.

Linux looks more and more appealing every day.

I'm curious what happens if you don't connect your machine to the internet, by MS assume that only a weirdo would not connect their machine to the internet?

Re:Blimey

[Splintercat]

One of my college professors told me this:
"I left windows years ago, and ever since that day I've just found more reasons not to go back."

I switched to linux a few years back, and I feel much the same. I still boot up into windows just to play some games, but more and more I find myself playing less games and spending less money on them. I know that's not the ideal for some, but I'm pretty happy.

>
Looks like you Mac folks will probably get Starcraft 2, I'm a bit jealous.

Re:Blimey

[KillShill]

They do stuff like this.

They just have a very expensive DRM dongle, in the form of App£e hardware and also a massive army of lawyers.

MicRIAAsoft

[gearloos]

Why does this sound so familiar? Customers are considered thieves as a general rule? Oh thats right, RIAA Playbook and guideline for the Music industry, page 2, "How to treat Customers". Now,if there is a malfunction, we, the consumers, will be forced to take measures to prove to Microsoft that our systems are genuine? Give me a break. The sad thing is 99% of the general public will never hear about this until some server glitch causes their system to stop functioning normally and they have to call Microsoft(and how many will have to bungle through M$ofts cludge of a tech support center and pay for support for fixing Msofts problem). Call me skeptical as we know M$oft has a perfect track record of bug free software and nothing like that could ever happen. More to the point is the nerve of them for expecting consumers to put up with them probing our systems.

I'm all for it

[countertrolling]

Watever it takes to drive away customers and make the alternatives more desirable. Businesses won't tolerate it, and Microsoft will listen to them.

Re:Riiiiight!

[calmofthestorm]

It nags the non computer-elite into picking up your tab, and hating your for it.

Cant we call it...

[coffii]

Trusted Windows Activation Technologies

Re:Cant we call it...

[Whomp-Ass]

Negative. It was specifically named "The Windows Activation Technology" for a reason.

Sounds risky

[CookedGryphon]

What happens if someone writes a virus which trips one of these MS indicators that an activation hack has been used, do they have a way to easily reverse decisions without user interaction? Sounds incredibly risky to me, a chance of taking out whole corporate networks on a false positive, lawsuits for lost revenue....

Cmon people...

[Last_Available_Usern]

What is so "major" and "disturbing" about this? If you own a legitimate copy of Windows than this isn't an issue for you. You can be sure if they crippled *anyones* PC for a reason other than piracy then they would be flogged to death in an instant. The results of this action will of course come as a big surprise to people who purchased systems from non-reputable dealers with preloaded pirated versions of Windows, however, saying that's not ok is like saying DMV shouldn't run your car's VIN after a sale to insure a clean title (please don't pick apart the analogy, you get the point). Once again, just more mongering and Microsoft hating.

Re:Cmon people...

[Firewheels]

Oddly enough, your car's VIN tag doesn't call your state DMV every 90 days, nor does it provide clues as to the location of your car if it did.

I get the 'only dishonest people need to worry' concept, I really do. The thing is, this is in large part a privacy invasion. You'd be surprised what someone can learn about you from something as simple as 'a computer running Win7 with an OEM key assigned to > reported from ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'

Re:Cmon people...

[the eric conspiracy]

Just read the accompanying article describing the attempt to gain warrantless access to cell phone location data.

Between Easy Pass, Cell Phones and and my computer it is going to be the equivalent of having a tracking device implanted at birth.

What is the next step? An implanted kill switch?

Re:Cmon people...

[klui]

You're the first who seem to don't mind running your car's VIN every 90 days to ensure it stays legit. You're also probably an advocate for more less privacy cuz if you're not breaking the law, you don't have anything to worry about.

It's only annoying legitimate users...

[synoniem]

because those who know to get hold of a working illegal copy of Windows 7 will soon find another crack to avoid WAT. But I can tell that whenever my paid Windows 7 is downgraded by a false positive I will remove it from my computer for ever. And because it is running in a virtual machine it is just "rm win7.vmdk".

Re:New Upgrade Path

[tepples]

Now all MS needs to do is release a virus

If the virus spreads to a corporate or especially government installation, "deep shit" will be an understatement of Microsoft's situation.

It's been phoning home all along.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Every time I don't have an Internet connection,win7 informs me within a few minutes that I "may not be running a legitimate copy". The link it provides to "resolve" this is a essentially a "buy win7 now" page. Without fail a few minutes after the Internet connection is restored, the warning goes away and the desktop watermark accusing me of piracy also disappears again.

I'm actually more than a little peeved about being called a thief every time I resume my session from suspend -- during the few seconds it takes to reconnect -- or use my laptop out of range of my wireless. But my point is that if it wasn't phoning home, it wouldn't be telling me this *only* when there was no Internet connection; and it wouldn't stop telling me *only* when my connection was restored.

Of course, no matter how peeved I am - as long as it doesn't get in my way, it's not worth waiting on hold for 20 minutes of my life to get a solution which may or may not resolve it.

Re:It's been phoning home all along.

[Skuld-Chan]

You have a corporate license it sounds like... And yes - it does check the license server for a valid license (KMS - Key Management Service). They do have a voluem license called MAK (multiple activation key) for machines that are connected and disconnected from the corporate network constantly that you can use.

I have a regular retail license for Windows 7 and do not have this issue at all.

Re:It's been phoning home all along.

[ImprovOmega]

KMS is only supposed to require re-activation every 6 months. Specifically because business laptops may very well be off of the network for several weeks at a time.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[JumpDrive]

Ahhh, What do you recommend for a small to mid size company using Windows clients, who needs network authentication?

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Ephemeriis]

Who in their right mind would use Windows on a server any more?

Folks who've spent their entire lives working on a Windows GUI and can't imagine a computer without a Start menu or a C: drive.

We're a Microsoft shop... That's generally what we sell and install, including servers. Myself, I don't much care what we run. I'm familiar with various flavors of *nix and support them as well. My boss, on the other hand, can't deal with anything non-Windows.

You should have seen his face the first time he sat down in front of a machine running XenServer. He had no freaking clue what to do with it. He kept shaking the mouse around and looking puzzled.

Re:New Upgrade Path

[Sechr Nibw]

Virus? I believe you mean "urgent security update".

wow

[circletimessquare]

i've been reading and posting here a long time, and i don't remember anyone coming right out and saying "microsoft employee here"

i never expected someone to rip off their clothes, douse themselves in a1 steak sauce, and walk into the hyena enclosure

you are very brave sir

how well read is slashdot at microsoft?

Re:wow

[VTBlue]

I've been reading Slashdot for over 10 years i think. :) The guys at Port 25 probably read slashdot a lot!

Port 25 is the Open-Source Lab at Microsoft
http://port25.technet.com/

Re:wow

[frikazoyd]

I figure all the time. It's good business to keep track of your competitors. Or, alternatively, it's always tempting to read the bad press about whatever you're working on, so you can set the record straight when people (invariably) misunderstand you.

Re:wow

[VTBlue]

Microsoft circa 2010 is very misunderstood on Slashdot. I also had my doubts before being assimilated by the collective.

Microsoft is fundamentally a different company now than in the 90s. We have to be due to competition, compliance, and regulation.

History is very important, but holding grudges only impedes progress. Even Linus Torvalds has said, "Microsoft hatred is a DISEASE."

Re:wow

[alexo]

Microsoft circa 2010 is very misunderstood on Slashdot. I also had my doubts before being assimilated by the collective.
Microsoft is fundamentally a different company now than in the 90s. We have to be due to competition, compliance, and regulation.

This is a fine marketing spiel but the onus of proof is on you. So, please tell us how how exactly the 21st century Microsoft is different from the 20th century Microsoft.

Please do not forget to comment on the following:
- Fines in the i4i case
- Fines in India for abusing "money power"
- Fines in Germany for price fixing
- Fines by EU for failing to comply with an antitrust order

Thank you.

Re:wow

[alexo]

Microsoft circa 2010 is very misunderstood on Slashdot. I also had my doubts before being assimilated by the collective.
Microsoft is fundamentally a different company now than in the 90s. We have to be due to competition, compliance, and regulation.

This is a fine marketing spiel but the onus of proof is on you. So, please tell us how how exactly the 21st century Microsoft is different from the 20th century Microsoft.

Please do not forget to comment on the following:
- Fines in the i4i case
- Fines in India for abusing "money power"
- Fines in Germany for price fixing
- Fines by EU for failing to comply with an antitrust order

Thank you.

Also the OOXML voting shenanigans.

Re:wow

[VTBlue]

I can't comment on any pending litigation, nor am I an attorney.

As far as the EU anti-trust stuff reading this article:
http://www.internetnews.com/breakingnews/article.php/3853706

1. i4i is a patent case between two corporations hence it isn't germane to the conversation.
2. The India case involves 4 alleged pirates I believe. Don't know much about it.
3. With regard to German price-fixing, Microsoft has stated that it will comply with the finding and be in full compliance of German law. When you have as large an ecosystem as Microsoft with so many partners, retailers, distributors, and vendors, business processes must always be stringently reviewed on a periodic basis to ensure compliances with all applicable rules and regulations. Microsoft Germany is doing exactly this in this matter. Are you really going to fault them for it?
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-office-price-fixing,7533.html

Re:wow

[alexo]

I can't comment on any pending litigation, nor am I an attorney.

Would you mind disclosing what is your role in Microsoft?

As far as the EU anti-trust stuff reading this article:
http://www.internetnews.com/breakingnews/article.php/3853706

I have. Allow me to quote from it:
The decision averted another penalty for Microsoft which has been fined 1.68 billion euros ($2.44 billion) by the European Commission for previous infringements of anti-competition rules (emphasis mine).
I was actually referring to the "previous" fine. Thank you for making my point.

1. i4i is a patent case between two corporations hence it isn't germane to the conversation.

It has something to do with Microsoft's behaviour. To wit:
Appeals court rules Microsoft willfully infringed i4i's patent (emphasis mine).

2. The India case involves 4 alleged pirates I believe.

In most jurisdictions alleged == innocent (until proven guilty). For example, I am alleging that you are molesting kittens. You are alleging that Microsoft is a different company than it was in the 90's. Both allegations have no merit without proof.

Don't know much about it.

Just Google it. Here's one link.

3. With regard to German price-fixing, Microsoft has stated that it will comply with the finding and be in full compliance of German law.

... after being convicted and fined for illegal practices.

I am still waiting for examples that substantiate your statement.

Re:wow

[shutdown -p now]

i've been reading and posting here a long time, and i don't remember anyone coming right out and saying "microsoft employee here"

Well, I am a Microsoft employee, and it's not the first or the second time I mention that in the text of the comment. There's also a disclaimer to that extent in my /. profile, though it seems that hardly anyone bothers to see that.

There are a few others - in all cases the only reason I know is because they "came out" in the same way. E.g. here is another Microsoftie slashdotter, who often comments on MS-related topics.

No idea how many more don't ever bother mentioning it, or steer away from any discussions where it's of any relevance outright. After all, Slashdot isn't a dedicated "we hate MS" site - it has discussions on all kinds of topics, and the fact that one works at Microsoft can be of no (or very distant) relevance to most of them. Ultimately, we're just people. Many (of those I know personally, more than half) are geeks to some extent. Some are very stereotypical geeks. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few had their Slashdot accounts before they came to work at MS (I've had mine for 5 years before that).

Furthermore, don't be surprised to get a question, or even a useful advice, on Linux (or some other FOSS thing) from a Microsoftie. I dual-boot Win7 and Ubuntu at home, for one, and I used to run a FreeBSD box as a router; I know at least one other guy in my team who does the same with Debian. As geeks do, we evaluate and use things based on technical merit, not on brand loyalty. I certainly want our brand to compete and win on technical merit, though (and, as a developer, I do what I can to further that goal).

Of course, in those cases with Linux/FOSS posts, you're also not very likely to see the post start with "I'm a Microsoft employee ...", so you'd probably never know. It can be quite ironic, though, to post something pro-Linux (lately also pro-Google) in reply to a clear troll, or to a factually incorrect statement, and then have a passer-by pat you on the back for "fighting the evil Microsoft".

Re:wow

[hkmwbz]

If Microsoft is so "misunderstood", why did they destroy ECMAScript 4, and undermine the CSS WG?

Grudges? Microsoft is doing evil shit today. The company has a history of breaking the law, then lying about it.

Re:wow

[VTBlue]

I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group. Things like test suites, specifications, standards discussions represent some of the output from Microsoft's involvement.

One of the main goals for IE8 was to have full CSS2 compliance and to improve performance over IE7. Compared to previous versions of IE, IE8 largely accomplished these goals. Moving forward for IE9, the goal will be increased standards compliance around CSS3, competative JavaScript performance against competeing browsers, improved rendering performance, and *throwing it some marketing* making it the best browsing experience for ANYONE who uses Windows, dev, designer, consumer, it pro.

Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment. Neither Firefox or Chrome fully implement the entire spec yet.

http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support?uas=IE6-IE7-IE8-FX2-FX3-OP9#css

With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features. We haven't derailed anything, we voiced a disagreement, one that was shared by Yahoo at the time. Microsoft and Yahoo didn't agree on much back then either.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/11/major-stakeholders-argue-about-the-future-of-web-scripting.ars

It's easy to have a casual knowledge of the issues when it comes to standards discussions, but when it comes down to creating a quality specification, the issues are a lot more complex and there are numerous viewpoints from people a lot smarter than you or I about the matter. Your accusations and assertions about Microsoft don't produce any productive outcomes in the debate, and all you really end up doing is vent anger online.

Does any of this genuinely change your opinion in the slightest, or am I wasting my time?

Re:wow

[hkmwbz]

I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group.

Yeah, that must be why people were getting out of the CSS WG because of Microsoft's behavior: 1, 2, 3, 4

Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment.

Nope. That is a blatant lie if I ever saw one.

With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features.

Actually, ECMAScript 4 was seen as a threat against Silverlight: 1, 2

Re:So what do they do

[clone53421]

Steps like these need to be taken because, well, people pretty much can not be trusted to do the right thing without the fear of a reprisal looming over their head.

In other words, even though I paid for my copy of Windows, I’m going to be punished for the misdeeds of everyone who didn’t. And on top of that, you basically assume that without such draconian measures, I’d have pirated it too.

Well, here’s news for you, apparently. Pirating Windows is just as easy as buying it, maybe easier; much cheaper, definitely; and treating your paying customers like thieves because of the dishonesty of people they have no control over makes for a rotten business practice.

Re:New Upgrade Path

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe hackers should deliberately create such a virus. After enough customers scream and/or switch to different Operating Systems, Microsoft will be forced to drop this idiocy. The hackers want Windows to remain the dominant OS, and dominant pirtated OS, because it is easier to hack. So the sooner the hackers release a virus that causes false positives on a massive scale, the sooner Microsoft will drop this, and the more that people will continue to use Windows instead of switch.

Free OS and apps, not just free OS

[tepples]

That's nice. But as I understood Statecraftsman's article, it didn't recommend running a free operating system and proprietary applications. Instead, it recommended a 100% free software stack: "It is for this reason that I recommend proprietary software be replaced with free software in all cases." And as I understand it, Team Fortress 2 is non-free.

Re:Free OS and apps, not just free OS

[that this is not und]

I hope Microsoft pays you at least $9 an hour.

Re:Free OS and apps, not just free OS

[jim_v2000]

>Instead, it recommended a 100% free software stack: "It is for this reason that I recommend proprietary software be replaced with free software in all cases."

And it is for this reason that I write off most of the things that FOSS zealots say. Their suggestions are often ridiculous and made based on ideology, not reality.

Re:Free OS and apps, not just free OS

[Anpheus]

After a few months gaming purely with free software, you'll think even Apple has a plethora of games available on Mac OS X.

RAR

[Moheeheeko]

this new thing microsoft does to reduce piracy INFURIATES ME, and i shal offer no idea as to what they should do instead. can i have +5 insightful now?

News flash

[clone53421]

You know that clause in your EULA that states that if they cannot take away a certain right, by law, the rest of the EULA is still binding?

I wonder why they need that clause...

Doesn't apply to enterprise versions

[Sycraft-fu]

Enterprise versions of Windows don't authenticate with Microsoft. Instead you set up a KMS server, which authenticates once and only once, and all the enterprise clients then authenticate with that. As such, MS can't shut it down remotely. No, I don't know what they get out of that system either, but there you go. That's how volume license versions of Windows work.

Re:So what do they do

[BronsCon]

The problem is that... well... it doesn't work the way they say it does.

I have a legit copy of Win7 Ultimate, received directly from MS at the Win7 launch event. Installed in October, not genuine on November 1st. Called, got reactivated. Not genuine on December 1st. Called, got reactivated. Not genuine on January 1st. Installed WGA crack. February 11th, still "genuine".

It's been legit all along, and I only had a problem with it until I used the same method used by pirates.

This does NOT affect piracy and it never will. It does, however, ensure that I will be attending every Microsoft OS launch event in order to never give them another red cent, eat their free food, and get my free copy of their shiny new toy.

If I had paid for this, I'd be outraged. Knowing that it WILL happen IF I pay means I'll NEVER pay. Period.

All I have to say is...

[Firewheels]

This is just one more reason for me not to use windows.

--
Microsoft free for over five years.

Much ado about nothing

[techvet]

* The update is voluntary. * They're doing a better job than they did with XP. * 32% of all counterfeit Win machines have malware. See http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/watu.asp or http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1759&tag=col1;post-5242 for more information.

Re:Riiiiight!

[FreonTrip]

They don't necessarily pick up his tab. He's entirely free to buy the software, then download the cracked and slimmed down version. The world's not binary, though I'm not foolish enough to assume stonewallred is entirely noble based on his tone.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I run an old system with xp for nothing more than to act as a print server. All our computers and servers run a mix of different linux distros and have done for the last 4 years. Every system is licensed for XP or Vista and, after the first debacle with WGA saying that two of our legit XP installs were pirated, we ditched microsoft products altogether (except the print server). Any new systems we purchase are built in-house and we will never pay the microsoft tax again.

I will never, ever, allow any software package to be used in our organisation that can be disabled remotely by the company that wrote the software. Why run the risk of losing a major client, when you can't get that important document to them on time, because the software has locked you out. It's like cruising down the highway at 120mph with dodgy brakes and no seat belts.

While the printer does work pretty good when shared via samba, the only thing that seems to be missing in the linux drivers is support for the 600dpi resolution that the printer provides for. All I can seem to get using linux is 300dpi and any color images come out looking like something from the early 90s and blotchy as hell. I will eventually get around to opening up the source code and adding what we need.

I also don't run any kind of virus scanner or any other app on that XP system. The first job after hooking it up to the network was to block any traffic heading to/from that server on any port other than the ones needed for the printer. As far as I am concerned, windows should only be allowed to run with NO internet connection whatsoever. Yeah it's ugly.... but it works for me.

Oh, and way to go Albany High School here in Auckland, NZ. (was featured here on /. a few weeks back but I am too lazy to go hunting for links. Typing when tired is hard enough). Lots of kudos due for the way they set up their entire network using open source software. That alone makes their students much more employable in our eyes. I have declined many a person for job interviews based SOLELY on the fact that their resume had "qualifications" where the whole course was based on "the microsoft way".

Fantastic news!

[ghetto2ivy]

Pirates -- when you get sick of grandma being accused of stealing windows, and she won't eat tuna for 2 months to find the money for $300 for windows 7, maybe you'll spend 30 minutes showing Grandma how to use firefox on Ubuntu instead.
Purchasers -- when you get sick of windows accusing you of stealing your copy when you upgrade too many pieces, keep in mind that your copy of Ubuntu won't complain.

Re:Fantastic news!

[Pentium100]

Pirates -- when you get sick of grandma being accused of stealing windows, and she won't eat tuna for 2 months to find the money for $300 for windows 7, maybe you'll spend 30 minutes finding a crack and applying it.
Purchasers -- when you get sick of windows accusing you of stealing your copy when you upgrade too many pieces, keep in mind that your copy that you downloaded for free using BitTorrent won't complain

FTFY

Today marks my first anniversary with Ubuntu

[Arancaytar]

Thank you, Bill, for providing me with this reminder that no matter how badly I curse X, no matter how rotten Linux NVIDIA support is, or how difficult it is to run games in Wine... ... it's still better than using the steaming pile of horseshit that is Windows.

THE Windows Activation Technologies

[Caviller]

Thank god they left the 'THE' off the begining of it

Customer Service: What can I help you with today.

Customer: Your TWAT broke my computer!!

Customer Service: "FILL_IN_THE_BLANK"

Fear the day of Windows 8 release.

[Fantasio]

Prepare your credit card for a mandatory upgrade within 90 days.

Re:So what do they do

[natehoy]

It closes two major loopholes in their current model.

1. Corporate keys that have been leaked or resold to unknowing consumers can now be shut off. If you bought your copy of Windows at a price that seems too good to be true, it probably was someone who resold a corporate site license to a lot of people, which is not a legal copy of Windows. Unfortunately, many smaller builders also use this technique, making their customers unknowing pirates.

2. A current hole allowing multiple computers for the same key can be enforced. As it stands today, WGA in Windows XP activates the machine and then, after 90 days, will activate on another machine with the same license key without problems. However, the issue is that you no longer have the right to run the original computer's copy of XP when you activate it on the new computer - you're allowed one machine at a time. You could get away with up to four XP installs per key per year with no consequences as long as you made no hardware changes to any of the older machines.

Standalone Networks

[Amigori]

I manage a small group of machines that are connected to each other, but never to the Internet. Our customer asked for the Vista upgrade, paid for proper licensing, we installed Vista in a small test group, customers were happy. Vista failed, customers were extremely unhappy.

This is the sole reason that we haven't migrated all the clients to Vista. And why we had to rollback the test group back to XP. Vista's phone-home cycle is 180 days, then it lies to you and says that "Hardware Changed..." and drops the computer into its restricted use mode.

There is a solution for this problem, Microsoft Key Management Services (KMS). We SAs are ready to deploy KMS, but have run into management resistance for 6+ months now. Vista left such a bad impression with them, they decided to just wait until we migrate to Windows 7 to setup KMS. And that won't happen until the next hardware refresh cycle, so maybe 1Q2011.

Once you have KMS, the 180- to 90-day change really isn't that big of a deal.

Slippery slope

[QuietLagoon]

This is the initial move of Microsoft into renting Windows. How long before Windows is no available for purchasing, only renting?

Re:Slippery slope

[Dan667]

This is my initial move to not using Microsoft Operating Systems at all.

So?

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Why should anyone care? It's not like windows is the only 'game' in town, there are alternatives if you don't like it.

Obliligatory movie misquotes

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

The more you tighten your grip, Ballmer, the more systems will slip through your fingers.

I see linux installs.

Question...

[countertrolling]

How do you "downgrade" Windows 7? Covert it to Windows ME?

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[tomtomtom]

And (and I really hate to admit this) decent spreadsheets. Good as OpenOffice.Org Calc is, it is not even in the same league as Excel 2003 (several bits of important functionality missing as well as a couple of really annoying UI quirks). It does at least come close to Excel 2007 though - 2k7 may have most of the same features as 2k3 (albeit some good ones were removed) but the UI is just impossible to use unless your problem could have been solved easily with a pocket Calculator to start with.

Re:Riiiiight!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

The great part about this move is that the more MS inconveniences people the more people will start looking for alternatives. The more people looking for alternatives the more likely that software/hardware companies will start supporting those alternatives as potential markets.

From your comment it seems that if your conditions were met you would ditch MS for an affordable alternative.

My 2 Yen, MS is killing itself with this kind of behavior, it won't die anytime soon but it will loose its dominance in the market. Thats how it always is with nations/corporations/celebrities, they rise, they dominate their market, they decline/fall.

Egypt, Rome, The Persian Empire, Buggy whip makers, Railroads, Laural and Hardy, Valentino, Hulk Hogan, all had their time, then faded into memory.

Its just a matter of time.

A matter of time

[andrewcaveman]

I would think that it would be a matter of time that someone would write a virus, that once a Windows 7 machine was infected, it would send the valid users license key to the Internet, then cycle the Windows 7 key to one that is black listed in the MS database. That would be a nightmare scenario. I thought about getting a copy for gaming, but I guess I will stick to Linux and whatever can run on codeweavers.

now we can expect DoS attacks via WAT

[deisher]

Once some virus writer figures out how to change a system's "signature" to look like Windows has been pirated, things will get more interesting for Microsoft customer support. Souunds like a genuine disadvantage to me.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[HAKdragon]

Novell OES?

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

OpenOffice.org Calc isn't good, by any standard. It is a bug-ridden mess that corrupts documents when you do elementary things like sorting data, using the undo command or trying to update the data sources for a chart after creation. Of course, you're also right about missing functionality and the poor usability.

OpenOffice.org Calc has become my canonical example whenever someone claims that the open approach to software development is somehow guaranteed to produce higher quality code than closed, proprietary development. Next on my hit list are Thunderbird (has silent data loss bugs in basic UI operations) and the GIMP (has all kinds of bugs and odd limitations).

I completely agree with the others above: I'd prefer to move to a different operating system and tell Microsoft to shove it, but until I can get good office software, graphics software and games for a rival platform, I shoot myself in the foot if I move from Windows. An operating system is just a means to an end, it's what you run on it that counts. Microsoft's advantage is not vendor lock-in, it's having no significant competition in too many important respects.

Not necessarily voluntary

[FranTaylor]

If your third party software requires you to have a fully patched machine in order to receive support.

Re:New Upgrade Path

[NotBornYesterday]

Microsoft doesn't call their malicious software a "virus". They call it an "update", like this one.

100% guaranteed way to defeat WAT

[esmith512]

We were reviewing the Windows 7 WAT service and found a guaranteed way to circumvent the check and retain perpetual license validity and system usability. Buy a Mac or a Linux system. Works every time.

Re:So what do they do

[B Nesson]

I would argue that this move could be targeted just as much at the group of people who a) currently don't pirate Windows, and b) would pirate it if it weren't too difficult. It's sort of an arms race. They have to maintain a moving target, or else piracy will get easier over time as tools to do it improve.

I'm not saying that is their reasoning; I don't work on Windows. I'm also not saying I agree with the move. I'm just saying there's two sides to that coin.

Yawn

[GameboyRMH]

I only run Windows on my gaming machine now...and Win7 will probably (hopefully) be the last version of Windows I use at home. Once Linux gaming catches up (and it's not that far now), it's goodbye Microsoft, and good riddance! I mean I buy an OS that costs more than a netbook or low-end laptop and comes with the most sparse, shitty selection of apps for any present-day OS, and then you don't even have the decency to not treat me worse in return for this? SRSLY?

Headline: Microsoft promotes Linux for desktop!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Thought I'd fix that article title for you.

Linux needs more killer apps for home

[tepples]

Gamers constitute a tiny, almost negligible part of the entirety of computer users

Only in the sense that PCs constitute a tiny, almost negligible part of the entirety of computers.

corporate users who are Linux's main customers.

This is part of the problem. In order to get GNU/Linux* out of the corporate ghetto, it needs more applications that make it attractive to home users.

* As opposed to embedded Linux

Re:Linux needs more killer apps for home

[Draek]

Only in the sense that PCs constitute a tiny, almost negligible part of the entirety of computers.

No, even among PCs 'gamers' are a tiny minority. For each WoW player there's a hundred people playing Solitaire, and for each MW2 player there's a thousand who've never gone beyond Minesweeper. Just look at ATI and NVidia's sales and compare them to sales of desktops PCs if you don't believe me, gamers are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

This is part of the problem. In order to get GNU/Linux* out of the corporate ghetto, it needs more applications that make it attractive to home users.

Problem? corporate users are the ones with the money and the power, there is no 'problem;. You probably weren't in the industry during the '80s, because if you were you'd know that Windows got to where it is because of DOS, and DOS got to where it was because it (for various circumstances) dominated the corporate world, and when employees decided on buying a computer, they decided to go with what they already knew and would run their apps from work.

Hell, ask any 'old-school' gamer of the kind that grew up with Ataris and Commodores about the state of DOS gaming back then. DOS succeeded in *spite* of gamers, not because of them.

Re:Linux needs more killer apps for home

[tepples]

when employees decided on buying a computer, they decided to go with what they already knew and would run their apps from work.

If companies are switching to Linux, then why aren't people going with desktop Linux because it "would run their apps from work"? Or is it because "their apps from work" have become web apps?

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully and wholly support Microsoft in this choice.

First off, they didn't take into account machines that are either behind a restrictive firewall, not on the internet (grandma's home PC), or laptops in an airplane (or the like). When it goes off for them, those users are totally screwed, aren't they?

Second, false positives. Excellent, tell people their computer won't work right because some company across the country screwed up.

Third, privacy concerns. Goodbye to them, as now Microsoft will know you use their software, and who's to say they can't execute some of the other aspects of their EULA and simply copy things from your computer.

All of this is WONDERFUL to those of us in the FOSS movement. To any who are ready to switch to a real operating system, where your computer, your privacy and what you do with it are totally your own, I'm here to help you install Linux :)

End of life

[Bert64]

What happens when MS stop supporting windows 7 and turn the activation servers off?
Does that mean it will become useless 90 days afterwards?

What about for machines which aren't networked, or are on isolated networks which can't or aren't allowed to access the internet?

If they provide a corporate version which doesn't need to phone home, then pirates will simply pirate that instead, just like they did with the corporate versions of xp that didn't need activation.

Re:End of life

[ImprovOmega]

The new corporate versions of Win7 have the option to phone home only once (via MAK) or have a centralized server that the clients connect to only phone home once in a while (KMS), but AFAIK there's no longer an enterprise scheme that doesn't phone home at all.

Windows Embedded

[MobyDisk]

I sure how Windows Embedded doesn't do this. I work for a company that uses it on devices that don't have Internet access.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[NotBornYesterday]

1) Damn near any linux server distribution. Personally, I'd go with either Red Hat / Fedora, or some flavor of Debian.
2) Damn near any LDAP implementation for linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Directory_Server
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Directory_Server
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLDAP

After that, just sit back, crack a beer open, and congratulate yourself for simultaneously saving some cash and slipping out of the MS licensing noose.

Win 7 Validations spoils like forgotten leftovers

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 update to regularly phone home to check for validation spoilage.

Does Microsoft really have a problem with Windows 7 validation some how going bad?

Even though your activated copy of windows 7 was previously valid its validation might somehow spoil.

Windows 7’s validation must be like the leftovers lost in the back of the fridge?

So this update must be to protect you from the dangers of Windows 7 validation spoilage.

Everyone knows that using a computer with a spoiled validation would be like eating tainted leftovers.

VERY BAD for you!

I already see it coming 1 day it will arbitrarily decide that all our Windows 7 systems are suddenly invalid an all the PCs will downgrade.

Just to be safe I am getting some of those green Evert-Fresh vegetable Bags to keep my Windows 7 validations in.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Draek]

Erm, were you talking about this Sage? because my initial reaction to your post was "WTF is this guy talking about, Sage was made for Linux from the beginning", so I googled just in case.

And

[asamad]

So what happens if you block access to the site after you have succeffuly authenticated, sounds like a job for the great china wall :)

Really dangerous

[TiggertheMad]

Think of what governments would like to do with this little feature, during wartimes, etc...

Why wait for wartime? If you were N korea, Iran or another belligerent country this seems like an easy way of screwing with the population/IT infrastructure/economy.

Also, the military uses windows. Isn't it a HUGE security problem to have your boxes 'phoning home' and possibly degradng functionality if it doesn't work out?

I find it ironic that MS has been adamant about not building in backdoors into its OS for years, and then does just that with this feature.

Why care?

[nuckfuts]

From a privacy perspective, how is this worse than the dozens of common applications that already "phone home" all the time to check for updates, etc?

Since I'm running a legitimate copy of Windows, unless it gets flagged incorrectly as non-genuine, I'll neither notice or care that it runs this little check every three months.

Re:Now with Continuous Auditing! (aka surveillance

[msclrhd]

How is this going to work with machines that don't have direct access to the internet (e.g. test machines)? Or machines on an isolated network? Or how about Virtual Machines (with or without snapshots)?

play in offline mode

[Anonymous Coward]

I only play windows 7 single player. This way I avoid the multi-player activation.

Re:if you don't like it, don't use windows

[Pentium100]

Hmm...

Oh, I know! Games, certain programs that require Windows, no need to use command line to do routine tasks (like installing software), familiar UI, no need to edit huge text files to configure something, drive letters, binary compatibility with almost all other PCs, hardware driver support, ability to install software without that software being on some list.

That's probably it.

Oh, and Linux would have just as many viruses as Windows if it was used by more people. Currently, the virus authors don't see a point in making a virus that only works on a small minority of PCs (just like some hardware or software makers don't care that their product does not work in a minority of PCs).

oh no you did-ent!

[citylivin]

"I'm setting them up with virtual machines soon, to run optimized images of XP for their games, and whatever else they want, in a secure sandbox."

Ah, and you dont right there, consider that to be a failed linux deployment? Running games in EMULATION? yeah thats gonna perform real well with modern 3d games...

Don't get me wrong, i love *nix, but if you have to install a virtual XP machine to get major functionality working (games) then I think linux is not ready for MY desktop. I have the same issue.

"You don't have to get bent over by your OS distributor. But you will as long as you let them."

So I assume that you will concede that YOU are letting them bend you over currently, as you are still running their software in a virtual machine? you can lie to yourself all you want, but the fact is you are still giving microsoft money for that virtual machine license. Unless of course you pirated windows! but we wouldn't have done that would we have...

Im so sick of people saying OMG you suck! move to linux! and then in the NEXT PARAGRAPH, going on to say how they are running xp in a vm. I just wonder how people can contradict themselves, (in the same damn post!) and not feel somewhat disingenuous about it.

Re:oh no you did-ent!

[hot soldering iron]

I know I'm going to regret feeding this troll, but...

You sound more like a *nix zealot than I do. Zealots usually aren't too balanced. : P

Games more sophisticated than solitaire don't usually wind up on my machine. Linux is fine for me. I've played around with vm to learn more about it, and to run other alternative OS's (Haiku, Symphony, Minuet, etc..)

But, kids like games. (Hmmm... you said you like games, too. Hmmmm...) Even though they usually use the PS2 or Wii, they like a few Windows games. So a Windows vm is a feature for them.

As far as getting bent over for running their software, we've had this license for almost 5 years now, and I really don't plan on jumping to Win 7 just because they don't sell it anymore. I control when/where/what I purchase. Not them.

Are you "getting bent over", too? You implied that you have that gaming bug that keeps Linux off your desktop. So I guess you dance to their tune, and buy the OS your *game* requires? Yes? Install their patches? Never run a warez, "just to try it out"?

Do you harass the Mac faithful for running Windows in a vm? Or are you afraid of their pitchforks? : ) Trolls are so stupid...

Call the Zombies

[BigSlowTarget]

Not to mention 30 days after the zombie apocalypse we're all screwed. Zombie tech support doesn't take calls.

I wish corporation IT departments....

[seanvaandering]

...wouldn't be so damn retarded.

Last place I worked, they placed the "Genuine Advantage" sticker with the activation key right on the outside of the computer. This place had THOUSANDS of computers. Want to figure how many activation keys someone grabbed before quitting their job?

Makes me shake my head.

Re:I wish corporation IT departments....

[RoboRay]

Lots of places do that. I know for sure that I will never be lacking Windows XP and Vista keys. They're all even unused keys, as every machine gets wiped as soon as it arrives and has a bulk-licensed image installed. We even have an unwritten rule of putting a little check mark on the sticker when you snag it to make sure nobody else grabs that one, too. Now I just need them to buy some new computers with Windows 7 keys on them.

Re:Riiiiight!

[tibman]

I don't know much about it but i thought Linux typically supported the Chipsets and not the Vendor who ships it. There shouldn't be a 64-bit sound driver for linux though? If you can tell me the make/model of your card i can help you get your kernel setup. I'm a Gentoo guy.. compiling stuff is inescapable for me.

Check out Wine if you haven't tried it lately.. it's becoming very mature. There's a good posibility your games will work out of the box.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[JumpDrive]

Yeah, we've already tried running in this direction. We got stymied by error 36 when trying to transfer file to and from linux servers and Mac clients.

Interesting...

[GF678]

Slashdot folks are up in arms about this.

Neowin folks have no problem with MS dealing with pirates.

ArsTechnica folks are mixed.

---

I think this is why I hate almost every tech site but Ars. Very few people can have a balanced opinion.

Wake up call? Not so much.

[GrantRobertson]

I have supported lots of special-purpose, niche-market software over the years. It is almost all crap. I suspect this is so because the vendors have no market-based motivation to change their code. As long as they are the only company selling software that does what there's does, then they will only update their code for one of the two following reasons: 1) Competition. 2) To con their victims/customers into shelling out more cash. Some of this crap still runs in DOS! I have had customers or departments that had to keep old DOS-only machines around well into the XP days just to run some old piece of software that wouldn't even run in a DOS box under Windows. What is even more astounding is that the users simply accepted this as part and partial of dealing with those magic boxes on their desks called "computers." Or as they often call them, "the hard disk."

So, if there is no financial incentive for the vendors of these massively out of date programs to provide upgrades out of this archaic and anacronistic morass, what makes you think that something like WAT is going to force their hand? Only when there is enough quality competition on the Linux platform that a critical mass of users actually switch (and prefer it for all of their applications rather than running Windows apps in Virtual Box) and at least some competitive, quality Linux apps are developed will software vendors venture into this uncharted (at least as far as they are concerned) territory. "Quality" is the key word here. The linux apps don't just have to do the same things as the Windows apps. They have to do it better. Most businesses are not going to make the switch on principles alone. They need a compelling business case for going to the trouble.

Yes, many users don't necessarilly notice if you switch them to Linux as long as you put their icons in the same spot on the desktop. However, if the application they use is even slightly different, they just fall apart. I've seen users revolt against an upgrade simply because the sequence of shortcut key-strokes they had to press to get certain common tasks done had changed by as little as one key. So, the new version - whether it be on linux or Windows - has to be significantly better to justify retraining all those users. Not to mention the decreased productivity as they figure out the new shortcuts and new ways to defeat the system safeguards. Remember, you aren't retraining the users on the operating system. You are retraining them on the new applications. So, the benefit to the company incurred by the upgrade/switch absolutely must be greater than the cost of the change - in terms of price, training, and lost productivity.

Unfortunately, all this process must also take place for a critical mass of different applications. Many of which have very limited use. Each of those niche-market applications is like a stake in the ground, holding the Windows tent in place and preventing Linux from pouring a foundation. And there are thousands of them. Each one holding a different subset of users in place and frustrating any desire they may have of getting away from that buggy Windows tent. So, even if they can pull up one or two stakes, they may still have others holding that tent over them. And, because they still have to live in the tent, there is little reason to even work on building a Linux "foundation" for just one or two apps.

Well, if the Linux community really wants to get that darned, bug-infested Microsoft tent out of the way, they have got to pull up almost all of those stakes themselves. In other words, the Linux community needs to make lots and lots of quality applications. The users certainly aren't going to do it. And the vendors aren't going to do it without a good financial reason. I have never been a big fan of Bill Gates, but I haven't made the switch to Linux yet either. Nor do I expect to any time soon. I have too many stakes holding my part of the tent down. Namely: Microsoft OneNote (all my personal notes and information storage), Outlook (complete integration of all

Re:Sage for Linux.

[GrantRobertson]

Are you sure it wasn't made for Unix in the first place?

This is a good thing.

[amiga3D]

It's about time they did something about the millions of people using windows illegally. They are all potential linux converts.

on the bright side...

[kaini]

I eagerly await the many 'Hitler finds out his copy of Windows 7 is not genuine' Downfall videos.

Microsoft achieves its primary purpose.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just a misunderstanding. People think Microsoft is primarily a software company, but it is primarily an abuse company that uses software to deliver abuse.

Just my opinion, but I'm not the only one.

Yeah, and...

[Juln]

Is there anyone who seriously is surprised by this? If so, I guess you haven't been paying attention to MS's behavior and plans for the past 15 years at least.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[JumpDrive]

Thanks for the link. I must have missed that day.
I wish I could have found someone there who had a clear answer. I examined using RHDS last year and wasn't given a clear indication as to whether it could be used with Windows 7. We have been using Samba LDAP for about 6 years, but that may not be a usefull solution when we begin to migrate to Windows 7.
I would like to stay with an Samba LDAP solution, but until Samba 4 is available I don't think we have any options. I already have users who want to migrate to Windows 7, so I don't know how long I can hold them off.
I believe that FDS RHDS would work for just authentication, but I am concerned about Windows 7 reliance on AD server.

And evil trojans, new excuse

[Ilgaz]

MS will also have to deal with millions of trojaned/zombie Windows machines which really hurts anything they did with the security on Windows 7.

There will be tens of trojans claiming to "fix the issue" and as people don't believe "virus" warnings in such little apps (ask Symantec idiots why), they will be infected very badly.

So, a zombie army of Windows 7 computers, thousands of stories running, millions of flames/trolls generated making billions of dollars spent to security R&D a waste... To find some guy in China using pirated Windows and disable his copy.

Wonder why Apple never bothers with OS X serials? It is not "you already bought a mac". It is something more clever.

Re:Compared to Excel, Calc is pretty good.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Compared to Excel, Calc is pretty good. Because for what it gets used for, Excel is a bug ridden mess that corrupts documents when you do elementary things.

Well, I don't know what you mean by "for what it gets used for", but I guess our experience is just very different.

I have never managed to corrupt anything in any moderately recent version of Excel. I literally get corruption so often in Calc that I use it for absolutely nothing other than a glorified table editor now. The examples I gave before weren't flippant. They have all happened to me, in as simple a form as they sound, on many occasions. On the other hand, all of those operations work 100% for me in alternative spreadsheets like Excel or Gnumeric.

Excel has its flaws, to be sure, and I'm not personally a fan of the new UI. But as far as reliability goes, it's in a different class to Calc IME.

Hardly off topic...

[fyngyrz]

...in a story and threads about Microsoft doing things that will send (more) customers running for greener pastures. But that's ok. It's not like moderation means anything here. :)

Re:Hardly off topic...

[hot soldering iron]

You make some very good points for the Mac. I've been thinking about getting Macs for my teenagers when it's time to upgrade their machines for college. They'll need Audio and Video editing, which are considered the Mac's forte, and Linux just isn't strong there yet. Using the proper tools for the job is just smart allocation of effort.

that would be an interesting thing to hack

[roc97007]

Oooh. Consider. A man-in-the-middle attack has the potential to cripple millions of PCs. I wonder how long it'll take for crackers to think of that.

Intuitively, making the process fail for good licenses is probably easier than making the process succeed for pirated licenses. Especially since (bonus!) previous success is no guarantee against current failure. Thanks, Microsoft, for creating another DOS vector.

The reason people still use MS Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

They stay for the same reason an abused wife stays with their abusive husband... they are afraid of the change more than they are afraid of the shit that they are used to putting up with.

As the owner of a business

[Travoltus]

I do not like having my computers phone home to anywhere.

It's not so much that my computers deal with mission critical information, it's that I deal with personal information on these machines and I have strict router-based control over what IP's are acceptable to go out to. (Which means employees can't browse the web at random.

I can imagine that medical offices with ten times MORE mission critical issues than I have, are really going to be sweating over this.

Time to switch

[totalcaos]

All the more reason to switch to linux!! Change or upgrade a component on the PC or laptop and it will revert back to a non-genuine status ....

Persecuting the paying customers

[lump]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, ad infinitum, but I really hate the way these measures end up punishing the "good guy". ie: I have a copy of Vista on my PC, which was installed when I purchase it, and is therefore entirely legit. But, I have never activated, mainly because I can't be assed. This particular box is not connected to the internet, nor does it have any (convenient) connectivity I can use to connect it, without running ethernet through a couple of rooms. So of course, I'm now being persecuted by my legally purchased OS (makes me wait to log in, won't save my desktop settings, etc.), because I haven't kissed MS's ass yet, and called them for an activation code. Yes I know this would be very easy to do, but it just irks me that I *have to*. And yet, if I had downloaded a cracked version of Vista, I wouldn't be getting this crap. I bought the freakin thing, it's mine, I own it. This is no way to go about providing an operating system for computer users. They need to ditch this preoccupation with squeezing their customers. So what if some fat-cat can't afford a new Rolls-Royce every year due to some people getting free copies of their OS, why the hell should that be my problem? I'm the one that DID pay for it, fer crissakes. Sorry if this adds exactly nothing to the discussion, I just had to moan to somebody...

Re:...and of course...

[Aphoxema]

every time someone asks me "if I fix computers"... because we all know what that usually means. "No, I sure don't" is what I tell 'em.

I never really put much thought into it, but yeah... that's exactly what that means.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[zoloto]

Someone who needs application software for which there is no reasonable Linux/Unix equivalent. Such software includes mid-range accounting systems and point of sale systems.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Windows isn't going away until Sage come out with a Linux version

I've said it before, and I'll say it again too. Windows isn't going away until games come out with a linux version first, then windows/osx second. I'm talking about blizzard, steam games etc etc...

Re:VMWare does it.

[broken_chaos]

Interesting... Thanks for the information. :-)

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[zoloto]

As someone who's been running linux since slackware came on floppy disks, I was confused as hell when I sat in front of XenServer too.

Re:How does that take months to appear?

[mister_playboy]

How does that take months to appear? When someone installs a dodgy copy on a computer it doesn't pass WGA right away. Why does it need to ask again in 90 days? Will the dodgy supplier have sneaked in and given you a new cracked copy of windows???

You've obviously never installed a cracked copy of Windows. If it doesn't pass WGA so you can turn on automatic updates, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[JumpDrive]

I'm talking between 1 and 500 users. Anything over 30 users becomes a nightmare to Administer without network control.
A large number of these companies work on government contracts requiring a certain level of monitored security.
We currently have over 30 employees and have a computer to user ratio of almost 4 to 1. Most of our employees will be using 5 to 10 client computers a day and connected to 3 or more file servers. It is much easier to maintain and monitor user access if this is being done on a centralized server.

Re:Riiiiight!

[RocketRabbit]

Do you really think that MS tracks how many pirated Windows installs there are, compared with legitimate ones, and cranks up their prices accordingly? Because they don't.

Is anyone really surprised here?

[mrdtr]

The fact is most people will bitch and complain, but you'll never do anything about it. You'll continue to use and buy their products - which to them means that you are OK with how they treat you.

Re:The 1960s called... and are still ehre

[Hyperhaplo]

1960's???

IBM *STILL* charge by the CPU "minute"

Lather Rinse Repeat

[rudy_wayne]

Since first releasing Windows XP almoss 9 years ago, Microsoft has repeatedly introduced new measures to combat "piracy", oblivious to the fact that each new measure is required because all previous measures have completely failed and typically are defeated within days (or hours) of being released. What is that old sayng about "doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get different results"?

All the people on the Windows hacking/cracking/pirating boards are laughing at Microsoft's latest announcement, particularly the "more than 70 activation exploits known to Microsoft" (hint: there aren't nearly that many). There is no reason to beleive that the latest attempt will be any more effective than their previous failures.

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Anpheus]

What would you recommend looking at for virtualization/clustering on Linux these days? XenServer or a particular distro with KVM? Management?

Just curious.

Re:So what do they do

[Anpheus]

Sounds like your key was leaked and being perpetually added to their list.

Did you call and tell them as much?

I've got several copies from the launch event, plus at least one of the fake Steve Ballmer signed copies, and Technet keys (both Volume License MAK and Retail) that all work fine.

I challenge you, sir, to an Anecdote Battle.

Re:So what do they do

[BronsCon]

Similar happened with 2 copies of XP and another straight-from-MS copy of Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The only MS OS's I haven't had activation issues with are the pre-XP versions that didn't include this bullshit, pirated copies that replaced the defunct legit copies, and the 32-bit copy of Vista Ultimate that I got in the same promo as the 64-bit version that gave me issues.

Just sayin'... it hasn't been a one-time thing for me.

Re:So what do they do

[Anpheus]

Does your 32 and 64-bit promo have the same key?

If so, you were given one promo with both disks. I've received that before.

Re:So what do they do

[BronsCon]

Different discs, different keys, different packages, same promo, shipped together.

If they had the same key, I'd feel kinda dumb for not figuring out why only one of them worked without issue. :)

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[1s44c]

Of which, according to NetCraft, there are about 49 MILLION. 25% or so of the Internet. It's fine to call them all crazy, but it sort of demeans the term, and makes it pretty much useless as an identifier, since millions of people think it's normal.

Have you considered that maybe 25% or so of the Internet is run by people who have no idea what they are doing? Or by people who know what they are doing but are forced into doing the wrong thing by management that don't?

Re:So what do they do

[man_of_mr_e]

WGA and WAT are not targeted at people who pirate. All it does is tell them their software might not be genuine, which people can largely ignore.

WGA and WAT are targeted at mass scale counterfeiters.. And that market *IS* actually quite large, and combatting it is worth their time.

Get a mac.

[garote]

No, seriously.

OS X client version, from 10.0 all the way up to 10.6, does not phone home for ANYTHING, except to query "time.apple.com" to synchronize your clock (and you can change that) and once when you first log in to check for software updates (and you can shut it permanently off after that). No activation. No mandatory updates. No internet connection needed.

If your system is hosed for anything short of a dead hard drive, you can reinstall and your home folder will be imported, along with your apps, and the rest of the system will be paved over and working again. Or if you hooked up a Time Machine volume, you can restore EVERYTHING back the way it was up to a month ago.

I'm sure you know - your time is valuable. :D

I talked about OS X/iLife etc.

[Ilgaz]

"Pirated" as in pirated iWork etc? I would do the same thing since they are being trojaned very actively. Apple's mistake was asking for serial on such apps and it proves my point. There wasn't any trojaned iLife release since there is no excuse for "crack.exe" trojans. They were really stupid to do such thing if you ask me.

Now, if you compare Apple pro software to a mainstream desktop OS (which is also trendy) as Windows 7, you will understand my point. The numbers are amazingly higher. I am sure I would be able to find some trojan win7 activator right now.

127.0.0.1 local host

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

Just edit your hosts file C:/Windows/System32/Drivers/Etc/hosts and 127.0.0.1 add.checkin.servers.here

Re:Giving up on the server market, eh?

[Ephemeriis]

What would you recommend looking at for virtualization/clustering on Linux these days? XenServer or a particular distro with KVM? Management?

Just curious.

I honestly haven't done much full-server virtualization. I typically use VirtualBox when I need a different environment for a particular bit of software or something... And I've had good luck with Parallels on a workstation at home...

I just mentioned XenServer because we had a client who needed a new server and some VMs, so that's what we ordered. And when my boss sat down in front of it to try out the new hardware, and wasn't greeted with a Windows login screen, he kept shaking the mouse like he was trying to wake it from sleep. He had no idea what to do without that Windows GUI.

As far as XenServer itself goes... It seems to be working pretty well. Haven't had any trouble setting up the VMs or anything. Seems to be functioning correctly.

WHAT?

[hesaigo999ca]

So what happens if I have no internet connection, it just disables then I can't use my own computer, because I have no internet, I really hope not, can anyone verify this?

Mega-SIGH

[Happy Nuclear Death]

Why does MS always have to go and screw it up? I have been using the Win 7 RC off and on since last October, and I really like it. There are many good features, but some that really knocked my socks off:

-More stable than XP. Badly-behaved programs that would lock up my Win XP SP3 box are allowed to die in Win 7, without taking the system down. Also it doesn't take 15 minutes to pop up an error dialog. This is how it should be.
-First time I've ever had a reasonable display mode on a fresh Windows install, before installing video drivers. Win 7 has finally caught up to Ubuntu in this regard.
-Robust and useful disk imaging for backup. Finally a real backup solution, included with the OS.

And so on.

But this phone-home BS, even if "optional," has me rethinking whether I really want to drop real $ to support more DRM shenanigans. Even the $64.95 student price seems like too much, if I'm only paying to be treated like a criminal. The last OS I actually bought was Windows XP Home, years ago. It might stay that way.

Re:Why not use Windows

[Shompol]

Ever since college I feel that UNIX is a far superior operating system. Security, user management, process management, command line power, etc.
However, everywhere you go, there is M$. They are known for squeezing out competition and making computer manufacturers pay them regardless of the system installed. They completely locked up PC market for decades. Majority of PC users have grown up with this and do not suspect that today there are better options out there.

Both Mac and Linux are UNIX-related systems. One being exorbitantly expensive, the other is free. You can stick with Windows for another 20 years, but I get the feeling that the monster is on its way out.

My main reason why it pays to ditch M$ today: no need to maintain expensive antivirus to keep malware out.

Just a minor upgrade...

[TemporalBeing]

Actually, I had to dive into this a little in fall of 2009. Starting with Win7 and Windows Server 2008 by default Windows will phone home to validate your license every week. You can configure this somewhat, but it becomes problematic if you do not have an Internet connection - then Windows invalidates your valid license when it can't reach the Microsoft servers. The only way to disable this functionality is with a volume license - and even then, you have to go through special steps via the command-line to get it to validate once and be done.

More information available here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979805.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303276.aspx