There are many, many small system builders that sell you Windows for free - or people that do IT support for consumers and will install invalid licenses (e.G. you don't have the original media, or your disk broke and you didn't create rescue media).
There are plenty of preinfected torrents on Piratebay and other public trackers.
Personally, i have no issue with people using Windows without paying for it, even though i do.
However, when you start charging money for loading illegal versions of Windows on other peoples computers, that crosses a line - these people are also what Microsoft is mostly after.
This happens more often than you think, i've seen it more than once, even from companies that seem reputable on the outside.
And don't get me started on companies not selling enough CALs with their software, especially smaller ERP vendors are guilty as hell when it comes to this.
I thought Microsoft would at least put some effort in (i.e syncing up domain accounts/users would be easy).
No - the official statement is that companies using domains should be using MED-V, which alleviates these issues.
Do you really need separate firewall, surely its coverd by your win7 firewall?
You're right, i just checked. The default network configuration is using NAT.
I'd also hope that the partition can be mounted and scanned by most virus scanners (although you would need something if you wanted to scan on read/write)?
They can. Use diskpart - select vdisk, attach vdisk, etc.
So if you bought a machine aimed at corporations, it will have the VT extensions. For example, all current ThinkPad R series and Tseries have them, and all Lenovo M series and ThinkStation products also have them.
All bets are off if you bought one of those shitty 699$ 17" laptops with horrible screen resolution;)
XP Mode can't play games, it's a lot of work to maintain (seperate domain account, seperate users, seperate AV, seperative firewall). It's aimed at small businesses - not at home users (they don't need it), and not at big corporate environments (There's MED-V for them).
A Linux distribution is the equivalent to commercial operating systems like Windows or Mac OS X. I just didn't want to make my sentence that convoluted, but i should've known someone would go and nitpick that.
The metadata-thing is what Apple did and it has the same security issues - there's no way to tell from the icon or filename if something is an application or a document.
Think of the file-extension as filename embedded meta-data, and it starts to make more sense.
But really - when running the beta versions of Vista they published the requirements for the labels - and it was very clear that 512MB wouldn't suffice.
It's pretty much the same as minimum requirements for games - it just means that the game will start, not that it will actually be enjoyable.
Problems here are the stores: We told our customers that they needed at least 2GB of RAM to run Vista. At first, Lenovo only delivered 1GB machines and we had to add an additional Gig.
In June 2007, we had a major project when a customer migrated from Windows 98 to our ERP software and new Windows infrastructure, all based on Windows Vista and WS03. He was very happy with what he bought.
Yeah, ensuring oncorrupted and untampered updates looks like such a bad idea that all major linux distributions have started their packages long after Microsoft already did it.
My brother bought a *brand new* machine that came with Vista installed on it. (Thereby ignoring my advice to buy XP instead.) The specs on this machine are about the same as mine - 3000 megahertz Pentium, 512 meg of RAM, 300 gig hard drive, and DDR2 RAM (mine is only DDR1).
Brand new? 512MB RAM? 3Ghz Pentium?
Your brother got ripped of, sorry. A current "brand new" machine has between 2 and 4 GB RAM, and a dualcore CPU (e.G. Core 2 Duo) with 2.5 - 3 Ghz.
No, it's not. A service pack fixes regressions in a current operating system.
Vista/WS08 SP2 was released to TechNet/MSDN on April 30th, and it fixes a few issues that are there.
Usually, a Microsoft service packs seldomly introduce big new features. The big exception here was Windows XP SP2, which included a lot of features. That is not the usual case, but instead was done to improve security, because the release of then-called Longhorn was delayed.
Windows Vista is perfectly usable. I've been using it since the end of 2006 and the main problems were applications that have not been tested with the Beta by their vendors or devices that vendors no longer support under Windows Vista.
Yep, there were some real issues that made working not-that-fun Pre-SP1, but there were many advantages that still concluded to a full Vista deployment (for example, BitLocker, which was a very cheap way to get full disk encryption on all our laptops).
Windows 7 improves a lot of the technology added in Vista, and adds several new features, like BitLocker to Go.
Nothing wrong with that.
Besides, if you are current on Software Assurance you get 7 for free anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
They do work.
But it's possible that this require a specific key - like an MSDN or TechNet key.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage
You test it out if you don't feel like trusting Wikipedia on this. :)
There are many, many small system builders that sell you Windows for free - or people that do IT support for consumers and will install invalid licenses (e.G. you don't have the original media, or your disk broke and you didn't create rescue media).
No, there were (or are) also hacks that allow you to install anything from the Appstore without paying.
They do.
Check MSDN or TechNet.
There are plenty of preinfected torrents on Piratebay and other public trackers.
Personally, i have no issue with people using Windows without paying for it, even though i do.
However, when you start charging money for loading illegal versions of Windows on other peoples computers, that crosses a line - these people are also what Microsoft is mostly after.
This happens more often than you think, i've seen it more than once, even from companies that seem reputable on the outside.
And don't get me started on companies not selling enough CALs with their software, especially smaller ERP vendors are guilty as hell when it comes to this.
You're wrong. Non-genuine versions of Windows will still receive critical updates (including security updates).
However: Only through Auto-Update - you will not be able to access the Windows Update website and select the fixes you want to install.
No - the official statement is that companies using domains should be using MED-V, which alleviates these issues.
You're right, i just checked. The default network configuration is using NAT.
They can. Use diskpart - select vdisk, attach vdisk, etc.
MED-V is for enterprises. XP Mode is for small companies with no managed IT.
Only the low-end CPUs don't have them.
So if you bought a machine aimed at corporations, it will have the VT extensions. For example, all current ThinkPad R series and Tseries have them, and all Lenovo M series and ThinkStation products also have them.
All bets are off if you bought one of those shitty 699$ 17" laptops with horrible screen resolution ;)
XP Mode can't play games, it's a lot of work to maintain (seperate domain account, seperate users, seperate AV, seperative firewall). It's aimed at small businesses - not at home users (they don't need it), and not at big corporate environments (There's MED-V for them).
You mean it's just like in Windows?
A Linux distribution is the equivalent to commercial operating systems like Windows or Mac OS X. I just didn't want to make my sentence that convoluted, but i should've known someone would go and nitpick that.
The metadata-thing is what Apple did and it has the same security issues - there's no way to tell from the icon or filename if something is an application or a document.
Think of the file-extension as filename embedded meta-data, and it starts to make more sense.
UAC doesn't really come that much into play here. It's still possible to capture all your credit card data without elevating to admin.
That said, Explorer blocks execution of files downloaded from the Internet, and Outlook blocks executable attachments completely.
Yeah, a default account that can elevate to admin privileges in some cases. Just like in other operating systems, like Mac OS X or Ubuntu.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Sometimes it shows, sometimes it doesn't.
You can easily add the Word icon to your malware, and this will fool users easily.
Most people wouldn't change their behaviour even if the did see the file extension.
Email programs such as Outlook block .exe attachments, and Executables downloaded using IE display a stern warning before execution.
Changing this wouldn't have helped anyone.
And associating this with Windows 7 is mostly FUD, jumping on the bandwagon just because you don't like it.
Yeah, the Vista Basic Capable stuff was bullshit.
But really - when running the beta versions of Vista they published the requirements for the labels - and it was very clear that 512MB wouldn't suffice.
It's pretty much the same as minimum requirements for games - it just means that the game will start, not that it will actually be enjoyable.
Problems here are the stores: We told our customers that they needed at least 2GB of RAM to run Vista. At first, Lenovo only delivered 1GB machines and we had to add an additional Gig.
In June 2007, we had a major project when a customer migrated from Windows 98 to our ERP software and new Windows infrastructure, all based on Windows Vista and WS03. He was very happy with what he bought.
Yeah, ensuring oncorrupted and untampered updates looks like such a bad idea that all major linux distributions have started their packages long after Microsoft already did it.
So you bought devices and software that are no longer maintained by it's developers?
Tough for you.
Brand new? 512MB RAM? 3Ghz Pentium?
Your brother got ripped of, sorry. A current "brand new" machine has between 2 and 4 GB RAM, and a dualcore CPU (e.G. Core 2 Duo) with 2.5 - 3 Ghz.
Yep, but then you have the situation as when using putty - you have to download and run software that is not part of the operating system.
Vista isn't slow on any of my systems. But I'm sure if i installed it on a 5 year old machine, it would be pretty slow :)
UAC can be disabled if you really have an issue with it (for my type of work, i never need to change system settings when working).
Regarding ugliness: XP isn't really what i would call "pretty". The classic design is "classic" and works, but it's also outdated.
No, it's not. A service pack fixes regressions in a current operating system.
Vista/WS08 SP2 was released to TechNet/MSDN on April 30th, and it fixes a few issues that are there.
Usually, a Microsoft service packs seldomly introduce big new features. The big exception here was Windows XP SP2, which included a lot of features. That is not the usual case, but instead was done to improve security, because the release of then-called Longhorn was delayed.
Windows Vista is perfectly usable. I've been using it since the end of 2006 and the main problems were applications that have not been tested with the Beta by their vendors or devices that vendors no longer support under Windows Vista.
Yep, there were some real issues that made working not-that-fun Pre-SP1, but there were many advantages that still concluded to a full Vista deployment (for example, BitLocker, which was a very cheap way to get full disk encryption on all our laptops).
Windows 7 improves a lot of the technology added in Vista, and adds several new features, like BitLocker to Go.
Nothing wrong with that.
Besides, if you are current on Software Assurance you get 7 for free anyway.