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Microsoft to Disable Online Windows Activation
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Feb 25, 2005 08:07 AM
from the pay-to-play dept.
from the pay-to-play dept.
CasterPod writes "As of February 28, Windows users who purchased their PC will no longer be able to reinstall without calling Microsoft and answering a series of questions. The move is part of an anti-piracy effort to close 'a loophole that enabled unscrupulous resellers to use Windows XP product keys that were stolen from large OEMs.' Specifically, Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels on PCs are often unused because OEMs preinstall Windows and bypass product activation. The product keys can therefore be stolen and reused. First WGA, and now this."
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Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
ttyl
Farrell
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
They're going to force you to call them, they'll probably have all their call centers outsourced to countries where english isn't the main language. Half the time you won't understand the question and if you do manage to decifer the accent, they won't understand yours.
The only reason left to use windows is gaming. And even that is becoming less and less of a reason...
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
When I leave Fry's I sometimes have the receipt out for them to glance at, and I rarely break stride on my way out the door. Wal-mart has been checking receipts for unbagged or large items, too; so far I've been with my girlfriend every time and don't want to embarrass her, but the fact is that once you buy it, the product and the receipt are both yours and you are well within your rights to just walk on by.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The scam they're looking for is you walking out with (say) an iPod and some headphones but the cashier only charging you for the headphones. Then you take the iPod to a fence and you and the cashier split the proceeds. That's why harass you for the most stupid and cursory check.
So yea, they suspect you of being a criminal, but their employees hate them so much (and vice versa I suppose) that what you're actually seeing is a manifestation of a festering pool of mutual hatred.
Really makes you want to go and shop there, right? For stuff they sell, stick to mail order.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
I think I called the police once, on a guy who stole a $0.95 auto-trader magazine. It was pretty funny
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Cool. I can hardly wait to get to the office today.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, it'll be the users asking the stupid questions.
"I bought your Linux at Barnes & Noble. Why doesn't it work?"
"Last week I called and you told me how to install your Linux. Why doesn't my Word Perfect CD work any more?"
"The other day you made me install something called StarOffice. I think that messed up my son's Doom 3 CD. It used to work before we installed your Linux."
That'll be fantastic.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
People are perfectly able to understand the difference between Windows, OSX and Linux - they just don't particularily care. And in that situation, yes, put up enough roadblocks to Windows use and people will gradually switch, just like US people abandoned domestic cars for Japanese ones when they became compelling enough. Not everybody switched, and not all at once (since everybody has a different tipping point), but certainly enough to change the commercial landscape.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a rather biased statistical sampling though. Yes, you will get an unending stream of remarkably stupid people calling tech support. As a total percentage of computer users, however, they make up rather less than you think. The GP post is correct - the majority of people don't really care (because it is not important to their lives) about Linux, but that doesn't mean they will be stupid enough to try and run Windows software on Linux.
Yes, you will have an unending stream of stupid people who tried to run Microsoft Word on Linux and don't understand why it works. Remember that you also had an unending stream of people that couldn't even use Windows either. If everyone was as stupid as the average tech support caller the internet would be practically content free.
Jedidiah.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people just now entering the market for computers aren't "trying to fly the plane", either. To continue the analogy, these people want to be passengers but are instead told they need to learn to be pilots.
This trend is not new to computers-- earlier this century the first radios required considerable setup and weeks to learn to use. The first phonographs were notoriously hard to use, again taking several weeks for smart folks to learn to use.
The only reason radios and record players (now CD players) are so widespread is their usage was simplified. The earliest ones even had two competing incompatible standards (Edison vs. Victor.) Sound familiar?
The book "The Invisible Computer" by Donald Norman goes into gory detail on why the continuing efforts to blame the users for failing to learn their equipment aren't going to work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Booksources/
This doesn't mean that in the current state of things people should be lazy about their responsibilities with a networked computer-- e.g. not patching because "it's too hard" is a lame excuse.
If this is too hard, then disconnect from the network or find a computer/OS combination where it isn't too hard. If there is no such computer/OS combination, then start asking the manufacturers for one.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
You can't have "manslaughter" without "laughter".
No no no, that's supposed to be:
One manslaughter is another man's laughter.
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Not, that is blantantly untrue.
Product Activation is it's own group at Microsoft, seperately administered and staffed from all other units, including technical support. The call centers of PA are completely seperate from all other functions.
There is never, and has never been a charge associated with activation.
Additionally, Microsoft does not charge per minute technical support rates, and as far as I can tell, never has.
For desktop products, like Windows XP and Office for example, the fee is $0, $25, $245. Most are free, additional support - like programming a macro or something of that nature, costs $25. Dealing with server-technologies, company wide networking, or other business technologies generally cost $245. These fees are per incident, regardless of how long it takes or how many people you have to talk to. I worked with an MS support person once for 4 days, 9-5 pm, 8 hrs a day, to solve a critical problem with networking. Fee? $245.
I suggest you learn a little bit more about MS and thier support services before you go spouting off about what you remember.
Here are some links:
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=
Parent
Re:Good Move Microsoft!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
XP has a fantastic penetration rate for MS. There are very few users not in a corporate setting using Windows 2000. Most users before XP were on 98, 98SE, or ME. As those users replace their computers, they got a big dose of XP. The die hard Windows-fanboys upgraded legally or not - to XP a long time ago.
MS sells Windows by attrition - those PII and PIII boxes out there have been replaced by newer PCs running XP.
MS hasn't released much in the way of sales numbers, but XP is very well represented in the total slice of Windows users. I the most recent PDC (Professional Developer Conference), an MS VP of Sales suggested that XP was about 60% of all Windows users. XP or 2K represented almost 75% of all Windows users. That means that the really legacy products - 95, 98, and NT4 represent less than 1 in 4. That's a damn good rate for any business.
MS is rapidly consilidating its users on the same platform. Before XP, you had two entire different product lines. MS has finally merged them into one line, and the userbase is very happily consolidating.
Make no mistake, MS is generally very happy with XP adoption rates.
Parent
Great. Just what I want to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great. Just what I want to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, it shouldn't affect you. According to the Juniper research guy in the article you don't really need to reinstall your computer after all.
"Seeing as how the typical OEM would normally preactivate Windows XP, most legitimate users shouldn't have much need to go through the activation process,"
See, it's all better. When you buy your computer, that's the OS you get to use for the entire life of the computer and certainly no one at Microsoft tech support or anywhere else would ever ask you to reinstall. Have a nice day.
TW
Parent
Re:Great. Just what I want to do. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Microsoft to Disable Online Windows Activation (Score:4, Insightful)
Whaddya gonna do - install *another* OS???
Re:Microsoft to Disable Online Windows Activation (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, until I can play _all_ of my games (at least the relatively current ones) on it, I'm not switching. Although I do use Gentoo on my non-gaming systems.
Parent
Re:Microsoft to Disable Online Windows Activation (Score:4, Interesting)
- Sure they have that right, but they're adding more and more conditions on how you prove it. They're also starting to restrict more and more things that customers require until they can prove they own the software. (Security updates, reinstall activation so far. What's next, will they require you to prove you own the OS before you can install a driver?) What about customers who lost their CD/CD Case but have a legit copy? Is it right to tell them to FOAD because of that? Should I really have to waste 3-5 minutes of my time to
- prove I'm not a crook. That's what it boils down to, MS doesn't care so much about their customers, in fact they're beating them to death with the anti-piracy club while the pirates happily install their no-activation copies they downloaded.
You should be thankful they're not giving it away free or you could kiss goodbye to something other than Windows ever being on a computer's desktop.Parent
Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The big pain in the ass in activating over the phone is reading the installation ID. It's not an actual person you talk to- you read the number aloud (as opposed to touch tone) to a computer. You have to speak slow and deliberately for it to understand the numbers correctly, and ultimately it will read a confirmation code back to you. The whole process takes about 5-7 minutes, depending on whether the computer understood you correctly the first time. That's the part that pisses me off about this. Whenever we have to reinstall Windows at my shop, it was easy enough to plug in to our router and activate in 2 seconds (all with legitimate keys mind you). If this holds true, it will piss off many many computer shops around the world. Two seconds vs. five minutes is a pretty big deal.
Parent
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
You can speak slowly and deliberately to the computer, but you can still enter the numbers by touchtone.
Parent
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother? It probably cost you more time replacing the version than you'd ever spend activating.
The lock-in argument: one day they might stop running the activation service? Sure, but one day they might release a service pack that detects your pirated version and stops it working. So the future isn't certain either way.
So why bother?
Parent
Original Media (Score:5, Insightful)
rus
it will be bypassed... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand : this will just make the difference between Windows and OSX/linux even more apparent. Every user-restricting move of microsoft is, in the long run, a shot in its own foot
Re:it will be bypassed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the activation code has been stripped out of Windows XP in the pirate community since before day 1 of its official release.
Almost any type of copy protection, activation or otherwise is rapidly stripped out of software by cracking groups and released into the pirate community.
This announcement is a non issue for actual pirates of XP. It has zero impact to them. It impacts the PAYING user the most by making a procedure they shouldn't have to deal with in the first place an even bigger pain in the ass.
These types of measures always punish the paying customer and leave the pirates shaking their heads in disbelief over M$ not getting it.
Parent
Take your own advice (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is, users may not be versed in fine points like configuring a firewall or understanding security threats (then again, 90%+ of programmers have no clue about security either), but they _can_ Google, you know. You'd be surprised how finding a copy-protection crack for just about _anything_ takes mere minutes. Even little old grandmas know how to google nowadays, or get told how to real quick.
Also those users do _not_ live in a vaccuum, as the software companies and movie producers seem to assume. They seem to think the Earth is made of some 6 billion hermits, each living on a separate mountain top, and never talking to each other. If one of them found out how to download a crack or warez on P2P, surely noone else can learn that from him or her. Sad to say, that's not how it works.
If they're friends or family of a pirate, guess what? They'll get an already patched CD from that pirate. Or a CD and including the patch program separately. And then copy that CD further for others.
Or they'll get pointed at www.gamecopyworld.com, or whatever other crack site fits their particular problem, by someone who knows. E.g., someone like me.
Now I don't support piracy, and in fact I'm firmly against it, but I support idiotic copy protection schemes even less. Copy protection just doesn't work. Period. As was said, the _only_ ones affected are the honest paying customers. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna support that kind of thing.
When someone bought a product, it wasn't because they're too stupid to google for a crack, it was because they actually wanted to go buy it. Whoever wanted to pirate the stuff, actually went and pirated it.
And then going and dragging the paying users through indignities like having to call tech support to get their product activated (oops, some kiddie with a serial number generator already used yours, so more time on the phone is needed), or like having copy-protection-related trouble in the game they paid for (we'll just make your game crash because your CD drive is called "E:" instead of "D:", so surely you're a bloody pirate with CD emulator software), is just stupid and uncalled for.
Not that it will stop greedy corporate fucks from doing it anyway. There's a class of people for whom money is the only thing in life, and worth pursuing no matter what collateral damage they cause. Even when they don't even get that money.
The thought "but we could make 100 extra bucks from the only 2 guys in the world who don't already know how to download a crack" just overloads their brains. They just _have_ to get that 100$ at all cost, even if it means kicking every single honest user in the teeth. With steel toed boots.
Parent
Re:it will be bypassed... (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft software, compared to its competitors, is far and away the most expensive desktop software ever. Most people I know who pirate Windows do so because they simply can't afford to buy a copy. Granted, that's not many people since Windows comes with the computer, but I can say that I only know two people who have paid for their copies of MS Office - everyone else either pirates it or uses OpenOffice because they aren't at liberty to drop over half a week's pay on it. And in college I didn't know a single person who actually paid for a legal copy of VisualStudio - the unscrupulous pirated, and the scrupulous moved to *nix.
Which leads me to my point - if Microsoft tightens Windows down too much, people are going to start thinking, "Holy shit, this is expensive, and I'm sick of hunting for friends with Windows CDs. Hey, my Mac using friend never has to reinstall his OS, and a Mac Mini only costs an extra two hundred. .
I honestly don't think Microsoft is free to get too strict with its licensing policies. Piracy is the only thing that is keeping skads of mildly dissatisfied people in their camp where they might not be contributing to M$'s coffers directly, but they aren't working against Microsoft's stranglehold on the market, either.
Parent
Customer (Score:5, Insightful)
Hope they're up late (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hope they're up late (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Microsoft NEEDS Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft depends on the ubiquity of Windows (and Office, Outlook, et al). When everybody is using Microsoft products, everybody needs Microsoft. Their proprietary formats are a de facto standard (except Massachusetts), so if you want to do business with people who use Windows (et al), you have little choice but to also use windows.
As their piracy initiative starts to pick up steam, this will only enhance the "value" of free (or at least lesser cost) alternatives. I predict a large swell of Linux usage-- on the desktop, in these emerging markets, or other areas where the hight cost of Windows (et al) simply locks people out. With that will come a groudswell of support for open formats.
Consider what you need if you are going to do business with the government of Hamburg. You will need to provide and exchange documents and other material in a format they can read (it won't simply be Word and PowerPoint). Now the same thing will happen in these emerging markets, creating more of an interest in these alternative formats, and thus alternative applications (e.g. OpenOffice).
More choices are good for everybody. Use the application of your choice, on the platform of your choice, and produce documents and other material in a format anyone else can read. Right now, I have any number of such choices to produce graphics for a web page (jpg, png, even gif). The formats for Flash and Acrobat have been opened up, and happily they are becoming more standard. But the U.S. Government still requires all RFP submissions in Word.
More choices, however, is bad for Microsoft. They don't want open formats and lots of choices, they want (and need) everone using and exchanging MS Word documents. They want (and need) everybody using Outlook and Internet Explorer, and of course, they want (and ultimately need) everybody using Windows.
Thanks A Lot (Score:5, Interesting)
As if installing windows isn't enough of a headache. I had to reinstall windows in Japan, and let me tell ya, my Japanese isn't what it should be.
On a side note, I envy the Mac people here in that they can seamlessly switch between English and Japanese versions of their OS just by setting a preference.
In windows land, it's purchase both or suffer. Now more activation heedaches.
Thanks guys, thanks a lot.
Aw man.. (Score:5, Funny)
oh.. ONLINE activation only... *WHEW*
Not Quite as Bad As It Sounds... (Score:4, Informative)
Copy Protection SOP (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2: Legitimate users are hampered by the copy protection while illegitimate users breeze by it through various means.
Step 3: Company either ultimately removes copy protection with a black mark on its reputation or people just stop buying its products.
I know of no historical case that deviates from this for a major software release. Of course, you have various vertical applications that use dongles and other such things, but anything that is mass-distributed (like Lotus Notes or Turbo Tax) that has used copy protection either removed said copy protection or stopped selling their product.
Yeah! (Score:4, Insightful)
One giant leap for the advocation of OSS.
I guess there's no question now as to what I'm going
to install on that new HD of mine. (As if there was doubt before this, I guess.)
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
call center (Score:5, Interesting)
The end of the home user (Score:5, Interesting)
Just think all they would really need to do is roll out a good, non-bloated version of Office for Macs and Linux that is compatible with their office version of Office and they can stop having to worry about whiny home user.
RTFA! (Score:5, Informative)
They are however planning to get rid of online activation alltogether.
Hmm, I hope India has enough people to man those call centers.
Oh good lord (Score:4, Insightful)
How many times do you reinstall Windows?!
I can see maybe if you're in a strange company setting where they use a version that requires it, it may be a hassle, but I don't see most people reinstalling Windows more than once or twice a year. I guess more if you completely hose a system. That's what? 3-5 minutes? When I had to call them the one time my system had determined I changed hardware too much, it took about 1 minute for them to give me the hash I needed. I don't consider that bad at all.
Re:Oh good lord (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care if it takes .0001 picoseconds and happens automagically in response to my brainwaves.
It's not an issue of convenience. It's an issue of principle.
I swap hardware in and out of my PC all the time. More importantly, I reserve the right to swap hardware in and out of my PC whenever I damn well please.
Windows Product Activation limits this right by labeling me an Evil Pirate if I modify my system too much, or in the "wrong" way, and forcing me to grovel to Microsoft for permission to use my own computer again.
This is unacceptable no matter how "convenient" they make the groveling process. I simply do not accept the premise that they have the right to lock me out of my PC based on how I modify the hardware. I don't want my computer playing cop.
It's for this reason that I've kept my Windows box at home on Windows 2000, which has no such onerous "gotchas". When Windows 2000 becomes an untenable platform (which by all appearances will be Real Soon Now), it would be nice if there was a version of Windows that was compatible with my principles. If not, I'll wipe the disk and run Fedora full time, or buy a Mac.
If it comes to that, it'll be a shame; there are a lot of nice things about the Windows environment for the home user, and I'll miss being able to play the latest games. But there are some things that are simply not negotiable, and "I own my system" is one of them.
Parent
On phone activation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well lo and behold after he enters in his proper key for the product he legitimately purchased when he got his Dell PC, it promptly tells him the key's invalid, buhbye and HANGS UP ON HIM. There was no option to speak to a CSR at all, and he has no recourse (Dell can't do anything about it, and there's no phone numbers to call at Microsoft to talk to someone). The whole experience has pushed him that much further towards getting a Mac and waving a not-so-fond farewell to Windows XP.
The life of a MS Activation Specialist. (Score:5, Insightful)