coondoggie writes to mention an article on Information Week about possible unintended consequences of the Microsoft Software Protection Plan (SPP) discussed on Slashdot on Wednesday. The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops. From the article: "Microsoft will support SPP in current and future reporting and asset management tools such as System Center Operations Manager. 'On paper it might sound pretty good, but we have to see how it works,' says Jeff Allred, manager of network services for the Duke University Cancer Center. One of his concerns is that a reduced functionality mode kicks in three days after changing out a motherboard in a server if the software is not revalidated. 'That really jumped out at me. We change out motherboards in our servers all the time,' he says. The provision only covers a swap with a non-OEM motherboard, which Allred admits doesn't happen often."
Why do you think you should have a say when it comes to protection on your PC when you don't have a say when it comes to protecting your life? After all, all those cams, that screening, that data mining, all's just done for your protection!
Do you want that? Did you agree to that? Does it matter what you want?
When your consent doesn't matter in things like privacy, why do you think it would when it's only about software?
I so wish companies would stop the useless, transparent lies.
"This $FOO is for your protection." No it's not. It's for THEIR protection, and most of the time that's fine. What's wrong with "We're videotaping you because we want to deter robbers."
I am the pusher robot. I am here to protect you. I am here to protect you from the terrible secret of space. Pushing is not the answer. I am the shover robot. I shove you around. I am here to protect you from the terrible secret of space.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Seriously, please pay MS so they can save me from me. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to working in my chosen trade. This will just lead more honest people to use 3rd party cracks and cheats to work around this crippleware so they can do
Well, the scapegoat is people who believe they've bought a legitimate copy, but in fact haven't. I mean, I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a Rolex or Levis or whatever and found out it was counterfeit. The fallacy is of course that the pirated version of Windows is 100% identical to the retail one, but I don't expect the general public to understand that. But that is the big difference between theft and piracy, the copyright holder isn't a party to the action. Owner -- Item --> thief Pirate A -- Item -->
That's marketroid speak for "protecting our revenue stream from you". Many companies use this. Notice the wording of the annual letters from your cable company announcing the latest rate increase. They never say "we're raising rates because we can". They say "we're introducing these exciting new cable packages" and leave it up to you to figure out that if you want to keep getting what you've been getting you'll be paying $5 more a month.
Protect consumers from pirated software??? What if I don't want to be protected???
Then you are clearly a pirate, and as we all know pirates like to hump little cabin boys, making you a pedophile as well. Furthermore, pirates spread terror, so you are a terrorist too. Rot in secret CIA prison after being tortured to death, you enemy combatant scum, you !
To avoid all the problems with Vista, don't install Vista. Voila. Problem solved. It's like upgrading your OS every time Microsoft puts something new out is a disease that IT suffers from. There are companies who never upgraded NT 4 or 2000 who are doing just fine.
Well, from NT4 to 2k, you got some additional drivers and features, USB support and some other nice things (a new IP stack if I'm not entirely mistaken).
Though from there on... I don't really see any improvement for me. What does XP give me that 2k doesn't?
I work in IT for a Fortune 500 manufacturer.
Virtually all of the machines in my server room are accessed via an LCD-based console manager. All of our new business desktops are coming with LCD flat panels (we're in the middle of a desktop refresh cycle). Plus, many users are on laptops.
Most business computers have exactly 0 64-bit apps.
Product Lifecycle Mangement (PLM) systems, which are very common in manufacturing-based businesses, are all 64-bit o
The problem is Microsoft operating systems are full of security holes. So if you don't upgrade then eventually you end up on their "naughty" list and they stop providing you upgrades to the broken operating system they sold you. The solution is to switch to something else if you can.
"We change out motherboards in our servers all the time..."
Please tell me where you're buying your server hardware from so I can avoid them like the plague! Where I come from, changing a motherboard in a server is a dire emergency, not something that one does on a whim.
If the average motherboard lasts 3 years (we've probably seen less, due to bad/leaking capacitors on certain makes/models of motherboard) and you admin 150 servers in some datacenter, that'll average 1 motherboard/week.
I can't RTFA because I think that link is broken but I would like to comment on the summary:
coondoggie writes to mention an article on Information Week about possible unintended consequences of the Microsoft Software Protection Plan (SPP) discussed on Slashdot on Wednesday.
What makes you think that Microsoft doesn't intend for people to not be able to swap motherboards? I would imagine that it is fully intentional. Prove me wrong. Keep in mind that any "consequences" that come with Microsoft's new anti-piracy scheme are probably well known by Microsoft and acceptable problems. That's what beta testing for this long is for.
Hey, Fry's and Microcenter has to be selling those motherboards to SOMEONE.
These shenanigans may only target certain subsets of the WinDOS userbase or just random selected users. Still, that's a lot of potential converts for alternatives.
You can't underestimate the lowest rank of society, but I think a large portion of the general population would understand the issue a lot more if the mainstream press were to rephrase all those headlines by one word:
That would be a lot of servers, I ran a 2500 server shop for a few years and I think I can cound motherboard swap outs on my hands. Hard drives 10-20 a day memory a few a week power supplies about the same but motherboards generaly lasted till the server got decommisioned. Now we did move an OS from one box to another very often and this whole activation garbage would be annoying.
Yes, Microsoft designed and built that to protect us hmmhmmm.
Of course. Obviously, MS is the best provider of services. If MS gets hurt, it prevents them from protecting us. Therefore, by protecting MS, we protect ourselves. The logic is infallible, no?
Well, the article is Slashdotted, but I don't need any expert opinion or research to tell me what it means for IT. I'm the head of an IT department, and it means that I'll be avoiding updates to any Microsoft technology with any "Piracy Prevention", and when I do need an upgrade, I'll be looking for Microsoft alternatives. I have friends who head IT departments, and I'm getting the same sentiment from them.
Not because we pirate. We're too afraid of the BSA sniffing around to do that. The problem is, these things cause problems, artificially created by Microsoft, for no reason. To stop piracy? If I pirated software, then I'd know where to find cracks for these things. Microsoft's "protection" wouldn't stop me.
But I've made a general policy in my department that we've stopped purchasing or installing software that requires "activation" or any other kind of phoning-home. I've run into too many problems where an otherwise working computer breaks itself by the developers own purposeful code because I've done a normal, legal repair job. In a large organization, an instance of the IT dept. replacing some hardware or imaging a disk shouldn't trigger a flag as "suspicious activity".
In my organization, I think we're likely to have more Macintosh purchases. Users like them, they're easy to fix, disk imaging is INCREDIBLY easy, they're reliable, and they work great with our Windows and Linux servers. And we'll see more Linux servers. If Microsoft wants my business back, they can stop trying to limit their OS to do less for me, and start working on how they can improve it to do more for me.
But I've made a general policy in my department that we've stopped purchasing or installing software that requires "activation" or any other kind of phoning-home.
Don't most OSes and applications do that to check if there are updates? It seems every time I turn onmy machine some application wants to update itself, be it Firefox, Windows, my printer driver, Acrobat Reader, etc etc. All of these things have something in common - they have to "phone home" (or at least check with some server outside my LAN) per
The difference is, if an app or OS tries to phone home only to check for updates, it won't stop functioning if it can't get through. With phone-home activation schemes like Vista, a failure will cripple the system.
I'll tolerate Firefox's checking for updates because I have no reason to believe that anything nefarious is going on, I can disable it, and in no foreseeable case will Firefox's developers purposefully sabotage Firefox in the update because they're trying to extort money from me.
That said, I still disable the automatic updates. I like having a button that says, "Check for updates". It makes it easy to update the software when I choose to do so. I hate automatic updates, however. Even assuming I trust them, they always seem to drain system/network resources at inopportune times.
And a printer driver looking for updates? I wouldn't tolerate that. If my printer is working, I don't need an update, unless it's a security issue. And if the printer is capable of causing a security issue, you need to change your OS.
It will be crackable. Everything is. M$FT just needs enough time to get around a big upgrade cycle for businesses. They want to DELAY piracy, not stop it. Granted, the main point is that it's going to cause annoyance to users who actually paid. But a lot of those organizations use a license manager server so it's not really that big of a deal. Or use the enterprise versions of the product that allow imaging and the other stuff you mentioned. And how hard is it to reactivate the product after you swap
I swap hardware plenty often enough to make software that requires activation a big PITA. When I need it done, sometimes, it's fairly urgent and I don't want to have to call Microsoft to get things reactivated.
I'll grant you that Microsoft isn't the worst offender of these "activation" schemes. I have software in house that requires activation, and if you reformat the same computer, reinstall on the same exact hardware, it won't recognize that it's the same computer and activation won't work. On the other hand, with this same software, if you reimage to a different hard drive and put it in the original computer, it will recognize that the hard drive is different and shut down. This company doesn't offer instructions on what to do if you have a problem with activation. They don't offer a public tech support phone number or e-mail address. The only way I've been able to reactivate it is to call their main line, get transferred 3 times, and get put on hold for an hour and a half.
So, yeah, it could be worse. I tolerate software that requires activation so long as they offer an "enterprise" version that doesn't have any of this "piracy protection", and that's what I'm doing with Windows, Office, Photoshop, etc. right now. That means you get to pay extra and jump through additional hoops for unbroken versions of their software. It's not ideal because you don't necessarily get OEM prices or the upgradability of retail versions, and though you can buy their "assurance", it means a yearly charge for "free" upgrades. Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn't released a new version of Windows in 5 years, and the new version they're supposed to release soon, I don't want. So once any "piracy protection" shows up in an enterprise version and prevents me from doing reasonable things, I am done putting up with it.
One big reason that I left MS Office was that once the data was in MS Office it was hidden from me. Also, if I did not upgrade regularly, other persons who had upgraded might have trouble reading my files, as well older versions. In other words, there was a significant loss of functionality if I did not continue to pay for the software.
This was effectively punishing paying customers if they did not continue to pay as often as MS wished. This is a common practice, most products go out of data in a few years, but the MS disregard for paying customers tends to be a bit more extreme. This new proposal is the ultimate indication of that. Your software, that you paid for, has a time bomb that could jeopardize your business, and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you.
MS would say, just give us a call and we will fix it. But if I need something ready 10 minutes from now, I need to know that I will not have to call MS because they won't treat me as a paying customer.
The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software
Protect the customers from pirated software?
The customers? WTF???
Zonk, can I have some of what you're smoking? Microsoft is protecting themselves from pirated software, not you or me.
Sheesh.
On a slightly related note, it appears that my XP installation is on its last legs; every Windows update makes it slower and slower. As I type this, it keeps momentarily hanging, and there's nothing running but firewall, AV, Firefox, and Winamp.
Damn I am not looking forward to reinstalling it at all. I won't be "upgrading" again; I wish my vid card would get along with Linux. Maybe I'll try Ubantu this time. Anybody know how to get ANY flavor of Linux working with an ATI with an S-video out and a really old 14 inch HP monitor?
I guess we never learned anything from the mid 80s.
Software copy protection and DRM don't work. You annoy legitimate users who have a corner case (usually enough for them to buy a competitor's product) and the h4x0rz work around it. The few pennies you save are more than made up for with bad publicity.
I used to work as a subcontractor in a classified secure facility. We ran into an activation nightmare not once, but twice. The problem was that the PC I was installing onto didn't have (and would never have) an internet connection, nor was there a commerical phone in the room where the machine was. The rest of the operation was all Suns and SGIs, but my boss insisted on a Windows machine, which had to be a retail version because we weren't supported by the facility host company and we couldn't use our company's volume license because of association issues.
What ended up happening is that we had to walk through the XP Pro "enter each line into your touch-tone phone" thing without the phone, writing everything down, leave the area, call, write down everything the phone system told us, then come back into the area. Something messed up the first time and it ended up taking over an hour to get it done and working. We had a similar (but not quite as frustrating) experience activating Macromedia Flash.
Given how bad this experience was (and this was pre-WGA!), I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be if Vista suddenly decided it wasn't legit in that sort of environment. I have heard from my former co-workers that they've basically abandoned that machine and are using linux for all their day-to-day work. It interoperates better with the big iron anyway.
Just wondering as I have not seen anything official on this, but what happens when a product that requires activation is EOL'd by Microsoft? I understand that support and patches will stop, but that is often less of an issue for large businesses with internal tech suport and decent security in place, but what happens if you need to reactivate a product? Will the activation system still be available or is this yet another method of forcing corporate and home customers to carry out periodic upgrades?
OK folks, now don't panic, but it is time to execute your preplanned exit strategy from Microsoft. Walk. Do not Run. Walk to your previously planned exit and calmly depart Windows. There is nothing to worry about here. The ship really is sinking, but it'll take quite a while. Heck, even the rats haven't left yet.
Eh? What's that? You don't have an exit strategy? My God man, have you been paying no attention at all for the last four years? You've slept through all the warnings? You didn't think through XP Registration and where it was headed? You slept right through WGA? Maybe you should panic. Best get cracking on a plan. The rest of you slow down, take your time BUT GET THE HELL OFF THIS SHIP BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO STILL BE HERE IN FIVE YEARS
Doesn't seem particularly troublesome to me...did I miss something?
Yes. You've obviously never worked in corporate IT. When a server is down, the last thing you're worried about is contacting the frickin' vendor to get the OS activated. Servers in the corporate datacenter aren't likely to have Internet access. So to getting it activated is going to likely require a phone call. Every minute that server is down, it's costing the company $$$ in lost productivity. And what if someone forgets to do it? Ouch.
I agree that if it takes you 3 days to get a server up and running, then your disaster plans suck.
However, consider the following:
- Server crashes due to hardware failure - Techs follow the existing standard procedure to restore (i.e. replace motherboard) - Service is restored on time according to SLAs. - The server continues to happily serve out data and requests. - Three days pass and suddenly the server is offline *AGAIN* because it wasn't activated and is now refusing requests. - Spend more time on the phone with Microsoft than it took to replace the motherboard.
Suddenly, that hardware failure had a MUCH larger impact than it had to.
If hardware, other than the hard drive, goes down and needs swapped then most likely you will need to reactivate. It will depend on the type and amount of hardware that goes down, but the article was about MOTHERBOARD swaps. Those will frequently trigger WGA and require activation, unless you replace it with the exact same make & model.
I've upgraded the bios on a motherboard and have had WPA reactivation triggered, granted this MB had everything intergrated on it. Microsoft is following the game manufactures, inconveincing there legitimate users, and making a pirated product look better then there own. Which would you rather use? A game that requires 15 to 20 seconds to validate that your cd is orginal, or a no-cd patch that opens instantly?
Which would you rather use? An operating system that shuts down if you swap out hardware, or a crack
At the college I went to, we have a security lab that is tightly locked down. (No outside machines allowed to connect, and no internet access whatsoever.) This means any activation has to happen over the phone, waiting on hold for a microsoft represenative.
This means any activation has to happen over the phone, waiting on hold for a microsoft represenative.
.. and the last time I had to do this, I couldn't because the computer systems at the activation centre were down.
Side note on the unintended consequence of this: I removed the windows software on the box and moved to a linux based solution because I couldn't activate. I am sure I am not the only one who has done so.
Let me raise a very viable scenario that may not have been presented. This is that the system reports a false positive for pirated hardware. Now, the person quoted in the submission works for the Duke Cancer Center; this might mean they get the same licensing deal that the university presumably gets. Now, let me use an example I am familiar with.
At Ohio State, one of the most populous universities in the country, they have a deal with Microsoft that gives students access to Microsoft software on the cheap. At the same time, this deal applies to departments and other machines for the university. Since this deal is based on mass distribution, and in many cases does not include permanent media, if any media at all (basically, students take the disks, install the software, return the disks), everyone uses the same key. This is the case for XP and Server 2003. It is also the case for 2000, in fact the key is "embedded" on the Win 2k disk, so no input is required from the user.
Now, let us assume that OSU has about 50,000 students (not too far off actually). And each student has this version of Vista installed. Now, let us assume each department is using Windows (actually very few at OSU are not), that is even more copies of the software being used. I would venture that it might not be too far fetched to assume that OSU could have 100,000 or more copies of the same OS installed on various student, faculty and departmental machines. Now, the server installations are quite a bit fewer; however, I do know the department I worked for already have several (as in 8-10) servers running various Windows versions. If all these were upgraded to the server equivalent to Vista, then that would mean 10 servers with the same key, and possibly hundreds (if not thousands) across the campus.
Okay, so let us assume none of this duplication creates a false positive. Instead, let us take the example where someone has offered these versions of Windows to the internet as pirated copies. We now hit a new dilemma. There is the potential for massive piracy in this. You cannot simply cut off every version with this key, since you would be cutting off thousands of legitimate copies. You also cannot do some sort of limitation based solely on IP, since students do not live strictly in dorms and since this would enter a new realm of privacy invasion. You see, there is a huge problem with this sort of re-activation issue. You risk hurting many people. Also, for gaming enthusiast who changes components frequently, this could also lead to issues. And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
Looking through the WGA trounleshooting forums, it appears that MS is already blocking VLKs (Volume License Keys) based on their IP address. The most common way to block VLKs by IP address seems to be by region. For example, there's little chance that an OSU license would be legitimately used in Chna, so it'd block that VLK from Chinese IP addresses. If there is a legitimate need to use a volume-licensed copy there, either a VPN would work, or MS could easily issue a seperate key (and they have big incenti
Microsoft has already set up a huge problem with keys. Single copy OEM editions of Windows require that the OEM tag is affixed to the outside of the computer. Great now the validation key is in plain site of anyone who wants to steal it. A pissed off employee could copy them all down and post them on a message board... The local grocery store has registers that run windows (this already seems like a dumb idea), the CD key is stuck to them in view of the customer. Just whip out your cell phone cam, and you ha
I've had to call Microsoft about WinXP activation a few times... and we lease all our machines from HP. The activation code is on a sticker on the machine. There should not be ANY problems with our activation. Particularly with me because we have two other people who do desktop support. And we have just over 100 desktops.
But between key generators and lazy co-workers who use the wrong codes on the wrong machines, I've had to call Microsoft to straighten this out a few times.
And I'm in a small company.
Microsoft's stated plan depends too much (entirely) upon the honesty/skill of my co-workers and the failure of key generators.
No fucking way, dude. Why should I waste MY time (emphasis on the fact that it is MY fucking time) because Microsoft is too lazy/stupid to figure out a better way of doing this?
Novell, way back when, used to link their licenses to specific companies and you could call them and they would tell you every license you had registered with them. If you lost a license disk, they would replace it.
Microsoft refuses to do the same. Even with the improved technology that we have today. They would rather put the burden on ME to: a. Make sure that nothing does go wrong. and b. Call them when something does go wrong.
"Under SPP, which debuts in Windows Vista and Longhorn Server, Microsoft software that is found not to be genuine will warn the user and eventually go into a Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) until it is activated with a product key."
So, basically, you're saying that Microsoft's software is turning into Shareware.
Hey Ed's... (Score:5, Insightful)
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HUH?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Get used to it (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you want that? Did you agree to that? Does it matter what you want?
When your consent doesn't matter in things like privacy, why do you think it would when it's only about software?
Re:HUH?? (Score:5, Insightful)
"This $FOO is for your protection." No it's not. It's for THEIR protection, and most of the time that's fine. What's wrong with "We're videotaping you because we want to deter robbers."
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Pushing is not the answer. I am the shover robot. I shove you around. I am here to protect you from the terrible secret of space.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Seriously, please pay MS so they can save me from me. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to working in my chosen trade. This will just lead more honest people to use 3rd party cracks and cheats to work around this crippleware so they can do
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Owner -- Item --> thief
Pirate A -- Item -->
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Re:HUH?? (Score:4, Informative)
Then you are clearly a pirate, and as we all know pirates like to hump little cabin boys, making you a pedophile as well. Furthermore, pirates spread terror, so you are a terrorist too. Rot in secret CIA prison after being tortured to death, you enemy combatant scum, you !
Parent
You don't need Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
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Though from there on... I don't really see any improvement for me. What does XP give me that 2k doesn't?
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On XP on a 32-bit box, you can allocate 3 GB for your apps, instead of 2 GB. Support for Physical Address Extensions (PAE), too.
There is support for 64-bit machines on the 64-bit edition of XP or Windows Server 2K3.
Better support for flat panel displays. (ClearType)
XP will stay fully supported for quite sometime. Win2K is likely to be EOLed soon.
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I work in IT for a Fortune 500 manufacturer. Virtually all of the machines in my server room are accessed via an LCD-based console manager. All of our new business desktops are coming with LCD flat panels (we're in the middle of a desktop refresh cycle). Plus, many users are on laptops.
Product Lifecycle Mangement (PLM) systems, which are very common in manufacturing-based businesses, are all 64-bit o
Re:You don't need Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
This is the correct link to the story (Score:5, Informative)
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Please tell me where you're buying your server hardware from so I can avoid them like the plague!
Where I come from, changing a motherboard in a server is a dire emergency, not something that one does on a whim.
Re:This is the correct link to the story (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Fully Intentional (Score:4, Interesting)
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These shenanigans may only target certain subsets of the WinDOS userbase or just random selected users. Still, that's a lot of potential converts for alternatives.
"Alleged" (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't underestimate the lowest rank of society, but I think a large portion of the general population would understand the issue a lot more if the mainstream press were to rephrase all those headlines by one word:
Motherboards (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, it sounds like you need to find a better vendor if you're changing out motherboards "all the time".
Re:Motherboards (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
"...designed to protect consumers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Microsoft designed and built that to protect us hmmhmmm.
From a megalomaniac perspective (Score:2)
Don't need research (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the article is Slashdotted, but I don't need any expert opinion or research to tell me what it means for IT. I'm the head of an IT department, and it means that I'll be avoiding updates to any Microsoft technology with any "Piracy Prevention", and when I do need an upgrade, I'll be looking for Microsoft alternatives. I have friends who head IT departments, and I'm getting the same sentiment from them.
Not because we pirate. We're too afraid of the BSA sniffing around to do that. The problem is, these things cause problems, artificially created by Microsoft, for no reason. To stop piracy? If I pirated software, then I'd know where to find cracks for these things. Microsoft's "protection" wouldn't stop me.
But I've made a general policy in my department that we've stopped purchasing or installing software that requires "activation" or any other kind of phoning-home. I've run into too many problems where an otherwise working computer breaks itself by the developers own purposeful code because I've done a normal, legal repair job. In a large organization, an instance of the IT dept. replacing some hardware or imaging a disk shouldn't trigger a flag as "suspicious activity".
In my organization, I think we're likely to have more Macintosh purchases. Users like them, they're easy to fix, disk imaging is INCREDIBLY easy, they're reliable, and they work great with our Windows and Linux servers. And we'll see more Linux servers. If Microsoft wants my business back, they can stop trying to limit their OS to do less for me, and start working on how they can improve it to do more for me.
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Don't most OSes and applications do that to check if there are updates? It seems every time I turn onmy machine some application wants to update itself, be it Firefox, Windows, my printer driver, Acrobat Reader, etc etc. All of these things have something in common - they have to "phone home" (or at least check with some server outside my LAN) per
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't need research (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tolerate Firefox's checking for updates because I have no reason to believe that anything nefarious is going on, I can disable it, and in no foreseeable case will Firefox's developers purposefully sabotage Firefox in the update because they're trying to extort money from me.
That said, I still disable the automatic updates. I like having a button that says, "Check for updates". It makes it easy to update the software when I choose to do so. I hate automatic updates, however. Even assuming I trust them, they always seem to drain system/network resources at inopportune times.
And a printer driver looking for updates? I wouldn't tolerate that. If my printer is working, I don't need an update, unless it's a security issue. And if the printer is capable of causing a security issue, you need to change your OS.
Parent
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Re:Don't need research (Score:4, Interesting)
I swap hardware plenty often enough to make software that requires activation a big PITA. When I need it done, sometimes, it's fairly urgent and I don't want to have to call Microsoft to get things reactivated.
I'll grant you that Microsoft isn't the worst offender of these "activation" schemes. I have software in house that requires activation, and if you reformat the same computer, reinstall on the same exact hardware, it won't recognize that it's the same computer and activation won't work. On the other hand, with this same software, if you reimage to a different hard drive and put it in the original computer, it will recognize that the hard drive is different and shut down. This company doesn't offer instructions on what to do if you have a problem with activation. They don't offer a public tech support phone number or e-mail address. The only way I've been able to reactivate it is to call their main line, get transferred 3 times, and get put on hold for an hour and a half.
So, yeah, it could be worse. I tolerate software that requires activation so long as they offer an "enterprise" version that doesn't have any of this "piracy protection", and that's what I'm doing with Windows, Office, Photoshop, etc. right now. That means you get to pay extra and jump through additional hoops for unbroken versions of their software. It's not ideal because you don't necessarily get OEM prices or the upgradability of retail versions, and though you can buy their "assurance", it means a yearly charge for "free" upgrades. Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn't released a new version of Windows in 5 years, and the new version they're supposed to release soon, I don't want. So once any "piracy protection" shows up in an enterprise version and prevents me from doing reasonable things, I am done putting up with it.
Parent
hurts paying customers (Score:3, Insightful)
This was effectively punishing paying customers if they did not continue to pay as often as MS wished. This is a common practice, most products go out of data in a few years, but the MS disregard for paying customers tends to be a bit more extreme. This new proposal is the ultimate indication of that. Your software, that you paid for, has a time bomb that could jeopardize your business, and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you.
MS would say, just give us a call and we will fix it. But if I need something ready 10 minutes from now, I need to know that I will not have to call MS because they won't treat me as a paying customer.
Huh?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Protect the customers from pirated software?
The customers? WTF???
Zonk, can I have some of what you're smoking? Microsoft is protecting themselves from pirated software, not you or me.
Sheesh.
On a slightly related note, it appears that my XP installation is on its last legs; every Windows update makes it slower and slower. As I type this, it keeps momentarily hanging, and there's nothing running but firewall, AV, Firefox, and Winamp.
Damn I am not looking forward to reinstalling it at all. I won't be "upgrading" again; I wish my vid card would get along with Linux. Maybe I'll try Ubantu this time. Anybody know how to get ANY flavor of Linux working with an ATI with an S-video out and a really old 14 inch HP monitor?
Can't we all just get along? (Score:5, Insightful)
Software copy protection and DRM don't work. You annoy legitimate users who have a corner case (usually enough for them to buy a competitor's product) and the h4x0rz work around it. The few pennies you save are more than made up for with bad publicity.
Total headache in "secure" environments (Score:3, Interesting)
What ended up happening is that we had to walk through the XP Pro "enter each line into your touch-tone phone" thing without the phone, writing everything down, leave the area, call, write down everything the phone system told us, then come back into the area. Something messed up the first time and it ended up taking over an hour to get it done and working. We had a similar (but not quite as frustrating) experience activating Macromedia Flash.
Given how bad this experience was (and this was pre-WGA!), I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be if Vista suddenly decided it wasn't legit in that sort of environment. I have heard from my former co-workers that they've basically abandoned that machine and are using linux for all their day-to-day work. It interoperates better with the big iron anyway.
Activation (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway,
Thanks
poor editorializing (Score:3, Insightful)
HUH?
protect consumers from pirated software? Protect? Are unathroized copies of Windows raping and pillaging towns along the Atlantic coast?
To my knowledge there has never been any harm to, "consumers".
The measure is intended to protect Microsoft from losses from authorized copying.
Don't Panic (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh? What's that? You don't have an exit strategy? My God man, have you been paying no attention at all for the last four years? You've slept through all the warnings? You didn't think through XP Registration and where it was headed? You slept right through WGA? Maybe you should panic. Best get cracking on a plan. The rest of you slow down, take your time BUT GET THE HELL OFF THIS SHIP BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO STILL BE HERE IN FIVE YEARS
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. You've obviously never worked in corporate IT. When a server is down, the last thing you're worried about is contacting the frickin' vendor to get the OS activated. Servers in the corporate datacenter aren't likely to have Internet access. So to getting it activated is going to likely require a phone call. Every minute that server is down, it's costing the company $$$ in lost productivity. And what if someone forgets to do it? Ouch.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, consider the following:
- Server crashes due to hardware failure
- Techs follow the existing standard procedure to restore (i.e. replace motherboard)
- Service is restored on time according to SLAs.
- The server continues to happily serve out data and requests.
- Three days pass and suddenly the server is offline *AGAIN* because it wasn't activated and is now refusing requests.
- Spend more time on the phone with Microsoft than it took to replace the motherboard.
Suddenly, that hardware failure had a MUCH larger impact than it had to.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The scenario is that they replaced the motherboard.
No OS install required.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Which would you rather use? A game that requires 15 to 20 seconds to validate that your cd is orginal, or a no-cd patch that opens instantly?
Which would you rather use? An operating system that shuts down if you swap out hardware, or a crack
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Side note on the unintended consequence of this: I removed the windows software on the box and moved to a linux based solution because I couldn't activate. I am sure I am not the only one who has done so.
Parent
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
At Ohio State, one of the most populous universities in the country, they have a deal with Microsoft that gives students access to Microsoft software on the cheap. At the same time, this deal applies to departments and other machines for the university. Since this deal is based on mass distribution, and in many cases does not include permanent media, if any media at all (basically, students take the disks, install the software, return the disks), everyone uses the same key. This is the case for XP and Server 2003. It is also the case for 2000, in fact the key is "embedded" on the Win 2k disk, so no input is required from the user.
Now, let us assume that OSU has about 50,000 students (not too far off actually). And each student has this version of Vista installed. Now, let us assume each department is using Windows (actually very few at OSU are not), that is even more copies of the software being used. I would venture that it might not be too far fetched to assume that OSU could have 100,000 or more copies of the same OS installed on various student, faculty and departmental machines. Now, the server installations are quite a bit fewer; however, I do know the department I worked for already have several (as in 8-10) servers running various Windows versions. If all these were upgraded to the server equivalent to Vista, then that would mean 10 servers with the same key, and possibly hundreds (if not thousands) across the campus.
Okay, so let us assume none of this duplication creates a false positive. Instead, let us take the example where someone has offered these versions of Windows to the internet as pirated copies. We now hit a new dilemma. There is the potential for massive piracy in this. You cannot simply cut off every version with this key, since you would be cutting off thousands of legitimate copies. You also cannot do some sort of limitation based solely on IP, since students do not live strictly in dorms and since this would enter a new realm of privacy invasion. You see, there is a huge problem with this sort of re-activation issue. You risk hurting many people. Also, for gaming enthusiast who changes components frequently, this could also lead to issues. And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
Parent
Blocking by IP address (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The local grocery store has registers that run windows (this already seems like a dumb idea), the CD key is stuck to them in view of the customer. Just whip out your cell phone cam, and you ha
Story time! (Score:5, Insightful)
But between key generators and lazy co-workers who use the wrong codes on the wrong machines, I've had to call Microsoft to straighten this out a few times.
And I'm in a small company.
Microsoft's stated plan depends too much (entirely) upon the honesty/skill of my co-workers and the failure of key generators.
No fucking way, dude. Why should I waste MY time (emphasis on the fact that it is MY fucking time) because Microsoft is too lazy/stupid to figure out a better way of doing this?
Novell, way back when, used to link their licenses to specific companies and you could call them and they would tell you every license you had registered with them. If you lost a license disk, they would replace it.
Microsoft refuses to do the same. Even with the improved technology that we have today. They would rather put the burden on ME to:
a. Make sure that nothing does go wrong.
and
b. Call them when something does go wrong.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
So, basically, you're saying that Microsoft's software is turning into Shareware.
Crippleware, to be more accurate.
How... fitting.