One In Five Windows Installs Is Non-Genuine 481
Posted
by
kdawson
from the false-positives dept.
from the false-positives dept.
snib writes "Microsoft disclosed Monday that, according to reports collected by the notorious Windows Genuine Advantage tool on millions of users' PCs, 22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine. Quoting: 'Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent... [T]he Business Software Alliance... reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated (22 percent in North America)...'"
WGA (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
I would look at there program first, then accuse everyone of steeling second.
It really does not surprise me that there are a lot of pirated copies out there.
A thought.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I anticipate that some folks will say 'lolz if WGA doesn't false positive!!11!!eleventy!' (translated: Assuming that WGA doesn't falsely label a machine as pirated). The number of these seems to be reeeeeally low, I'm guessing it's not a big part of the final numbers.
Most likely an undercount (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Two main reasons.
One: Pirates are probably far less likely to attempt to run a WGA certification compared to a legitimate licence holder. For obvious reasons.
Two: "Borrowed" corporate editions, etc. will validate despite being, well, "borrowed".
Probably much higher than that (Score:5, Insightful)
They say that that's 22% of those who attempted to be authenticated- anyone who knows they are using a pirated copy sure as hell isn't going to try to authenticate it. Those who failed either didn't know they had a pirated copy (installed by teenage son or shady computer store) or are really dumb pirates.
Or the third option, that WGA fails a fifth of the time. I can think of at least one instance where I have tried to authenticate a legitamite copy (which I had just unpacked from HP, and was doing updates on) and WGA said it didn't pass.
My policy is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who insist on using proprietary operating systems get to pay for them. Yes, even when that means they pay with their time.
If your copy of Windows won't validate, that's between you and Microsoft, my friend:
Oh, and there's a Linux installfest this Thursday. If things between you and Bill don't work out, why don't you stop by and install a real 64 bit OS on your machine?
But I do hate it for the gamers, man. What are they going to do?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sucks to be in the 80% (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention, the 20% must be either really stupid (I wonder if my Haxxored Windows copy will validate? Gee, let's try!) or, more likely, have misconfigured Windows systems or bugs in WGA that report them as invalid when they probably own a legitimate license.
Great marketing strategy though: punish your legit user-base as the pirates work around your system. Can't wait to see how Vista improves things. I'm excited to see what "advantage" I'm "genuinely" going to get.
Disclosure: I only allow WGA on my work machine, where I have little choice and didn't pay the license fee personally.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not pirated, that's plain old 100% classic stolen.
Yes, but (Score:4, Insightful)
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
3. How many installs are not seen by WGA?
4. How many of those are genuine/not genuine?
Re:My policy is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who insist on using open source operating systems get to pay for them. Yes, that means they pay with their time.
If your copy of Ubuntu won't play DVDs, that's between you and Google, my friend:
* If you were using Windows Vista, you wouldn't have this problem in the first place, and,
* As much as I pity you, I can't help you. No, I'm not going to Google for 'Ogle crashing' for you.
* No, you can't "borrow" a Windows key from me. Go and buy your own.
* No, I *really* can't help you. If your OS doesn't work, there's nothing I can do. It's not just a matter of won't, but I can't.
* If you think open source software is so great, follow the open source model of RTFM and Googling.
Oh, and there's a Windows UG meeting this Thursday. If things between you and Tux don't work out, why don't you stop by and install an OS with ISV and OEM support on your machine?
But I do hate it for the gamers, man. What are they going to do?
Re:A la Bash.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I should know better. Wish SoE would provide a decent Vanguard SOH port to Linux...
Re:False.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Couldn't msft have stopped pirating long ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
Its the 80/20 rule. If Microsoft can stop 80 percents of the piracy, with 20 percent of the effort, its worth it. Stopping the last 20% would cost more than the money they'd make otherwise, especialy if you consider, like you said, that a lot of those wouldn't even use it otherwise. And Microsoft (I actualy think it was Bill Gates) did publicly say before: "If they're going to pirate softwares, we'd rather they pirate ours". It makes sense: Mindshare is worth more than customers, in a way.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent point. That was the first thing I thought of...of all the people who pirate Windows, how many ever subject themselves to WGA? I suspect it is a relative small fraction of them. And then there is the reciprocal question, of the 22% that report as non-genuine, how many are really valid installs that raise a false positive? If it's even 10%, that puts the false positive rate at around 2%, which would be unacceptably high in my opinion.
Re:A la Bash.org (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WGA (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that nearly 100% of the failures reported were false positives, and that the number is probably highly inflated by legit users frantically trying to get their critical security updates after WGA has randomly failed them.
The real pirates are dodging WGA and aren't trackable with these stats.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I also believe Microsoft should 'suck it up' because if they have an 80% non-piracy rate for a monopolised operating system that is still very good returns, and the "20%" of pirated software merely helps to maintain that monopoly.
I'm certain Microsoft would prefer to keep those 20% on windows rather than have them on linux for example.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I never bothered with XP at all, precisely because of this product activation crap. But I too did the right thing, and legally bought a Mac. Curiously, I then started paying for all my (commercial) software - perhaps because I am older and richer than I was, but I think not having an adversarial relationship with my computer and not feeling like I was being fucked over by an abusive monopolist helped too.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention, how many don't bother with XP at all and just use 2000 instead?
Re:WGA (Score:2, Insightful)
how could so many pirate windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's the key I guess. Most people don't care for their computer, and it shows, over time the install goes to hell, getting viruses spyware, etc. Then they may get a friend to come over and help them, and the friend may install a pirated version of windows, maybe a fancier one, maybe the same type (but not the same copy), or maybe even the same copy.
This is illegal . . . technically, but hard to really say it is, as the people do have the right to use windows on their computer, and that's often the only way they can.
With windows XP at least, I wouldn't doubt if more copies of it have been sold than their are copies currently in use! It seems like a crazy statement, but considering how many companies buy machines with windows preinstalled, and then install their site licensed copy on the machine. Plus how many people have had machines get outdated, or crippled, or break on them, and bought a new computer to replace it. How many copies of windows were thrown out because of that?
I can't speak for other countries, as I'm sure there are places where piracy runs rampant, and you can easily buy computers without windows preinstalled, or with an illegitimate copy installed, but in the US this generally isn't the case. Maybe MS should take these figures into account and say something like "-30% of windows copies in the US are pirated", after taking into account the anti-pirated cases of double licenses etc. Of course, things don't really work that way.
Now other software I imagine the number is much higher. What percentage of copies of office are less than legitimate? I imagine those are much higher, and a 20-30% install base being illegal wouldn't be too far off. of course, even here with so many copies sold to businesses, it dillutes the home market that's far more likely to pirate software than corporate ones (people can get in far less trouble generally).
Phil
Offtopic but a reply to your post... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Photoshop has 20+ layer modes. We offer 70+ at 10% the cost. [blackbeltsystems.com]
Wow is that web-page UGLY. You'd think that a company offering image manipulation software would know enough about imaging to not have such an ugly webpage. Especially annoying shit like
* blue text on two slightly different blue backgrounds for the navigation links
* metalled embossed hard to read fonts as headers
* "link-heavy" text with more links than text (put it into a list of feature links)
* multi-column text that goes off-page requiring "back-scrolling" to read
* juvenile snipes at vague competitors rather than professional and objective feature comparisons
* overuse of exclamation points! Especially in testimonials! No Really!
* prominent google ads for a site trying to sell commercial software
For punishment, I suggest you make your web-page designer navigate this site for an hour or two: http://corson.tv/main/buttugly.htm [corson.tv]
Re:A la Bash.org (Score:3, Insightful)
I can well belive that,
Its going to be so much less effort to stick in a slipstreamed pirate CD and enter your standard pirate VLK than to try and find the correct big brand oem recovery CD and try to convince it to work in a way that didn't wipe the entire system and leave it loaded with shitware or to use a generic oem CD and try to convince MS to activate the result.
At the end of the day time is money and doing it the legit way is so much more effort!
Re:Offtopic but a reply to your post... (Score:4, Insightful)
I even considered taking your product for a spin, but if you can't be arsed to hire a web designer to sell image manipulation software, I can't be arsed to take you seriously.
I hereby deduct one point from your diatribe's validity score for presuming that programmers are artists. Then hire an artist. If OSS applications can get volunteers to make great icons, and sometimes even a useable UI, your commercial software company has no excuse. In addition to the webpage, those Windows 3.1-esque giant icon buttons in the UI have got to go. Oh, and the shitty fractal terrain example images, too (it's 2007, and terragen 2 [planetside.co.uk] is coming. Hell, Terragen 1 [planetside.co.uk] from years ago looks loads better, and it's free/cheap.) You claim big clients, show big results.
I deduct another point for not addressing product issues. Production artists have to ramp up on lots of applications quickly. Showing off a cluttered mess of a UI on an unreadable webpage with horrible dayglo fractal sample images in the screenshots does not give me confidence in the production-worthiness or ease of use of your tool. If you want to reach people, consider explaining why your morpher is a better option than Combustion, Fusion, Shake, or even an ancient copy of Elastic Reality from the top shelf in the closet, for example. Another example is that when examining your 70+ layer modes, fully half of the first ten [blackbeltsystems.com] should really be composed of multiple operators, both to increase flexibility and to reduce clutter (why should I have to memorize, and pick from, a list of 70, if half of them are "inverted foo"? Why layers instead of nodes, for that matter, if you're touting a powerful procedural compositor with a robust scripting language?)
Perhaps the most glaring red flag is the lack of a user-to-user forum. That suggests either that nobody is using the software, or that you don't want people talking to each other about it.
I deduct another point for characterizing your criticism as "constructive" when it was simply an opportunity to bluster about web pages. I just suggested some positive steps you can take. So did the GP, for that matter. Harsh criticism is a day-to-day reality of the industry you're serving, and people who take it personally wdon't tend to last long. Don't get mad, you're getting valuable feedback from your target market.
Finally, I deduct another point for being offtopic. Since I'm replying to your reply, it's on-topic now.
HAND.
Make a case that your software will make artists lives easier and more productive, with great sample images and clear feature examples, and you just might have a hit.