Vista Pirates To Get "Black Screen of Darkness"

jcatcw writes "Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide, and sent a letter to OEMs explaining the consequences of Vista piracy. These include a black screen after 1 hour of browsing, no start menu or task bar, and no desktop. Using fear as a motivator, the email warns resellers to 'make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.'"

This should end well

[Anonymous Coward]

"To help protect honest partners and fight piracy, Microsoft will continue to block product keys that are determined to be pirated, stolen or otherwise deemed nongenuine."

So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'? This will happen and I'll bet that the least painful thing that a customer will be able to do is purchase a new copy. I doubt that M$ will go out of their way to check to see if a blocked customer has a legit copy.

"The ad concludes with "Don't risk it!" and "make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled."

So basically, M$ is going to screw customers if their OEMs screw M$. This should be fun to watch. Just another reason for linux.

Asshats

Does vista work with Yahoo Games yet?

[obarel]

According to Microsoft, this is obviously the other way around: websites should change themselves to support the new Operating System.

Because we don't like this "OS independency" that websites seem to enjoy at the moment.

Re:This should end well

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is referred to as shifting the blame. If you're a customer of the OEM and the OEM is selling you, at full price, pirated software, it's not Microsoft who is screwing you.

Class action

[phoenixwade]

You can bet on a class action as a direct result of this.

Considering other missteps by MicroSoft, it's an absolute certainty that legit users will get snagged here, and then they get to experience the famous MicroSoft support system.

Well that's the end of Vista in a business setting

[Zelocka]

I wonder how long until some company loses a production SQL server costing millions of dollars because of this when they owned a group license. Its more then enough to stop any company from using vista if they where considering it.

I am glad that Microsoft is doing this

[Glowing Fish]

I am glad that Microsoft is actually backing up the restrictions that they say they have on their software. I've noticed that many Linux vs. Windows debates are about legitimate use of Linux vs. illegitimate use of Windows.
And when I try to point out to people that there are strict legal limits on what you can do with Windows, they look at me like I am making something up. "But, I can install Windows on this computer...I have a CD my brother-in-law gave me!"
So, I am just as glad that Microsoft is doing something to demonstrate the nature of licensed software. If people want to use licensed, commercial software, I don't object to it (even though I use almost totally free software), but they should realize that means they have to pay for it.

I CANT WAIT!

[nobodyman]

In other news, Apple, Sun, and a billion linux supporters simultaneously screamed their praise at this latest initiative by Microsoft.

Unintended Consequences

[Kelson]

So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'?

It gets worse. Let's take that line of thought a bit further. From TFA:

Titled "Don't let this happen to your customers," the advertisement indicates nongenuine copies of Windows Vista will lose access to key features, have limited access to updates, and thus risk attack from viruses, malware and spyware.

Great. Just what we need: deliberately make some machines more vulnerable to attack. As if those machines are the only ones that will suffer when they get infected.

A malware infection doesn't just impact the infected system's users. Those systems then become nodes in a botnet. They pump out more spam, more viruses, more phishing. They host phishing sites. They could theoretically be used for distributed computing projects... like cracking into paying customers' systems.

What's Microsoft going to say when a large site gets hacked, using someone else's pwned box as a launch platform, and the attacker got into that box because it was pirated, and Microsoft deliberately disabled the update that would have fixed a remote root exploit?

WGA server downtime?

[vertinox]

And what if the WGA server is down again?

What the heck??

[tgatliff]

Let me get this straight.. Not even two weeks ago, their WGA system completely blew up leaving millions of genuine users "in the dark", and now they are do confident in their system that they are going to do something like this?

I think I will just wait a few days for M$ to shot themselves in the foot... This type of poor business behavior is not sustainable longterm...

Re:I love Vista!

[kturner]

I'm honestly hoping this was typed in sarcasm.

Re:Unintended Consequences

[darth dickinson]

What's Microsoft going to say when a large site gets hacked, using someone else's pwned box as a launch platform, and the attacker got into that box because it was pirated, and Microsoft deliberately disabled the update that would have fixed a remote root exploit?

"This is further evidence that pirating Microsoft products is harmful to all consumers."

Re:This should end well

[mike2R]

If you're a customer of the OEM and the OEM is selling you, at full price, pirated software, it's not Microsoft who is screwing you.

Exactly. Whatever your opinions on "information wants to be free" or whatever, if a customer has paid an OEM for software and the OEM installs a pirated version and pockets the cash, this is theft - ok maybe not legally, but this isn't a case of people who would never buy software pirating it, it is a case of people trying to buy the software and the OEM stealing the money.

It's exactly like me stealing your car. You no longer have a car. The OEM has stolen Microsoft's money.

Have they already forgotten the WGA blackout?

[Weaselmancer]

Anybody remember this?

Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Down, Taking Users With Them

Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:26PM EDT

Breaking news: Some of Microsoft's WGA servers reportedly went offline last night or early this morning. What's that mean? If your copy of Windows tries to validate itself with Microsoft, it might be marked as unvalidated, or put simply, counterfeit.

The rest of the story is here. [yahoo.com]

I can't wait until Vista tries to dial home, and they have another server blackout. I wonder if MS can be held legally liable the same way virus/worm authors are? You know, whenever some huge worm takes everybody's machines down for a day or two they tally up some outrageous dollar amount due to lost productivity? I smell a huge class action lawsuit waiting in the wings.

This is going to be seriously entertaining when it happens.

Re:I am glad that Microsoft is doing this

[halber_mensch]

"But, I can install Windows on this computer...I have a CD my brother-in-law gave me!"

You touch on a very interesting point. Windows' widespread popularity (and thus dominant user base) is a result of massive pirating in the past due to the "feature" of a lack of effective copy protection on previous releases. I would think that this anal retentive copy protection will only serve to redirect some of the potential Windows Vista user base to other systems that can be obtained more easily and cheaply, and won't intentionally or unintentionally deactivate themselves.

Re:2007, the year of linux.

[aquaepulse]

What happens when Vista is running in the Bank of America and it accidentally trips the entire network in to "Black Screen of Darkness" mode?

If BoA has a policy to buy from shady resellers that preinstall pirated copies, then that is a bad policy on their corporate side.

What happens when a virus triggers this?

We can probably assume privilege elevation is involved. No one worries about virus catching, CTRL+ALT+DEL. Why worry about this?

I can't honestly see a good reason to mess with the stability of your OS when you're making billions of dollars of profit a year.

So MS is only allowed to make some invisible ceiling of money, then what, its just unseemly for them to continue doing business? They should give away all copies of the operating system?

Windows is the same, it is good enough for the vast majority of people even though it is technically deficient to Mac OSX and Linux.

What people here seem to forget is that the vast majority of people don't even know how to use the computers they have. The debatable appeal of one OS vs the next is not even in their minds. Windows whether liked or not has earned the reputation of just working. I guess most people haven't found out yet that software wants to be free.

Thirdly, they've got sucked in to yet more anti-user copy protection.

Is this unique to Windows? Is there some magic Linux HD-DVDs out there that have no AACS encryption? How is it MS fault for enabling users to play protected content? Are they supposed to be stubborn zealots and not support any DRM because Stallman doesn't like it?

There has been much talk of the year of Linux and when that would be. The problem with the year of Linux is that you can only see it in retrospect. However, the signs are present that 2007 is in fact that year.

This is like Bush talking about "making progress". It's been like 5 years in a row that it was supposed to be the year of Linux. That false Nostradamus crap has just gotten old.

What if I want something other than Vista?

[amigabill]

I don't want Vista at all. Not genuine, not pirated, not at all. Before you get too excited, I wouldn't buy a laptop for Linux either. For what I want I need Windows XP. I'd want it to be legit of course, but Vista is useless to me and I don't want it. It's hard to find anything new with XP these days though, and thus I am not buying anything. I may have to buy a laptop with Vista and buy XP and try to send Vista back or something. Then I need to wonder about driver support, does this new laptop work properly with XP, or do I lose something that lacks or has poor drivers under XP since they're all supposed to go Vista now for periherals?

Re:Class action

[jandrese]

Depends how many people are hit by it. If Microsoft is conservative and only shuts down a handful of known compromised keys, then there is not likely to be much of a backlash. If however they shutdown every computer that throws up a WGA warning, then you might be right.

Re:This should end well

[Ajehals]

Both parent posts are largely valid. What they fail to address, and what I believe the the GGP Post was trying to point out is that if a Key is *incorrectly* marked as invalid then they have done nothing wrong and nor has the OEM. Worse, the customer will suspect the OEM and presumably Microsoft will suspect both the OEM and the Customer. That is a quick way for Microsoft's customers, the OEM's, to lose both credibility and trust in the eyes of their customers, the consumer and businesses. Microsoft could hurt their customers by potentially hurting their customers customers. That will lead to a re-evaluation of the risks involved when dealing with Microsoft, as highlighted by recent issues with their WGA servers.

Re:This should end well

[pdboddy]

The point is that MS has already messed up, their WGA having falsely identifying legitimate customers as pirates in two separate occasions. So the question you quoted is still valid. So, what is going to happen when M$ screws up and starts blocking products that are 'genuine'? So why are you criticizing M$. it's their business decision to adopt this model. It's their petard to be hoisted upon if it fails. They obviously think it will work and they know more than you. Sure it may fail in cases too, but if the gains are net positive do they care? Perhaps the person is a legit customer using Vista, and doesn't want to see their computers become dead boxes? Sure, MS may end up being hoisted by their own petard, but it will be cold comfort to the folks who have to purchase new OSs, or have to revert to previous OSs, and the perhaps added fun fun side quest of cleaning up a potentially nasty botnet issue. And MS will care if millions of their legit customers switch to something else, be it Mac, Linux, or even going back to Windows XP.

Non-Story?

[Frosty Piss]

I'm not sure why this is an issue. Microsoft turns off pirated versions of its software. Is the consensus here that they don't have the right to do this?

People are going on and on as if it's a forgone conclusion that this will happen en-mass with legitimate copies of Vista, but this is nothing more than speculation based on MS-hate, not facts.

There are a lot of reasons to "hate" Microsoft, and credibility demands actual facts, so when it comes to pass, we can all say "I told you so". But at the present, this is a non-story.

Re:This should end well

[Wordsmith]

Without rehashing the now-old argument about how consumers knew what they were purchasing and what price they were paying at the time ... the company made customers upset, and now it's giving them $100 worth of free stuff. You're only throwing more money their way if you spend more than your $100 credit.

Re:This should end well

[number11]

if a customer has paid an OEM for software and the OEM installs a pirated version and pockets the cash, this is theft

Perhaps. Would you agree that it is also theft if MS disables a known legit copy? Theft of the price of a retail version to replace it with, or theft of services for however many hours you spend on hold trying to get them to straighten it out.

For whatever reason. Their spyware server screws up, like it did last week. You have to change out the motherboard. You replace the hard disk. None of those are legitimate reasons to break your copy.

It's actually more clearly theft than the first instance. The first instance is copyright infringement (someone made an unauthorized copy, but MS is not then missing a copy, all their real copies still work fine). In the second instance, the legit copy has been sold to you, either directly or indirectly, and when it doesn't work you have no copy. You have a loss. You have additional consequential losses, work time lost, deadlines missed.

Re:This should end well

[maxwell demon]

Indeed, a repeat of the WGA server event could do much harm with this deactivation feature even if later the legitimacy is accepted again: Assume you try to do an update on critical infrastructure computers in your business and due to a WGA failure your Windows copies are considered invalid. Now, if the problem isn't fixed within an hour, then your whole company's network might go offline, potentially resulting in large economic losses. Moreover, since the Windows machines are not working any more, you cannot simply re-try your validation with the WGA server once it's working correctly again. Even if the problem gets eventually corrected, and your genuine copy status is recovered, after such an event you'd think twice before ever again selecting a Microsoft solution. Moreover, large economic losses would result in big lawsuites.

If that new policy had been in effect when the WGA breakdown happened, I guess MS would already be in very big trouble now.

Re:2007, the year of linux.

[James_G]

I'll tell you what's making it more appealing too. It's these guys [ubuntu.com]. 2 years ago, Linux on the desktop was no more compelling than it was when I first started using Slackware back in the early 90s. Getting simple things like audio and graphics working was still more of a chore than 99% of end users are willing to put up with.

It's still a long way from perfect, but the Ubuntu team are challenging all these things which should be completely hidden from the user so they don't have to know how to modify their X config, write a Modeline, or learn m4 so they can create a sendmail config. They're doing the things which have always been considered "good enough" to the hardcore, but which have prevented mainstream acceptance, and I think that's bloody great.

I recently reinstalled XP on my home machine due to a failed drive. I'd actually forgotten how horrible it was. Things like.. trying to get SP2. You go to Microsoft, and they have a whole 'SP2 is great!' page which extols the virtues of installing it, suggesting that the best way to get it is via Windows update.. So, you go to Windows update, and it says.. "Hey, you need SP2! You should check out this page which explains why it's great, and how to get it!", and links back to the first page. Took me a few hours to figure out how to bypass that one.

Anyway, my point is.. I installed Ubuntu about 3 weeks ago, at my new job. Took about an hour from when I first put the CD in the drive to the point where I had fired up Eclipse and was writing code. It used to be that Linux on the desktop was as much of a pain in the ass as Windows was, but for different reasons. That's not true any more, and it can only get better from here, and I see things accelerating with the Ubuntu team putting so much effort into it.

2007, the year of Linux? Yeah. And 2008, and 2009, and 2010, and...

Re:Insult to injury

[Dunbal]

then people would be demanding a reversal on this Genuine Advantage program.

      It's been a few decades since the people have "demanded" ANYTHING. So long as they have their beer and their sports channels and big screen tv's, the people - for perhaps the first time in history - are content to let you take everything else away from them. Or am I wrong?

Re:Insult to injury

[Anonymous Coward]

If poor software is criminal, who do I get arrested for all those times I tried to install Linux only to be greeted with the inability to connect to the network, get X running, or use most of my peripherals?

Re:This should end well

[slashname3]

Dissatisfied customers might decide to try something different like Mac OS X or Linux.

Uh, wait a minute, I forgot to take my meds this morning. People won't switch from Windows regardless of how bad the experience or poor the customer support becomes.

Re:Non-Story?

[Opportunist]

People are going on and on as if it's a forgone conclusion that this will happen en-mass with legitimate copies of Vista, but this is nothing more than speculation based on MS-hate, not facts.

When you meet a dog and it bites you, and repeats this at your next encounter, what do you expect it to do the next time?

If this had never happened before, I'd agree with you. Why should it happen? The unfortunate answer is: Because it happened before, under very similar circumstances. WGA was proven not only once that it has flaws. From keys that didn't allow registration, to keys that suddenly became "invalid" for no reason, to the WGA blackout about 2 weeks ago. Every time people suffered. Either with productivity loss or at the very least hassle to get their computer back up and running.

Re:MS has no right to steal consumer data.

[Romancer]

All of your examples neglect the possibility of being wrongfully accused. If I report your car stolen and the police enforce it blindly, you have venues available to retreive your rightfully purchased things, including your car. In this case it is slightly different. the accusors and enforcers are the same entity. They are also not infallable and are also in a high profile public position to attract virus writers and others who have the means to innitiate a failure of this system. since it has no checks and ballances outside of their control you will be left with only the legal system to argue against this multibillion dollar company with lobbyists and campain funds, let alone legal earmarks far in excess of your income or credit.

It would be at minimum an uphill battle even if you had all the documentation available to prove that you deserve the use of your legally purchased OS. They could always say that your key was leaked and therefore forfit as part of the EULA you agreed to without seeing. You may be able to use technology to retrieve your data because you are tech savy and aware of alternate methods, but are you a valid representation of the general Windows User base? Would your mother or grandmother be able to do these things if they did not have you around? Or would at a minimum have to pay a tech to do it for them, and is that "Right" to punish them monitarily for using the pretty new OS?

NO. It is theft.

[G Fab]

If you take someone's money by using a pirated copy of Windows, that's theft of money.

Taking property by knowingly exchanging a false token for that money is theft. Read the law in your state, they are all very nearly the same.

Re:This should end well

[hondo77]

So you got jacked out of $200.

Really? Apple stole the money from you? Say you go buy $500 worth of clothes on Thursday, and on Friday the store has a 25% off everything sale. Did they jack you, too? Say you buy a brand new 2007 Ford Mustang this week. Next week the dealership has an inventory reduction sale to make room for the 2008's. Did they jack you, too?

Re:This should end well

[RobertM1968]

Well, the thing that I think will make it such a horrendous (and far beyond temporary inconvenience) issue is that many small to mid sized businesses buy machines with Vista (regular, home user OEM versions) on them (like walking into a Circuit City or CompUSA and buying 3 HP whatevers). If my business workstations suddenly stopped working and accused me of running a pirated copy of Windows, I think I'd find it more than a mere inconvenience...

Of course, maybe this makes a "wonderful" tool for MS to "suggest" to businesses that they move to MS's business license strategies to prevent such issues...

Re:This should end well

[RobertM1968]

Unfortunately, it probably wont drive consumers to other OS's... If you spend a couple hundred dollars on additional software, would you just up and switch OS's - and then have to buy all new software to run on the new OS's? And where's your copy of MS Office or IE for _______ Operating System?

Don't get me wrong, I for one am happy with OpenOffice, and many other non-MS alternatives to... well anything... but the average consumer probably won't be - or won't even equate the fact that "If Ford's cars suck, I can just go buy a Honda/GM/Toyota/etc"

Consumers' understanding and perceptions of software as a tool to enable productivity (as opposed to "Internet Explorer IS the Internet, MS Office IS part of/required by my documents") will not change quick enough to allow for any sort of mass migration. Will some people switch? Probably. Will a lot - or even a decent amount? I doubt it.

Would you? Would I? Would anyone computer saavy enough to understand that an app is an enabler - not that a specific app is the be all end all... probably. But that defines a very small part of the computer owning population.

Re:Unintended Consequences

[ScrewMaster]

Well, now that's just silly. I know you're trying to paint him into the hypocrite box, but it doesn't wash. He's selling a product to people that choose to run Windows ... that's their business, not his. The simple economics of the situation dictate that Windows is the best place to make money selling software because so many people have bought into Microsoft's drivel. The fact is that he's smart enough to realize the risks associated with running modern versions of Windows, and chooses not to take those risks himself. That's just good sense.

Re:Insult to injury

[ratnerstar]

You're wrong about the "for the first time in history" part, that's for sure.

Re:This should end well

[suv4x4]

Dissatisfied customers might decide to try something different like Mac OS X or Linux.

Uh, wait a minute, I forgot to take my meds this morning. People won't switch from Windows regardless of how bad the experience or poor the customer support becomes.

You know, the individual consumer may be dumb, but collectively they're not so dumb. They found and are going for another option: keep your XP while it works (which is for another good 5-6 years).

Then we watch early adopters get hurt by piracy missdetection, bugs, poor resource usage, lack of drivers and incompatibility, while we just enjoy our amazing XP-rience in a brand new way.

As is known for quite some time in the industry, Microsoft's biggest competitor is Microsoft.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Well split any hair you wish. This LOWERS Vista value to everyone.

I believe that Microsoft will discover that this is a tactic who's unintended consequences include a movement away from Vista - and to some extent from Windows in general.

Apple's moment to strike a hot iron is rapidly upon us.

Re:Unintended Consequences

[Chris Mattern]

"This is further evidence that pirating Microsoft products is harmful to all consumers."

"And as we have worked so hard to make it so, we are well-pleased by this harm to people who never pirated anything."

Chris Mattern

Re:This should end well

[Joreallean]

Well that's because people want popular software to work as well as it's going to straight out of the box. Not after spending a couple hours at least tinkering, tweaking, reading man pages, installing other packages, and generally screwing around with things that only a handful of people want control over. Handful being relative to the total number of computer users in the world. Regardless of whether Windows does or does not work well in all situations, it is the OS with a widest range of easy to use software straight out of the box. When Apple, Redhat, or whomever can get the software developers to develop a wide range of easy to use software that includes not only utilities and business apps, but also popular games then there may be a chance for an alternative to Microsoft's market dominance. Yes I know there are alternatives that can work to some extent, but they are not complete replacements for running native applications on the OS they were designed to be run.

Re:"Copyright infringement".

[mcpkaaos]

Microsoft has some pretty smart people working there.

Microsoft is driven by marketing, not by smart people.

Re:This should end well

[Loconut1389]

I'd install / buy OS X if I could, but I don't own a mac and I can't afford $5k for the same machine i've got thatll run OS x.

Cyber terrorist's wet dream...

[Luke Dawson]

So now it's possible to disable Windows machines remotely, how long will it be before someone writes a worm exploiting this? How long will it be before people start getting ransom notes in their inbox demanding cash "or the PC gets it"? And imagine the resulting chaos...MS would have to re-activate hundreds, probably thousands of computers that were maliciously disabled, presuming they can do that remotely too. The irony of course being that any affected machine would be incapable of updating itself with a patch to fix it. Machine gets infected, goes into reduced functionality mode...MS releases patch, but reduced functionality mode means that computer won't get said patch. Marvelous idea!

Seriously though, I could never use an operating system that not only could at any time be remotely triggered to lock me out, but that actually has that functionality deliberately built into it.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Goldberg's Pants]

This is like a Judge Dredd strip I read years ago where in a hostage situation, Dredd killed the hostage. Microsoft is saying "You've been unlucky enough to buy Vista from a dodgy OEM. We're going to compound your misery." Since I doubt the consumer has any comeback whatsoever on this.

Microsoft are just a company that sells misery really aren't they.

Re:This should end well

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

Now, I realize that quality-wise Vista is the worst to yet come out of Microsoft.

Quality-wise, wouldn't you consider Windows Me the worst? Even with all the updates that OS was a nightmare.

Re:This should end well

[esmrg]

And I want to add. There was a time when Windows 98 was a better option than Windows 2000, and even Windows XP.
No.
Windows 2000 was and will always be the best OS microsoft ever created. It is solid, fast, and has no product activation. Win2K forever.
But since Microsoft is intent on making it obsolete, come on reactOS!

Re:it is a hoax people

[Tanuki64]

A hoax, or a test balloon?

Re:This should end well

[StikyPad]

I wouldn't switch at this point. While I understand what you're saying, Windows serves my needs better than any OS I've tried recently. uTorrent is my preferred client, I like the Adobe CSx suites, I actually like Office, I enjoy playing games, video production, and music production, and no other OS meets all of those criteria as well as Windows. If I did web apps and backend services, or even if I was a typical web, e-mail, and term paper type of guy, I'd probably pick Linux. If I was exclusively the creative type, I might choose OSX. As it stands however, the software community has made Windows the OS of choice. If and when that changes, I would probably change as well. So in contrast to your argument, I choose Windows because software is a tool, and Windows simply has the tools I want.

Re:This should end well

[Kalriath]

$5K, really? So you have a dual 3.0G Quad-core Xeon with 4G of RAM, a 750G 7200 RPM SATA drive, and an NVIDIA 7300GT vid card? Call me suspicious, but I'm guessing you have nowhere near that kind of horsepower. *Good* Macs aren't cheap, you can pick up a Mini that you'll hate for $600, but for $2200 you get a dual 2.0G Dual-core Xeon Mac Pro that's probably got better performance than the HP/Dell you're using not to mention that it's quieter by a factor of 10. Still not cheap, but you get one hell of a nice computer that you can sell for 70 cents on the dollar on eBay when you decide to upgrade.

Woah! That'd be like $5K here!

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Nextraztus]

I wish I could agree that Apple's moment to 'strike a hot iron' is a good thing -- however, Apple is just as bad about vendor lock in as Microsoft is. Some might venture to say worse. Especially in a situation like this where our main gripe is Microsoft's overall control of your computer regardless of the situation. Apple can in theory do the same thing, but so far, hasn't bothered except to make it overly difficult to run their flagship OS on standard off the shelf hardware.

Oh well, maybe someday we'll see a cool thing like Apple's hardware actually becoming as cost-efficient to own as normal x86 hardware...but I don't intend to hold my breath.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[Frantix]

If Apple were to release their OS, without throwing in Intel's hardware, it would be. Unfortunately Apple continues the straight and narrow as a hardware company. Part of what saves Apple from something like this is controlling their empire with tighter leashes than Microsoft. I'm not putting them down but if they were to start releasing the OS without requiring their relabeled hardware they would be fighting similar issues. Apple is out to make money just the same.

Re:This should end well

[mjwx]

You know, the individual consumer may be dumb, but collectively they're not so dumb.

Actually its the other way around, individually consumers are dumb, when in a group they are astonishingly stupid. How do you think Microsoft became so dominant in the first place.

Re:NO. It is theft.

[icepick72]

Microsoft has been fighting piracy for a while now, deactivating pirated sofware. Obviously those unintended consequences don't seem to exist or else your theory would have come true a while ago.

This should be enough to keep people away, no?

[daveewart]

Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide

If the fact that Vista includes client-side software to do this, which Microsoft can "turn on" at their whim, isn't enough to keep people away from Vista then I don't know what is...