Black Screens For Unauthorized Copies of Windows 762
arcticstoat writes "In a bid to deter people from using pirate versions of Windows XP, Microsoft is now updating its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool to introduce a few uncomfortable niggles for users of pirated versions of Windows. These include replacing the desktop wallpaper with a black screen every 60 minutes, although you can still replace it with your wallpaper of choice in the intervening period. As well as this, copies of Windows deemed to not be genuine will also have a translucent watermark above the system tray, which Microsoft calls a 'persistent desktop notification.'"
Black? Niggles? (Score:5, Funny)
Too close for comfort.
Notifications (Score:5, Funny)
that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:5, Funny)
Black Screen of Death
Re:PFFFFFT (Score:5, Funny)
Oh crap, get ready for another wave of "omg where is the start button" questions on the Ubuntu message boards.
They're kidding, right? (Score:5, Funny)
The first thing I do after installing XP is turn the wallpaper to black.
Apparently, pirating it saves me a step after install.
WTG, MSFT!
Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
You can have it if you want. [linuxgenui...antage.org]
colors (Score:5, Funny)
now microsoft has officially left it's users black and blue [wikipedia.org]
Answer: Naggers (Score:5, Funny)
Question: People who annoy you?
Re:A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's not too bad (Score:4, Funny)
I wish Ubuntu would do this, instead of having that ugly orange bird looking thing by default. Ugh. That's the first thing I change on any new system; all my backgrounds are plain black.
Re:Wonderful; just another reason to pirate it (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's just me, but I usually set my desktop to black anyway as one of the first steps after an install. This sounds to me like a feature rather than a deterrent.
Pfff.... No imagination (Score:5, Funny)
They need to get more creative. Here's a few ideas:
1) Cause the NIC to drop random ammounts of packets at random times.
2) Change the wallpaper from Black Screen to one with a letter ending with "... The police are on their way".
3) Every 2 minutes all keys on your keyboard get randomly swapped around.
4) Swaps the mouse buttons. Or moving the mouse left, moves it right, up, down, etc.
5) All print jobs only result in large words in upper case saying "PIRATE ALERT!"
6) Boot sequence and shutdown sequence get 5 minutes added on to them. Hey MS, don't forget to make sure you cause the hard drive light LED to flicker a lot while the users wait around so they think it's something going on. While you're at it, randomly flicker that HD LED every few minutes for 20 seconds at a time.
7) Every 10th web page visited would be redirected to goatse (is that site still around?)
You get the idea... now hurry up so that people get fed up faster and switch to Linux.
Re:that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm impressed with Microsoft's forbearance.
I find their lack of faith disturbing.
Re:Yawn.... (Score:5, Funny)
Can someone remind me why Microsoft wants to chase people off to other platforms again?
They're increasing their users' pain thresholds so that they'll find Vista's annoyances tolerable.
Re:that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
Black? Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that'll turn the h4xx04z away. Want to really make it worthwhile? Force a pink-on-pink color scheme, license the theme song to "My Little Pony", and play that in an uninterruptable background loop on all available sound devices. That'll do a lot more to keep a kid honest than would making his desktop look 1337.
Re:Yawn.... (Score:5, Funny)
Because they're hoping one or two might actually end up buying Vista.
The Vista Drake Equation
N = R x fp x ne x fi x fe x L
where
N is the number of Vista sales
R is the number of reported WGA unlicensed XP install hits.
fp if the fraction of those that care about a black screen & bit of text
ne is the number of users with PCs that can actually run Vista
fi is the fraction of XP users who dont have the brains to use Ubuntu
fe is the fraction of XP users who dont use a tool to kill the WGA app
L is the fraction of XP users too lazy to get Windows Update to skip the WGA app
S - Number of sales
X - Number of illegal XP copies
Re:Pfff.... No imagination (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Funny)
What requires WGA anyhow?
* Microsoft Marketing
* Microsoft Sales
* Microsoft Legal
* Bill Gates' wallet
* Steve Ballmer's wallet
I'm sure there are more that you can think of.
Re:That's not too bad (Score:2, Funny)
Authorized fix for the black screen problem (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:3, Funny)
Please help (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
P L E A S E R E G I S T E R
Re:Pfff.... No imagination (Score:3, Funny)
Or just pop up a lock-out box and force user to type "I am a pirate and I am ashamed of myself". Three times.
Re:colors (Score:4, Funny)
Amen brotha! In the days of CRTs I started using black to avoid seeing the annoying edges around certain monitors.
Star Wars Reference (Score:5, Funny)
The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
It was a tossup between that quote and "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board."
More of the same. Just let go.
WGA never works for my genuine copies anyways. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:2, Funny)
Now you have to install Linux Genuine Advantage and pay your $699 licensing fee, you cock-smoking teabaggers!
Re:A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:3, Funny)
A black desktop reduces power consumption of CRTs, so Microsoft deserve credit for their environmental thinking and consideration for the power bills of those who can't afford LCD monitors or legitimate Windows licenses.
It's like, how much more black could this be? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:PFFFFFT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:3, Funny)
So this is MSochism, step one. Step two is writing a kinky boot sector to your C: drive.
Free your Linux box! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
1: Take screenshot of desktop with dozens of files and icons.
2: Replace wallpaper with screenshot
3: Empty Desktop
4: ???
5: Tell user to reboot to fix problem, preferably 10 times.
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
I did that to somebody at work when she forgot to lock her desktop for a meeting.... she almost had IT reimage her desktop to fix it before noticing that the rest of us were sitting around snickering at her.
Re:colors (Score:4, Funny)
Pictures of cats? Why?!
I can haz pie-ratted Win-does?
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
"I once tried BGInfo but even that was a black background with green text."
Black text would have been much less obtrusive.
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
How about the standard #008080
Re:Pfff.... No imagination (Score:4, Funny)
8) All open windows slowly slide down the screen until only their title bars are visible (although the user can keep pulling them back up as needed).
Re:colors (Score:3, Funny)
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
2.3) Set the task bar to "Autohide" and move it to the top of the screen.
2.6) If it's a desktop compter, use the monitor controls to stretch/move the screen upwards enough to hide the remaining visible part of the taskbar.
AND
Replace #3 with:
3) Right-click desktop, go to "Arrange Icons By" -> and untick "Show Desktop Icons".
Black screen - OMG (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, that is copy protection. Guess what, my default screen is black. Even though OSX does not allow it, I just set a black gif (10x10 pixels) as the BG image.
I know, many of you like (just as me scuba pictures, cars, babes, bikes, nersy images, superheroes) but at the end I WANT TO SEE MY DAM ICONS, so the best is a black background.
OK, Working as a programmer in the sportsbetting industry today (kickoff day) is a bit stressy, and after coding 12 hours at my (8 hour a day) consulting job pretty much kicked my arse, and I drank some rum from the Dominican Repubic ( ie I am kinda drunk).....
Anyway, black BG is best, that is the ultimate oldscshool, and working in the *NIX environment this is the best you can set.
So does MS expect to scare people with this mean black BG ?
Re:WGA never works for my genuine copies anyways. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:colors (Score:4, Funny)
Still not anal enough to be Steve Jobs. He once spent 3 months selecting the perfect color for the NeXT cube. 400+ different shades of *BLACK*
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
I think he's color blind. It would explain why his initial machines tend to be black and white.
Re:colors (Score:2, Funny)
If they want to upset people using unlicensed installs, I wonder.....
Wouldn't it be more effective to just force a desktop featuring Ballmer glaring out at you while simultaneously reaching for a chair?
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
Or better yet, arrange your icons in the shape of a penis with balls like the website is down [youtube.com].
Re:colors (Score:5, Funny)
Re:that's it? (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, I'm surprised they don't HAL_PORTER IS A CHEAPSKATE WHO STOLE WINDOWS do something more drastic.
Re:It's like, how much more black could this be? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd mod your comment all the way up to six [imdb.com] if I could!
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to 6. Look, right across the board, 6, 6 and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most slashdot comments go up to 5?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's funnier? Is it any funnier?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one funnier, isn't it? It's not 5. You see, most blokes, you know, will be modding at 5. You're on 5 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 5 on your original posting. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to 6.
Nigel Tufnel: 6. Exactly. One funnier.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make 5 funnier and make 5 be the top number and make that a little funnier?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to 6.
Oblig (Score:5, Funny)
An improvement (Score:2, Funny)
If this stops my screen going blue every 15 minutes I'll be happy
Don't Touch My Wallpaper! (Score:2, Funny)
My wallpaper is a screenshot of the entrance to that giant space cigar Doomsday Machine from Star Trek and I like to sit in front of it, squirming in my chair making faces-of-horror and sweating while singing "da-da da-da DA-DA DA-DA".
But look at who I'm telling! Of course most of you reading this do the exact same thing! Ha ha ha.
What?
Re:colors (Score:4, Funny)
Most users who would fall for it probably use the desktop for something but would still be able to sort of use their system with the start menu only but be unable to access documents they save there.
Of course last april fools day I tried to do it to my roommate. I forgot I had done it and he didnt really react (turns out he had just blamed it on the computer messing up and was too lazy to reboot to fix it)..it wasn't until I tried to get a file from him that he had downloaded. The torrent client said it was saved to the desktop but I couldnt find it for the life of me. Took me a minute to realize what I had done...