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.'"
Yawn.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone remind me why Microsoft wants to chase people off to other platforms again?
Great. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people I know who run 'stolen' software don't have the funds, are not otherwise law-breakers, and are not aware of alternatives. I've had great luck giving these people an OpenCD and explaining the law, and, in the case of small businesses, the BSA's tactics.
I wonder how long it will be before somebody comes along with a registry edit file that will replace the permanent watermark text with a link to Ubuntu?
Wonderful; just another reason to pirate it (Score:5, Interesting)
Just another reason to pirate it since I've triggered the damn tool multiple times on Legitimately licensed product.
Re:Notifications (Score:2, Interesting)
On a kinda related note, what's up with that fancy translucent notification? Looks like more thoughtful design went into it than into the whole UI of XP itself(which is actually highly configurable with transparent windows menus etc -- google it -- but why the hell did microsoft keep such a flexible UI so locked down with that lame Blue and Green for so long?).
My stance on WGA and Vista (Score:4, Interesting)
If we assume that one of the purposes of paying for Windows were to provide the user^H^H^H^Hcustomer with a "better Windows Experience" by means of fixing bugs and improving the Operating System in the next version, and due to the fact that Vista Sucks, I say we got ripped off and piracy is our legitimate right.
And don't get me started into viruses.
Nagware (Score:4, Interesting)
So, Windows is essentially a nagware product now? Choose to pay or not, depending on whether you think it'll be less painful? When will they append third-party advertisements to every file you save? When will it whisper subliminal insults into your audio stream?
Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:1, Interesting)
But that's not how it works. MS makes the "free" 'pirated' windows they got (probably from a shady computer shop bundling it with their cut-price PC, the people affected by this will mostly be the "unknowing" 'pirates') suck, so they assume that the free ubuntu must suck and/or be illegal too. I've already encountered people who think free linux is criminal because they're so brainwashed by the infofascist BSA crowd. It felt like that electrolytes scene from idiocracy when I tried to explain it - possibly my fault for not being clear enough, but they were so godawfully dumb I couldn't stand it anymore and pointed out they could buy a copy of linux from a company if they wanted, which felt like the "eventually he told them he could talk to plants" thing.
this happened to me, a legit user (Score:5, Interesting)
i paid for windows vista ultimate edition *waits for laughter to die down* but after a few months, i discovered that the machine i installed it on had some dodgy RAM and i had to replace it. i don't know if it was because i changed the RAM or because the bad RAM corrupted something, but after that Microsoft decided that my copy of Windows was pirated, and put a permanent message in the lower-right corner of my machine telling me as much, and refused to let me use certain features, such as the Aero graphics enhancements.
personally, i suggest microsoft take a page from our founding fathers, and adopt a more "innocent until proven guilty" attitude (for example, offering a way to call them up and verify your CD Key) before implementing more draconian punishments upon the convicted!
Re:I bet that.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet it will continue to flag random people at a slowly accelerating rate, thereby pushing more and more people to Vista. That's probably what they think it will push people to, but hey - let's not disillusion them!
Re:Bull (Score:2, Interesting)
Come out of your ivory tower.
You can get a decent 2 year old computer for 100 bucks.
Since they aren't breaking the law, I don't understand why that's brought up.
There are people that just use it for basic computing, not games.
"The only sensible thing is your attempts to get em on a legal alternative."
Which is what the poster is doing.
"Stopping bootleg software should be the #1 priority of the Free Software movement as it is our primary competition. "
true.
Re:colors (Score:5, Interesting)
What's funny is my desktop is intentionally black. Has been for years - through Windows 2000, Windows XP, and now Vista. I just like it that way.
Active desktop? Puh-leeze.
Pictures of cats? Why?!
Patterns? Too distracting.
Other colors? Meh.
I once tried BGInfo but even that was a black background with green text. It lasted a week before I took it out and went back to basic black.
Re:colors (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:that's it? (Score:4, Interesting)
i hope that's meant to be sarcastic.
i'm using a Dell my dad gave me as a gift when i went off to college, and it was supposed to come with a copy of XP (pre-installed). naturally, after a few years of use, i had to upgrade the computer/reformat the HDD/etc. during this process i found that Dell didn't actually give me a Windows XP setup disc. they had instead given me some Dell "system recovery" disc that would have re-installed all of their Dell-branded crap and bloatware from their software partners which i'd spent years removing and replacing.
i found it much more convenient to just borrow a friend's XP disc. however, i realized to my dismay that the XP serial number which came with the Dell didn't actually work with anything except for the Dell OS Recovery disc. and i wasn't going to use that disc (by now i'd lost it anyway) and have to spend a week uninstall everything and manually re-install all the new service packs and updates. so i just ended up using a "pirated" XP setup disc image i found on the web which included all the latest service packs and updates (minus WGA) and no other useless crap.
unfortunately, i accidentally installed the WGA update one day. and so every time the system starts, and seemingly every 15 minutes after that, i get told that my copy of windows isn't "genuine" which causes whatever program was in the foreground to lose-focus and is particularly annoying when you're typing.
Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with these schemes by Microsoft is that they more often than not inconvenience legitimate owners of valid licenses. I've had more than a few cases of valid installations of Windows "deactivate". It's doubtful that WGA is "bulletproof" and won't flag some legitimate licenses as invalid and screw-up a loyal Windows users' system. Also, for those who really pirate Windows (are there that many pirates out there??), hacking around WGA is child's play. I think that this will turn more people off than stop pirates. I've been using Ubuntu 8.0.4, and I'm very pleased. I have no problem exchanging documents with Windows users, and since I'm doing development in Java, there's no incompatibility there either, since even the Windows guys are using NetBEans and Eclipse...Is there really much pirating going around that Microsoft has to waste programming resources to combat it? From what I see, people want to BUY XP. Microsoft could probably stop XP from being stolen altogether, if they just continued making it easy for OEMs to offer it, and continued support.
Re:*Innocent Whistling* (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. You failed to control your product. Too bad for you.
That's all I need to know about you to end this conversation.
Re:WGA never works for my genuine copies anyways. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Notifications (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, this sent me to a call centre in india where I was told the "servers were down" and they were unable to help me at that time. It took me literally 5 minutes, the same time I spent waiting for them to pick up, to download and burn a new copy that had SP2 and updates slipstreamed into it that required no activation, and not once since then have I had a single problem.
Meanwhile, I hear stories from my friends who are getting false positives on their assorted XP and Vista installs, the majority being OEM copies on dells...
When this sort of protection is causing more of a hassle for legitimate customers rather than pirates, there is a serious problem. I highly doubt this new update to WGA will affect my install in any way, shape or form.
Re:Notifications (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are they *trying* to push people away? (Score:2, Interesting)
They could've justified it to shareholders the same way they justified the "We've decided to make our systems as incompatible with everything else as possible" conversation.
They could write and release drivers that let them access Linux and Mac file systems, for example, or to have released proper specs for the NTFS system. They didn't though, on the grounds that it'd make moving away from their domination more likely.
In-fact, they don't need to justify letting people steal as much as they'd need to justify spending on anti-piracy measures. Show them a graph showing how much has been spent on WGA versus how little profit it made them. Follow that up with a comment like "it's notable that as we spend more on these measures, a number of users will be moving to free alternatives such-as Linux, weakening our overall market dominance" and you have the shareholders on your side.
Re:PFFFFFT (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't actually run in the background. It does the authenticity check at startup, and it vets your computer when you try to install an update which requires authentication, and that's it. And there are actual, honest-to-goddess important updates that won't install without such authentication.
*shrugs* but I guess I'm not what you'd consider a "smart" user, in that I choose to let it do its rigamorole on the 4 computers I have running Windows... my laptop, which dual boots with XP MCE, my HTPC which is running Vista Ultimate (both came from MSDN), and my parents' laptops, running XP Home and Vista Home Premium respectively.
Incidentally... none of those systems have ever had issues, performance or otherwise, with WGA. I'm not saying that it doesn't screw over legitimate users. But I am saying that I've never seen an issue with it, and that the ability to install security and stability updates that you couldn't otherwise install outweighs the marginal increase in boot time, which is about the only thing you actually notice when you install/activate WGA.
Stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:links to the fix (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Notifications (Score:3, Interesting)
For myself it is difficult to support because the interface is not consistent. When you do telephone support it helps when the screen that you see and the screen that the user sees is the same. Instead you have the start menu items that move around, the drop down menus that auto-hide, the control panel that comes in 2 default configurations (I usually ask if they see the blue screen or the white one)...
Re:that's it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dell actually uses a different key on their recovery discs than the one that's on the side of the computer.
If you open d:\I386\winnt.sif The key is listed in there somewhere. That key also works, and I believe that in the past when I rolled my own discs, that was the one I'd use. IIRC I took the disc from my brother's computer and enter Dell's registration key. That generally worked just fine.
But that was years ago, and I don't really deal with Windows much these days.
Re:colors (Score:3, Interesting)
Desktop black: check
Icons at a minimum: check
Window style: classic; I go with "brick" with a black desktop
Screen saver: none; powersave in battery mode
Seriously...I like my stuff simple and organized. I'd definitely call this a feature. Then again, I don't give a shit. I buy almost exclusively Dell computers, and the OEM tying to the BIOS is a serious feature for me. Lets me almost entirely avoid the whole activation thing. If I had to do it over again, I'd buy a dell box instead of building a box for my media center. I'll run linux, or some civilized OS should one exist, on my homebrew boxes from now on.
It could be more annoying. (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it. Microsoft could have did stuff like this. Thankfully, they didn't.
Change the homepage to Microsoft's website, perhaps a page about Windows XP and piracy.
Have Clippit pop up in the corner of Windows XP, saying, "It looks like you're using a pirated copy of Windows. Would you like to purchase one now?"
Slow one's Internet connection to 56kbps speed, except when doing Windows Updates.
Disable any and all video capabilities.
Limit the display to 800 x 600 at 8-bit colour.
Disable accessing certain file types, such as video files, music files, etc. (Jokingly, because if you pirate Windows, you might be pirating other things as well.)
Re:Are they *trying* to push people away? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I don't disagree with you in any way, I'm always curious why people are upset when their RAM is being used. As I understand it, Vista pre-loads into RAM applications that you use often, thus (ideally) speeding up load time. RAM is there to be used; why do we get upset when we see near-100% usage? Personally, I don't care what XP's RAM usage is when I boot up, as long as it's responsive. If increasing XP's RAM usage to 1.5GB on bootup by loading stuff I use regularly would make my applications load faster, I would beg for it to be done.
Anyone have any ideas about this?
Re:colors (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:colors (Score:2, Interesting)
Also black is energy and brightness saving as all pixels are off. Makes for more relaxing, uhm, darkness around the active windows.