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Black Screens For Unauthorized Copies of Windows
Posted by
timothy
on Thursday August 28, @06:10PM
from the black-is-the-new-black dept.
from the black-is-the-new-black dept.
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.'"
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Black? Niggles? (Score:5, Funny)
Too close for comfort.
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colors (Score:5, Funny)
now microsoft has officially left it's users black and blue [wikipedia.org]
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Answer: Naggers (Score:5, Funny)
Question: People who annoy you?
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Notifications (Score:5, Funny)
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That's not too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait...
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that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm impressed with Microsoft's forbearance.
I find their lack of faith disturbing.
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Re:that's it? (Score:5, Funny)
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Help Vista or Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's going to be very funny if this does more for Linux than Vista.
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Re:Help Vista or Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
You can have it if you want. [linuxgenui...antage.org]
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A new meaning to BSOD... (Score:5, Funny)
Black Screen of Death
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Yawn.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone remind me why Microsoft wants to chase people off to other platforms again?
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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*Innocent Whistling* (Score:5, Informative)
Cough, Cough [thepiratebay.org].
*Continues innocent whistling*
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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!
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Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows is shareware now?
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I bet that.... (Score:5, Informative)
It will still flag perfectly legal copies of Windows as being pirated. Just like it has in the past.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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