MS Product Activation for Windows (licensing)
With all the hoopla over the release of the final version of the Linux 2.4.0 kernel last week, Microsoft Corp.'s delivery of an interim beta version of its Windows 2000 successor, code-named Whistler, got lost in the shuffle. But according to Whistler testers, Microsoft issued build 2410 of its next version of Windows on Thursday. New in this build are many user-interface tweaks, as well as the incorporation of new anti-piracy code. ... No more casual copying? The most potentially controversial addition to Whistler 2410, however, is anti-piracy code that Microsoft is calling "Microsoft Product Activation for Windows," (WPA) according to testers. The technology is similar to the Office Activation Wizard that's part of Office 2000. WPA will tie a Windows product key to one specific PC in order to reduce casual copying. In order to "activate" it, a customer will send data about the installation, such as product ID number and hardware identifier, to a Microsoft-run license clearinghouse. The clearinghouse won't allow the use of the customer's product key on a PC different from the one originally activated. Microsoft plans to deliver WPA in all 32-bit versions of Whistler except those sold to volume-licensing customers and the so-called "Royalty OEM initial install images" provided to PC makers, said sources close to the company. Microsoft is expected to add similar anti-piracy technology to Office 10 and Visual Studio .Net, sources said. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2672131,00.html
On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Blank Frank wrote:
But according to Whistler testers, Microsoft issued build 2410 of its next version of Windows on Thursday. New in this build are many user-interface tweaks, as well as the incorporation of new anti-piracy code.
... No more casual copying? The most potentially controversial addition to Whistler 2410, however, is anti-piracy code that Microsoft is calling "Microsoft Product Activation for Windows,"
Until now it has been easy for people to be hypocritical about software piracy - to claim they're not doing it and don't support it when in fact a fair number of their IT procedures would not be possible if it were not done, at least in some small and usually transient ways. Did anybody else temporarily create a "pirate" installation of Windows NT 3.51 when they discovered that the installer for NT 4.0 beta refused to delete the primary partition and they needed to repartition their hard drives? It lasted twenty minutes, but since for that twenty minutes it was on more than just the original machine, it was a violation of EULA. But if Microsoft and its ilk do in fact successfully create systems that prevent "piracy", it won't be possible to be a hypocrite about it any more. And with commercial software flatly refusing some kinds of use, perhaps a fair number of people who now *think* they are not doing any piracy will have to face some harsh facts. Perhaps they will eventually realize that the way to avoid piracy without sacrificing usability is to use open-source free software. We can hope so anyway. In that scenario, this anti-piracy stuff could be one of the nails in Microsoft's coffin. Bear
At 5:23 PM -0500 1/9/01, Ray Dillinger wrote:
But if Microsoft and its ilk do in fact successfully create systems that prevent "piracy", it won't be possible to be a hypocrite about it any more. And with commercial software flatly refusing some kinds of use, perhaps a fair number of people who now *think* they are not doing any piracy will have to face some harsh facts.
Or you can realize that you were exercising "fair use" and the software companies are now going to use technical means to prevent you from exercising your right on copyrighted works. It will only me a matter of time before some hacker provides the necessary tools to exercise our "fair use" right again. -- Matt Elliott High Performance Data Management Team 217-265-0257 <mailto:melliott@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
No more casual copying? The most potentially controversial addition to Whistler 2410, however, is anti-piracy code that Microsoft is calling "Microsoft Product Activation for Windows,"
Copy protection is annoying when you have only one machine. It's much more annoying in the commercially interesting case, which is when you have many machines and are copying things legitimately. I've got a lab with half a dozen year-old El Cheapo PCs and half a dozen Genuine Antique AT&T Pentium 90s. Then there's the stack of old-beater laptops, which are very nice machines to put in a rack of routers when you just want a Ping/FTP/Web target. The El Cheapo PCs each came with a licensed Win98; I've got the disks in a stack, and keeping track of which CD goes with which PC would be a serious annoyance. It's actually worse, because the PCs are pieces of junk that need to be have major chunks of Windows reloaded every once in a while, though at least Win98 has less of the "you have moved your mouse, please put in the Windows CD and reboot" that Win95 had. It's annoying enough to keep track of which Win98 serial numbers go with which CDROMs - writing the number on the CDROM helps, but you can't read it when it's in the drive :-) The P90s were covered by a site license; I never had individual media for them (and most of them don't have CD players, which makes the "Please put the Win95 CD in the drive" more annoying.) The copy of Win95 I've got on CDROM was from somewhere else. Many of them are happily running Linux now. N of them hang out on a DSL connection for doing firewall testing, and they're named "Kenny" because they're targets for kiddies, and it's nice not to mess with copy protection when I reload the OS. Some of the laptops still have their CDROMs; some don't, and the ones that do often have funky drivers. That's why they're still running Windows.... at least they don't crash very often, though you still have to reboot them if you change static IP addresses. And I paid cash money to upgrade the home machine to Win98 Second Edition specifically to get Internet Connection Service, which didn't work as promised and trashed the DLLs used by several other commercial products in ways that uninstalling didn't fix. Will I feel guilty if I install WinME on two or three boxes? (Skeptical, yes, but guilty? No.) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Bill Stewart wrote:
The El Cheapo PCs each came with a licensed Win98; I've got the disks in a stack, and keeping track of which CD goes with which PC would be a serious annoyance. It's actually worse, because the PCs are pieces of junk that need to be have major chunks of Windows reloaded every once in a while, though at least Win98 has less of the "you have moved your mouse, please put in the Windows CD and reboot" that Win95 had. It's annoying enough to keep track of which Win98 serial numbers go with which CDROMs - writing the number on the CDROM helps, but you can't read it when it's in the drive :-)
Whenever I install a copy of Windows (rare these days), I always copy the install files to the hard drive. The reason for this is that half the time when Windows decides it needs something else, it cannot find the CD-ROM drive. This new policy guarantees that I will never buy a Microsoft OS again. I actually upgrade the motherboards on home machines. I cannot afford to repurchace, replace and reinstall every piece of software on those machines just to upgrade the hardware. Fuck them! Not for a game machine. (Which is about all that Windows gets used for around here. That and Eudora.) This is going to make life HELL for every sysadmin who has to deal with this crap. I expect that you will see alot of admins printing the serial numbers and taping them to the machines. Microsoft is just trying to squeeze every last dollar from their customers. Many of them are going to get tired of it and tell them where to go. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
participants (5)
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Alan Olsen -
Bill Stewart -
Blank Frank -
Matt Elliott -
Ray Dillinger