Windows Vista Phones Home

[Lemur]

It seems as though every week there's a new detail emerging that helps us understand why we really, really don't want Windows Vista.

Key quote:

Microsoft's so-called Software Protection Program (SPP) has been presented to intending users as a fait accompli just a month ahead of Vista's scheduled release. It will mean that those who use Vista and other Microsoft products will have to put up with their systems constantly being checked online to make sure they're not using any products deemed to be pirated software.

I say deemed to be pirated software because as sure as night follows day there will be many cases in which the SPP will make mistakes and label legitimately acquired software as pirated.

In such cases, users will have to convince Microsoft that they bought their software legitimately and, if they don't succeed, they will have to hand over extra money or their system will be disabled.

In some cases, users who have activated a legitimate copy of Vista may need to do a number of reinstalls because they have suffered a hardware failure or their system isn't running well. Hopefully, Microsoft will be able to differentiate between that and users installing a single copy of Vista on multiple computers.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Yes! Treat all of your users as criminals! That's the Microsoft business savvy, right there.

But it doesn't matter! We have fancy transparencies!

[doc_bean]

All hail Linux and OpenGL !

[drone]

"That's a nice system you've got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it."

[Mikeus Caesar]

Another reason for me not to get Vista.

And i'm serious there. I don't fancy paying a hefty fine, or imprisonment.

[caravel]

CA definitely need to start porting their games to Linux.

This is the typical software developer/publisher attitude of hitting the paying consumer hard, and crippling them with restrictive software that takes control of their system, tells them what to do and constantly needs to "phone home" in order to check for the software's legitimacy. The user of real pirated software on the other hand will have avoided all of this completely and not face any such restrictions.

Because of the product activation I didn't upgrade to XP on my own machines until 2004. I despise this kind of blatent spyware, in the same way that I dislike copy protection that checks my machine over for certain software.

And all of this from a company like M$ that lives off piracy. If M$'s software wasn't so massively pirated worldwide it wouldn't have become the de facto standard it is today. And other companies would have found a niche for a rival OS, especially in parts of asia, africa, south america and eastern europe. As is the widespread illegal copying and distribution of M$ software has stifled any competition before it could even begin.

We have fancy transparencies!

Precisely. More overweight, security hole ridden crap, with more emphasis on the eye candy than the functionality. XP was a hog, this is bound to be even more of a hog. You pc has been upgraded and runs XP nicely now, but fear not Vista will soon slow that right down again. Your pc is a mine of hardware resources for the new OS to gorge itself on, not for you to use for running apps.

[sharrukin]

I agree regarding XP and in all likelyhood Vista.

But what exactly are the alternatives for non-technical users? Unless you are willing to dedicate your life to fighting the Matrix, it's their way or...?

[Lemur]

Well, one alternative for a non-techie would be Mac OS X. There's no product activation, no phoning home, nont of that hanky-panky. And with Boot Camp, you can create a Windows XP partition for playing your fave games. Since OS X is (as a net admin friend of mine put it) "a perfectly good distro of BSD Unix with graphic s**t all over it," you can easily run most Linux programs.

I'm OS agnostic, but I've helped a few people get on OS X in the last year. I think it's a better alternative for the non-hacker non-computer savvy person in your life. Windows can be great, but your have to know what you're doing, security-wise. OS X is much more forgiving of a n00b.

[sharrukin]

Well, one alternative for a non-techie would be Mac OS X. There's no product activation, no phoning home, nont of that hanky-panky. And with Boot Camp, you can create a Windows XP partition for playing your fave games. Since OS X is (as a net admin friend of mine put it) "a perfectly good distro of BSD Unix with graphic s**t all over it," you can easily run most Linux programs.

I'm OS agnostic, but I've helped a few people get on OS X in the last year. I think it's a better alternative for the non-hacker non-computer savvy person in your life. Windows can be great, but your have to know what you're doing, security-wise. OS X is much more forgiving of a n00b.

My understanding was that Windows XP didn't play nice with other Operating System's. I wanted to keep Windows 98 on a seperate partition and was told that it wouldn't work. I take it this Boot Camp allows this?

Can't Mac emulate Windows?

distro of BSD Unix

[Lemur]

I haven't personally used Boot Camp (my Mac is a pre-Intel flavor), but I know several people who have it up and running. It's very nice, by all reports. Check it out. Free download from Apple.

The essential thing is to create a partition for your Windows loving. After that, it's just a question of which OS you want to boot into. It does, in fact, work for gaming.

If you want to get even slicker, there's Parallels, which allows you to run Windows in a, well, window. In other words, you can switch on the fly from an OS X environment to a Windows window. Not so good for gaming, however; it's intended for business apps.

Don't worry about the BSD Unix. My friend's complaint, in essence, is that Apple took an industrial-strength Unix environment and made it n00b-friendly. Unix guys hate that. Personally, I think it's very cool.

I've used Windows and Max OS X for years, and I've dabbled in Linux. If I have to choose an OS for a non-tech person, and they don't have some legacy app they have to use, I steer them towards Mac. It's harder to break, harder to mess up, and generally more forgiving to the user. Oh, you can break it, but unlike Windows, you have to really know what you're doing to make it go wonky.

[Ice]

Guess I'm stickng with XP Pro until this nonsense is cleared up.

[x-dANGEr]

Man, I'm getting to use this word a lot, but I fear you consider it spam, because it really isn't. In fact, it sums up lists and huge amounts of words and sentences in such a short manner that it is just beautiful to post it, and feel it's power, it's impression and the trail it leaves on those that read it:

Behold the word!

Huh!

[Mikeus Caesar]

You know, the more of your posts i read, the more tempted i am to stick with XP, and eventually upgrade to Linux or (this is quite shocking, considering my dislike of Apple) get a Mac with Boot Camp.

Man, I'm getting to use this word a lot, but I fear you consider it spam, because it really isn't. In fact, it sums up lists and huge amounts of words and sentences in such a short manner that it is just beautiful to post it, and feel it's power, it's impression and the trail it leaves on those that read it:

Behold the word!

Huh!

You could have just typed 10chars to fill up the rest of your post...

[tibilicus]

XP already phone homes as much as Vista will. Just realx about it.

[Xiahou]

XP already phone homes as much as Vista will. Just realx about it.

The essential thing is to create a partition for your Windows loving. After that, it's just a question of which OS you want to boot into. It does, in fact, work for gaming.

You also need to own your own (legit) copy of XP- bootcamp only allows you to load it. Also, I think you can forget about running any demanding games- they run slower on Mac than on a decent gaming PC.

Another alternative for gaming is Transgaming- their products (Cedega for Linux and Cider for PPC) supposedly allow Windows based games to run flawlessly under Linux or OSX. The downside is that you have to pay for the software ($5 a month or $55 a year) in order to keep it up to date with support for new game releases. Also, full support for a game will obviously lag behind the game's release date.

For my part, I've run a few Windows games under Linux by using Wine- but I admit it's probably more involved than most casual gamers are willing to deal with.

[MSB]

Thats just completely put me off putting Vista on my internet computer (I am currently running pirate windows - that dammed computer shop !). Thing is isn't this idea going to invade your privacy?

[tibilicus]

You also need to own your own (legit) copy of XP- bootcamp only allows you to load it. Also, I think you can forget about running any demanding games- they run slower on Mac than on a decent gaming PC.

Another alternative for gaming is Transgaming- their products (Cedega for Linux and Cider for PPC) supposedly allow Windows based games to run flawlessly under Linux or OSX. The downside is that you have to pay for the software ($5 a month or $55 a year) in order to keep it up to date with support for new game releases. Also, full support for a game will obviously lag behind the game's release date.

For my part, I've run a few Windows games under Linux by using Wine- but I admit it's probably more involved than most casual gamers are willing to deal with.

WGA tool? Installed as a complusary update now phones hom reguarly to check the status of the persons wndows XP.

Tib

[Xiahou]

WGA tool? Installed as a complusary update now phones hom reguarly to check the status of the persons wndows XP.

Tib

Ah, that explains why I'm not familiar with it- I dont use Windows Update anymore... havent for quite awhile actually, so I didnt get it installed. Whenever some huge, glaring security hole is in the news I just download the fix manually and apply it to any of my computers that I think could be affected. I've long been suspicious of them shoveling software on me that I dont want under the guise of a "critical security update".

It's "phone home" crap like that that made me uninstall Half-Life2 and refuse to play anything requiring Steam(which is a shame, cuz I wanted to play SiN Episodes). I absolutely can not stand having my computer go online and beg permission every time I want to use software that I've already paid for and validated. I can still remember when I bought HL2 thinking I had a whole weekend off to check it out- but then their validation server went down all day Saturday into Sunday afternoon. That did it for me- I didnt even want to play it anymore.

[drone]

WGA tool? Installed as a complusary update now phones hom reguarly to check the status of the persons wndows XP.

Tib

And if this new SPP works as well as WGA, there are going to be plenty of pissed off users and corporations. They better hire a bunch more tech support operators, because with the number of people updating to Vista or rebuilding their Vista machines right after the release date are going to demand action when their reinstalls fail due to false piracy alarms.

In the short term, the best protection against Vista piracy will be the hardware requirements. It will get hacked, but PC owners in the 2nd/3rd world countries were the most piracy occurs probably won't want to run it on their more obsolete machines. They will just stay with XP.

[BDC]

At £200 or something for the proper version of Vista, I'm probably going Linux on next pc, especially as gaming doesn't mean much anymore. With ATI owned by AMD, and the DX10 mess, PC gaming is probably on its last legs anyway.

[caravel]

WGA tool? Installed as a complusary update now phones hom reguarly to check the status of the persons wndows XP.

Tib

Not if, like me, you've disabled it, it doesn't. But you won't be able to receive further updates via windows update of course. This stops any more 'phoning home'.

It can be disabled from an internet explorer window. Go to 'Tools' -> 'Manage Add-ons' -> select from the menu 'Add-ons that have been used by Internet Explorer' -> 'Windows Genuine Advantage' set as disabled. If it's greyed out and cannot be disabled then go here:

http://grimstveit.no/jakob/blog/2006...antage-add-on/

[doc_bean]

. Thing is isn't this idea going to invade your privacy?

I forsee another big legal battle between the EU and Microsoft. Privacy matters more in Europe I guess.

[R'as al Ghul]

Excuse me?
Did I miss the memo telling us that Microsoft is now the official law-enforcer?
What does Microsoft have to do with any non-Microsoft products?
Are those secondary companies paying MS money for checking the machines?
What's the motivation behind this?

What I do on private machine is my private business. Stuff like WGA is already an annoyance, but if done right could be accaptable. Anything more is criminal. Installing a backdoor to check my installed software? Yeah, right. I predict some wonderful exploits for that, that most probably need fixing on a weekly basis, if you can prove that you bought the beast.

R'as

P.S.: Just a thought, will you be able to run it on a PC that's not connected to the web? I seriously doubt it.

Key quote:
It will mean that those who use Vista and other Microsoft products will have to put up with their systems constantly being checked online to make sure they're not using any products deemed to be pirated software.

[satchef1]

I say deemed to be pirated software because as sure as night follows day there will be many cases in which the SPP will make mistakes and label legitimately acquired software as pirated.

Anyone care to bet against Vista going nuts at Copy + Pasting the R/M/MII/S:TW directories (for modding)?

Another alternative for gaming is Transgaming- their products (Cedega for Linux and Cider for PPC) supposedly allow Windows based games to run flawlessly under Linux or OSX. The downside is that you have to pay for the software ($5 a month or $55 a year) in order to keep it up to date with support for new game releases. Also, full support for a game will obviously lag behind the game's release date.

hmm, Vista, £200. Transgaming $55/year = £30/year. Vista will last about 5 years. Total cost of Vista, £200 or 5 years Transgaming £150
TG sounds damn cheap to me!

[BDC]

Who else bets all this anti-piracy stuff is seriously downgraded in the first patch? You know, when it screws over half a dozen of their biggest corporate partners who then threaten to move to Linux or take legal action.

[caravel]

hmm, Vista, £200. Transgaming $55/year = £30/year. Vista will last about 5 years. Total cost of Vista, £200 or 5 years Transgaming £150
TG sounds damn cheap to me!

TW games still refuse to run under Cedega. I have heard of people having limited success, after great difficulty, but it's not a case of just entering it at a terminal and it's working. If it was I'd be doing it now.

[Xiahou]

TW games still refuse to run under Cedega. I have heard of people having limited success, after great difficulty, but it's not a case of just entering it at a terminal and it's working. If it was I'd be doing it now.

That's a good point- not everything works under Cedega. This link has a searchable list of officially supported games, games that work, games that partially work, and so on.

For the record, I don't use Cedega since my gaming PC runs XP Pro so Im not really an expert on it.

[TosaInu]

I forsee another big legal battle between the EU and Microsoft. Privacy matters more in Europe I guess.

Talking about that, a PC magazine (CHIP 11/06) mentioned that the US wants the EU records of cyber traffic to fight terrorism. In the US, hosting providers do not log anything, but in Europe they do.