Microsoft Will Allow Vista Reinstalls

Claus Valca writes "I just spotted over on the Windows Vista Team Blog the news that the Windows Vista retail licensing terms are being revised. Looks like PC home-brew system builders have been let back into the Vista party!" From the article: "Our intention behind the original terms was genuinely geared toward combating piracy; however, it's become clear to us that those original terms were perceived as adversely affecting an important group of customers: PC and hardware enthusiasts. You who comprise the enthusiast market are vital to us for several reasons, not least of all because of the support you've provided us throughout the development of Windows Vista. We respect the time and expense you go to in customizing, building and rebuilding your hardware and we heard you that the previous terms were seen as an impediment to that — it's for that reason we've made this change."

Er..

Looks like Microsoft has just discovered this PC and hardware enthusiasts group?!

Re:Er..

Why don't you repeat "M$" in your message a few more times to show everyone how 1337 you really are.

Re:Time is a valuable commodity...

Bah - should have previewed...

In many cases, the actual amount of time required looks like this:

Time to rebuild from scratch is less than 4 hours.
Time to discover root cause is greater than 4 hours.

Each method has it's good points, each it's bad. When it was just me, and I had hours to devote to discovery, that's the root that I chose. Now, with my son, girlfriend, house repairs, etc., it just doesn't make sense to invest that much time in discovery. Besides, it's not like my Win gaming computer is an HA server.

Re:Er..

If I wasn't a gamer, I'd be running Linux everywhere, that's for sure. It does everything but the game. Sure the UI isn't as slick feeling, it looks okay, though. Integration isn't very tight, but the functionality is there. A few driver problems but I would probably do the work and overcome them.

I'd say there's a choice, but the best choice is often Windows anyway.

Having said that, Microsoft have never tried to pull the kind of crap Sony did with that rootkit. WGA is less intrusive than outright backdooring and spying on your userbase. And Sony's official line on that right up until they got their arses kicked was "Users don't know what a rootkit is, so why should they care?"

Microsoft has never done anything that evil or stupid. Worst thing MS ever did in my opinion was knifing Netscape. But companies do that kind of thing all the time anyway. From what I can tell, half the people on /. are kind of happy that MS is doing it to Symantec's AV section.

Re:Great!

except the game box, that runs 98se (with tweaks for large amounts of RAM of course).

You're kidding, right? Support for Windows 98 in almost anything is already pretty much dead and Vista's release will probably mark it's death. DirectX 10 will only run on Vista. Almost all new hardware comes with no (or crappy) Windows 98 support. Unless you're playing games like Oregon Trail and Starcraft, Windows 98 is *not* a gaming platform.

Don't see me complaining about WGA

WGA problems are overstated. I've never had any problems, and I don't know anyone personally who has (except those who got their product keys from what we might call "alternative sources". I won't say they don't exist, but for 99.99% of legitimate users it's likely not a problem.

or stupid, graphics heavy UIs

I love the dualism on Slashdot. First it's, "Windows is finally getting a fancy UI like OSX and Linux! Geez, took the copycats long enough!" The next day the same people crow, "Stupid XP and Vista GUI uses too many resources! I'm sticking with NT 4!"

I suppose if you have a Pentium II then XP's GUI might be considered "heavy", but in any case, you can turn it off.

What the heck is going on?

First Microsoft partners with Novell to support Linux and now they are responding to a request regarding a license change in an all too human way, with normal human words and everything. It reminds me of an old Dilbert strip:

If aliens kidnap and then impersonate Steve Ballmer, is it a bad thing?
It depends on the aliens...

wow to you ...

Funny how every comment was almost exactly like "Thanks, thats great!" with only one guy bringing up any kind of discussion.

Whats to discuss? They announced that they are changing the reinstallation restrictions.

If (hypothetically speaking) the sysadmins had been blocking slashdot at your place of work work, and then unblocked it, would you say thanks or go on a tirade of why they should have done it differently in the first place? Which is more productive?

Not trying to start a flame here, but it was strange seeing people who -like- Microsoft!

I feel more productive in Word than Open Office. I am more productive in Visual Studio than gvim/kdevelop (although I am quite capable in gvim ... actually I do most of my development nowadays in linux under the current contract ). It is a matter of preference, that's all it boils down to. When you work in a world that deals in Microsoft and become accustomed to those tools, some of them are actually damn good tools, and you can pry them from my cold, dead, fingers :P

I know why they're really doing it

I think Microsoft woke up to the fact that "PC and hardware enthusiasts" provide billions of dollars worth of free technical support to friends (read: anybody who finds out that you're good with computers). This is something we'd be markedly less willing to do if we didn't use Windows ourselves.

Erh... this is something to celebrate?

What will we celebrate next? That you can actually expect a system to be safe? That you can run and install software without being administrator? That you can create a SSL tunnel to it?

That's something I expect from my OS. Yes, I'm greedy and brazen like that to expect that.

What's next, MS threatening to take away our ability to run third party software and then suddenly "reallowing" it, and we'll celebrate them as the next messiah for it?

Folks, don't be silly here. The only reason they stepped back was that a lot of people voiced their concerns and said that they will not buy it under those conditions. They don't do us a service by allowing us to use a system we license.

We do them a service by licensing it.