Vista to Allow "One Significant" Hardware Upgrade 641
fiorenza writes "Ars Technica spoke with Microsoft concerning the controversial changes in Windows Vista's licensing, and they have learned that Vista will permit one 'significant' hardware change before requiring users to either appeal to Microsoft support or purchase another license. Automatic re-activation online will fail after one use. Microsoft is using a new algorithm to monitor hardware changes and enforce licensing compliance, and the company says that it is more forgiving now than it was with Windows XP."
So basically (Score:3, Insightful)
aside from the various "grey" hacks and cracks that *WILL* come out of this - this is a very poor choice for MS imo.
If it looks like a sale, it is a sale, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm poor man (Score:2, Insightful)
Man, it sucks being poor.
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:4, Insightful)
As a small-business owner who spends all day just configuring/fixing/testing/developing/working, I can tell you right now.....This would pound the last nail into the coffin for using MS products for me. MS obviously doesn't care about people that have to make things WORK and have little time to do so. After I have spend a few hundred hours tweaking a mail server that will have to deliver 100,000 messages per day, or a web farm that has to work FLAWLESSLY and serve hundreds of millions of hits per month, this one thing that I would not want to have to deal with, especially when I have to add/change a network interface to accomodate a SAN development or some other change where we don't have time to worry about such nonsensical shit as "Will the OS allow us to do this"
Screw that. My shop will stay Linux anyway, but that is just BS!
- Eric
I need to be "forgiven" to upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's uncomfortable to be in the situation that when I want to upgrade my computer, I need to be "forgiven".
--
The best of the Bush comedy videos [futurepower.org]
This really might not be THAT much of a problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest benefit of a PC over buying something like a Mac was specifically upgrades. The ability to purchase a new video card for a relatively low price when games start requiring more than you can handle, etc. So effectively, this makes the PC lose its greatest benefit. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Fuck you, Microsoft. Some of the other stuff that was new in their license kinda bothered me a bit, but it didn't really affect me much. But I'm a casual gamer, and this makes it impossible.
"Bite Not The Hand That Feeds, Children." (Score:2, Insightful)
We will tell you when and where you may apply your licensed software. Do not try to trick us, because we will know. This hurts us more than it hurts you. It's for your own good. This is the only way we can protect our ability to deliver robust, secure software on-time and on-demand.
Thank you Linus. I mean, seriously. Thank you. Whose chaps would we be sucking if it weren't for you?
Re:If it looks like a sale, it is a sale, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If it looks like a sale, it is a sale, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This really might not be THAT much of a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If it looks like a sale, it is a sale, right? (Score:2, Insightful)
I never understood the idea of selling software, until I realized that software is never sold. For Microsoft, selling software would make no sense, because they couldn't really tell you not to decompile it, as long as you weren't breaking patent or copyright laws. Naturally, Microsoft doesn't want this to happen, since it would allow people to figure out their various proprietary protocols and formats [and then write a description and have somebody else implement...], as well as turn a "home edition" into a thousand-user server.
windows activation (Score:5, Insightful)
Long Live Windows 2000, I guess (Score:3, Insightful)
It looks like forced activation and DRM is the wave of the future. MS gained their monopoly by creating an operating system (DOS and Windows up and including 2000) that can be ran on any old PC. MS used to not care about charging you for another license of Windows when you upgraded your PC multiple times; they figured that it was great that you were using Windows instead of OS/2, NEXTSTEP, DR-DOS, or the other alternatives at the time. Since they gained 95% market share, they repay you by implementing restrictive activation schemes that get worse with each release of Windows.
I say, no thanks. Me and thousands of other people will still hold on to our Windows 2000 disks. Even though I don't use Windows anymore (too bad Boot Camp for Mac doesn't support Windows 2000), I know plenty of people who haven't gone to XP because of this. Activation negatively inconviences (and sometimes even locks out) those who legally buy their software (no activation scheme is perfect); those who illegally obtain their software can just download a cracked version or a corporate version of it. I don't want treated as a pirate as a customer. But that is how MS wants to treat us. Oh well. I'm not buying any new versions of Windows or Office for this Mac; I'm sticking to Windows 2000 and Office 2000.
Viva Windows 2000!
How many upgrades does it take.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, then a Mac becomes my change ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Cars (Score:4, Insightful)
> What?!? Doesn't make sense? That's because when you buy something you should be able to do what you want with it.
Sorry dude, the infection has already spread. Go buy a house, cash money. Think you own it? Only if you bought a chunk of land in a very red state far away from any town.... of course most places like that are subject to being declared a wetland, wildlife preserve or national park with no prior warning.
That house you think you bought was probably built by a developer in a major development project. They retained first dibs on it, selling you limited 'rights'. And if you will notice you agreed to annual fees to a 'homeowners association' that can and will tell you exactly what sort of renovations you can and can't do, what vehicles you can park, etc. Many even regulate against you erecting a TV antenna.
And if that isn't enough, if your home is inside a city you may only use it for non-commercial purposes. And regardless of whether you live in a city/town, don't forget you get the 'right' to pay and pay property taxes to find any and all crazy schemes the government can invent.
So yes, shrink wrap EULAs are horrible, but only because you can't see em until you pay, but we already bent over and surrendered the idea of property rights a century ago.
Re:So basically (Score:2, Insightful)
I've had to re-activate Windows XP several times, as I've been known to tinker with the hardware quite a bit. It takes about 10 minutes to call their support center, tell a support rep an ID, and have them open the key up for re-registration. A small pain? Sure. A reason for anti-MS zealots to bicker? Absolutely. A serious show stopper? Not even close.
Like it or not, this is GOOD news as the new key authentication is more lax than XP. Might not be as open as you'd all like, but it's an improvement.
Re:If it looks like a sale, it is a sale, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need to be "forgiven" to upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Bite Not The Hand That Feeds, Children." (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Virtualization (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Microsoft is pushing hard. Soon, they will push too hard, and mass migration away from them wills start to occur (I know, I know, this has been said since 1992...).
Re:One significant change of hardware (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Now imagine a GPL v2 OS imposes the same (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hasta La Vista MS (Score:1, Insightful)
I play at least one hour of PC games daily. Because the majority of games I play are written specifically for Windows, I've used 3.11, 95, and XP exclusively at home for the past 10 years. In that time, I have never, repeat, never had a configuration of PC components (hard drives, motherboard, processor, memory) stay the same for the life cycle of a Windows release.
Redmond cannot match the hardware manufacturer's ability to innovate and get a product to market quickly, either because of their organization's nature or the nature of the O/S software business. Yet, according to their PR, they will seek to bind their users to their slow inception to release cycle and penalize their licensees with extra costs should they seek to exploit any new hardware innovations.
For the past 20 years, the MS PC's advantage over other architectures has been the ability to upgrade hardware peicemeal. If MicroSoft abolishes this, I see no reason why not to consider a Mac as my next computer. I'll just build/purchase a NAS running on Linux to avoid Apple's uncompetitive storage costs, switch to console gaming (Sony or Nintendo) and not look back. Yes, I would love to switch to LINUX as my main O/S, but it doesn't support communicating with my DSLR and getting its RAW formatted images. Plus, I'm hooked to the Adobe Photoshop workflow for better or worse.
It seems to me that Redmond is committed to making their O/S the worst choice for enthusiasts and custom machine builders. This is not a wise move, as we are the first contact for friends/family/business colleagues who look to our opinions for all things computers. DRM (although Apple suffers from this too), activation, broken security... it's all added up to me definitely not purchasing Vista even for DirectX 10 support. But this is the last nail in the coffin, now I couldn't even possibly consider purchasing Vista only to have to turn right around and purchase another license when I upgrade my video card.
The more you tighten your licenses MS, the more users will slip through your fingers.
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a lot of huge business who buy thousands of bulk licenses, and they are MS' favorite customers.
But worldwide, there are probably millions of small businesses who are subject to the same decision; that will impact MS VERY significantly.
This reminds me of a decade ago when people used AOL instead of local dial-up because "AOL has 8 million customers... your local ISP has about 2000... clearly, they're America's favorite choice" but neglect that adding up the many local dial-up ISPs everywhere constitutes tens of millions of customers.
MS won't change their mind because this one guy is switching his little business to Linux. But when thousands of his competitors, parteners and peers do, they'll start thinking about it.
I don't see why you can't tell Windows "Hey, I'm going to switch hardware now, please deactivate my old license on this (point to HD and folder) installation and switch it to this new hard drive/computer/set of hardware". If Windows phoned home periodically to check its authenticity, like it does when you update it, MS might have to upgrade their WGA servers & whatnot, but it would prevent all this aggrevation. If the deactivated license tries to update (or just phone home on schedule), it locks them out and directs them to MS support.
I feel fucked because people pirate Windows all the time, get to play all their games & whatnot (the only reason I have Windows, plus a few full feature drivers that aren't there under Linux) and know how not to get screwed by malware, but I actually paid for it against my will because it was the right thing to do, and yet I'm worried sick about what happens if my HD dies, or I want to move my install to another disk or something. You can call them once or twice, but if you do it all the time, they get suspicious don't they? I don't want to be flagged as a (potential) pirate. I'm used to reinstalling Windows a couple of times a year (albeit less often with XP), and I'm fine with that.
They sure aren't working very hard to come up with an adequate solution to their problem... I may not be their favorite customer, but I still paid like $150 for an OEM XP Pro, and I feel like what they're doing isn't ethical. That should be reason enough to find a better solution. Yeah I know, nothing's perfect and they don't have to.
I salute MS with my long finger.
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ha Ha. Only Serious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm, that got mod'ed mostly as "Funny", yet when I read it, chills ran up and down my spine.
I think there's rather more truth than not in the parent post. Remember, Microsoft owns that "copy of Windows" on that CD; you do not. Microsoft just lets you use it, for a fee. That's the deal, and they reserve the right to alter the deal at any point. That's what the EULA says, and the congress and the courts have largely agreed with them (or been paid to do so; it amounts to the same thing).
Beware the Dark Side. Once you turn down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
Re:MOD PARENT UP. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, gotta lay the blame squarely on myself for this one. I bought Microsoft products for many years. It won't happen again, I promise. Now that I have taken care of
It is NOT the government's responsibility to insure I don't buy products from companies that have bad policies. It is mine. I don't need, nor want, the government to get involved whatsoever. Most governments tend to fuck up anything they get involved in.
Re:New Hardware Found..... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have to ask what kind of 'small business' you are in. It would be different if you, say, were admining boxes from businesses with, say, 10,000 employees delivering said 100,000 messages. It's plain what you are.
Significant Upgrade? (Score:2, Insightful)
Acts of God? (Score:3, Insightful)
Under this act of God, beyond my control, M$ would have required me to call and beg for a new key.
No thanks. It was overwhelming enough to purchase a tower, reinstall the OS and the apps, and recover from backups. And that was during a job hunt so the PC was critical to my career during a very stressful period. The last thing I needed is to deal with re-activating the OS.
My upgrade path after W2K will be Mac. I have no desire to jump through activation hoops. Brilliant M$, you've just reduced your monopoly on the PC OS market...!