Safrax - Slashdot User

Vista Games Cracked to Run on XP 376

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday June 26, 2007 @11:04AM from the now-they-have-a-market dept.

Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.

Microsoft's Virtualization Stance Eying Apple? 238

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday June 26, 2007 @09:41AM from the shifty-glances dept.

Pisces writes "Over the past several days, Microsoft has flip-flopped on virtualization in Vista, with one ascribing the change in policy to concerns over DRM. A piece at Ars Technica raises another, more likely possibility: fear of Apple. Apple is technically an OEM, and could offer copies of Vista at a discounted price. 'All of this paints a picture in which Apple could use OEM pricing to offer Windows for its Macs at greatly reduced prices and running in a VM. The latter is absolutely crucial; telling users that they need to reboot into their Windows OS isn't nearly as sexy as, say, Coherence in Parallels. If you've never seen Coherence, it's quite amazing. You don't need to run Windows apps in a VM window of Vista. Instead, the apps appear to run in OS X itself, and the environment is (mostly) hidden away. VMWare also has similar technology, dubbed Unity.' Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?"

Mono Coders Hack Linux Silverlight in 21 Days 409

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 25, 2007 @11:55AM from the break-out-the-red-bull-and-go-go-go dept.

Etrigoth writes "After the recent announcement of Silverlight by Microsoft at their Mix event in Vegas, Miguel de Icaza galvanised his team of developers in the Mono group at Novell to create a Linux implementation, a so-called 'Moonlight'. Remarkably, they achieved this in 21 Days. Although they were first introduced to Silverlight at the Las Vegas Mix, de Icaza was invited by a representative of Microsoft France for a 10 minute demonstration at the Paris Re-Mix 07 keynote conference, should they have anything to show.
Joshua, a blogger for Microsoft has confirmed that the Mono team did not know anything about Silverlight 1.1 before its launch. Other members of this team have blogged about this incredible achievement, Moonlight hack-a-thon. It's worth noting from a developer perspective that Moonlight is not Mono and doesn't require Mono to work"

Virtualization May Break Vista DRM 294

Posted by Zonk on Saturday June 23, 2007 @11:53PM from the couldn't-they-have-just-said-that dept.

Nom du Keyboard writes "An article in Computerworld posits that the reason Microsoft has flip-flopped on allowing all versions of Vista to be run in virtual machines, is that it breaks the Vista DRM beyond detection, or repair. So is every future advance in computer security and/or usability going to be held hostage to the gods of Hollywood and Digital Restrictions Management? 'Will encouraging consumer virtualization result in a major uptick in piracy? Not anytime soon, say analysts. One of the main obstacles is the massive size of VMs. Because they include the operating system, the simulated hardware, as well as the software and/or multimedia files, VMs can easily run in the tens of gigabytes, making them hard to exchange over the Internet. But DeGroot says that problem can be partly overcome with .zip and compression tools -- some, ironically, even supplied by Microsoft itself.'"

Submission + - More Allegations of Developer Misconduct in EVE

Submitted by umilmi81 on Friday May 25, 2007 @06:14PM

umilmi81 writes: The EVE Online player based alliance GoonSwarm has published an open letter, including screen shots, accusing CCP employees of joining a member corporation, giving himself director level permissions, and then leaving the corporation.

In-game petitions sent to CCP about the incident were subsequently deleted. A forum moderator acknowledged the accusations, and has directed the matter to internal affairs.

CCP created an internal affairs department after admitting developer misconduct on previous occasions.

Submission + - Vista SP1 due in the Autumn?

Submitted by

mad zambian

on Monday April 23, 2007 @11:41PM

mad zambian writes: "Early news on Vista SP1, taken from Personal Computer World. PCW
"Intel chief executive Paul Otellini has let slip the release date of the first service pack for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.
Otellini said during an earnings call for the chipmaker's first-quarter financial results that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will probably arrive "in the October-November time frame".
Rest of the story here. Story"

Submission + - Klipsch Speakers going Silent

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22, 2007 @06:56PM

An anonymous reader writes: Klipsch, one of America's oldest speaker companies, seems to be suffering from a backlash against problems with their promedia ultra 2.0 speakers. First available in late 2005, the Promedia Ultra 2.0 speakers were sold as an up market 2 speaker multimedia solution. After just falling out of warranty, many users are reporting problems with sound cutting out and hiss on the volume control.

For many users, they are just outside of their warranty period, making a premium set of speakers a very short term investment.

Submission + - Is Windows Vista in trouble?

Submitted by Ken Erfourth on Sunday April 22, 2007 @06:39PM

Ken Erfourth writes: I'm a small computer shop owner, and I have noticed how little interest my customers have in Windows Vista. Now, the Inquirer.net is running a story about what they consider two powerful indications that Vista is failing in the marketplace.

One, Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand. Two, Microsoft is conducting a worldwide firesale on a bundle of Microsoft Office 2007/WindowsXP Starter Edition. According to Inquirer.net, at least, these are signs of serious problems selling Vista.

Are we seeing the stumbling of the Microsoft Juggernaught with the slow adoption of Windows Vista?

Submission + - Man Kept Off Flight Because of Book

Submitted by

bossesjoe

on Sunday April 22, 2007 @04:12PM

bossesjoe writes: "A man was stopped from boarding his flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix when a random luggage search revealed a copy of Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey. The book prominently features a bomber on the cover holding sticks of dynamite and was enough for the security officials to detain him. Later he was also told because he purchased his ticket on September 11th, 2001 (even though it was before the attacks) and because of his expired driver's license (which was not expired) that could not take the flight. After purchasing another ticket for a later date he again detained and searched but was allowed to pass through security forty five minutes after being cleared. Is this what airport security has come to?"

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