Windows Whistler ======ANTI-PIRACY LOCK======No more Copying======

[The Sauce]

<< ...except those sold to volume-licensing customers and the so-called &quot;Royalty OEM initial install images&quot; provided to PC makers. >>



Yah, and how long do you think it will take for copies of THAT to get around???

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

hrmm... Nice thinking.

 

[Budman]

Great ideal Argo.

Ghost to the rescue again .

 

[Spook]

Blood suckers.... Everyone of these huge companies... Now Microsoft isn't happy just making us upgrade, what is it now, oh every year... Now they want up to upgrade every F'ing system, every year... but soon that won't be enough growth for them... Whats next...

 

[dkozloski]

The Academic version of Office 2000 must be activated (registered) or it disappears from your machine after it has been started 50 times. I have registered the same copy on three different machines for my daughter, they have all been started many more than 50 times and they all still work. A copy on another machine was not registered and it did indeed disappear after 50 starts but came back with no loss of data when registered.

 

[Bluga]

As for Office2000 registration issue, PCWorld has an article on this (its old news):

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In what Microsoft calls a volley against &quot;illegal installations,&quot; you must register your copy of its upcoming Office 2000 Service Release using a new Registration Wizard--or the software will expire.

Office 2000, Service Release 1 will run, prompting you to register, 50 times. If you don't heed the nudge after 50 uses, the software shuts off. The restriction applies to retail (not multilicense) versions.

To avoid this conundrum, you must register the software via e-mail, phone, snail mail, or fax by sending a 16-digit code and the country in which you live to Microsoft. In return, the company will send you an eight-digit code that entitles you to install the software on up to two machines.

When you register electronically, the Registration Wizard passes an installation ID to Microsoft's server, similar to the way a Web site cookie puts identifying information on your PC. But Microsoft says its registration process doesn't identify you as a person--it just identifies your PC.

In order to get that eight-digit installation ID, the company needs an e-mail address, phone number, street address, or some way to send the code to you. Microsoft won't use that information for marketing or pass it to third parties without your consent, promises Jackie Carriker, group manager for worldwide antipiracy marketing.

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[Castellan]

It all comes down to the fact that pirates will find a way. It's the common person that usually gets screwed on this sort of thing. The not so web saavy, e-machine buying user is not going to know how to deal with this in any sort of way, so if they upgrade, they'll be up against it.

 

[Bluga]

<< I have registered the same copy on three different machines >>



I'm confused, you can register one copy on 3 machines?

 

[NOX]

<< not all versions of Office 2000 require this activiation procedure, actually most dont. I duno which 'batch' has it and which dont though. >>



That must explain it then xtreme2k. Because I know of others who have not registered their copy of Office2k also, and it runs fine. I heard of this some time ago but wasn?t sure if they were serious, because I had yet to see Office2k do that to anyone I knew. Lucky I guess.

 

[Pyro]

Listen to Snatchface the Wise

Those OSs without this 'useful feature' will be on warez sites, irc and maybe even napster (through wrapster) LOOOOONG before whistler ever hits the shelves


its the casual users that will get hurt unless they speak out (or hopefully get mandrake )

 

[BigAl3du]

Some sort of hack will be out.

 

[dcdomain]

Oh well, this only stops the casual pirates, you know, the ones at home that buy one copy and install on multiple machines. You know what that does to the casual pirate? They don't buy the software in the first place... Microsoft loses a customer.

The real bad@$$ pirates in the foreign countries? They'll create a hack for this, or just grab one of the copies that don't require the activation and stamp out a million copies of them and then sell it on the black market.

After Win98SE, since I got started attending college, I haven't bought another piece of Microsoft product since. My school like many other schools has a license and I can borrow and install it as many times as I like. Now... will that mean I have to activate those? Or will they be &quot;academic,&quot; or some other version of the cds? It's gonna be a pain in the ass for me to register them...

Whatever, even though I'm a huge Microsoft supporter, what they are doing is stupid. This in no way helps the company at all. The real pirates will find a way around this (crack, or one of them versions that don't need to be activated). The real customers will just stop buying it. After college, I sure ain't going to buy 3 freaking copies/licenses for an overpriced product. I'll grab them from warez sites or find a friend with an unactivated copy. Or, I could just grab that free office program...

And yes I do buy the real products. Every game I've ever owned was bought, screw the copying, all that'll do is put the company that makes the game down under. I've bought all previous Microsoft products before I started attending college (even the multiple copy thing... it was easier though because it came with my OEM system)...

 

[DeathroweR]

You wanna know what's gonna be next?

- The OS would only be available for RENT over Internet.
So you'll have to pay per PC as well as per MONTH and maybe even per fukking HOUR.

 

[w9design]

Umm... I have Whistler 2410 (legally, I might add -- I'm a tester), and there is no sign of any of this authentication crap.

The initial version was removed due to issues with the product key -- maybe this has something to do with it.

 

[Bluga]

Well just wait until Microsoft .NET comes out, it will be IMPOSSIBLE to copy or image or ghost anymore.

You have to &quot;rent&quot; your operating system and software, all of the information well be stored on remote servers, it is the ultimate pirate killer.

 

[barryng]

What Microsoft and all other software vendors refuse to understand is that their licensing agreements are not reasonable or practical. My wife and I each have a desktop and a laptop. Who in their right mind would expect personal users such as us to buy four copies of the same program. I am not about to sell our software or give it away but I'll be damned if I am going to buy more than one copy for our own personal use. It just will not happen. When the software vendors recognize this I will respect their licensing agreements. Until then they are not worth the disk space they are stored on.

 

[Zenmervolt]

To avoid this conundrum, you must register the software via e-mail, phone, snail mail, or fax by sending a 16-digit code and the country in which you live to Microsoft. In return, the company will send you an eight-digit code that entitles you to install the software on up to two machines.

So, if you write to MS and get the code, you could then theoretically just input the same code into an unlimited number of installations and there is no way for MS to know. The CD certainly can't know if you're using it the second or the 2,000th time, as long as you have that extra 8 digit code, you're home free. Just register by mail.

Docdomain, I agree with you completely. If I want a piece of software, I buy it. However, I'm sure as hell not going to buy a copy for each computer. For example, I have Riven installed on both my laptop and on my home system, but since I'm the only one who uses Riven in my family, and since it's really hard to play to simultaneous games of Riven, it doesn't bother me that I have the software on two systems. As far as OS's go, I personally prefer the ease of a restore CD for laptops, because there are so many device specific drivers, but on any desktop that I build myself I see no reason to buy multiple copies of an OS when I don't need all the specificity of a restore CD.

 

[chiwawa626]

<< Microsoft Product Activation for Windows,&quot; (WPA) according to testers. >>



key word is testers. testers have already pirated whistler and through it all over the net....What happen to &quot;Dvds their so crazy we can never copy them&quot; a while later people are ripping them all over the place. Trust me microsoft cant stop whistlers pirating

 

[Grminalac]

Everyone seems to be complaining about the anti piracy lock. In theory I do not blame microsoft at all for doing this, how many users out there can actually say they paid for another copy of windows for every pc they own? As you all know, and was previously stated in this thread you are supposed to. The license you have is for one pc only. Consequently you don't even own your copy of windows, it is microsoft's property, they are just basically allowing you to use it. It does sound harsh, but you are actually stealing the product by installing it on more than once machine.
Now comes the real question. Will it be financially sound for microsoft to do this? My guess is probably not. Its easily understandable that most of the money microsoft makes comes from corporate use, institutional use and gov't use of their products. Do these people pirate software? No. In fact under these circumstances probably nobody does.
Software pirating comes into play with home users and other countries. People who cannot afford a new copy of windows 2000. People in china who cannot afford it either. Will making it impossible for these people to copy the product generate revenue for microsoft? I doubt it, in fact I doubt they will see a higher return than what they would spend to keep the registering system up and running. The software corporation complains all the time about money lost from piracy, in my view the loss is a LOT less than they claim. Software companies only really take a loss when someone who would have purchased the product instead copies it illegally. The company does not really take a loss when Joe Q. Hacker downloads Adobe Premier screws around with it to make a video for his website and then never uses it again. Why? because Joe Q. Hacker would have never paid the large chunk of change for adobe premier in the first place.
I admit myself when I was in college i did copy Windows 2000 on my computer. Simply because I could not afford it. I tinkered about with it and was impressed. Now that I am out of college I went ahead and purchased a nice legal copy. Partially because of the previous use. So maybe in my case a bit of piracy led to a product purchased that I might not have. (I shudder at the thought that I mgiht be running windows me instead.)
Anyway, another view on the subject and something to think about.

 

[AmdEmAll]

When is Whistler gonna be for sale? My brother &quot;says&quot; his friend has a copy of it. I will have to see it to believe it. If he does have a copy some how I will have to get that installed pronto.

 

[Spagina]

Yeah, but I wonder how much money Micro$haft is losing when people buy one copy for their homes, especially since Bill Gates made an ungodly amount of money. I don't see how Microsoft is suffering. What I'm beginning to notice is that companies are beginning to try to pry into our personal lives. I don't want to sound like I'm someone huge on the conspiracy theory ordeal, but I don't want a company peeking at my hard drive all the time. It's my business, and Microsoft, or IBM, or any of those companies have no right to tell me if I can't copy a file or do this or do that. These companies need to start looking at what their doing, or everyone will start to abandon their products. I myself, if Microsoft puts this in Whistler, I'll go to Linux full-time and forget Microsoft. Most of the games I play have been ported to Linux, so I won't be missing much. I'll just be gaining a stable operating system that doesn't cost me $100 every year.

 

[randomlinh]

btw, StarOffice ain't that great... i guess i'm too used to the word feel of things.

 

[nippyjun]

Who will crack it first!

 

[CHiMPBizKiT]

When is Whistler due out? Anyone know?

 

[Bluga]

Officialy it should be out by the end of this year.