Vista to Take Hard Stand Against Piracy

Excite News ^ | 4 October 2006 | ALLISON LINN

[ShadowAce]

Fedora sux IMHO, I like PcLinuxOS and Mepis better on the linux side,...

That's a big reason to like Linux. If you don't like one distro, there's probably another one out there that does work for you.

[kms61]

I'm not a pirate, but MS's trend of making their products more of a pain in the a$$ to use and/or upgrade is pushing me toward Apple and/or Linux.

[Echo Talon]

Linux is ok but the support is poor(I know the community is helpful, im talking about oem support) especially multimedia support. flash, streaming video etc. i know i have tried HOURS/DAYS/MONTHS to get it all working its still buggy to say the least. you know mplayer/kaffeine etc.

Flash 7 works beautifully with linux and I wish everyone would use the standard but thats not the case.. :(

like chicagobears.com or commedycentral.com etc..

[Space Wrangler]

Bookmark

[zeugma]

Arr!

I'm sorry, but "Talk Like a Pirate Day" was a couple of weeks ago. 

[L98Fiero]

"Advice to Microsoft:"

That was good advice, IMO.

[longtermmemmory]

It seems anti-piracy equals security holes.

The "revolution" in vista is the effort to have the OS be self policing on piracy without contacting MS HQ.

This way there are no "leaks"

The real fact is that MS is pushing more and more to the montly utility style of billing for the low end consumer.

We need a realistic solution for the "low end" consumer who just wants to open the box and go. MS knows they have the 99.9% of the market that is this low end consumer.

[Calvin Locke]

Instead of Bill Gates, you're signing on with Bill Clinton?

[Revolting cat!]

Oh yeah? Bring it on Microsoft, we're ready!

[marvlus]

Im loving Ubuntu too much to care about Vista.

Ditto that, and this has nothing to do with what Bill Clinton said. he probably doesn't know what Linux is.

[mysterio]

Cool. Pissed off customers will create a market for another operating system.

[Still Thinking]

I can be, and you'd never know the difference! But you're right, it's not my basic inclination.

[kingu]

And MS is still making a profit off of me if I buy it for $12, because the cost of producing the CD and box is pennies, and shipping's maybe $1.50 or $2.00.

I'm part of the Vista Beta program. I had Vista installed on two machines, a laptop and a desktop. Both are now Vista free. Most of what they're offering is available through third party utilities, and the overhead for the OS is insane. Honestly, I don't get Microsoft. I have four desktops and four laptops, serving various purposes. Two of the desktops are Digital Video Recorders - their main job in life is to watch the television I don't have time to watch. One of the desktops is used by my daughter to do schoolwork on, play games, browse the net, the final desktop keeps my mother-in-law happy. The four laptops are used either for watching the DVR recordings, DVDs or for writing.

To upgrade these machines to Vista would require about $800 in hardware, and a whopping $1200 in OS. Add on the new version of Office to the six used computers for another $1800. $3000 to 'upgrade' them all.

Yeah, I could see doing it for $500, but it works out as a yearly license to be $1000 a year, assuming the usual three year turnaround for the next version. A grand a year? It's not worth it. So the options are either a) buy one copy, install it on multiple computers (violating copyright), or b) not bother.

I'll be in the 'not bother' category. I've given Microsoft more than enough money.

[Clara Lou]

MS doesn't have to worry about me pirating a copy--I'm going Linux the next time I get a new computer.

[Clara Lou]

Likewise. I'm doing Kubuntu, actually. It's made by communists, I s'pose, but it's free and great.

[Constantine XIII]

Ubuntu for the win!

[Constantine XIII]

Oooh, they're going to stop releasing security updates for 2000 soon, or so I've heard.

[Constantine XIII]

We'll hang the last communist with the rope he gave us for free. ;)

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Why cripple it??

Why not just put up a big nag screen that can't be closed that states, "Microsoft believes your copy of the Vista Operating System is not genuine. Please call 1-800-microsoft for further information and assistance."

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"...people (will) cling to XP in order to avoid this..."

I will cling to XP and eschew Vista because I paid a lot for 3 XP Licenses and I like XP.

If MS wants to transfer those licenses to Vista, I might try it. Other than that I'm not shelling out a dime just because they say it's time for a change.

I'm sure there are a lot of Win98se users out there who feel the same way.