No big deal. It'll take 2 weeks and the crackers will have a patch.
and I would also guess this will not apply to corporate volume-license installations, like all the pirates use anyways.
Or, if you just cant download them, updates will become like "warez"
yay -- go microsoft.
Further evidence that Microsoft just WANTS to lose its dominance in the marketplace. The Chinese may use counterfeit copies, but they are using the Microsoft products. That Microsoft is doing this means that Microsoft will be replaced by Linux in a lot of boxes there. I don't mean to say they can't assert their property rights any way they see fit, but I can certainly understand why the average Chinese guy operating a basement PC room doesn't wanna pay $200 for a single box's Microsoft commercial use "license."
Until they figure out a better way to move product (perhaps lowering their licensing fees in growing markets) Microsoft is just pushing people into Papa Linus's waiting arms. Communists ought to be predisposed to prefer communitarianism anyway.
Microsoft ping!
I say if it's good for prescription drugs, then it's gotta be good for software! I call for the re-importation of Windoze from the $10 country!
I don't mind the system checking to see that I have paid for my operating system. But I will be extremely annoyed if I have to go fish out the Windows installation CD every time I update, the way they make you do with MS Office.
Also, what will this do to their highly vaunted automatic updates? If they can do this seamlessly, fine. If you have to jump through hoops every time you update, a lot of people will be angry, including me.
Why isn't there a "means test" price for software in the USofA?
So the non-authentic systems would be free to continue to spur viruses that predominantly attack Windows users who don't know enough about how to maintain their own machine.
Geez, this is why folks should buy a Mac.
*yawn*
(Mepis Linux user)
We're already verifying the XP key is legit with the activation scheme, now this? I can understand Microsoft wanting to protect their copyright but at the same time if they start becoming too draconian and making things inconvenient all they'll do is push more people to their competitors.
Exactly if they lowered the costs to the consumer more people would buy it, I work as an IT, I have my own consulting firm and whenever I go to a site that is still using 9x I try to talk them into upgradeing to XP because it is more stable and secure, but most people do not want to pay $150+ per computer to upgrade, now if you could get it for $40 or $50 a lot more people would legally upgrade when the upgrades came out.
A lot of corporations like Microsoft blame high costs on the amount of priacy so they increase the price to make up for the illegal software, but in reality the high prices make priacy more worth it.
Is that about right?
No problem. All of my software is legal. People who steal software are thieves.
On another note, after 14 months of screwing around, I finally got RedHat 9 to print on my XP network printer this afternoon.
Microsoft: shooting themselves in the foot for a new century.
I am no great fan of Microsoft, but this is not about them - it is about pirates who take things that aren't theirs. Since when does FR endorse Robin Hood socialism? Just because the owner is a liberal weenie?
This is about folks like the Chinese stealing our technology - which they can't seem to devise on their own (look at the missile technology they stole when Loral's satellite mysteriously "blew up" during an failed launch).
Microsoft could cut the price in half and some third world j$rk $ff would still bootleg it.
If the Chinese really want to steal from Microsoft - legitimately - they can use open source Linux and develop the apps for same. Only then will MS think about reducing its price.
This was bound to happen. I think Media Player 10 already has some sort of key-check in place.
As MS and other vendors lose ground because the "new" market is falling, they have to shift into the maintenance/upgrade market.
So expect to be offered premium tech support... for a nickle.
And expect that soon, you will not "buy and own" the OS you run. It WILL be a subscription service of some kind.
I did it. It was not a big deal, particularly since I am using legit Windows.
Now, I bet somebody will find a way to circumvent it.
Even activation codes, a new-fangled replacement for just typing in serial numbers, can be worked around very easily. I am not some hacker, and I can do it very easily, at least with Adobe's stuff.
I doubt MS' verification will work for long.