And another Vista question

dandy72

> > He wanted to download the updates at work and bring them home. Just as he had been doing successfully for years. > I never knew that worked for virus defintions. Learn something new everyday. I've been getting my NAV updates from here[^] for years as well.

Jeremy Falcon

David Wulff wrote:

Actually, that isn't as true as you seem to believe. I have three friends who go to uni and, naturally, whine about never having any cash. In the past when they have upgraded their PCs they have downloaded a pirate version of Windows. Now they have all bought OEM licenses*, so they went from illegal to legal purely because of the activation/WGA features in Windows XP reducing the piracy ease. That is three cases where Microsft's anti-piracy features have reduced piracy and turned them into paying customers (rather than pushing them onto different platforms).

Glad that happened, but you can't assume 3 cases is enough to base any real claims on. I have have/had a friend who didn't stop even after MS put that in, so that's one case were it didn't do anything to match your three. My point is, you can't stop warez. Even with that, a one time activation I can live with, but it seems that MS is always pushing us with something new. I doubth this is the last "jump" legit people will have to endure.

Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]

Jeremy Falcon

Well, I'd like to think the less savvy users wouldn't know one way or the other, just use whatever shows up on the PC you buy. But, the fact is there's always a way to circumvent these things, and I doubt that those that do pirate will be stopped just because these periodic check up has to happen now.

Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]

David Wulff

Jeremy Falcon wrote:

one case were it didn't do anything to match your three

One case matches three? Of course you can't stop dedicated thieves from stealing - they could steal a computer with Windows already activated if they wanted to, but by making it more difficult to steal it and giving more opportunities to buy legal there will always be more people taking the easy route. People need to get over this impression that an OS is some optional feature to add to a new computer - it isn't, it is as much a part of it as the motherboard or CPU. If they don't want to pay for that then there are plenty of other alternatives.

Ðavid Wulff Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (video)
10 PRINT 'HELLO MAINTAINER: GOTO HELL

Jeremy Falcon

David Wulff wrote:

One case matches three?

It wasn't a competition, at least on my part. It was to give an idea that it doesn't deter everyone.

David Wulff wrote:

Of course you can't stop dedicated thieves from stealing

And those dedicated ones will most likey have their work/efforts posted online for others to use. I realize a select few that may not know better, have a change of heart, take the easy route, or whatever may start ponying up the cash because of it. But, by and large it didn't stop piracy and won't continue to stop it. I mean, if activation completely stopped it, I'd think MS would've left well enough alone. The point I'm addressing is what's next? When does it stop? What crap must be shoved down the legit users throats? They'll never stop piracy, so in the end you get a few more bucks but force millions of legit users to get through a PITA. As much money as MS spends on marketing and wasting on the xbox, you'd think it wouldn't be as big a deal. However, my guess is this is really because of the decline in sales since Win2k, but that's just speculation. My secondary point is, I find it odd how they only care about piracy so much now, many many many years after the first version of Windows came to be.

Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]

Jeremy Falcon

And btw, I'd wager the decline in sales had less to do with pirating and more to do with MS not pushing out anything really new and unique in over a decade, bad press on Window's security, etc.

Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]

David Wulff

What decline in sales are you referring to?

Jeremy Falcon wrote:

MS not pushing out anything really new and unique in over a decade

Windows XP was a vast improvement for home users, and pretty significant for business users too, with more stability, more security and more support. If you think security is bad now then try supporting some average users on Windows 2000 and 98/Me machines. XP SP2 brought even more, and that was a free-of-cost upgrade.

Ðavid Wulff Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (video)
10 PRINT 'HELLO MAINTAINER: GOTO HELL

Jeremy Falcon

David Wulff wrote:

What decline in sales are you referring to?

Well, the one in mind is Win2K. It still never sold as much as MS had expected last I read.

David Wulff wrote:

Windows XP was a vast improvement for home users

It may be a bit more secure, but it's not secure by any means. Besides, I said new and unique, and nothing of the sorts has been put out by MS since Windows 95, everything else is only something power users/programmers/geeks care about.

Jeremy Falcon A multithreaded, OpenGL-enabled application.[^]

David Wulff

Jeremy Falcon wrote:

everything else is only something power users/programmers/geeks care about

:laugh: :laugh: :omg:

Ðavid Wulff Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (video)
10 PRINT 'HELLO MAINTAINER: GOTO HELL

Dan Neely

2k was significantly less able to run legacy 9x apps/games that were more common in the home market. XP was the first version where they (sort of) merged the consumer/corperate lines. For the home user XP was much better than ME. X|

Joe Woodbury

No, this is so they legally have the right to implement a periodic callback with WGA.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke