Buy an enlarger and start stocking your chemicals now. Oh and get ready for some good old overly oppressive government regulations...lol.

Funny you should mention that. The EPA has been coming down hard on film developers due to the heavy metals in film processing.

Sounds like a good app to do... let me know when you get it done.. :laugh:

Makes you wonder if SkyNet could be come a reality doesn't it? All those computers out there just waiting to become part of a larger system.:)

Yep, Jane Curtain...

WOW... Thanks Steve. Now this is what networking is about. Rumor.. in the news. Anger in the masses.. Then denial by the suspect.. then a sea of calm. Hey, is that a shark under there?:) I hope this is correct. Maybe MS let this leak to see if anyone would get pissed. Ding, Ding, Ding.. Tell them what they didn't win Johnny!:laugh:

dan neely wrote:

For military boxes they'll have to go a step farther. Anything on a classified network WILL NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS, so they'll have to provide a way to support non networked machines or the DoD will not be able to update past XP.

You know I knew that from working with the 101st. But Back then we still installed the latest Windows OS and left it to the Army. But this was back on Windows NT 4.

Point taken. But without the sqeaky wheels like us they would never apply the grease needed to make it all run smoothly. :laugh:

I agree with you on that, but what does that have to do with premise that some systems should not be subject to this process? In case you forgot we were talking about the genuine software verification process being a problem for legitimate copies. And as far as testing goes I think they probably have the best or at least can afford to have the best. I wonder how many times a linux box has been down due to having its copy de-legitamized... oh thats right they don't do that. I'm just kidding.. I don't even own a copy of linux. But I love a good argement that brings problems to the surface and helps bring attention to a shared passion.:-D

Take it easy.. untwist your knickers.. Sorry didn't make myself understood.. Microsoft should make sure that those systems have a different version or method that can be used to stop them from being shut down by the anti-piracy routines running on the microsoft genuine software servers. I didn't say that there wasn't risk. just that they should make sure that this is not the cause of it.

here here.. Well said. But I don't think that Quality of product is as much of a problem at MS as Quality of Service. Another problem with this "your bogus and we're killing your software" is that (forgive me if I'm wrong) MS doesn't do much of its own tech support anymore. They seem to farm it out to the "If it isn't on the list I can't answer your question" sub contractors. Take the Game division (xbox,xbox360 and XboxLive) for example. I know for a fact that the only section of tech that is in the us is in Texas and run by another firm. Sort of says a lot about were the jobs are going, eh?

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

I don't think you fully understood my post if you think I am supporting piracy. I've deleted it to prevent more people from misinterpreting it.

Nope didn't think that for a second. No one in their right mind would think that. I'm sure we all have someone we know of that got nailed by the BSA.

Yeah, liked that. but it seems to degrade into a legal issue over being sold a non-legite copy buy a dealer. "I believe this is referred to as shifting the blame. If you're a customer of the OEM and the OEM is selling you, at full price, pirated software, it's not Microsoft who is screwing you." Which is true. But I do know that Microsoft has (had) a program that would provide a legitimate copy for a bogus one bought in good faith, if you cooperate with them in the investagation.

Well we can't really control what we buy for OSs. If your in the computer hardware, service, or programming game, your customers drive what you buy. So like I said we'll still have to have a couple of copies here.

I agree with you that it was just a screw up. It did take 3 days to fix, but still just human error. That is not my issue here. My issues is that I think that at least in the case of mission critical machines (military/ medical/ emergency) microsoft should make some method that they can not be shut down accidentally by this process. For the rest of us its lost revenue and that is a pain in the butt and its not fair. But I can forgive that. I just think that the trend is that they are taking it further and further and I'm curious as to when they will say "Hey you know maybe we've gone to far here!"

The problem is MS has enough lawyers to fill the state of Rhode Island. lol. But seriously the license aggreement has a clause about no claim of merchantability. Meaning they don't claim it will do anything. So you can forget a standard lawsuit.. It would have to be some sort of class action to make it very far.

Nope don't think so. We do not use cracked or pirate versions of software for any reason. In a software audit I can set back and laugh as they verify what we have on our software list. A better solution is to build a machine with a legit enterprise copy and use ghost to set up the other machines. We've done this at large schools and universities. Since we develop software, how can we legitmize pirating it? Sort of cuts across the grain doesn't it?

No I have this problem to worry about if their server screws up again. In fact we have worked with the BSA to stop piracy of software by those that sell copies of software at Software fairs. You can fly your MS flag as you like but I think they are going a bit too far. If you think that only pirated copies are going to be invalidated think again. Over the years legitimate copies have been killed because of pirates using a legitimate number. How hard do you think it is to make a bogus number? I predict that someone will loose their life over this at some point. Some military field operators terminal or medical system is going to fail because of this stuff and then whos is to blame for that?

Here we have another indication that Microsoft is more worried about lost revenue than customer service. I don't believe we'll be doing a switch to vista on the bulk of our machines here. We will have to have a copy or two for development and testing but this is really begining to get on my wick! First they develop WGA, which by the way worried us to death installing it's self over and over and over and... you get it. Then their bloody server had a problem and invalidated legitimate customers. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9032798 Now we have a new problem to worry about. Come in a your screen goes black. Then you have to figure out that MS killed your copy. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9035478 I see a real danger here that they will progress this to the point that they just format the harddrive for you. And all because of a screw up on their part. Am I alone here or is anyone else feeling my pain?

No, I think that wisdom comes with age and experience. The older generation can provide insight into areas and directions that younger people can't. For example older technologies get abandoned and the younger people don't learn them. Then when it becomes necessary to use them who has to do it.. Its like black smithing.