Microsoft Corp’s upcoming Windows Vista computer operating system will include technology that is designed to prevent pirated copies from fully functioning, the software giant said.
Reduced functionality is already a part of the Windows XP activation process, but Windows Vista will have a reduced functionality mode that is enhanced, Microsoft said on its Web site on Wednesday.
Microsoft said the upcoming releases of Windows Vista and also Windows Server “Longhorn” will be the first two products to ship with the new anti-piracy measures included, but more Microsoft products will eventually adopt the technology.
Windows Vista systems must activate with Microsoft as genuine within 30 days and failure to do so will result in “reduced functionality mode” until successful validation occurs, Microsoft said.
Customers that use genuine versions of Windows Vista will get an enhanced set of features that will not work on non-genuine or unlicensed versions of Vista, it said.
Users of non-genuine Windows Vista software will also be notified by the appearance of a persistent statement in the lower right hand corner of their desktop that reads: “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”
Naughty, naughty. Spanky-spank!
I imagine most of the folks who visit with DU know exactly how this will play out. The copy protection will be cracked by people who want genuine Fair Use — and the technique will get passed around. The copy protection will be cracked by the for-real pirates who want to make bucks from doing so — and the technique will get passed around.
The poor schlubs who either buy an “upgrade” or a shiny new copy will get to deal with all the screw-ups, put-backs and hassle of proving who the heck they are when they change a video card or whatever. And IT managers — the poor buggers who get to try and make this work on a large scale — you all have my sympathy.
Well i dont really mind them protecting their operating systems, cause im betting it cost them alot of mulah to make it. But their programmers are no match for the crackers that have been destroying their copy protection lately.
And about the time it ships there will be pirated versions available with that “feature” removed so it again will only be a annoyence for people that actualy payed for it.
Cheer’s
Vista won’t even be worth stealing. Who cares? Meh.
Shiver me timbers, I’ll see you in davey jones’ locker Gates!
Hmmm, Eidard sounds a little like Ash discussing Ripley’s chances against the Alien – ” I can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathy.” I also feel for the IT managers that must install and manage Vista on hundreds of office machines.
I bet the hackers will take the 30 day time limit as a timed competition to see who can break Genuine Vista before the deadline. I am placing bets on the hackers.
With ‘all versions’ of Vista being sold on a single disc, how long before someone running the most basic finds a hack to enable the ‘more professional’ versions?
J/P=?
Hey John & Assoc,
This is off topic but I don’t really know how to do a new post or contact you.
I know from TWIT you had been relatively excited about the Stickam media player. Just to update you on the current situation with us ‘hip’ internet users (I’m 22)…. Myspace have blocked all stickam flash players from working on myspace – which is completely frustrating and stupid! Traditionally Stickam users could stream their webcam, music, videos and photos hosted with stickam onto myspace using the flash player.
Its so frustrating and really poor anti competitive behaviour that one can only come to expect from the Murdochs.
Last time I checked Digg and Google News this story has not been picked up yet – would be nice to get the message out. Why can’t we all just get along?!
Concerned Stickam/Myspace User.
Reduced functionality is already a part of the Windows XP activation process, but Windows Vista will have a reduced functionality mode that is enhanced, Microsoft said on its Web site on Wednesday.
WTF?!?!?!
What is ENHANCED reduced functionality?
@6 For those in the know WGA was cracked the first day.
And ill bet a fully cracked version will be flying around the net before vista even hits storeshelves.
Like every other version of windows ever made.
Microsoft’s new anti-piracy measures are perhaps the best example of Microsoft’s dominance and monopolistic practices. The ultimate in chutzpah for software developers is to place obstacles in front of their users. With rare exception, most developers spend countless hours increasing software efficiency and improving a seamless end user experience. Only Microsoft can squander resources and customers with barbaric anti-piracy measures.
Microsoft is elegance with ease as they genty lean us over and bury it to the hilt. We’ve forgotten our outrage at UUID’s and Microsoft enforcing Product Activation for Office and Windows. Microsoft places these anti-piracy measures on software on which the public is addicted and Microsoft has an unrivaled monopoly Their market penetration is so dep they can ony increase user base by screwing their existing customers and makig pirates buy their software
I told my beloved about this at the supper table tonight — she’s the only one in the family actually toiling fulltime in the IT vineyard, nowadays — and her response is based on the defensive maneuvers she gets to lead every day:
“Great. Now the demented kow kiddies will be battling each other to see who’s the first to send around a virus that uses this mechanism to turn off every copy of Vista in the world.”
Hackers simply say: “It’s a great thing to make awesome programs but it’s even greater to crack awesome programs.”
Personally, I couldn’t care less. By now, I’ve gotten XP to be reliable and safe. And that took far too long to do! From all I’ve read, and what little I’ve understood, Vista too will be a hodgepodge of blocks of code jammed together, and it really does sound as if it will have many, many problems. From which will come many, many patches, and far too many vulnerabilities.
I’m not about to go through that again. As for MS’s anti-pirate efforts, while I am one of the computer illiterati, I must agree with previous posters. It won’t take long to break into what sounds to me like a jazzed up XP.
Also, I’d have to buy an entirely new computer, or radically upgrade the one I have. A unit with a 2Ghz CPU, 512 RAM, and a 64Mb video card is plenty for what I do (could use more RAM), and by now I have really come to distrust Microsoft. Seriously distrust. Actually, I’ve developed a real dislike for the company, over the years.
AND: WGA – need I say more?
They can take Vista and … *ahem* … simply gaze at it.
Well, some time this winter will install the downloaded Ubuntu and begin to learn it. There MUST be a better alternative, either now or in the future. Because, to be technical, MS sucks.
Yeah, this Vista is such terrible software and I really wish Microsoft wouldn’t make it so hard to pirate. They need to make digital downloading work for them instead of against them.
#15 The better alternative is call a Mac
More icing on Rights management cake!
Bill must have some data center with access to every pc on the market.
Let’s all get Linux!
#13, Ed, I was thinking the same thing as your Mrs.
This fear alone will stop so many organizations from upgrading. Besides, XP has most of the bugs out, why upgrade to an even more resource hogging OS for no appreciable gain.
Annoying their legitimate customers is a way of life around MS. Why stop now. It started with the cryptic 25 character( maybe a little smaller at the beginning,) to their current ET phone home and get approval from Bill before we work system. This system will be hacked quicker than they can release Vista, and anyone who digs a bit will be able to run the top line version for free if they so wish.
Besides, every person who runs a cracked version of windoz would not necessarily purchase a real copy. The “money lost to hackers” that they love to trumpet is a bunch of hooie.
Not that I would use an illegal copy of Windoz, but the last MS product I purchased was a Win 98 upgrade.
“designed to prevent pirated copies from fully functioning”
?…but you make that sound like a bad thing
Life is very boring with out a new product release from Microsoft.
Think of all the fun we have figuring out all the work arounds.
and all the new software we have to buy that will work with the new release.
Ahhhh, I miss the good old days of Dma and IRQ connflicts.
In all fairness we have no choice but to upgrade to Vista because Linux just aint happening and Apple is just an Apple.
So lets just pay the $249.00 and enjoy………..
Let me analyze this. Gates makes windows, which we remember that he made hundreds of millions off of MSDOS the first few years, which he swiped it the DOS OS with almost no alteration (i.e. programming work) by Gates (except putting his monicker on it) from some guy that only got $5,000 for it??? Okay now we have established the high morals of Mr. Gates, now let us be instructed on pirating and unjust use of other people’s work without proper pay for what is theirs. Right. Actually what Gates did (and still does) is legal, but has much to be desired as far as being moral.
So viruses turn up (convient for Gates, wonder how they figured out MS OS so easily) and forces us to have a daily all day on internet connection just to download patchaes for the garbage software that Gates has made which is hacked so easily. Huh, it is all because of the holes Gates and team has let slip in the OS, but since they are fixing these holes, why do I have to buy an antiVirus program? Oh yea, I remember, these are patches that fix the hole but don’t protect the OS from anything real. A patch on the OS will not stop a virus. So what is the good of a patch again?
Maybe it is because Gates and Co. does not have the financial resources, the technical ability, the talent (programmers), the excellence in a business sense, the desire for domination of a market by producing excellent products, or maybe he has just entered the computer scene and is a novice at all of this. Wow. DIfficult choice there. So my Gates windows OS has to check daily to see if it is pirated. Then my windows is crippled if it cannot figure it out.
Why doesn’t it check daily for viruses and other dangerous garbage out there trying to ruin my computer?
Sounds like MS has a problem of putting all their energies in things that are against the best interests of their customers. But wait, maybe this is really the MS best side, screwing up good working software. That’s it, I think I’ve got it! Produce garbage, buy out the best competition, and trash their good work, and your garbage is the only thing left! You look good the MS way.
Actually this gets better. Gates makes windows. With simple normal use, I install and uninstall some programs from time to time (uninstalling is impossible under XP, you never get all the junk out of the registry for most programs except by hand and that is next to impossible), your copy of Windows gets so slow you can go for coffee after you load a program, and by the time you get back, it has virus checked it, checked for upgrades, downgrades, pirating, etc. and still you have to sit for 10 minutes just to write a letter in MSWord. Okay so what is the brainy reason why we have a registry to begin with? Why cannot Windows just read a registry file when it runs a program, all contained in a folder, unused, unseen, and not open to virus stuff unless you run it? Oh that was Windows 3.1, backwards to today’s technology. I forgot.
Take your molasses slow PC to an IT expert. Only solution is to do a backup, erase the hard disk (reinstalling windows over windows inherits all the garbage) and reinstall windows (and every program you had installed). Easily a week long job for most people who really use their computer..
Okay, so that means you never get it to the way it is now (dictionary, spellcheck, option settings, special plugins, etc all hidden umphteen folders deep and no way to find out what the filename is nor where it is). (Excuse me, in Windows 3.1 I had everything in folders, nothing in one program was outside it’s folder if I remember right. Sure was easy back then.) Come to think of it, I zipped a copy of the WINDOWS folder in Windows 3.1, and I installed something, didn’t like it, extracted the backup copy to the original Windows folder and was guaranteed back to normal. A roll back the quick and easy way. Unzipping took me about 3-5 minutes max, which is what I now wait just to get to the windows XP logon.
Besides that if you had all the original software and product password codes that came with the software you bought, you still cannot get it back to the way it was when you decided to reinstall windows OS. A third you threw out by mistake, the other third is filed and not to be found, and the last third was downloaded from the internet, got erased, or the password email got deleted or some such nonsense, and these are never to be downloaded again without purchasing all over again. Forget about pirates, normal users cannot keep up with all the passwords and junk to install their programs. I bought a notebook with my kids school notebooks and I have filled with passwords and logons for internet and products I own.
What is interesting is that Gates forces us to us his OS that slowly degenerates until you have to reinstall it over again, and according to the EULA, you are to only use the original software disk once to install then throw it away and buy another copy if you install the operating system a second time, even on the same computer, same owner etc. Wow! Who will make money off of that deal? Some poor guy out there no doubt.
Duh, that would seem to be illegal, isn’t it? I buy software I can make copies and erase it and reinstall it. But not with MS Windows. Fine print, once you use an original MS Windows CD, you have to buy a new copy for a reinstall in your same computer, same owner. Thank you Mr. Gates for being so generous.
So Mr. Gates, why don’t you just lower the price to $50 bucks, everybody will buy copies and you’ll make twice as much money and stop hassling your customers (oh, excuse me, x-customers)! Original MS-DOS was priced low, everybody bought it, and in the process made you a billion, richest man on earth. Worked the first time! Why not try it again? Actually I have XP, and have downloaded a Linux (Freespire) ready for the next time I am forced to reinstall Windows. Using WINe most Windows programs will run under Linux. We’re going that direction America!
I am against pirating. I live in Mexico City and can get any commerical software there is for a maximum of $20 dollars from a street vendor (pirated software) complete with valid installation codes. Down here they even make code generating software for products. So I personally reject the pirated stuff, buy software (usually on Ebay, shareware) or use freeware or open software. I pay around $20-$50 for legal copies of cheaper version software, but have a good conscience in the process. I have bought pirated copies of software to see if I like it. I try it a while, then erase it and break the CD. If I like it I watch eBay and buy it through them. Now that smart companies are making copies of their commercial programs on a 1 month trial basis, I don’t have to even do that. I can download from their website a trial copy of their program.
If Gates (and others) would learn that they can charge in the higher range ($50-$100) of the shareware prices, then I (and most people) will still buy their software legally instead of pirated copies. Bump it up to $500-$800 and nobody will buy it unless THEY HAVE TO!!!! Why pay good money over and over again for garbage software that causes me problems? Even paying that much to be legal, they will come out with a newer version in a year or two and hit me up again for another $500 bucks! Enough is enough!
PS OpenOffice.org – perfect MS Office killer. All open source and totally free. Have used it several months, much better in general that MS Office.
Excellent Dave “BRAVO”.
Thier is a silent war going on between consumer and maker.
Digital rights is a big part of it.
The conusmer will have no choice but to pay a fee to view or use a product or service.
“You will not be able to pirate the software”.
The consumer wil have no choice to make purchases with out giving in to biometrix type technology.
In use in supermarkets are biometric RFID payment systems.
Interesting to see if M$ or Apple try to use the TPM2.0 hardware on the Intel Duo 2 chips to help them lock-down the OS.
Wouldn’t prevent everyone else from hacking, but could lock-down the users of the new generations of computers.
Steep hardware requirements would work in their favor, as some people would upgrade to the new chips, or a whole new computer…
What share of the market will TPM’d chips have 1 year from now, 2 years from now, …?
I like when they throw down the gauntlet with the “pirate proof” or “we dare you to crack this anti-pirating scheme of ours” attitude. Don’t they know it just makes these guys want to crack it even more?
…and I thought reduced functionality was what you get by a default XP installation, before tweaking 🙂
No, seriously, a month ago I had to reinstall my XP, and since I have exceeded my ‘activation count’ – I have to call MS when I reinstall. I have been through this process 4 times now, once was in the middle of the night, where the call centre was closed – so I could not activate it .. I have also had the installation go into a ‘I’m not genuine’ failure and had to call MS to activate it.
Last time I reinstalled, I got so annoyed that I installed Ubuntu instead, now I have purchased a Cedega license to play EVE-Online in Linux (works like a charm) and a VMWare workstation to run the few windows applications that wants windows inside a virtual machine (i.e. Visual Studio and MS Office – yes, purchased legitimate licenses) – this is a great setup, that I can only recommend.
I think there is a “those who are not with us are against us” problem here. It seems to me that most debaters (outside DU 🙂 ) assume that if you have anything against this WGA scheme – you must be a hard-core software pirate – but this is not necessarily the case.
As other posters has pointed out, this technology will only be annoying to regular consumers, just as the copy protection on my purchased audio CDs prevents me from using the music on my purchased MP3 player, my purchased media center and so on ..
I wont let them annoy me again ..
I don’t think Microsoft cares about stopping dedicated pirates (as if they could). I think they want to stop the casual pirates; the Joe Blow schlub who buys one copy and tries to install it on both his laptop and desktop (and kid’s machines, too). Stopping this sort of, uh, sharing is the point, I believe. Microsoft knows it can’t stop us pros.
Couldn’t a relatively small coalition of computer builders make a move on Microsoft? They could either build on Linux or — my preference — go back to the drawing board.
As far as I’m concerned, I think we need something like boring, old DOS again. Basically a bunch of rock-solid drivers to run the hardware.
Let the software guys build their GUIs on top of it. I don’t particularly need a “destop” or “wallpaper” or “windows” or any of that other Windows crap. I also don’t need Microsoft bundled software.
I’d be perfecty happy toggling between whatever apps I’m running. (One of those apps should be a file manager, of course.)
So why don’t a couple dozen computer manufactures chip in a million each and pay a team of geeks to come up with a DOS in a year. Then release the code to the software companies (or just the world).
In two years they could finally stop paying Microsoft for every unit shipped out the door. They’d recoup their initial milloin in no-time flat.
#32 check out freedos for tour , erm, free DOS, and gnu midnight commander (clone of ye olde norton commander) for the file management thingie.
However, there’s more apps available in lunux, not to mention dosbox (a dos emulator), wine/cedega et al for running your old MS apps.
For the mac users, there’s basilisk, running macOS9 or OSX on linux, too.
emulators are by no way a long term solution, but they sure ease the transition.
For the rest, yup it’ll be broken before it even gets released to the general publix, but who cares anyway ? All I see here is that businesses running a legitimate version will have a time bomb running in theyr network : should some virus disable all genuine copies running, or network problems/attack prevent/pervert communication with the MS certification servers, it means all computers unavailable. Pity the poor sysadmin or IT manager trying to explain that to top management…
Maybe ‘nobody ever got fired for buying microsoft’ will come to an end soon :p
I’m out of the updates race, starting my open source consultancy practice and watching that MS-era come to an end with great delight.
32 Couldn’t a relatively small coalition of computer builders make a move on Microsoft?
You would think so. But the inertia of such a large market laughs at them…
iPod, Walmart, Starbucks… Windows.
Any long-time Mac or Linux user can tell you – sometimes ad nauseum – that most people are only going to invest in a computer which will run all of the software they see in the normally-humongous section of the store labeled “PC” and/or “Windows”…
The fact that they will never use more than a handful of those programs means nothing to them. They are enamored of the potential to run all of that crap…
They look at the pathetic isle for Mac or Linux softare – if one even exists – and you know they aren’t thinking “size doesn’t matter” 😉