More Vista Licensing Crap

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-10-13 12:04am

Let me preface this by saying I don't have a problem with commercial software. I don't mind paying for closed source software, provided it functions well, isn't encumbered to a sickening degree with DRM, is reasonably priced, and is easy to work with. However, Microsoft is just pushing it waaay too far with Vista.

I had already decided that I wasn't going to deploy Vista on my corporate LAN based on the announced anti-piracy features. However, with this new announcement, unless some really absolute killer-app comes out for it, I'm not going to use it, period. I will not pay for an overpriced, cosmetic service pack update to XP that has as many DRM and usage restrictions as Ghana has mosquitos.

All I can say at this point is, Hello Mandriva.

EDIT: Additional Links:

http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/193300234
http://slashdot.org/

...and I do rather hop a mod doesn't get on my case for not dressing the above links-as I really don't think its warranted...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-10-13 12:07am

Not to highjack, but I've recently been looking at Mandriva myself. Is it really as full-featured and polished as it looks? I'm seriously considering trying it myself.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-10-13 12:11am

All the more reason to pick up the pirated volume liscense key version of Vista that is sure to be leaked.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-10-13 12:15am

AFAIK the volume-licensed versions will still carry the software protection platform (DRM) features, which is dumb, because when someone like Chevron or Wal-Mart has their entire network shut down for 48 hours due to an activation glitch, you can bet it's going to put a dent in enterprise sales...

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-10-13 12:19am

The business world will flex its muscle on that issue. They need to be able to install on multiple machines at will without interferance. Unless MS wants to encourage Apple to take over the market place, MS has to offer some concessions.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-10-13 01:03am

Destructionator XIII wrote:You are a worthless piece of shit. Don't like the software? Don't use it. That is no excuse to go to crime.

I love you too. When a company holds a monopoly and forces its crap on the public while using monopoly status to deny alternatives, that means my choice to not use Vista means I can't use any application that MS managed to make Vista only.

I will not actively support people in pirating, but you know what, I enjoy seeing companies like MS take it up the ass for their assinine policies that shit all over the consumer. And if MS is going to offer a new OS that is crippled with DRM, I won't bother pay for it.

Here is a fun little fact. I could easily buy Vista and use a pirated VLK. Technicaly speaking it might be breaking the law, but ethicaly speaking I paid for a single copy and am using a single copy. Thats what I did with Windows XP. I don't want to bother with that product activation bullshit so I used the infamous Devils Own copy while holding a purchased copy of Professional.

Rin · Post by **Rin** » 2006-10-13 01:03am

Stark: Have you tried Mandriva's live cd? (Mandriva Move IIRC)

Destructionator XIII: One might have bought windows xp, but still prefer using vlk instead. I'm thinking of doing that if I have any problems next time I reinstall.

But about Vista, I also dislike its gui. After betakey runs out it flies off my secondary machines hdd. Hello Ubuntu for me.

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2006-10-13 01:32am

This might be split-worthy, but re:Exchange, does anyone actually know a business where they use the calendaring features and get value out of it instead of just having an overpriced mail server?

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2006-10-13 02:14am

Xisiqomelir wrote:This might be split-worthy, but re:Exchange, does anyone actually know a business where they use the calendaring features and get value out of it instead of just having an overpriced mail server?

I work for Unisys and they use it quite a bit, mainly for scheduling meetings and the like. I imagine it is quite widely used, particularly on networks with more then a thousand clients.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-10-13 03:21am

Enterprise customers won't migrate from Windows to Apple, they'll migrate from Windows to open source platforms such as RHEL and SUSE. The reason for this is that Apple just doesn't have much enterprise functionality and has never been any good at all at selling systems to enterprise customers. Also, I suspect many purchasing departments would balk at Apple's pricing, especially on the Pro models, which by a sick twist of fate are also the ones most likely to be used.

Anyway, Apple is just as bad, if not worse, as with Apple, in the place of the obnoxious DRM and use restrictions, you get an equally obnoxious hardware lock-in with no guarantee of long term platform support.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2006-10-13 03:36am

I generally upgrade/totally rebuild my PC once every 18 months.
If MS sticks to this braindead scheme, I'd have to buy a new copy of Vista after 3 years.

I'll buy a retail upgrade copy once, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay MS for a new copy every three years.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-10-13 03:37am

Glocksman wrote:I generally upgrade/totally rebuild my PC once every 18 months.
If MS sticks to this braindead scheme, I'd have to buy a new copy of Vista after 3 years.

I'll buy a retail upgrade copy once, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay MS for a new copy every three years.

Be happy, Microsoft has committed to supporting XP for 7 years after it's sucessor comes out. Though I don't think they planned on Vista coming out in 2007.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-10-13 10:33am

Alyeska wrote:All the more reason to pick up the pirated volume liscense key version of Vista that is sure to be leaked.

Vista's VLK system is significantly different than XP/2003's and is specifically designed to counter VLK piracy. ArsTechnica has details

Spyder wrote:I work for Unisys and they use it quite a bit, mainly for scheduling meetings and the like. I imagine it is quite widely used, particularly on networks with more then a thousand clients.

Verizon uses the Domino/Notes combination and we use that calendaring system extensively.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-10-13 10:54am

The school district I work at uses the calendaring in Outlook pretty heavily at the admin office.

We also have Cisco VOIP phones in three of the buildings, and we've got this neat plugin for Outlook where your voicemails from the VOIP system also show up in your Inbox as compressed wave files - best thing about it is the ability to forward the voicemail to someone.

CelesKnight · Post by **CelesKnight** » 2006-10-13 07:30pm

I really hope MS changes their mind about this before release, because this REALLY pisses me off. I’ve heard a lot of things about Vista that annoy be, but would pretty much be a show stopper for me.

I’ve heard people try to justify this by claiming that it will stop people from installing it on multiple computers or sharing their copy with friends, but that seems really unnecessary. After all, doesn’t WGA already phone home with your license key every time you connect to the Internet? You would think that they could detect and stop sharing then rather than treat everyone who buys two new computers as a pirate.

I also find myself wondering just how much of the computer has to change before it’s considered to be a different computer. For instance, if your computer get’s hit by lightning and you replace the mobo, does that count as a new computer?

I had been planning to buy two copies of Windows Vista Business or Ultimate (one each for my current desktop and laptop), and just transfer the licenses the next time I upgrade them. Spending $400-$500 isn’t much when averaged out over the five or six years that it can be used. However, I upgrade my computers fairly often, and I know that I’ll end up transferring each license more than once. Grr… I’d like to have Vista, but this new license is going to make justifying buying it difficult.

On another note, for several years I’ve been toying with the idea of switching from Windows to Linux, and I think that this has finally given me the kick in the ass I need to try it. So, I guess some good may come of this.

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2006-10-15 03:24am

Paul Thurrot doesn't seem to think all that much will change. Link

And if you do actually have a catastrophic PC failure, you'll be able to transfer your license just as before. The process, as it turns out, hasn't changed at all. "The escalation process is exactly the same in Vista," Boettcher told me. "You have to call support. It just wasn't clear in Windows XP. But we wanted to do the right thing by the customer. So we let them move a license, while being clear about what the license is intended for. In the past haven't been super clear up front."

When Windows examines changes to the system, the two most heavily weighed components are the PC's motherboard and hard drive, in that order. If you change both of these components at one time, Windows will almost certainly assume it's running in a new computer and cause you to reactivate. "It's that old question, 'When does a boat become a new boat?," Boettcher asked, rhetorically. "When every plank has been replaced, is it a new boat?" In the case of a Windows XP and Vista-based PC, there is an algorithm that examines hardware changes and, based on an internal score, determines whether a reactivation is required.

When that happens, Windows will attempt to reactivate electronically. If that fails, the user will need to call and reactivate manually. This is the same under Vista as it was under XP, though again the algorithm has been updated to be less strict.

"This is a fairly rare thing," Boettcher said. "Edge cases can be accommodated through customer support, but it's a relatively small group: People who are building their own PCs; hard core enthusiasts." Long story short, you'll have to talk to a human being and explain what happened. Just as you have had to do with XP.

I'll believe it when I see it.

CelesKnight · Post by **CelesKnight** » 2006-10-15 04:38am

Good article, thanks.

I noticed that no where in the article did he address what happens if you buy a whole new computer and want to transfer your $400 Ultimate license. He addresses modifications to an existing computer and "catastrophic PC failure", but he doesn't address the case where an enthusiast builds (or buys) a whole new computer every few years.

All-in-all I think that this article actually reinforces the fears that the license isn't transferable. All he's saying is that the license wasn't transferable before, we just didn't know it because the EULA is "vaguely worded".

Side note: the kick-in-the-ass worked--I'm writing this from Linux. Thanks Microsoft, I've been meaning to get more familar with Linux for quite a while, but never had the sufficent motivation before.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-10-15 06:47am

You can always say "I decided to rebuild my computer after a lightning strike, so I ripped everything out of the case and set it aside as spare parts or trown out and got new guts" or something like it. I doubt they are going to be obtuse about it as long as they aren't seeing two computers with the same licence attempting to verify their existance.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-10-15 06:57am

Make no mistake, this EULA, when combined with the SPP, is quite possibly the best thing ever to happen to Apple, Linux and the other Microsoft competitors. Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds should be sending bottles of champagne to Steve Ballmer every morning.

Also, I fail entirely to find any reassurance on this matter from Paul Thurrot's comments.

In a sense, I want to say that I'm more dissappointed by Microsoft's move than anything. I was really hoping that with Vista, Microsoft would regain the coolness that it had up until the mid 1990s. I loved DOS, I loved 3.1, I loved 9x (except for Mega Errors), and I loved 2000, but starting with XP, with its massive amount of DRM, and continuing with Vista, Microsoft has ceased to become cool, and while not, in my opinion, evil, is really, absolutely, annoying.

This is fine though, because I'd rather just as soon not spend money on software and go with open source.

By the way, in my opinion, pirating Vista would be moronic, because in a sense, you still get the same piece OS, albeit with the added minus of potentially being sued over it. The smart move is to switch to an open source OS and be done with it.

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2006-10-15 11:56am

I would like to accept Thurrot's article at face value, but like the old saying goes, "where there's smoke, there's a fire". I don't believe that so many folks out there have gotten in a huff about this new Vista licensing for no reason. If it turns out that you only have to make a phone call, as Thurott's article implies, I can live with that. It seems completely ridiculous that Micro$oft would force you to buy a new copy of windows (or pay for new key) just because you decided to upgrade or a component bit the dust. But then again, this is M$ we're talking about, and it seems almost like a calculated risk on their part, since it is a pretty small percentage of computer users who build their own systems and upgrade regularly. You just might be looking at another Linux user here before too long.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-10-15 12:59pm

RThurmont wrote:Make no mistake, this EULA, when combined with the SPP, is quite possibly the best thing ever to happen to Apple, Linux and the other Microsoft competitors. Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds should be sending bottles of champagne to Steve Ballmer every morning.

Meh. Most people won't care, frankly. And corporations will buy Vista, though uptake will be slow.

This is fine though, because I'd rather just as soon not spend money on software and go with open source.

You aren't going to pay for support?

By the way, in my opinion, pirating Vista would be moronic, because in a sense, you still get the same piece OS, albeit with the added minus of potentially being sued over it. The smart move is to switch to an open source OS and be done with it.

Shouldn't one consider the economic analysis of the cost of moving to Linux versus the cost of staying with XP or the cost of staying with Vista?

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2006-10-15 04:53pm

phongn wrote:
RThurmont wrote:Make no mistake, this EULA, when combined with the SPP, is quite possibly the best thing ever to happen to Apple, Linux and the other Microsoft competitors. Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds should be sending bottles of champagne to Steve Ballmer every morning.
Meh. Most people won't care, frankly. And corporations will buy Vista, though uptake will be slow.

The vast majority won't. They don't need the visual effects, they certainly won't want to buy video cards in order to use it, besides which the vast majority of their computers will be low to mid spec because all they need to do is run office applications and have a fair speed internet connection. There is no real reason for them to upgrade the OS or the hardware needed to run it.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-10-15 07:04pm

They will in time. Hardware breaks down, the new computers will come with Vista licences the same way the current ones come with XP and if that is not a consideration then the company probably has a licence agreement that makes Vista prices a non-issue (ie. they can put any OS they want on the comps), and they will at some point choose to upgrade (probably after Longhorn server comes out tho). I'm not beliving for a second the optimistic uptake figures MS is stating, but no doubt about it in a couple of years Vista will be the dominant OS in buisness. Not to many not already inclined that way will switch to Linux while Apple is a non-starter for a multitude of reasons (from expensive machines, to meager support on the enterprise leve) except in its traditional nieches.

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2006-10-15 07:06pm

Lost Soal wrote:
phongn wrote:
RThurmont wrote:Make no mistake, this EULA, when combined with the SPP, is quite possibly the best thing ever to happen to Apple, Linux and the other Microsoft competitors. Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds should be sending bottles of champagne to Steve Ballmer every morning.
Meh. Most people won't care, frankly. And corporations will buy Vista, though uptake will be slow.
The vast majority won't. They don't need the visual effects, they certainly won't want to buy video cards in order to use it, besides which the vast majority of their computers will be low to mid spec because all they need to do is run office applications and have a fair speed internet connection. There is no real reason for them to upgrade the OS or the hardware needed to run it.

Don't underestimate M$'s trump card, closed proprietary standards.

Scenario:

XYZ megacorp upgrades to Office 2007 and pasta because their stable of MSCEs from the CIO on down are in need of career stability and the 3-year lease on their systems roll over, and then all their correspondence, invoices etc are moved to Office 2007. Some months down the line, Office gets patched and magically, all backwards compatibility breaks and older versions of Office can't open the new documents any more. XYZ's small customers/suppliers that haven't upgraded yet now can't communicate with one of their main sources of revenue. Ballmer and co are very apologetic and working on a patch "real soon now", but to restore the line of contact, everyone gets at least one vista system. Then, in the name of "compatibility", everyone's computer department "upgrades". The lock-in is preserved, and it's business as usual.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-10-15 07:22pm

The thing is, they honestly don't need to do anything as underhanded as that (and they are volontarily allowing that particular trump card to no longer be such, with all the XML based formats and such). Time is on their side. Retail sales of Vista will amount to miniscule profits in the overall scheme of things and everything else is independent of it (notice them attempting to increase that with the in-place upgrade thingy). New computers? It doesn't matter if they sell XP or Vista (and they will be selling Vista almost exclusivly by mid 2007), MS gets its cut. Big company volume licences? In most cases those are tied not to specific Windows versions.