Microsoft initiates Windows 7 anti-piracy push on Feb 16!

Microsoft is to push out a major update for Windows 7 users on 16 February which it says is designed to address more than 70 known exploits related to Windows Activation Technologies (WAT) – Windows 7’s activation and validation components. According to Microsoft, the update will also determine whether the Windows 7 software installed on a given PC is genuine. Initially periodic validations will be triggered every 90 days, but if the company finds a PC has been tampered with, or validation has been disabled, or is missing licensing files, validation will be triggered once a week. This, Microsoft said in a statement, would be to “help protect customers’ PCs by making sure that the integrity of key licensing components remains intact”. “If any activation exploits are found, Windows will alert the customer and offer options for resolving the issue – in many cases, with just a few clicks,” the statement reads. “Machines running a genuine copy of Windows 7 software with no activation exploits will see nothing – the Update will simply run quietly in the background, protecting the Operating System.” Microsoft also stressed that it was important for customers to know the Update was “voluntary” and customers who choose to download it would “see no reduced functionality in their copy of Windows”.
Source: www.computerworld.com.au...

Just wanted to let you know this if you didn't read or hear this in news. The "patch" will be downloadable from Microsoft Homepage on 16 Feb. 2010 and will come as autoupdate maybe one day, two, or three weeks later.

Time to clean up

Originally posted by cushycrux
Time to clean up

Time to switch to Linux. I did it six months ago and noway will I go back to windoze for internet.

MS-DOS 5.0 was always my favorite operating system. Getting software to run was always an adventure. Nowadays everything is way too simple and dumbed-down.

reply to post by avatar01


Did you also had a config.sys with xms and ems for different games?
Games doesn't run with 540kb.....that really was funny.

Also had 3D Studio for DOS OMG.......

Microsoft said in a statement, would be to “help protect customers’ PCs by making sure that the integrity of key licensing components remains intact”.

ROFL! I never knew key licensing components could do so much. I can only gather the an MS approved key makes a PC water tight! I feel so safe under the warm feathered wing of a Genuine Microsoft Product!


IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


yes, they want to protect us from ourselves.

Microsoft also stressed that it was important for customers to know the Update was “voluntary” and customers who choose to download it would “see no reduced functionality in their copy of Windows”.

Silly question but if you know you are running a pirated version of windows why would you voluntarily down load this update?

Thanks for that,

shutting down auto update right now

Originally posted by cushycrux
reply to post by InfaRedMan

 

yes, they want to protect us from ourselves.

Funny, I did the same thing by stripping down my copy of window$ 7... to protect me from micro$oft!!

It never ceases to amaze me how many USELESS programs and ish they put into their frigging OS's

Well if people want to use Win7 beyond the 30 day trial, MSFT has a right to expect to get paid, but personally, I've found XP, Vista and Windows 7 all to be slower than Windows2000 both in running benchmarks and real world applications. Sadly it's getting harder and harder to keep using win2000 as more people drop support for it, but it was really their best OS.

Originally posted by Now_Then

Microsoft also stressed that it was important for customers to know the Update was “voluntary” and customers who choose to download it would “see no reduced functionality in their copy of Windows”.

Silly question but if you know you are running a pirated version of windows why would you voluntarily down load this update?

Good question. But I think MSFT is worried about their legitimate paid customers, because apparently some of their past efforts like this have caused large numbers of legitimate, paid software to stop working, and I'd be surprised if that doesn't still happen to some degree.

Well I would guess the pirates will be just turning off automatic updates. Or maybe those with a conscience will go buy the software.

I'll be interested to read the net on the 16th to see how this effort works out for MSFT and its customers.

Whats even more funny is that Windows NT, XP, Vista and now Windows 7 are essentially the same crappy OS with more layers of crap slathered on !

I just got a netbook with 7 on it. It really is a lot faster booting up and waking up than XP but it's only been a week

When I bought my computer with windows 2000 on it. The vendor never gave me CDs for many of the programs including windows. Two years later something went wrong and I had to rerun those softwares but the vendor wanted to charge me $ 500/00. Once you paid for a software why would it be illegal to reconfigure it. And why a person has to pay twice for the same machine. This is the part I don't like MS Operating system.

I like W7

much better than vista and I got it free from student program in microsoft website so I am good

Its been a few months since I last checked for updates for my xp os. Went to to check last week, and found WGA ( windows genuine advantage ) is now mandatory.
They just lost another customer.

Wow, even if I did own a genuine copy of Windows, why would I even consider downloading this update?

This just absolutely reeks of potential issues. This is probably going to conflict with everything I use on a daily basis, not to mention it's going to open up a new door for intrusive malware, because all software used to protect you from it will become obsolete. And I don't see how they will be able to legitimize a protection effort against it, because anything touching this new protocol will be considered "pirate".

What a joke, no thanks.. I'll pass.

This is another ploy by microsoft to include your "Windows Genuine Advantage" software along with this.

DO NOT download this patch, if you agree to the terms and conditions before installation, you will note some strange things.

The only "Genuine Advantage" is that Microsoft can legally bring you to court and have you fined/jailed for having an "un-authorized" peice of software related to Windows.

~Keeper

Give it some time. As soon as they release this patch, some hacker in his mothers basement will find or create a New Patch to get around the MS patch.
Im not worried.

Originally posted by charlie0
When I bought my computer with windows 2000 on it. The vendor never gave me CDs for many of the programs including windows. Two years later something went wrong and I had to rerun those softwares but the vendor wanted to charge me $ 500/00.

Hopefully you've learned your lesson and won't buy any more PCs if the vendor doesn't provide you with the discs for the installed software in case you have a crash. My friend bought a Sony PC, and all the software and OS was legal, but you had to either burn your own CDs, or buy some from Sony and they cost extra. But their hard drive died by the time they figured out they needed the discs. You should ALWAYS have the discs.

I mentioned this new initiative to my friend who installed Windows 7 and he said he had to switch back to Vista because he couldn't get all the drivers to work with Win 7, specifically his printer driver, so that's one less person who will have to worry about this. But even if you have a paid license, there might be some cause for concern after installing this patch, it might give some false positives for piracy, as previous similar updates have done for the other OSes.

I can appreciate that piracy is a problem for Microsoft, however to take it out on their customers in this way can't be good for business. If only they made their products un-copyable in the first place then they wouldn't have to treat everyone as potential criminals.

I mean how hard would it be for them to make their OS so it can't be copied?
How about putting it all on a pci card with a few custom chips (drm) so it can't be ripped to other media. In this day 'n age it shouldn't cost much more to them especially if you factor in the loss of revenue from piracy.

From the users point of view, you'd have near instant startup and the OS would be better protected from viruses. Plus it wouldn't take up any hard disk space. OS updates would have to be flashed to the roms but that's no big problem.
Microsoft needs to think outside the box and employ me