Here's an odd thing, don't know if anyone else noticed this, or if this was a sign of things to come.

There's a Windows program called "couponprinter.exe" which is used to print store coupons on a printer at home. If you try to install this program under Windows in a VM, it refuses to install saying it can't be installed in a VM. Odd, as it isn't a graphics intensive game, or a virtual machine program; in fact it just seems to point your browser to the couponprinter url and start the browser.

Oddly enough, it works just fine under Wine, as far as I can tell.

I've got to guess that this program deliberately looks for a VM and refuses to run on it for non-technical reasons. Anyone else have any experience with a program that behaves that way? And why would anyone do that?

Actually, never mind, the thing looks like malware anyway and I dound this interesting link to go with it:
http://slickdeals.net/forums/archive.../t-833110.html

Got to talk to my spouse about the malware thing and running odd .exes again...

The reason why it doesn't allow VM's is because they want to control how many coupons you print out. You'll only be able to print 1 coupon per computer. (You can print two if you press the back button on the browser and try again)

That way you can't just print out unlimited coupons. If you install it on a VM, then you can have multiple VM's, running coupon printers to get around their restrictions.

The coupon printer is malmare/spyware and Linux is bullet proof so you are out of luck.

I had a run in with a coupon printer a few years back. As described earlier it only allows two copies of the coupon to be printed. Curiosity got the better of me so I did a little experimentation...

It appears that the coupon printer program was creating a hash from the MAC address of the NIC and the Windows serial number. This value is stored by the coupon web site and coupon requests are checked against the table of hash values.

You can change the MAC address on a virtual machine or have a virtual printer which would store the print job for repeat. Thus the inability to install it on a VM.

On the other hand, if you install the coupon printer on a physical machine and then virtualize the physical machine with VMWare Converter or similar...

Ken

If I install it under wine can I print out one coupon? It seem that scanning one would allow you to print unlimited copies but I just want to solve the problem of not being able to print under linux at all.

Hmm, dead thread from 2009, and marked [Solved] too, about a Windows malware program... It's a Zombie thread brought back to life by a virus... quick, shoot it in the head before it spreads.