Is it legal to change your desktop environment.....on windows?
 

Ok I have a dual boot between Windows and Linux right now. I see how people like Linux a lot but I can't really just switch between the two I would rather just use both. The main reason is the internet on Linux is so hard to configure on my laptop. However now to my point. I know that you can customize your Linux desktop to however you want. The other day on the internet I saw this thing called "bblean" and I thought hey thats cool I had never thought about changing the desktop shell for Windows. So I decided this would be interesting to do, but then the question occurred to me. Is it legal to change this on Windows? I know that Windows often trys to restrict what you do and was wondering if this is legally aloud? I also noticed that the program "bblean" is freeware but I was wondering if the program in itself is even legal.

Thank you very much for my off topic non-Linux based question.

I have read the Windows XP EULA multiple times and the Vista EULA ones and there is no word about this being illegal. You are allowed to do that :)

From my reading and understanding what I can from them I say its ok as well. I would think if it was wrong Microsoft would have them in court in seconds. Only thing they seem to not want you to do is remove media player.

Brian

Just a couple of questions:
- Why would it be illegal to change your window manager in Windows? It obviously would not be supported by Microsoft, in fact it would likely break any "warranty" you had with them. But other than that, why would there be issues?
- Are there legal implications to removing Media Player? Isn't Media Player a part of the Windows OS, like IE, embedded so far up the OS's rear it would take a proverbial crane to remove?

Perhaps 'Yes' on both counts, but that exact thing is the subject/basis of the court battle in (Europe?? I can't recall the country/locale) for which MS just lost an appeal they filed against the ruling that MS would HAVE to produce and offer a version of their junk WITHOUT Media Player, for people who don't want it, or, as I understand further, their junk won't be able to be sold in that country.

((Sorry for the vague-ness, I'm paraphrasing this from Canada-AM morning news, where I last saw news on the court challenge in question a few days ago. As for whether it's illegal for USERS to remove WMP, my assumption is "probably -- everything else is illegal with that stuff, other than bowing down and paying.."))

EDIT: And, last time I checked, it was I believe illegal to have a 'bootsplash' on a Winblows OS too, though I think many people didn't care. Back in the day, I had beautiful pink and yellow grapefruits piled up on my screen, and a pink progress-bar, when my Winbloze was booting up :)

There is nothing in the EULA about that. Perfectly legal. And even if it were illegal... who cares? :P

You can have KDE or Gnome on Windows via Cygwin if you want. Haven't tried it myself.

interesting!
 

Now that's an interesting concept, but then, depsite that it may *look* better, it prolly wouldn't work any better :p

This may be hear say but have read this somewhere. Microsoft still owns the Windows OS and software and can disable it as they see fit. Now with at least Vista. With it they can scan your network to verify if you have the needed licenses for all your Microsoft software.

Brian

Read the EULA you dont own windows you pay for the "JOY" of using it. :scratch:

Kind of thought that. Thanks, when I time for a small novel to read I might read the EULA.

Brian

Along a different line, some KDE applications may work reasonably well on Windows. More information is at this site.

http://windows.kde.org/

Here in europe, we actually have the Windows XP-N edition. link to microsoft N page The N edition is WinXP without the media player... I think you are free to remove and/or replace certain components of windows like the media player, but I don't know about the desktop. Anyway, I also think they won't drag you to court for doing so :p

btw: the N edition is a fiasco first class, nobody ever bought it! Might be because it had the same price tag as the 'normal' version, or the (non-)marketing, as even some IT personel never heard of it...

My first inclination is to think this is an obvious marketing scheme. MS can turn around and say "nya nya! Nobody's buying the N version, so why are we trying to sell it?" Perhaps a ploy to shove it back at the govt and say "told you so!"

http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?p...4+Windows+Port

According to that you could have KDE running on your Windows box..if they're offering it openly, it's probably more or less non-illegal.

Another thing is if you really want to do it. It's a bit the same like with iPods, Xboxes, PS3 etc..you can run Linux on those, but is it worth it? I don't think it is. It's just geeky stuff that is fun to do if you want to see if you can do it, but that's about it..for me the reasons to use Linux aren't in the desktop or user interface only, they're deeper. Even if you can run Konqueror on Vista, what's the use if it still crashes (not necessarily the browser, but the OS)?