http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=84

From the article:

"He told me that "in the fall, having the latest WGA will become mandatory and if its not installed, Windows will give a 30 day warning and when the 30 days is up and WGA isn't installed, Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now.""

Part of Microsoft's response to the article:

"In Windows Vista we are making it notably harder and less appealing to use counterfeit software, and we will work to make that a consistent experience with older versions of Windows as well. In alignment with our anti-piracy policies we have been continually improving the experience for our genuine customers, while restricting more and more access to ongoing Windows capabilities for those who choose not to pay for their software."

And I always thought they tolerated a bit of piracy because it helped their business.

Oh well. If you use a pirated copy of Windows, the time has come to stump up or use something else.

All in all, life is good here.

i always thought so, too, which leads me to only one conclusion: M$ has done extensive user research and found that most people who have their computers shut off don't know any better and just break down and finally buy windblows because they don't know about the alternatives.

lambs to the slaughter.

The only problem is that Microsoft is denying this. To me this sounds like the misstatement of some $12/hr call center wanker who doesn't have his facts straight.

I don't think that Microsoft plans to "shut down" Windows users. I do think that they will stop allowing illegal users to get security patches. Basicly if you can't prove that you are a Winblows user you will not be able to use Microsoft Update.

Microsoft tried this before and got flamed in the security circles. While I agree that Microsoft has a right to support only it's paying customers the fact is pirated copies of Windows are out there and they pose a serious risk to us legitimate Widnows users. If WPA will shut down Windows then the pirates will soon learn to simply avoid having it installed. Thus they will not get security updates and they will be targets for all the spyware on the net.

i agree, i don't think they are going to shut down people's computers. that would be a PR nightmare. but i think they are still going to allow "critical" and security updates if you have an illegal copy, only you won't be able to get IE7 or any of the other updated things. i read yesterday that WGA is also going to keep giving you nag screens every time you reboot and task bar "message bubbles" all the time if you have a pirated copy until you finally break down and buy the software.

It already does that. The tech implied that something NEW is going to happen in the fall.

like i implied earlier, i think M$ is doing research to find out just how much they can get away with before customers outright revolt. e.g., from the article:

"Microsoft is gathering feedback in select markets to learn how it can best meet its customers' needs and will keep customers informed of any changes to the program."

"gathering feedback in select markets" sounds like M$-speak for "we're conducting user testing to find out how far we can push users and not lose them as customers." when they say "meet customers' needs," they really mean how far they can go to meet Microsoft's needs without pissing users off so bad that they develop negative associations with M$ (most people have positive associations with M$, believe it or not) and don't buy the software anymore.

As stupid as it obviously is and the enormous liability such an act would expose the company to, it does sound like what they intend to do.

After the legitimate business community gets slammed with a few wild virus/trojan/zombie attacks spawned from unpatched machines, they'll have to give in.

On the plus side, this assault on their customers (and other DRM assaults - not only by Microsoft but the whole greedy business community) may finally open the public eye on how badly we're being manipulated so that multi-billionaires can make even more money.

Think about it. Linux may no longer be an alternative but a necessity.

Usually, rumors are very close to lies.

Think about it ... "shut down" copies of an operating system that is busy running so much of the world's commerce, just because some automated tool phones home to say that it's not licensed? Uh huh. Right. The vultures would be fighting over what's left of your sucked-dry bones... and deservedly so.

I'll bet that software piracy is a problem, just like it has been for the last twenty-odd years (and more). But the companies who've been trumpeting "piracy" in the past few years, and writing such logger-headed laws as the DMCA, are really facing much more than piracy: they're facing a regime change and just don't want to admit it. Music labels would be in pig-heaven if somehow the clock could be turned back to where anyone who ever wanted to see their music make it to eight-track tape would have to sign a record contract that might leave them a few hundred bucks after (heh, heh, heh) "various expenses are deducted" ... but which likely-as-not will leave them in debt to that label. The record-labels loved those days and took blatant advantage of them. They can't stand the notion of the "iPod," but they really can't stand how empty their "expense"ive recording-studios have become.

Feel free to stop theft of your intellectual property, but don't imagine that you can turn back the clock. In the case of Microsoft, with both Linux and OS/X now nipping at their heels, they'd better start courting the customer again.

Customers have real choices now, and they're not afraid to use them...

It isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Many commercial deployments of Windows use what is known as a "Corporate Key". At a guess, none of these customers will be affected. When XP was first released, there were a handful of these Corporate Keys floating around the internet. Try and find one now. You won't. They've sealed those leaks.

No, it's the home users they're going after. And they have the means to do it.
I think you're wrong there. Microsoft were afraid of Linux. The reality is that there simply has not been a mass exodus from Windows. As sad as that sounds, with the high quality of Linux distributions available today, people simply haven't made the move.

And they couldn't really care if people go to Mac. They own the lion's share of it anyway.

Let's hope that such a move forces people to explore real options. Otherwise, we'll just have continue sitting back and laughing at the poor suckers.

The only people who buy windows are companies, institutions, and universities! As soon as they flip the kill switch, windows really will be dead. (in terms of how few people will be using it)

The typical scenario is buy a Dell or HP with windows XP Home (crippleware) then go download a warez version of XP Pro and install that. Of course there are many people who will not take part in such nefarious activities but they are the ones who get notified that their legit copy of windows is not genuine!

I really think MS will get hit on the head with Vista. Too much delays, beta version does not work well, too many promises, too many useless features, too demanding hardware requirements, too many different versions and prices... I really don't know.

I think it should be a good time for big Linux corporations as SuSE or Redhat (even Sun) to make a good deal with Dell, or HP or whatever and start shipping "for real" computers and laptops with Linux, fully functional and with free support (like 30 days or so). If they can sell the same Dell laptop cheaper with Linux than Windows, we could reach the edge. I think this is the moment to strike and we will just stay here and watch doing nothing again. I say again, because if a few years back, when Windows 95 and 98 was crashing and giving BSOD to _everyone_, we had attacked, we could have grabbed a big bite. However, back then, Linux was still too young and used mostly as servers. We have finally reached a high level of usability, ease of use, eye-candy, shipped with thousands of programs (instead of notepad and IE), reliability, price and stability beyond MS ever did. We just need to strike.... and I guess... we won't...

Rehat won't get much out of it even if Microsoft falls.

From my understanding, Redhat could sell a copy of their distribution and people can take it and legally distribute it to everyone.

Thus not likely companys such as Redhat will have the money and resource to make a main stream linux distribution that could take the place of Window.

ps. I might be wrong. Is it true a person can buy Redhat enterprise edition and distribute it legally on the web?

Yes and no. All versions of Linux are freely redistributable under the terms of General Public License. So I can copy RHEL? No you can't. What stops you from redistributing RHEL is trademark laws.

The red hat logos are trademarks of Red Hat Inc. Trademark owners have the right to control who can repoduce a trademark. Red Hat is one of few Linux companies that enforce this. If you copy RHEL you are repoducing there trademarks. So in Red Hat's case you can't make a copy. But you can remove the trademarks and copy the program. CentOS is a full clone of RHEL without the logos. Under the GPL there is nothing that RH can do to stop that.

Other distros ship with non-GPL, non free software. So you can't copy the disk because you'll be coping the non-free software and that is illegal. Most distros however are fully GPL'd and do not play trademark games and permit and allow you to make as many copies as you desire.

Microsoft has always had product-keys; most products do. And there have always been bootleg copies of those codes.

I don't forsee that there will ever be "a mass exodus" because, to a lot of people, what they have is "what the machine has always had" and they've probably done next-to-nothing about it since the day they plugged the machine in.

And that's why there has been no "mass exodus" nor any "mass enlightenment." End-users have never "installed an operating system," and they never will.

But Microsoft is definitely very vulnerable ... say, to a $150 computer sold at every Wal-Mart store in the world. A machine that is actually very good and which, oh by the by, runs Linux even though the end-user might not have to be aware of it. Microsoft should not expect any alliegance, either from end-users or from hardware "partners," when (not if) that happens. The computer has finally reached its market zenith: it's a piece of consumer electronics. Big Deal.

The end-user certainly knows the Microsoft trademark and brand name, but they are not the ones who actually "bought it." They bought a computer -- a machine. And, if you swap that machine for a different machine that does the same basic things, it's all the same. Even great-big companies are the same way: "do the same job, cheaper and faster and better, and I'm with you. Where do I sign?"

But it's always going to be, I think, a machine, not "an operating-system." That's always what the end-user is going to be thinking of. He doesn't really know or care what it is or how it operates: he cares about what he can do with it, and if he "can do with it."

it even goes beyond that for most people. it's more like "what the machine has always had" is all they think the machine CAN have. they don't even know that anything else exists.

i think that is largely true, and a great point. the problem is when their machine has perfectly working apps that do everything they want, but they're not compatible with the M$ "standards" everyone else has, e.g., word and office docs. *that's* the stranglehold M$ has on everything. it's just a numbers game.