Members PBBPaul Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Y'all might want to check your PCs. Article here. Microsoft is taking another step to crack down on software piracy this week. On Tuesday, customers who want to update Windows or download other popular software from Microsoft.com will first need to install counterfeit-sniffing code on their PCs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phaeton Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Yeah saw a bunch of that this week while updating a customer's machine. Interestingly, validating is still optional. I don't expect it to remain that way, of course. Microsoft cracks me up. I forget how they worded it exactly but it was pretty funny, might as well been something like- "And now you can validate your copy of Windows before continuing on to Windows Update! Doesn't that sound fun kids? Yippee!! :D" Oh well. Makes you wonder how many ppl with legit copies will erroneously be told thiers is pirated, and how many people with pirated copies will still be told theirs is legit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Genuine Advantage... I think they sent that one out to a Republican name lab. (I can say that.) Actually, I did a Win Update a day or two ago and, though I was forced to go through the checkpoint, they let me through with what seemed a very quick patdown. (I owe it all to clean living, no arrest record, and never hanging out with subversives, pirates, or other assorted cyber-lowlifes.) Happily, the accumulated fixes and updates (I did custom since I'm still avoiding SP2 on general gut feeling) added no new processes or noticeable extra weight to my boot profile. At least once I turned Windows Auto Update back off. Sucker takes up something like seven freakin' MB of boot profile. On a machine that otherwise boots up at 112 MB -- that's a pretty substantial chunk of resource real estate. But, hey, at least they asked if they could turn it on ('necessary' for online updates now) so I was properly notified. After I rebooted, I just opened the services manager and turned it off. UNLIKE the bozos at Sun when I recently gave in and installed their Java Runtime once again. I install it and my boot profile is, like 11 MB bigger! And, natch, you lose even more unrecoverable memory when the runtime engine actually runs! That 11 MB was just an auto update background process that the SOB's install in your boot profile without asking. Morons. Easy enough to turn off but the least they could do is tell you what they're doing with your system and why. They're really idiots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doug osborne Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h:window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all'AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy theirserial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users toeither buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'GenuineAdvantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the addressbar and press enter:javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')It turns off the trigger for the key check. (I haven't tried this yet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 That's not really a 'crack' but it's mighty funny. (And you don't need to crack the front door lock if the side door is open.) I'm sure they'll write around that pretty quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phaeton Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 blue2blue Glad i'm not the only one that obsesses unnaturally over memory footprints and diskspace usage. It's gotten horrible over the last few years- devels just assume that everyone has a computer with the resources, or if they don't then they should. Othertimes, i blame ignorant programmers. Wasn't too long ago that i had a 6.4Gb hdd drive on my main workstation, and it was more than i could ever use. I even had it split up into several separate OS partitions! In those days i had a fully functional system installed with everything i needed in right around 100MB. This was around 2002 or so. Can't do that now. Of course, i remember the days of video games on 5.75" disks, played on computers with no harddrives and about 16K of RAM, so i'm probably jaded. Oh yeah- and of course we can expect this to be cracked (for real) in no time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Well, I pick my battles. I'm luxuriant in my hard drive sprawl... but I'm miserly with my RAM footprint. [Except for the 2 MB or so I squander on the WindowBlinds skin manager most of the time. I turn it off but I just end up turning it back on (running SoftCrystal these days)... a good skin is an important thing on a laptop, seems to me. That said, Windows Classic skin is clean and a tiny bit more efficient than WindowBlinds. WB is worth that 2 MB, though, I think, like paying the $10 a month for my cable box DVR. It just makes life a little easier and a trifle more enjoyable. ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members daklander Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 That's been on the Microsoft site for quite a long time. It makes it a bitch to update if you're not running IE as a browser but can be done. It just takes time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BowerR64 Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 People wouldnt steal the OS if microsoft didnt charge $200. a copy. I got a copy of XP and i kept it unopened for about 6 months because i wasnt ready to ditch my last version of windows. When i went to install it the key had already been registered. I was a little pissed off so i called them and wanted to know who registered it. I was hoping they would tell me it was my brother or one of his dip{censored} friends then i was gona chew their ass. They refused to tell me all they wanted to do was throw another key at me. I called them 2 different times and spoke to 2 different female ladys and both just wanted to give me a new key. Why fight em when they will just give you a key? seems kinda dumb but all you gotta do is call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I gotta say that despite some trepidation, Microsoft has been good about product activation. I bought a copy of XP Pro, and activated it. Then I lost the serial number. I emailed and said I was concerned if I ever had to reinstall it...they ask for a description of some physical features of the CD, then issued me a new serial number. A couple weeks later, there was a nearby lightning strike that temporarily nuked my boot sector. I reformatted, and reinstalled Windows, then activated. It worked fine for a couple days, then the HD crapped out forever. So I bought a new hard drive, reinstalled, and reactived at the end of the 30 day period. Microsoft didn't have a problem with any of this. I assume it's because the system was the same except the hard drive had changed, and MS of all companies should know that hard drives aren't guaranteed to always work. So no, I don't like activation, but at least they were decent about it and responsive...and if it cuts down on piracy, I can't blame them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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