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Windows Genuine Advantage works

Vole claims piracy dropping
Monday, 26 November 2007, 08:31

IT may have cost Microsoft millions of sales, but Redmond claims that Windows Genuine Advantage has forced punters to buy legitimate copies of its software.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Vole had tried everything from court cases, to threats, to try and counter piracy. But now that Windows Genuine Advantage has locked down its Vista product, piracy is more or less a thing of the past.

The SMH admits that Microsoft does not have any actual figures to back up its startling claim. The closest thing it has said was that Windows sales were up 20 percent while worldwide PC sales were up only 14 to 16 percent.

It claims that this was because people with counterfeit copies of Windows were having to put the real thing on their computers or the software does not work.

Lockdown software has been traditionally avoided by software companies who fear that the technology just annoys users so much that they go elsewhere.

However pirate hunters, the BSA is calling on them to follow Microsoft's lead and install more of this type of blocking gear.

Robert Holleyman, who has headed the BSA since 1990, said lock down technology was becoming more customer-friendly. This will reduce levels of piracy and make it easier for customers to interact with the product.

However what Holleyman and Vole have not pointed out is that sales of Vista, with WGA, are abysmal in comparison to what XP was doing a year after its release. Some of this is to do with a lack of drivers and bugs, but there is a huge reluctance on the part of punters to wrestle with Vole's incredibly bureaucratic, and unforgiving WGA.

More here. µ

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Comments
Vista

When are Microsoft ever going to fix Vista x64?

posted by : Chris, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Or maybe

Or maybe its just cause most people don't really want to use Vista let alone pirate it and deal with cracking it.

posted by : Tim Schroeder, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
WGA works not

I am a student in informatics working part-time in a PC store and, by what i can see, nobody really wants vista (ok, so what else is new?).
However, most of those that do want it aren't really willing to spend a month's sallary on it -besides being cheaper it's just easier to download it or to get a copy from a friend.
Among the people i know, i know of none that has _ever_ bought a copy of windows that was not bundled with a new PC. Most just use copy. Even those that got a bundled version of some home edition windows prefer using a copy of something that has "Proffesional" or "Ultimate" in its name.
This has not changed with WGA on Xp, and it has not changed with Vista.

Everybody is getting sick of being toyed with by M$.
When i discovered that my new laptop only had drivers for vista it made me so happy -i finally had reason to not just try out, but really switch to linux. 

In the store we should in theory tell the authorities about any pirated operating system, or at least refuse service, but we can't afford to. We'd lose most of our customers -private one's as well as businesses.

posted by : Emanuel Ey, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Two levels of dissatisfaction

For those who are staying away from Vista, it is either on a technical level, or it is because somebody told them not to do that.
If the person is technically aware, I doubt that WGA in itself is the sole reason, or even a sufficient one, to stay away from Vista. Much more annoying is the embedded DRM, the network incompatibilities (crazy, it's still TCP and yet . .), the software incompatibilities and simply the requirements of the beast. Microsoft bloat has outdone itself this time, and much too soon to go unnoticed.
If the person is not aware of these issues, the requirements are still going to be a kick in leg, not to mention all the colleagues/friends/personal support contact who are telling him not to go there.
Then you have the mass of users who have tried and gone back to XP. I trust they are quite vocal in their comments about Vista.
Finally, you have the noticeable absence of companies rolling out Vista. And if it's not at the workplace, it visibly does not get to the home desk either.
There is way too much negativity around Vista, and the supporters/brainwashed nitwits are far too few on a decidedly anti-Vista internet. For every positive comment on Vista, there is around 20 people bashing its performance, many of which give detailed examples.
XP never had to undergo such a strenuous load of disparaging commentary, and besides, XP works out of the box. Vista visibly does not, at least not to what users have come to expect.
Indeed, with today's hardware, users have come to expect sub-second (or even instant) response times. With Vista, that is not possible unless you're a geek and know how to get into its innards and turn off what you know you don't need. The basic user will do more damage than good in the Services panel, best not go there.
How many times have I heard that, by turning off the 3D desk, Vista can work in 512 megs ?
Go tell that to someone who bought Vista Ultimate. The whole point of that version is to get the 3D gimmick.
Ridiculous.

posted by : Pascal Monett, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Vista erm...

Ok,so i run vista through choice and even paid for it. But, i run xp pro on my works machine.

I find getting into all the settings in vista far too time consuming. XP, they are there straight away, and with little hassle. In vista, i wants to give you a wizard for everything, and this just annoys me alot.

Another thing is this user account control. I love it. It goes "you need admin rights to do this". Then pops up a box, and all you have to do is click ok! WHY BOTHER!.

I use vista 64 on my gaming rig however, and find generally its fine. It uses alot of ram, but i run 4gb. I really don't think you can game on vista with anything less than 2.5, but up from 2gb, you need to go 4gb to keep dual channel etc.

I am dissapointed by all this 3d stuff. it simply isn't there. For all the extra requirements it seems they have literally added extra wizards, and put more colours in. aero glass isn't anything but shiny, and a few effects that are far from impressive.

would someone please fix control panel so it tells me my quad's at 3.7 not 2.4 so annoying.

Any they need an option to allow non signed drivers to run, without auto turning uac back on.

and they need to allow an "accept" button to startup programs.

generally xp is far ahead. You would expect xp to be released after vista as the "lean version we all hoped for". Sad its the other way around.

Media capabilites are excelletn in vista thugh, with that philips £20 remote. Really good.

posted by : Craig, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Wrong name

Vista is a completely misleading product name...people think its some sort of holiday package add-on.
The truth is a realistically named product that describes the newest version of windows would probably be along the lines off:

"The operating system who's software engineers have quit mid development on. The management of which have tried desperately to save a failing product. The customers of whom refused to buy it and the DRM insdustry that has learnt the hard way that its methods have failed."

Can you acronym that one MacroBloat?

Disrespectfully, 

Someone Special.

posted by : Someone Special, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Won't Go Away My WGA

Of the six people I know who loaded a Vista Flavor, only 2 have bought it. 

The rest are using a cracked version. I myself am also giving it a try with a cracked version. 

So That would be 7 total with only two purchased.... 

Ummmm that's 28.5%. For some more stats, of those 7 computers infected, only one guys likes vista, but he's an idiot, so it doesn't really count.

posted by : DRM4Dummies, 26 November 2007 Complain about this comment
I dont understand

Everybody now hates M$ because of that Genuine program. Okay its annoying pirates. BUT...why not ACCEPT the fact that OS main base are things of the past. and the only marketable now are games and services. I can use Open Source for Basic applications, why will I use M$ for same work??? because of its pretty display??? yet I need to pay more hardware just to have it function. yet the overall outcome its same with lower version XP...I dont understand why M$ is so greedy to the public...the public deserves some charity....because hey they use M$ wide product...and without the public M$ will not be here.

posted by : ernani, 27 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Vista: its not bad at all

I use vista and everything seems fine to me. I would use vista ultimate over xp pro any day. its not just the icandy, but every hardware I through at it it actually finds the drivers and I'm up and running in as little as 15 seconds! not so with xp pro. I had to manually find most of the drivers with xp.

To the people who are complaining about incompatible hardware with vista it makes me wonder what 1980 hardware your using, I'd think its about time you through those away. :)

To the people who are bashing the windows GUI I think its about time you stop because I'll bet you that every flavor of desktop linux uses a carbon copy of the windows GUI because its tried, proven, and works. Vista adds some extensions to the GUI which i think a lot of linux flavor is going to follow in the coming future.

Again with the hardware: vista works, Mac osX runs on basically specialized hardware, while linux is too fragmented to count.

Vista Ultimate x64 it F%&%ing works!


posted by : Lenard, 27 November 2007 Complain about this comment
VISTA = Windows ME2

Out of all the people I know, Vista was all eye candy and something new... now that the fun is over, they all want XP back. If they come out with a Vista minus al the DRM crap and bloat the I might give it another try but else XP will be the last M$ OS I will be using.
I hope Google will come out with a stable OS and end M$ suffering.

posted by : Steve, 27 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Vista - EPIC FAIL

One thing I've noticed about Vista is that the file copy function is broken. I tried to copy a file from one location on disk to another, and it sat there for a couple minutes, then crashed. I did that many times just to make sure that it wasn't the file size or a corrupt file or any of many other possible scenarios, but always the same thing. It would make me wait quite awhile, then crash. WTF?
After going back to XP, my computer has actually started working great. I got an HP laptop that only came with Vista drivers, so had to look for older versions of the drivers for the same hardware family, but now my computer flies, where before it barely worked.

posted by : Jake, 03 January 2009 Complain about this comment
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