You don't own your computer, Microsoft does

If you don't like that MS wants to curb piracy of the software they spent millions if not billions developing, then don't use it. Simple as that. If you don't like the software, then don't use it. Simple as that. Nobody gives a rat's ass about what you think. Simple as that.

Idiots...

If I install a legal version of a windows operating system, get it verified on line. why does windows then think I have switched to an illegal version and keep verifying it, when I have already proven to them its legal.

You may not Legally enter into an End Loser Licencing Agreement with Microsoft to deprive other people of their Copyrights and/or Patents!

By stealing the technology that protects Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 from "Pirates" (Oh My), Microsoft is asking you to do just that!

By preventing you from using Windows unless you agree to such a license and preventing you from returning the O.S. to the store for a refund if you open the software but do not agree to the license, Microsoft is also committing extortion on a Global Scale!

However, since their License is Null and Void due to the above, you may LEGALLY use Volume Licensed Copies of XP without compensation to Microsoft!

The Government may not agree with this assertion because the NSA is the primary beneficiary of the Windows 7 Spyware Platform, but the Government can just go &$%^ itself!

JUST SAY NO!

Want Windows? Buy a copy and use it and put up with its shit ad infinitum.

Sick of the shit?

Get a copy of a Linux distro (whichever), fix the shit that annoys you, and then use it. Yay. Make it do whatever the hell you want it to - somebody who knows more than you has already done it and will show you how.

Marvel at the improvements every 6 months or so. Not years. Appreciate the extra functionality, eye candy, whatever.

If you're willing to sacrifice gaming and go to a Mac, then why the hell not just go Linux instead and pocket the difference. For the average home user, what apps are going to be deal breakers?

Your choice.

@Bib

Show me a person/company that is ethical and plays buy the rules and I will happily pay for their products. Show me a non-ethical and immoral company/person like Microsoft and say Martha Stewart for example [among many] and I'll happily do whatever it takes [like them] to get what I want without regard for them. There is no honor among criminal/unethical minds so all you have to do is treat those as they treat others and you legitimize "stealing" from those that have done it themselves. If it's not wrong to kill a killer, how can it be wrong to be unethical to the unethical? Reap what you sow and glass houses to M$ is my opinion on them complaining about piracy or any other unethical behavior. Evidently, the rule is that if you can get away with it, it's OK.

Btw, if you believe M$ has achieved success by ethical means through simple product innovation then you should rightly pay. Your naivety is your own issue but don't think that M$ doesn't benefit from the piracy at all as having a majority user base is more critical than having everyone in that base paying for the product.

They should change the name from Windows 7 Activation Technologies (WAT) to Trusted Windows 7 Activation Technologies (TWAT).

People like it when things are Trusted..

Yesterday they released Kiddie reporting Internet Explorer, could have spent that money fixing Internet Explorer, crashed 7 times a day or every other website. On top of this you have to do exams now rolled into "you are the admin, you are the technican" exams meaning if you are the sole admin in a company you will be paying huge sums and doing 100 exams to be seen by them as qualified, then you will be offered a job paying more or less the same as a lab monkey been fed peanuts. Considering after all you read in those books is eqal to a rocket developer 99 percent you it is grabage you never use. Your day to day work will be problems problems problems and just as you think ok I finaly know how to put out all the micro fires with personal patches tweeks and settings they change the software every 2 years instead of the promised 5 and off you go back to start with new books feeding the machine!

Unbelievable that people are all complaining about things like companies wanting to get paid and pay their employees for their work. Many have posted that it is their "right" to steal. Will they please publish their home address and credit card numbers so that the Microsoft employees can also return the favour?

I am a geek who overclocks PC's and switches components regularly. I currently have 6 PC's running in the house. Occasionally I get a notice that MS is concerned about me loading on multiple PC's and I go online or phone them. I have never had a problem with the process and by protecting against piracy, I keep prices lower and stop MS from having to try more onerous types of protection.

If the concern is Privacy then Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, etc. should all be a problem to you.

It is the right of anyone to not like or want to support Microsoft. Use Linux all the time. I get frustrated when I see idiots that post they have a RIGHT to run Windows without paying for it. Doesn't matter if MS charges $5 or $5000 for the product, pay if you want it or don't use it. This applies to Apple or any other company not just Microsoft.

If you do decide to use non-Microsoft products then why would you spend time trolling the web to continually tell others about how "bad" they are?

Theft is immoral and illegal and only young children with bad parents (or the mentally disabled) should be confused about that.

Which is it here?

I own a legit copy of XP which I don't use because it won't activate. Because I got some really nasty spyware on my computer and I reactivated it several times to shut it up while trying to fix it. I finally had to throw the drive away and I installed the legit copy on the drive. After calling Microsoft several times over a few months because it turned to hassleware. I simply installed pirated copy. So really enough with the stop whining you pirates crap. The people who DECIDE if you are a pirate are ADMITTED PIRATES. SIMPLY WATCH PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY. Which lawyers tried to stop but couldn't because it's TRUE.

Get one thing straight, pirates aren't customers. There should be no hesitation on upsetting them by implementing such measures. What you should worry about is upsetting your paying customers. So far this sounds pretty innocent. After all, virus definitions, windows defender updates and other patches are all updated routinely without issue. Why should this be treated any differently?

If genuine advantage does detect a patched DLL for multiple RDP connections, that would be because you were breaking the license in the first place..

If you want multiple remote desktop connections, buy a Windows server version. If you don't like the licensing model, go for a product with a more acceptable license.

I think they actually used Critical Update Notification Tool.

Briefly.

They then went through "Critical Update Notification tool" and then "Critical Update Notification Utility".

What a lot of tools.

I may have mentioned this here very recently.

My Windows 7 x64 tries to connect with Microsoft about every 3 seconds - I know this because I have PeerBlock installed which stops it succeeding.
No licence and no black screen ;)

I do own my computer, that's why I use Linux.

I bought my copy of Windows 7 and I am not threatened by this at all.

@ skeptic..Because there is no such thing as an effective way to combat piracy?

Please support Microsoft. Bill wants to spend 10 billion dollars injecting poor people with heavy metals to kill them. He really needs your help fixing the problems of people being too poor to afford windows ever and needing to die.

jesus, find something more worthwhile to sperg out about

I think the simple economic reason to not roll this system out in China is to not loose to many customers. While some people in Europe and America complain about the price of Windows it is not really that high, but in China there is a different price level and more importantly a different mentality when it comes to the morals of hacking western software. Rolling out this (if the think it will work) stuff to soon in China might create to much of an incentive to switch away from Microsoft. And if MSFT thinks in the long term they might believe establishing their quasi monopoly in China is more important then current sales. They will force them to pay as soon as they think the people will pay instead of switching.

Even for me as a European I'd not switch our home desktop PC to Win7 if I can't get it for free, (which I can legally). Otherwise it would stay with XP until I buy a new one.

The reason I get a free one is because I am a student and Microsoft wants me to pay for Windows in the future and not learn to work with something else while I am a poor student. The same strategy.

PS: The funny thing is most people already thought there has always been somthing like this WAT system, which is why most people with hacked Windows don't update and often turn their systems into bots along with some company networks that simply can't keep the networks save.

AnthonySPT,
what is your source for what you are suggesting?

Don't pick a fight you can't win. Lets look at the numbers here really quick:

MS employees - 93,000+
Population of China - 1.339 billion

Now lets assume that only say 5% of the chinese population would have the skill necessary to figure out the activation system and make a hack. Of that 5% only 1% would be inclined to do so. That would make 670,000 hackers looking to break the WAT system. Now of the 93,000+ MS employees say 10% work on security and of that 10% only 1% work on the WAT system making 93 people. That's 93 vs 670,000 in china alone, most of which being younger and smarter then the guys making the system they are trying to break. That's a 1 to 7204 against ratio.

Not to mention it takes MS months to fix simple security holes does anyone honestly think MS stands a chance here? Seriously most DRMs these days are broken before they are even officially rolled out.

On a side note does anyone else find it funny that the Gaming Industry is the only one of the major industries that has started to realise that DRM doesn't work and it just pisses off their legitimate customers. Seriously this is why EA dropped all DRM and has gone back to simple disc checks cause systems like the WAT resulted in nothing but boycotts and lawsuits.

This DRM is going to F$#K over some legitimate user or ruin someone's HONEST installation of windows 7 somehow. I don't see how they won't screw up eventually. This is microsoft. They are serious F@#Kups in this department.

The Windows Activation Technology, or as I call it the 'Client License Inspection Technology' or System license Invalidation Techniques (herein referred to as TWAT, CLIT, and SLIT respectively [and selectively ;)]) is nothing less than the expected course for Microsoft. What else would you expect the vole to do than for it to take the expensive and change for the sake of change OS platform to lower and lower depths of hell: To bring it closer it's birthplace and nothing less.
Nothing says 'you're not gonna have a productive day' better than finding that the virus that your entire companies computer system had a week ago 'tickle' the CLIT and degrade thousands of computers to non-genuine status within the span of an hour. Or, shall we look at the other genuine and innocent problem that may 'rub' the SLIT the wrong way because an expected file gets trashed by file system or hardware failure.
But why look at it from the standpoint that the people getting illegal copies of windows will likely never have the system setup with the software likely to invalidate it. Verses the 'false' positives: the grandmas, 80 years old, with the 400 dollar computers with a deathstar HD; or the 4 employee small business, on it's last legs, which can't afford any downtime; or god forbid victims of a blaster like virus, which could infect a windows computer just for being connected to the internet.
So why would they decide to commit to a software system that could cause so much unanticipated grief? Because each and every 'touch' of the TWAT, regardless of the reason or intent could result in another sale of a 25 character string of letters.

...Or buy a Mac if you got some dough. Time to toss (I mean to use that slang) M$.

Just chucked Ubuntu on my Windows 7 system using Wubu. Talk about 1-click installation. Anyway, let's see Windows phone home when I'm running a completely different OS. ;)

Apple Got hacked...Iphones got hacked. ITUNES got hacked.

I have no issue with it..on 2 conditions. If they are found to be gathering info on anything not directly related to windows, you can sue them; and if they disable anyone with a geniune copy you can sue them.

Yet another bandwagon Microsoft bashing article.

So what, every single one of your programs on your PCs and Macs phone home.

If you don't like Windows, don't buy it, we won't miss you.

I hate Macs and won't buy one of those form Billionaire Control Freak Jobs. So there.

And get this straight, Linux sucks. It's got a lot of free but not up to snuff programs but mine has been relegated to a guest computer for web browsing.

Well, I think im going to go with Linux Mint full time after this news. They just don't get it.

MS lost a long time customer. The biggest problem I ever had with MS... My power supply went taking my mobo and video card with it. With my Vista copy I had to argue for a couple hours on the phone to get it activated. They were trying to tell me I was trying to instal it on a second computer.

Linux from now on, on all my pc's, my next laptop they better tax M$ crap off and not charge me for the OS.

Why I think this is sad for us who own a legal copy of Windows 7?

For instance I have installed concurrency patch (to allow multiple Remote Desktop connections), and now I'm afraid this kind of phoning home ruins my day (most likely a week) when it detects the somewhat innocent patched DLL.

I'm sure once Microsux realizes most people will not download the one update that puts the every 90 day activation spyware/malware update.......It soon will be secretly hidden into another one or more untitled security updates and sneak up and bite you anyway.

Keep up the great work you Linux developers . Because soon the majority will need you and really appreciate your work sooo much more after this repeatedly sickening M$ treatment!

Linux is starting to sound better every day. I won't have to shell out another 100-150$ for another os.

Microsoft is really becoming pathetic. The DRM needs to stop.

Since it's assumed by Microsoft that all of us are criminals using a pirated OS. I suggest everyone just simply DO use pirated copies, that way when the inevitable annoying "genuine" balloon pops up, we really are getting what we pay for.

Ask yourself why EVERY program that comes with macosx phones home every time you open it? Why does mac os x connect and send "diagnostic information" almost daily... (check out little snitch you will be amazed).

While your at it ask why apple sends everything cleartext that it can... all the files you store in the apple cloud (mobile me) are sent cleartext... all your contacts, addresses, calendar appointments ... sent clear text.

I have an apple as well as windows... I do like certain things apple does... but security and privacy is not one of apples strong suits... you need to realize that if you depend on MacOS for anything serious.

Microsoft buys game publishers.

Microsoft sells expensive new versions of Windows to people.

Microsoft announces you can't even play their own new games on the new versions of Windows they just sold you.

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/6978/microsoft-alan-wake-will-no-longer-be-coming-to-the-pc

Friends don't let friends use Microsoft.

Switched to Ubuntu 9.04 from ms 6 months ago and all is well, dump MS for your freedom.

Vista sucks period. I know some people like it and that fine, I am not trying to offend you. Windows 7 is nothing more than a vista fix with a few changes. You would think you would get a net default startup sound anyway. I have one win7 machine I bought for a home theater Pc.
Anyone that can steal windows 7 as gets away with it is fine by me. When I buy a PC I don't have a choice but to pay for something I don't want. Good luck getting your money back if you don't accept the eula.Ms WILL continue this monopoly until some country has the balls to stop it. I can only speak for the U.S but big bigness runs this country and not the government.
Most of my computers run Ubuntu, for me it is breath of frsh air, no drm no spyware no nagware no virus. I am not saying Linux will never have a virus, but it,s no where as likely to.

I've used Debian as my "desktop" for over a decade.

I own my computer.

.... you seem to be a bit confused.

The £50 copies of Windows are OEM, they are locked to the PC. Change enough hardware and you have to buy a new copy of Windows.

I personally don't want to pay another £50 motherboard tax when I upgrade my PC, so I run Ubuntu (the wife runs Windows 7, she got the cheap 'student upgrade', but I ain't upgrading her PC anytime soon).

Rob

paint it black

Google Operating System for desktop, where are you now?

Dave's virus-infested Win7 computer:

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave! Look, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

(viral plague is released, Dave floats out into space).

(next incarnation, try a 2010-version OS like Linux).

Is it possible to find out where ET is calling and then do a 127.0.0.1 fix in your host file.

Oh for god sake, simply do not allow that update on your server, hay presto, every computer on your network wont even see that update.

I am no fan of WGA, but my mouth drops when I read responses where people love or support OS X or Apple because assuming it is less invasive.

I also am surprised that more people don't 'report' on iTunes activity.

If you even 'rip' a DVD to your HD and load the movie into the iTunes database on your computer (OS X or Windows), Apple monitors this and will report the content as 'suspect' and provide information to your ISP.

Charter and Comcast both have a policy of following up on iTunes reported 'content' from Apple and will issue letters to customers that threaten to revoke their internet service unless the content is deleted from their Hard Drive.

Yet most people have iTunes installed and use it and don't seem to care, and yet will complain about WGA which is ONLY checking on the validity of OS License.

Both are not good, but some perspective would be helpful. If you think Microsoft is EVIL for WGA, they you must think Apple is the Devil because of the iTunes content reporting, right?

jeez....
now im thinking of ubuntu.
i have XP,i could go back to that.
naaaa, think i will just abort MS warez from now on. its too much. wheres the dam privicy???
ironic the name WAT, as thats the word you will use when you see it on your system.

1) You make the mistake of giving Microsoft your money, and "rent" a copy of Windows 7 (either on a disk, or on a new computer).

2) They "reward" you by constantly scanning you for DRM infractions, and every 90 days will flip a coin and possibly disable your computer, leaving you to beg for mercy for reactivation.

I'm sorry, this doesn't sound like a game I would like to play. If they don't trust people, they shouldn't take their money in the first place. Who knows what other shenanigans are going on in their "secret sauce" code (either on their part, or on the part of those taking advantage of the plentiful security holes)? I bought my machines with the understanding that I can depend on them to get things done. Think I will stick with Linux for a modern OS (and occasionally, XP in a virtual machine).

If you do buy a new comp. that comes with Win 7, you have the option of just refusing the one-sided EULA and asking for your $100-$200 back.

Free (of cost, of draconian control):
Sun Virtualbox
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Just add Linux "flavour" of choice, and your old copy of XP, for example:
http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu
http://software.opensuse.org/112/en

... to express your dissatisfaction with M$ and their increasingly intrusive spyware. In fact, there is only one legal recourse available to you. And that is simply *not to buy their products*.

If you buy buggy, bloated, insecure, spy-ridden crap like Windows 7, agree to the terms and conditions and then whine about it afterwards, you deserve all you get.

How many times do M$ have to come home drunk and beat you up before you GET IT?

1) M$ lowers prices to something approaching its costs. (Note that M$ could do this voluntarily.)

2) Break up M$, as was done with AT&T: this will cause competition that lowers prices, and force pirates to dilute their efforts too.

3) Nationalize M$ and distribute current products for free. The side effect of stopping further change for the sole sake of change would be a BIG benefit.

4) Steeply progressive income tax rates that reduce sheer greed by confiscating outrageous -- and unearned -- incomes, and consequently direct efforts to more psychic goals such as producing the best possible products.

5) Use a definition of "piracy" that includes peddling six or eight versions of the same single-tasking DOS with a lame cooperative multi-tasking shell, and then punish any company guilty of that.

See how easy it could be? Just take a look outside the notion that M$ must be allowed to do whatever it wants.

Just another reason I'm sticking with XP. Still haven't found any good reason to switch yet.

It's at times like these that I prefer that Mac OS X will only (*nominally*) run on Apple hardware.

I'd rather have that than to have to periodically submit my computer for the Vole's inspection.

Why don't u critics suggest alternative and effective ways to combat piracy?

-Just a thought

Sooner or later you suckers are gonna figure out that I am God.

Thanks, Bill.

even the worst junk dealer in the word knows that.