Windows Update

Theres something new going on at the Microsoft Windows XP Update site, it now scans your machine to see if its legally licensed, and with mine it gave me an OP/SYS not matching original hardware warning, saying I was OK now but may not be in the future.

What the crap is that all about, I'm on my fourth M/B since I bought WinXP, completely new HDDs, twice over, Graphics card changes, and soundcard, so Yes MS my hardware has changed quite a bit, but I'm only running this OP/SYS on one machine so whats the little warning for.

Theres trouble down the road guys, wait and see and it'll probably be affecting those of us that upgrade on a regular basis, you guys that buy your Dells and Gateways and never change anything will never have a problem, but we upgraders probably will.

If you're running XP don't take my word for it go to Windows Update and find out for yourself.







<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

I went through this experience myself, Ryan. Its Microsoft's right to protect its software, so they say, and as such they expect that the machine built is the machine that has one copy of the software installed for the lifetime of its use at its current specs. This suggested to me, in a way, that they expect you to sell the machine 'as is', upgrade with a new machine and then buy a new copy of XP for it. This maneuvering by Microsoft might be considered anti-consumer etc. I'm just waiting for other software companies [particularly games] to ask for product registration with a 10 day period or so of time allowed for the user to register or have the product fail on their system.

With piracy ripping off companies from fat profits its inevitable that this concept evolves further.

That said though, one chap told me that they will allow you 4 upgrades. I really dont know much more but I understand the company wanting to protect its legal copyright.

<b><font color=green> "You listen to the fans and you'll be sitting up there with them". Bill Belichick on the Browns 'Dog Pound' calls for his exit after his axing of Bernie Kosar. </b> </font color=green>

I understand, Rich. Yeah, its a bugger that a person can create such enormous wealth but I respect the entrepreneurial nature of his creation and as such respect the legal rights that go with it. Having not done so in the past, upon reflection, I see that I was an effective 'thief in the night' looking to 'score' a copy of windows so that I could 'rip him off'. I was in uni and the cost of windows 8 years ago was prohibitive for the mainstream user.

They tell me that Windows might eventually come as a bare minimum operating system and the concept of 'user pays' will be implemented as such that the consumer only downloads what he/she wants and pays for it accordingly.

People could say: 'nah, I dont need Media Player' etc.

Could be something.

<b><font color=green> "You listen to the fans and you'll be sitting up there with them". Bill Belichick on the Browns 'Dog Pound' calls for his exit after his axing of Bernie Kosar. </b> </font color=green>

Hey there, Wusy.

Yeah, isn't the creation of Linux simply superb! For somebody to give so freely is truly awe inspiring. The concept of ideas leads to more ideas is amplified by Linux and taken to all new level with the mainstream use of the internet.

<b><font color=green> "You listen to the fans and you'll be sitting up there with them". Bill Belichick on the Browns 'Dog Pound' calls for his exit after his axing of Bernie Kosar. </b> </font color=green>

If this thread goes where I think it might from the replies, I'm sure we've already covered this topic in some detail

_____________________
<A HREF="http://snipurl.com/fxwr" target="_new">Welcome to the House of Horrors, welcome to the House of a 1000 Corpses</A>

No. This is new.

<pre><font color=red>A64 3200+ Winchester
DFI Lan Party NF4 Ultra-D
1GB Corsair 4400C25PT
WD740GD, WD2000JB, WD1200JB
ATI X800XL
Dell 2405FPW</pre><p>

With the technological advances today I don't see their justification on limiting the amount of upgrades you can do, and with my situation probably around the end of this year I'll be building a 64 and putting the OP/SYS on it.

If MS is determined to track the OP/SYS why can't they work it out so that one ID is never running at the same time on more than 1 machine, I guess they're trying to do this through the hardware tracking, but upgrading is a common thing to some of us, next thing you know we'll have to end up calling MS and asking permission to upgrade our systems. You already end up calling MS if you're reactivating and fall into a serious complete change of hardware, I've had to call them three times so far and its not too bad but still an inconvenience, I never thought that one day they may say sorry dude you cannot reactivate you're past your limit you'll have to purchase yourself another copy of WinXP.

Upgrading aside, product failure also falls in this same category especially if its replacing a bad M/B that you just bought, just installed XP on it activated it and a few weeks later discover problems with it and RMA the M/B and have to reinstall the OP/SYS again, you're 2 down right out of the gate.

I wonder if MS does have a set limit on the upgrades you can do because I am at 4 right now, and really have no intention of buying WinXP Pro again when I build my new machine, I really think its time for my lazy butt to get serious about running Linux, I've tinkered with it a few times but never really dove in to learn it because Windows was so easy to install and get running smoothly, and some Windows specific programs don't jive with Linux.





<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

No there is no limit <i>yet</i>!
But around 4 hardware changes, you have to call.
I was under the impression that this limit is reset at that point tho, and you get 4 more changes.

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

I guess I should have read what I was installing from them Russell before installing it I used to do that all the time in my earlier Win9X days because some of their updates would cause problems if you allowed the MS website to restart your machine.

But today with XP that problem never occurs and when you don't have anything to hide, I usually just let the update site install whatever security it says my machine needs, anyone that has automatic updates turned on is going to get it anyway.

I understand MS's right to keep copyright agreements on the straight and narrow and installing on one machine is one machine period as far as they're concerned, we the consumer don't need to get into court battles over the right and wrong of it, just because we've upgraded out systems and reinstalled the OP/SYS for the 6th or 7th time, in a certain time period.

Don't get me wrong I don't know where their limitations may fall, but the warning I got tells me its coming.

Theres got to be a better way of insuring MS that you are legitimate in your dealings with them, not everyone out here is stealing from their precious company.




<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

Personally if I had a pirated copy and knew I was illegal I wouldn't go to the Windows Update site, and let it scan my machine for any updates at all. MS's scanning technology it getting deeper and deeper into your system, we're supposed to be able to trust MS to be working in our best interests, but I think down the road this collected information may work against us even if you really haven't done anything wrong, but gone through major changes since you first installed WinXP.

MS isn't the only one with this backtracking scanning, in the past I was running a Turtle Beach Soundcard and it came with Audio Station a software MP3 playing system, actually the best I've used so far.

I was dual booting at the time WinXP and Win98SE, when you're encoding MP3's from CD to the HDD after about 8 encodes Audio Station would pause and say it needed to contact the Voyetra website for an update, then I got an error and Audio Station stopped working, everytime I tried to restart the thing I got the same error, contacted Voyetra and they accused me of having installed on more than 1 computer.

I explained to them I was dual booting and had 2 HDDs in one computer but it was still one computer, after a couple of days of hearing nothing from them they emailed me telling me I was only allowed to install Audio Station on one HDD. So I had to remove Audio Station from the second HDD or buy another copy of Audio Station.

I replied to them your EULA doesn't say anything about what you're telling me, but they wouldn't budge on the issue.




<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

I think you're dead on the money with that statement.





<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

I know windows will never go away.. they are just to big and to popular with people who dont know how to use a computer

but...

Sooner or later the free software industry is going to catch up to MS in popularity. When it does MS will be forced to either make there product cheaper or lose a lot of business.

My PC:
Abit AX8 Socket 939 VIA K8T890
AMD Athlon 64 3200 Winchester
Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 256 Mb PCIe
WD Raptor 37 Gb SATA
Corsair 2x512 PC3200 DDR Dual-Channel Platnium Edition

Wusy ... send me some good sh|t, ok?


<b>"The Edge - there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." Hunter S. Thompson, </b><b><i>Hell's Angels, 1965</i></b>

Russell, I didn't see any problem with letting MS validate, that my copy of XP is legal, I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't have anything to hide, but when it said that my copy was valid, however it did not match the original hardware configuration that XP was originally installed on, and that it wasn't a problem now, but may be in the future.

The problem is, you cannot talk to a computer to explain how many times you've upgraded your system, and its a good thing for some of us that MS doesn't have a software cutoff switch embedded in the software, to shut off our systems until we call into MS and prove we've upgraded our hardware, and not installed XP on another computer, come to think of it they're probably working on it, and it'll come in to your computer as an update, if its not already hidden in the code somewhere.

Man talking about invasion of privacy

<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

With the new 64 bit OS getting ready to come out, that one time purchase may be outdated before you know it.

Yes it will still be around, but if you running a 64 bit processor why not go to a 64 bit OS.

My PC:
Abit AX8 Socket 939 VIA K8T890
AMD Athlon 64 3200 Winchester
Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 256 Mb PCIe
WD Raptor 37 Gb SATA
Corsair 2x512 PC3200 DDR Dual-Channel Platnium Edition<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Bob369 on 07/28/05 01:44 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Very Interesting

<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541&st=0#entry20385" target="_new">My Puter</A>

wow!!!

<pre><font color=red>A64 3200+ Winchester
DFI Lan Party NF4 Ultra-D
1GB Corsair 4400C25PT
WD740GD, WD2000JB, WD1200JB
ATI X800XL
Dell 2405FPW</pre><p>

That didn't work on a Corp edition I tried it on.... [shrug]



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

I hear what your saying there....

It's early yet, we'll see what comes down the pike....



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

It's listed on the website that you can use from Microsoft.. you have to log into it to get that info, or contact your vendor of you VLK programs.

But as I had posted in another forum to you..

If you create a WUS or SUS server, you should be able to get around the updates.. especially on a server since it's not likely that one would rebuild a server if the license expires. So if you do that, you might be able to get around it.