Microsoft tweaks antipiracy tech for Windows 7

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Aren't we getting a little off topic?

 

[RST101]

Anyway....................

 

[damoh]

Meanwhile.................back at the ranch

 

[7077]

As I'm not much of a chemist, I'll agree with you, Digger


Anyone has to say anythig about the Windows 7 and (anti)piracy?

 

[PhreePhly]

I noticed you getting picked on... but to throw in another... hydrogen and oxygen arent chemicals, they are elements which can then make up a chemical if combined with something, thats what makes it chemistry... i know you didnt state the quote, but you copied it as so... which is about the same as standing behind it.

just a noticable thing i seen is all

It's funny, I've been tempted to change the quote, but then it's a quote, so that's not kosher. I'm a chemical engineer, so I know that H and O are elements, but, like i said above, I like my beer, to the quote still wins.

 

[Digger]

It's funny, I've been tempted to change the quote, but then it's a quote, so that's not kosher. I'm a chemical engineer, so I know that H and O are elements, but, like i said above, I like my beer, to the quote still wins.

:roflmao:

well then that makes it atleast humorous then, hehehe.... just really threw me off is all when i first came across it.

hooooray beer !

 

[winrar]

If a price of Windows 7 will be very low, or accessive for many peaple, so piracy no to be reason to exist...but...uncle Bill never change your mind...However...now perheaps he took other reality and try be low price and i'm garaantee like my bad english help me, that more or less he receive a lot of new and Advantage realy interest Costumers for a new OS...bie the way, a sweet OS...bye!!!

 

[TheTeZ]

Microsoft said in December 2007 that it was seeing Windows Vista pirated at only half the rate of Windows XP.

There's a joke in there that needs to be made.

ha ha, i found that pretty funny as well as this:

With the first service pack to Vista, Microsoft made the software significantly more usable to those whose versions of Windows are determined not to be genuine.

 

[Husky42]

oh great.... this is exactly what i was hoping not to read... just for the simple fact that this is taking focus off the OS itself now... a huge de ja vu from Longhorn days

Which is kind of a shame, because really the focus should be about 7.

I am a former XP only user. Ran an early beta of 7 liked it but wanted to wait. So went back to XP and to a we will see approach. Now that the RC is here, I installed it, and I did something I typically do not do. I took a leap of faith and completely wiped my stable, solid, configured and trusted install of XP.

After the initial install, which was a breeze i must say. I began to get a little overwhelmed, not being a vista user the transition was a little bit of a shock. I began to think, oh crap what did I do, why did I wipe my xp install.

Here I am a few days later, and I'm completely thrilled with what I feel is an XP replacement for good. It took awhile for navigation to make full sense, but i'm loving the added features, the ease of use. It took a few tweaks to get it where I wanted it, but I love it. And with that it is the features I love they should be touting.

As you way, the focus is removed from the operating system and that is a shame as it is a deserving system with many features the average gamer and user like me will enjoy and use on a daily basis.

 

[12eason]

Wth. 'Chemicals' is not the correct term to use for either elements or compounds on its own. It is used as in 'chemical element' or 'chemical compounds' and also as the generic 'Chemicals', but it isn't specific to either.

 

[pat247]

I think some of you are PMSing.





Periodic Microsofting leads to elemental activation.

 

[limneos]

Microsoft said in December 2007 that it was seeing Windows Vista pirated at only half the rate of Windows XP.

There's a joke in there that needs to be made.

Lol couldn't help it, I had to say this:

Vista was sold,pirated and generally used much much lower than even half the sell/usage rate of xp. Maybe that's why they saw a decrease

IMO W7 could achieve more sales than both of its predecessors.

 

[Uber Philf]

Well IMO, i think W7 will be really good, and that the time will come, some supernerd or whatever, will crack this new "Technology", i personally, if its cheap enough, ill purchase it, if i cant, then someone else can

Enzo.

 

[Jacee]

Well IMO, i think W7 will be really good, and that the time will come, some supernerd or whatever, will crack this new "Technology", i personally, if its cheap enough, ill purchase it, if i cant, then someone else can

Enzo.

Drat! I'm personally sorry I tried to help you in other topics on this site! :shock:

 

[xan K]

is there a limit in the number of times a user can activate his copy of se7en?

 

[XGUNTHERC]

I think M$ should lower the prices a little bit.. and that might help with piracy. Even though they have an OEM. like me when I build a new computer. I don't wanna pay full price. a cheaper than Vista Win 7 would sell great.

 

[Uber Philf]

@ jacee : WTF?

Im def buying a copy of W7, better?

Enzo.

 

[jimbo45]

C'mon guys what planet are they on.

Microsoft trying to make anti-piracy work is a bit like trying to stop an Oil Tanker mid stream with a folded copy of a Newspaper.

Before we even consider "Bypassing the activation" there's enough "Quasi Legal" ways to get multiple copies of Windows anyway.

1) Virtualisation techniques make it possible to "replicate identical hardware" on zillions of computers so once a copy has been activated you can presumably replicate these VM's and use them. Not saying it's legal but there we are.

2) Even at a LOW Level of "Piracy" a normal user can usually get a copy of Windows activated on a second machine etc etc. -- Since MS (like many other companies) tends to regard "Customer service" as a penance which must be delivered as cheaply as possible the call centers are usually established in places like India, Malaysia, The Phillipines etc where wages are really low.
The people who work in these places don't have much technical knowledge - so when you phone the call center to activate windows you just say something like Computer broken / replaced a component or whatever. Provided your copy of Windows is NOT an OEM copy you'll get a new product code.


3) There's enough info on the 'Net now about what hardware changes trigger the activation process -- people who are seriously into piracy will presumably try and "reverse engineer" some of this stuff so that they can "pass on" already activated copies of windows.

The ONLY proper way to stop Piracy and it's not 100% foolproof either, would be to get the CPU manufacturers to build in a serial number into the instruction set of the CPU. A privileged instruction called something like STCCPID (from my old IBM mainframe days -- STORE CPUID) would transmit this to the MS licensing center as part of the windows activation process. This would be appended with a unique key to give that copy of Windows a Unique ID.

If you tried to use the same copy of windows on another machine it would HARD HALT on first access to the internet even if it had been previously activated.

You COULD transfer activation between machines -- so this would basically stop simple piracy of people distributing the same copy of windows to multiple customers. Once the CPU ID was checked any other CPU running this version of windows would be "deactivated" automatically.

Why people find it so hard to design reasonable robust stuff that wouldn't cost a bundle I don't know.

I came up with this idea whilst sitting in a Pub waiting for my Beer (incredibly slow service in that Pub BTW).

Best Engineering designs are completed quickly on the back of a Beermat.

Finally if the product is reasonably priced people won't bother with substantial Piracy -- however if as most people will get the HOME PREMIUM edition by default as it will be pre-installed on purchased machines --which lacks some fairly basic but essential features like RDP -- nearly everybody at home has some sort of a network these days and even if they don't they often want to be able to access their home computers from work without using 3rd party or web based services people will get HACKS etc to get a version of Windows WITH this feature included.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Husky42]

C'mon guys what planet are they on.

Microsoft trying to make anti-piracy work is a bit like trying to stop an Oil Tanker mid stream with a folded copy of a Newspaper.

Before we even consider "Bypassing the activation" there's enough "Quasi Legal" ways to get multiple copies of Windows anyway.

1) Virtualisation techniques make it possible to "replicate identical hardware" on zillions of computers so once a copy has been activated you can presumably replicate these VM's and use them. Not saying it's legal but there we are.

2) Even at a LOW Level of "Piracy" a normal user can usually get a copy of Windows activated on a second machine etc etc. -- Since MS (like many other companies) tends to regard "Customer service" as a penance which must be delivered as cheaply as possible the call centers are usually established in places like India, Malaysia, The Phillipines etc where wages are really low.
The people who work in these places don't have much technical knowledge - so when you phone the call center to activate windows you just say something like Computer broken / replaced a component or whatever. Provided your copy of Windows is NOT an OEM copy you'll get a new product code.


3) There's enough info on the 'Net now about what hardware changes trigger the activation process -- people who are seriously into piracy will presumably try and "reverse engineer" some of this stuff so that they can "pass on" already activated copies of windows.

The ONLY proper way to stop Piracy and it's not 100% foolproof either, would be to get the CPU manufacturers to build in a serial number into the instruction set of the CPU. A privileged instruction called something like STCCPID (from my old IBM mainframe days -- STORE CPUID) would transmit this to the MS licensing center as part of the windows activation process. This would be appended with a unique key to give that copy of Windows a Unique ID.

If you tried to use the same copy of windows on another machine it would HARD HALT on first access to the internet even if it had been previously activated.

You COULD transfer activation between machines -- so this would basically stop simple piracy of people distributing the same copy of windows to multiple customers. Once the CPU ID was checked any other CPU running this version of windows would be "deactivated" automatically.

Why people find it so hard to design reasonable robust stuff that wouldn't cost a bundle I don't know.

I came up with this idea whilst sitting in a Pub waiting for my Beer (incredibly slow service in that Pub BTW).

Best Engineering designs are completed quickly on the back of a Beermat.

Finally if the product is reasonably priced people won't bother with substantial Piracy -- however if as most people will get the HOME PREMIUM edition by default as it will be pre-installed on purchased machines --which lacks some fairly basic but essential features like RDP -- nearly everybody at home has some sort of a network these days and even if they don't they often want to be able to access their home computers from work without using 3rd party or web based services people will get HACKS etc to get a version of Windows WITH this feature included.

Cheers
jimbo

But then your messing with activations and no guarantee that everything will actually work. It should, but with activations and de-authorizations anything of the sort tend to be hassles for many users. Just look at DRM video and machine authorization and the problems that has caused with machine authentication etc. I'm not saying it could not work, but personaly I would rather not have anything like that near an operating system.

To combat piracy, you dont combat it. You give consumers what they want. People who know that they get what they pay for are more willing to pay for a new OS then borrow a freinds disk and crack it (which is pretty much common practice these days)

Just saying, better price and sell the **** out of the package!

 

[Fliplip]

Maybe MS could give beta testers (and i mean all of us that have downloaded the Beta and RC, not just the "official" testers) a discount. Seeing as we are already putting time and effort in to helping make it a better OS.
Just a thought.

Dave.