Windows 7 SP1 to start rolling out on Windows Update

alphanumeric said:

@ Jimbo Corporate versions of Windows 8 have to reactivate after a set time period. I think it's every 120 days. The new trick is fake KMS servers. Only now they have to find one every 120 days. I would think Microsoft is actively looking for those and taking them down when they can. It's still a cat and mouse game.

Hi there
In any case it's still better than the method in W7.
Also I think people can still get heavily discounted versions of W8 LEGALLY so perhaps piracy isn't such a potential problem -- I know some people will always want to acquire software without paying for it - but if the price is what people consider "reasonably" then piracy goes down dramatically.

An interesting case is that of Adobe who effectively made the CS2 version of its Photoshop / Creative suite "Abandonware" and published serial numbers on its site and deactivated licensing on that particular set of products.

Piracy for the current level of photo shop CS6 has dropped dramatically - and this is nothing to do with better activation techniques either.

Unless you are a professional Shooter or want to mess around in 3-D the CS2 version is more than sufficient for 99.999% of what a typical user might want photoshop for. Great learning tool too.

Adobe - CS2 Downloads

Moral is this

1) You will never stop Piracy whatever you do. The better you make the algorithm the more people will regard it as a challenge to "Break it". Even the new Blu Ray encryption system has been broken (or at least by-passed) within days by AnyDVD. However these days distributing movies etc via Physical media like Blu Ray in any case is diminishing very rapidly -- and some TV productions now are distributed totally via Internet such as Netflix with that excellent series House of Cards.

2) You can MINIMIZE it by pricing the product sensibly.

I don't like the idea of a Subscription model but that method probably has the best protection against piracy - at least for software -- you can't stop people though recording the web stream of a movie or TV show and storing it on a disk for uploading to a torrent site later - even if you can build something into the browser -- might work in Windows though dubious -- but Linux --forget it.

Cheers
jimbo

I was thinking the low introductory price for Windows 8 was serving two purposes. It helped to get it out there and in use, and like you said, some people that would have pirated it if it was expensive, bought it at the low price instead. I'm sure Microsoft was hoping that would happen. Microsoft has to walk a fine line. if they make the activation mechanism to complex you get false positives or just general failures. Then you piss off the legal owners by calling them pirates. Make it to simple and a lot or people get a free ride, they lose income, and you get a lot of compromised PC's on the internet. As far as Adobe Creative Suite goes I'm sure the high cost of ownership is the big deciding factor for trying to find a pirated copy.

Layback Bear said:

It sounds like Windows 8 isn't worth stealing.

Hi there
Believe me there's a market FOR ANYTHING. I've been working in enough places on this planet to have SEEN this in action.

Even in so called sophisticated Western Countries it's amazing how so called "intelligent people" get clobbered with the most basic of scams.

An interesting sideline on this was how the City of Lake Havasu in Arizona coughed up for LONDON BRIDGE (basically just a Traffic road Bridge) when they thought they were buying TOWER BRIDGE (The one you see advertising London a lot with the old Drawbridge).

If the Corporation of London managed to flog London Bridge --well it proves the point.

London Bridge at Lake Havasu.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lo...w=1159&bih=547

Tower Bridge --the one they really wanted.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=to...w=1159&bih=547

If we had a few more salespeople like this the Eurozone's economic worries would be over. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

The London & Tower bridge sale mix up is an urban myth.

Ivan Luckin sold London bridge to Robert Paxton McCulloch, both have gone on record stating the mix up people think happened is just an urban myth.

OK, OK, enough already. I have W7 HP w/SP1 installed from a MS CD I ordered. My system is running fine without any further updates after the SP1 install.
Should one D/L the rollup (as in post #3) and install it ?