Pointless exercise?

Microsoft waging war against the pirates? What's the point. You've told the pirates about your scheme. All they need to do is turn off windows update and they won't receive the update that roots the pirates out...???

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/27/xp_nagware/

You do know that story was posted 5 months ago? Hardly news!

Besides, it just meant that people switched to a different pirated version of XP.

Doh! Sorry for the old news :/

I don't think they are waging war against pirates. They are just trying to discourage potential buyers from pirating by making it look difficult. There's a strong argument that Microsoft benefits from pirating by the more tech savvy users, some of which would move to Linux or other *nixes if pirating was impossible.

Haha, that was funny.

TBH if linux had the ease of use that Windows has (installation/setting up etc/software availability/Win32 emulation) then I would have moved over by now.

Its all the programs and games that run on windows that stops people moving over, if I just coded in BlitzMax/C++ then I would be on linux already.

Sure. You still have to wonder though. How big is the market segment ranging from "people so technically illiterate, they get their genuine windows products through their OEM" to "People who pirate Windows, but might as well for all intents and purposes be using Linux" is, and why Microsoft feel justified at throwing the proverbial good money after bad. After all they do have shareholders.

TBH it already does. Surpassed it in many cases too. But then again I define ease of use as "working out-of-the-box" rather than "being able to run WordStar".

Sure, gaming is a big deal, if you have more money than sense, and haven't bought a console yet, but for practically every other purpose Linux and MacOS X are lightyears ahead of Windows. There simply isn't any single thing that Windows excels at anymore, except from running Windows software, and as the paradigm is shifting towards web-applications and "cloud" computing, that's going to be a moot point sooner, rather than later.

In many ways setting up/installing is much easier and much quicker once you know how ;)

I have Ubuntu on my laptop, which I use BUT I was talking about the ubundance of Windows only software out there.

I bought my XP after they put WGA in it. There are cracks for this again, but I don't have to worry anymore I cannot update my software, and I need those updates to have better security.

I now also have 2x original Vista Ultimate with SP1 and 1x original Windows Server 2008 enterprise and Visual Studio 2008 standard for only 120 Euro's in total from MS directly, so I don't mind paying for an original version in the first place.

Microsoft always talks about "counterfeit" copies of Windows. Is this because there really is a counterfeiting industry out there running parallel to piracy, making knock-offs in the traditional sense, or is this more of the same self-delusion that film studios exhibit when they pretend people actually use video cameras in cinemas?

I can't see why you would make a cleanroom version of Windows when you could just copy it... but all the pirate copies I've seen (I have a licence for my own!) have passed WGA without a problem.

Anyone know?

So what are all those movies released through "The Scene", and shortly thereafter spreading to FTP's, P2P's, etc marked as "CAM" then? Were they all done by one guy called Cameron? He sure is productive. He seems to release several films a day. Shame he can't pick original names for his "home videos" however, as they always seem to be named after famous Hollywood movies.

And all those VHS tapes people used to pass around in college? The ones where you could see the backs of the cinema chairs, and people getting up to buy an ice cream silhouetted against the movie? Or are you telling me that the official legit release of Terminator 2 has those in for the entire length of the film?

Ease of use does include being able to use the software you want. Otherwise a lot more people would be using linux. An OS without the software, especially industry standard software is next to useless.

The buy a consoles to play games argument, it doesn't hold for me. I Don't see the value of a console when a PC doesn't need to have a high end card these days and $100 a year will keep you able to play the best games for 4-5 years before you have to upgrade the mobo and CPU.

When set against the cost of a console who's hardware becomes dated within months, who's games tend to be typicaly dumbed down to suit casual gamers 5 years and up. Then on top of that your paying 30% extra for the games, where the best ones typically on 360 get better PC ports within 6-8 months and cost less $35 instead of $60 - $70. Doesn't seem worth it to me.

Most of us still having to upgrade our computer to run applications used to make games, videos, photo editing etc.

A console is just an expensive toy with limited usefulness unless all you use a pc for is word processing, and the internet then maybe a console makes sense.

I don't think it's so much a matter of whether they exist, so much as whether they have a statistically significant impact on sales. I've only ever watched one cam movie (Rush Hour 2) at a friends house, and I can tell you the experience was appalling. There is no way you could convince me that watching it in a theatre would be just as bad - you get the worst of both worlds. Obnoxious people talking throughout the movie and crappy audio and video definition. Anyone who thinks that's an acceptable trade-off needs to have their head examined, and that kind of person would never, ever pay for the movie anyway.

No it doesn't. The notion that an OS is more difficult to use, because it doesn't run 3rd party applications is absurd.

In 5 years this will be a moot point. You will be running your applications in your web browser, not on your OS.

You are the only PC gamer I know who says this. Personally I have recently upgraded my 2 year old PC with a new Quad Core CPU, a Radeon HD4870x2 and a new 850Watt PSU (which cost well beyond 200 USD by the way), and it struggles to run quite a few games (GTAIV and Spiderman - Web of Shadows for example) that the 3, going on 4 year old XBox 360 runs flawlessly.

this maybe so but the people are choosing the osnow not in 5 years time. In 5 years there will be loads of other windows sold because other os's couldnt get thier act together and get it onto mainstream markets

Well I have found 'industry standard' quality alternatives for ALL my software, for both professional and personal(at least to the level that I, and probably the vast majority of people actually need) for graphics, 3d, C#, web dev, dtp, video stuff. Some of which i actually prefer in many ways. And this is just native software, not to mention all the win ones i could run on one of the secondary kernels (like wine) if i really wanted to.

The only thing i -have- to use windows for is ASP work (although i could do this in mono too i suspect), testing, and of course my blitz3D legacy (although when the time is.. right i will convert my apps to either minib or max 3d).

yeah you might, but most people actually want to use office at home, simply because it is office and what they use at work.

Most people don't care about an OS at all, they just want the software it runs. Otherwise Linux would probably be doing much better by now.

Your average computer user would think you and I a geek, and in my case I can't be bothered with alternative software, most of which isn't industry standard and not compatible with what other businesses use. Or if it is commercial and available for linux you get no support.

Sure I use crimson editor, Video lan and Ogre. But there just isn't a reliable way to run windows only apps on linux without some risk on compatibility problems. And most people don't want to have to learn about computers and how to fix problems when supported software typically just works.

I agree with FlameDuck. It's ok saying your can upgrade your PC for such and such, but console games are generally better value. You KNOW the game will run the same as everyone else copy, and it will run in the first place. You don't have 100's of different sound cards, graphics cards, driver for graphics cards not working so well on certain system setups... etc etc etc.

Buy console.
Buy game.
Play game.*

*If your on a PS3, you obviously have to waiting for the 2 hour odd initial update patch to be downloaded and installed :@

I bet you felt ripped off by the time the movie was over.

That has the same ring to me as the prediction that we'd all be working in a paperless office by now. And we all know how true that predication turned out.

I have never had a single game not just work, and play on my computer. Maybe I'm just lucky, but so far my 7800GS old nforce 3 mobo and 3000+ have been bullet proof and still play all the latest games well despite being a system built of 2-5 year old components. It's only just starting to feel like it will need to be rebuilt from the ground up, and a new system considerably faster than consoles costs $400 - $600 and provides much more value and use than a console.

@AdrianT:

As far as I know, most pirated movies are copied DVD releases. Pirates have a quality standard to maintain as well, so these are more popular when they're available (obviously). The point I was alluding to was that I've never, ever heard a film studio complain about the professional film reviewers who post copies of their advance DVDs on the internet, presumably because complaining about reviewers does not get you good reviews. Fair enough if people actually do distribute "cam" versions. I've never seen it though. I have no idea which has a bigger effect on sales, but perfect DVD copies are always available prior to cinematic release in my part of the UK.* You sound offended. I didn't mean to make light of it, sorry.

Returning to my original thread hijack, statistically speaking someone somewhere must have made a "true" counterfeit copy of Windows... I guess nobody here knows if this is a real problem compared to simple copying? Just curious about their choice of words.


*No, I don't pirate them myself.

> I have never had a single game not just work, and play on my computer. Maybe I'm just lucky

Either you are lucky or I'm unlucky. I've had three games not work. In two cases it was strictly due to copy protection.

Starsiege: Tribes (original). Graphics card problem.

Pacific Fighters: Copy protection problem (copy protection did not like my drive - disk worked fine in my friends machine)

GRAW - On my old machine the game only worked 1 in 5 times (annoying), on the new machine it generally works 99% of the time.

In fact, that was me, not Adrian. I wasn't offended, just surprised that anyone thought film studios were self-deluded because they know that movies are pirated that way. Of course, DVD Screeners ( the review copies you referred to ) and The R5 ( Russian retail DVD's with no extras released around the same time as movies open in theatres in other parts of the world to beat piracy in Russia, ironically making it easiest to pirate everywhere else ) releases are a big part of it too, but there is still a significant portion of releases being CAM'ed first.

I can't disagree with Flameduck's view on the quality, given that the only two I ever saw at college were appalling. I guess they could be a little better these days with digital video, but I think the sort of people who watch them care only about seeing it first and seeing it free, so the enjoyment comes purely from that, and understanding anything in the film is a bonus.

actually its the app we are -supposed- to use. My boss sends me everything in .doc .xls and .ppt. I can open all these no problems, edit them and send them back in the same format (set as default). There are at least 3 other developers (out of 15) at our office using Ubuntu or Fedora (when officially they should be using windows) I have not had one problem yet with using OO in a corporate environment. Although i know it can cause some problems as its not -as- powerful and may have problems with some macros, but that extra power is rarely used in my experience.

Actually the last company i worked for, a large subsidiary of General Electric (you can't get much more corporate than that) had not only authorized the use of, but were actively encouraging the use of OO vs MSO. (even offering 'adoption training' sessions). Ive also seen indep. reports of one vs the other vs productivity and there was little if any productivity loss between products for 80-90% of normal office/admin.

If anything most people only use office because they still believe they have to.

Whoops. Scrolling too quickly...

well your obviously in the minority D4NM4N. Just look at some web statistics for various web sites. Ours have about 1% of people with a linux desktop, 4% with a mac and the rest were running windows.

Not saying there's anything wrong with using Linux, it's just not normal. The only people I know that use linux outside of servers are programmers either on here or the Ogre forums. Plenty of Mac users, but most of them still use the Office suite.

Never said i wasn't.

That wasn't my point. There is plenty of software though, and its growing rapidly. I would rather have a nice stable and fast working environment that runs software that does everything i need, than have an environment like vista with more software than i would ever need anyway. I find working with vista slow, not because it runs slow (although i has strange unexplained delays here and there) so much that its just not as nice to use.