Linux Format forums

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

GMorgan — Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:18 pm

Author: GMorgan

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:18 pm

But surely spying is legal if MS do it, thats how the law works surely. If these cases are upheld then where does that leave the TCPA.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

towy71 — Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:21 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:21 pm

and the EU have increased the fines that MS already face, I think their CEO is barking mad

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

wyliecoyoteuk — Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:15 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:15 pm

Latest news is that there are now several class action law suits aginst MS in the states, and may be some in the EU too, because the WGA install violates several anti-spyware, trojan, EULA etc laws.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:44 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:44 pm

latest thing to pop up in the autoupdates is the "Microsoft user feedback survey"
spam and spyware just got legitimate!

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

M0PHP — Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:32 am

Author: M0PHP

Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:32 am

What MS say and what MS do are usually two different things

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

Hello — Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:54 pm

Author: Hello

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:54 pm

alloydog wrote:

WGA

It just keeps getting better:
Second Class Action Lawsuit over Microsoft's WGA...

it says no ersonally identifiable information is collected on the EULA

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

alloydog — Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:15 pm

Author: alloydog

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:15 pm

WGA

It just keeps getting better:
Second Class Action Lawsuit over Microsoft's WGA...

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

Marrea — Sat May 13, 2006 9:11 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 9:11 pm

TheDoctor wrote:

Following that principle means I'm still running Windows 98SE.

Actually I still run a copy of Windows 98 (first edition) on my old PII desktop and think it's great for things like word processing, spreadsheets and internet/email. Unfortunately a lot of present-day software requires XP and something a bit faster than 450MHz !

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

TheDoctor — Sat May 13, 2006 8:53 pm

Author: TheDoctor

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 8:53 pm

Marrea wrote:

I had not been planning to change from XP to Vista when it is released but just to sit back for a while and observe how others got on with it.

Following that principle means I'm still running Windows 98SE.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

towy71 — Fri May 12, 2006 7:19 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 7:19 pm

\o/\o/\o/ hurrah!

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

Marrea — Fri May 12, 2006 5:24 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 5:24 pm

Much as I enjoy using Windows, as I think most of you know, I had not been planning to change from XP to Vista when it is released but just to sit back for a while and observe how others got on with it.

However, the more I read about it, the more I begin to think that Vista is going to be a complete disaster and I think the likelihood of me ever upgrading to it is very remote indeed.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

spottedcat — Fri May 12, 2006 4:32 pm

Author: spottedcat

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 4:32 pm

That quote warms the cockles of my heart, GMorgan. (Or is that the heart of my cockles? )

One year ago I had never seen a *nix terminal let alone used one. Now I use Linux 99% of the time, and have a (vaguely) working Gentoo installation. I'm not crowing; this merely reflects how well Linux suits me. I keep my XP installations alive and up-to-date for a couple of rarely used Windows apps, and I've already promised myself that I will not get Vista when (and if ) it's released.

But bearing in mind the above, and the possibilty that future 'security patches' may cripple my XP installation, I make the following public and solemn declaration. If, in the future, and for whatever reason, I find I need a proprietary OS, I will buy an Apple computer. That is a promise.

However, I think that is extremely unlikely.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

GMorgan — Fri May 12, 2006 3:44 pm

Author: GMorgan

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 3:44 pm

For anyone considering Vista heres a post I saw on one site. It does get confusing since the guy seems to call all users administrators then define an extra level equivalent to root above, it can seem a little odd at first.

Quote:

Modern operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X operate under a security model where even administrative users don't get full access to certain features unless they provide an in-place logon before performing any task that might harm the system. This type of security model protects users from themselves, and it is something that Microsoft should have added to Windows years and years ago.

Here's the good news. In Windows Vista, Microsoft is indeed moving to this kind of security model. The feature is called User Account Protection (UAP) and, as you might expect, it prevents even administrative users from performing potentially dangerous tasks without first providing security credentials, thus ensuring that the user understands what they're doing before making a critical mistake. It sounds like a good system. But this is Microsoft, we're talking about here. They completely botched UAP.

The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness.

Let's look a typical example. One of the first things I do whenever I install a new Windows version is download and install Mozilla Firefox. If we forget, for a moment, the number of warning dialogs we get during the download and install process (including a brazen security warning from Windows Firewall for which Microsoft should be chastised), let's just examine one crucial, often overlooked issue. Once Firefox is installed, there are two icons on my Desktop I'd like to remove: The Setup application itself and a shortcut to Firefox. So I select both icons and drag them to the Recycle Bin. Simple, right?

Wrong. Here's what you have to go through to actually delete those files in Windows Vista. First, you get a File Access Denied dialog explaining that you don't, in fact, have permission to delete a ... shortcut?? To an application you just installed??? Seriously?

OK, fine. You can click a Continue button to "complete this operation." But that doesn't complete anything. It just clears the desktop for the next dialog, which is a Windows Security window. Here, you need to give your permission to continue something opaquely called a "File Operation." Click Allow, and you're done. Hey, that's not too bad, right? Just two dialogs to read, understand, and then respond correctly to. What's the big deal?

What if you're doing something a bit more complicated? Well, lucky you, the dialogs stack right up, one after the other, in a seemingly never-ending display of stupidity. Indeed, sometimes you'll find yourself unable to do certain things for no good reason, and you click Allow buttons until you're blue in the face. It will never stop bothering you, unless you agree to stop your silliness and leave that file on the desktop where it belongs. Mark my words, this will happen to you. And you will hate it.

Nice to see MS are still fully capable of shooting themselves in the foot. I mean not allowing the user to delete files within their own user space. Thats not a user priviledge system, its barely a system at all.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

GeoNorth — Fri May 12, 2006 3:26 pm

Author: GeoNorth

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 3:26 pm

I'm a Linux user because I bought my own copy of Windows.

I bought this PC getting on 3 years ago (it could do with another CPU and motherboard, what do you recommend?) and it came with an OEM copy of Windows XP Home and a Recovery CD, I thought that I wouldn't be able to install Linux because of this (anticipated trouble partitioning the HDD and why bother when the whole install would be wiped the next time I run the recovery CD?)

Then at Christmas my PC, sensing that it's warranty had expired ages ago and that the only support line available cost �1 a minute and terminated in India to be answered by a bunch of buffoons whose priority was to keep the caller on the line for as long as possible rather than actually solving their problem, decided that it wasn't going to speak to my HDD anymore.

This resulted in me spending a little bit of money on a new HDD and a lot of money on a legit copy of XP (Home again it was an emergency and I couldn't stretch to a legit copy of Pro and you can't download a pirate version of Windows without an OS)

I installed the new HDD and the copy of WinXP... and discovered that my old HDD was working again.

I've since downloaded Kubuntu and life is good. Although I suppose I could have saved a bit money by just buying the second HDD before my installation when belly-up and just installed Linux on there.

Re: "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification"

Diagmato — Thu May 11, 2006 2:46 pm

Author: Diagmato

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 2:46 pm

Flea wrote:

I hate software pirates, without them Windows would have died long ago

True, so true . Everyone who didnt buy their own copy could have been a Linux user by now.