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Playing Games With Customer Rights | 35 comments (35 topical) | Post A Comment
Been done before[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Tue Nov 09, 2004 at 03:29:02 PM PDT

I seem to remember Microsoft doing something similar in the early days of Windows. If they detected an OS that was not M$DO$, Windows would not start. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Windows' problems were a little deeper than that.[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by foxyshadis1 on Tue Nov 09, 2004 at 08:50:19 PM PDT

That was explained last year by Raymond Chen as being because Dr DOS wasn't a good enough copy, and windows was built so deeply on top of privare MS-DOS APIs, functions, and data structures (not to mention grandfathered bugs), that it simply wouldn't run correctly. (I can't remember what part wouldn't, or if it was just the entire OS.) Not fantastic design, but not a pure shell game.

(Whether they designed it that way out of uncaring ignorance of other DOSes or actual malevolence, the way Win98 was delayed 6 months to integrate IE to fight netscape, is left to the beholder.)

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Windows' problems were a little deeper than that.[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by Anonymous User on Tue Nov 09, 2004 at 10:40:48 PM PDT

Not true. Read some of the coverage of the (first) anti-trust trial at The Register.

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AARD[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#16)
by sconeu on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:44:59 AM PDT

It was bogus.

They specifically looked for things in DR-DOS.  Things that had absolutely no connection with anything Windows was doing.

Search google for "AARD code".

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
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He's lying[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#32)
by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 20, 2004 at 06:09:38 PM PDT

1) The detection code was encrypted. 2) The detection code threw an unexplained error. If it was truly a compatibility problem they should have been upfront about it. Their sneaky way of doing it implies it was for evil purposes.

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Playing Games With Customer Rights | 35 comments (35 topical) | Post A Comment
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