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Windows' Genuinely Disadvantaged | 176 comments (176 topical) | Post A Comment
Counterfeit?[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Mason on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 03:29:51 AM PDT

Ah, I don't know -- I'd imagine that in places where "genuine counterfeit" copies of Windows are sold, it's common knowledge.

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Authenticate[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous User on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 04:32:14 AM PDT

Microsoft is taking the same route that other software developers had taken unsuccesfully. It is the software developers who will be the loosers as genuine users would be in trouble, they will loose their customers; a couple of months ago a video game developer 'Valve' had taken this 'anti-piracy' step and as predicted many of the customers returned back their retail copies to stores.

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Key to the Back Door[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#165)
by Banazauk on Mon Feb 13, 2006 at 07:13:02 AM PDT

What i find funny about the whole genuine advantage thing is that Microsoft have put in a back door to get the updates. If you have downloaded the genuine update. Then all you have to do is turn it off in Internet options. I laughed my pants off when i found out. Microsoft appear to be trying hard to defeat piracy but upon closer look they have put in away around it all. All i have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

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Closing the "Back Door"[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#166)
by bulova on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 10:32:13 PM PDT

Just where in Internet Options is the spot where "Genuine Advantage" can be turned off?

Bartlet: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Do you know why?

Will: That's the only thing that ever has
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Genuine Advantage: More Viruses[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#39)
by kstern on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 09:07:09 AM PDT

If 25% or more of Windows cannot be updated, it's that many more machines open to Virus/Trojan infections that turn them into Viral Spreading Machines. These updates are primarily to repair defects in the original release of the software -- defects which should not have been present in the first place. Imagine if you had to bring your car in to the dealer once a month for "updates".

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Don't be stupid.[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#66)
by Anonymous User on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 12:07:39 PM PDT

Nice analogy, and how many car dealers would be willing to "update" the cars that were stolen from their lot? Not many I think.

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missed the point[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#71)
by Anonymous User on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 12:31:21 PM PDT

But imagine if you bought a car in good faith, only to return for critical maintenance, and to be told that you had unwittingly bought a counterfit, and you must now accept it as is - i.e. in need of critical maintenance.

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car analogy[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#83)
by kstern on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 02:50:22 PM PDT

It's more like a recall to repair a safety defect, caused by manufacturer's negligence, which endangers not only the driver and his passengers, but also innocent bystanders.

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Re: Security updates[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#93)
by foxyshadis1 on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 03:26:19 AM PDT

Security Updates through automatic updates (and windows update? Maybe) will still work. Then again, on nearly every client computer I find that people simply ignore the update icon, and definitely never visit windows update, so only SP2 machines will really benefit from that.

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Bad Move Microsoft[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#163)
by Anonymous User on Sun Jul 31, 2005 at 09:02:37 PM PDT

Microsoft in my opinion is wide open to many problems and always will be.Just look at the way it allows outher computers to acess ours everytime we go on the internet.Browsers like (Firefox) are becomeing more popular all of the time because they are much better than anything microsoft`s Outlook & Internet Explorer can offer. And why do we keep getting buggy updates like service pack 2,everyone needed a reload after that mess came out. what i am trying to say is that if Microsoft wants to sell the people software they should first make it worth buying and not leave it up to the customer to carry the burdon of helping make it work right by constantly downloading Service Packs & Patches. It is time for something better !!!

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Not always[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#86)
by Anonymous User on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 06:01:10 PM PDT

It's not always known.  It's far too easy for a shady company to sell an organization 10 new computers with only one legal license of Windows or without a legal license at all.  It's very common for small local companies which build PCs to bid on a project and undercut their competition by not including Windows licenses in the price and installing Windows and/or Office illegally.  The organization in question finds out that they have an illegal copy after it's too late to do anything about it other than hope they don't get in trouble or call Microsoft and fork out the money to pay for the legal licenses which they thought they were buying when they bought their computers.

I work for an organization which paid for a vendor to come in and install a Windows XP upgrade on roughly 10 or 15 computers.  I found out when I tried to upgrade the computers to Service Pack 2 that we don't have a real Windows XP CD ROM, we have a burned copy of the Windows XP CD ROM, and we don't have a Certificate of Authenticity.

I am very grateful that Microsoft wrote Service Pack 2 so that it won't install on those computers because now I know that I need to buy the necessary licenses and make sure that we're legal so that if we're audited we have only legal software running on our computers.   I've been working over the last couple of years to make sure that all of the software which is installed on our computers is legally licensed for the computer(s) which it is installed on and I'm almost there.  I thought that I was completely there until I found these computers.  Now I can take the necessary steps to buy the software which we should have bought a year ago and keep us legal.

The employee who brought in the outside vendor who installed the software retired immediately after it was installed.  I do not know if the employee knew that it was not a legal license or if he thought that the vendor was selling us legal licenses to install on the computers and I am unlikely to ever find out.  I'm just glad that I found the problem before someone did an audit of our systems and found it for us.  That could have been a very expensive audit while buying the software is going to be very inexpensive, and it's obviously something which we need because we're using it.

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Re: Not Always[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#105)
by byelen on Mon Jan 31, 2005 at 07:38:04 AM PDT

And aren't you adding to the problem by not taking action against the vendor who "sold" you the counterfeit copies?

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Maybe[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#111)
by tscoff on Mon Jan 31, 2005 at 05:11:19 PM PDT

Maybe and maybe not.  What if the burned CD was provided by the employee who retired instead of the vendor?

Once I find the original invoice, if we're charged for Windows XP we will turn that over to Microsoft.

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Microsoft Audit[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#119)
by auctionhugh on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 10:27:38 AM PDT

While I find it commendable that you are trying to be 100% in compliance, I find it hard to fathom that if you have 1000 valid licenses and 10 invalid ones, Microsoft would make any sort of a deal out of it in an audit, except to ask you to buy the 10 valid licenses.

-----
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Re: Not always[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#129)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:03:18 PM PDT

He is a real angel, isn't he?

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Windows' Genuinely Disadvantaged | 176 comments (176 topical) | Post A Comment
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