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Sunday 2 November 2008, 3:04 PM
Software Jihad
However, Microsoft should grow a couple of brass ones and actually defend their product's copyrights. An argument can be made that Microsoft by allowing their software to run basically unhindered even when the user is stupid enough to leave Windows Update turned on is pandering or implicitly encouraging software piracy. Its time for Microsoft to “put up or shut up”.
Microsoft needs to disable or kill every copy of Windows XP that connects to Windows Update that does not comply with their copyright. If they can turn the desktop color to black and stick a warning message on the screen, they can kill the software by dropping a logic bomb on the system. At the very least they will force the pirate to have to re-install the software at least once. More times if he's really stupid.
They have had over 3 years now to perfect the WGA crap and it should be “weaponized” and targeted on the software pirates world-wide. In fact a viral attack should be launched so that all those desktops that have Windows Update turned off can still be targeted by a spam email virus. If enough people get pissed off reading a message on their screen that they bought a pirated copy of Windows XP, they will shutdown the vendors that are selling pirated software, even in China. Microsoft has the perfect weapon to do it, ActiveX. Why won't they use it?
While they're at it, they need to kill every copy of Windows 9X, NT 4.0 and Win2K they can get their weapon package on. That way there will be no possibility of any wide-open and easy Windows zombies alive left anywhere in the world, at least on the Internet. The reality is that Microsoft doesn't have the guts to be seen actively pursuing software pirates except business users that are for the most part compliant. They don't want to be seen hassling little old ladies and children for the price of admission to their “club”.
The reason I think that Microsoft doesn't have the cajones to get really tough on the pirates is because they think pirated OS software is good for the rest of their product line. Especially if they manage to put it all under an Internet cloud-licensed business and delivery model. They probably think that nobody will buy their software if they get defensive.
Another possible reason is that the programming staff Microsoft has might not be up to the task of really launching a world-wide offensive against the software pirates out there. They don't have the chops to be really good hackers. We've already seen the kind of code that comes out of Microsoft and we're suffering system intrusions because of it. The OS software needs to have a built-in defensive shield setup to prevent un-authorized copying and it doesn't.
If I was a stockholder in Microsoft (and I'm not) I would hammer on Steve Ballmer to institute a world-wide campaign to extract every dollar possible from Windows XP before Windows 7 of 9 (or 7 of 10, whenever) comes out. Considering how well Vista is doing, Windows 7 might be the last opportunity Microsoft has to make a profit off an operating system.
PreviousComments on this post
It's windows number seven version 6.1. Although if you count there are many more versions of windows out there than just 6.1 or even 7.
As far as I know there is an unofficial "go easy" policy on pirated copies of windows in the developing nations, although I see your point. Why bother making the desktop go black every once in a while.
My fear if microsoft were to deploy windows genuine advantage for a malicious attack on the pirates is that it would all go wrong and infect legitimate windows systems.
As for windows 7......there is a real buzz going on over here about it, I get the impression that it will go easier on any hardware already running vista. Here's something else that puzzles me. Vista 64 has a 32 bit run time, and things do generally work with no issues. So why bother with a 32 bit version of windows 7. If ever there was a time to make the break into 64 bit computing, then surely that time is now!
Like anything MS produces there is a large fog of information and "buzz", usually the result of their PR and advertising efforts. I don't believe any of it from any of the bloggers or reporters any more.
Until I have the release version disk in my hands I don't believe anything Microsoft offers as a software feature until I see it actually is there in the software. When the reporters and bloggers have the final released version and they review it then I'll believe some of them!
The problem is not that the bloggers and reporters are lying, for the most part they aren't. Its just that Microsoft has promised or released so many products that either didn't live up to expectations or the "buzz" or just flat out didn't have what they initially said was going to be in the product. The older a review or a blog entry, the more likely it is to be unreliable. Especially when MS has to cut corners or features to make some damn marketing deadline.
I don't bother to get excited any more about new Microsoft products. I look to see when its delivered what works or what doesn't. Does the software offer any advantage over what I'm using now? Does it work reliably the same way every time? What are the aggravations built into the software and can I either workaround them or is it a "deal-breaker"?
One of the examples I've run into with Microsoft products is Visio. I own Visio 2000 at home and I have Visio 2002(2003?) at work and outside of the differences in typefaces and the "style" of the menus and so forth I can't tell you the significant differences between the two program versions. The 2002 version came with a really annoying WGA-like installation applet that just would not let you use the program at all until it was registered, that really pissed me off at the time. Why did they work to release Visio 2002/3? What was so earthshaking that it required a re-work? Have I bothered to upgrade Visio? No. It works fine but sooner or later they will trash it some how with an upgrade to MS Office and Visio will quit working.
Vista was supposed to have a SQL Server sort of engine driving the file system. Imagine how slow Vista would be on a system trying to run SQL queries every time you wanted a folder listing? Or just install Windows Search version 4.0 on your system. Betcha that's at least part of what they wanted to do when Vista was known as Longhorn.
Want to bring your system to an almost dead halt? Install WIndows Search 4.0 and Google desktop at the same time on an XP Pro system. One of the managers did it cause he liked Google desktop's gizmos and Windows Search 4.0 came down as an update. Neither product bothered to check to see if the other was there, yet they do a lot of the same things and they had the hard drive do slow-motion cartwheels trying to run 2 index updates simultaneously while trying to provide regular desktop functionality like email and web-browsing.
