More on Windows Vista

The Register has another analysis of what the new Windows licence will mean to you, and whether Microsoft has overstepped the law in its zeal to protect its investment. When you install Vista, you have to activate it within 30 days. So far, so good – lots of software requires this. Where Vista departs from the norm is that, if it think that you haven’t activated it properly, it will stop working properly. All those new features you thought you were buying will stop working, and it will fall back into a non-updateable XP-lookalike mode. The important thing isn’t about whether you’ve paid for the software, nor even whether you’ve activated it. The issue is that Microsoft has taken it upon itself to stop your PC working based only on whether it thinks that you’ve activated Vista. Unlike normal due process (in which you are innocent until proven guilty), Microsoft will now impose its penalties based on suspicion alone.

If for some reason the software “phones home” back to Redmond, Washington, and gets or gives the wrong answer – irrespective of the reason – it will automatically disable itself. That’s like saying definitively, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that…”
Unless you can prove to the satisfaction of some automoton that the software is “genuine”, or more accurately, that under the relevant copyright laws that you have satisfied the requirements of the copyright laws and all of the terms of the End User License Agreement, the software will, on its own, go into a “protect Microsoft” mode…
What if you assert that you did activate the product, but Microsoft claims you did not? What if you attempt to activate the product, but Microsoft’s servers are down, or they provide improper information, or their servers are hacked and give you bad activation information?
What the contract states is that unless you can activate the product (irrespective of whose fault it is that you cannot activate), you forfeit your right to use the product, and therefore access to any of the information on any computers using the product.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 12:46pm on 22 November 2006
Category: Computers, Links, General