"Old pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, ...
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time..."

n0neXn0ne Says :
"Old pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, ...
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time..."

It's OK to be hardnosed about things, as long as your own house is in order. Hardnosed incompetence is not a winning combination. Two years ago at Christmas this happened to my wife's Dell OEM PC. It took a week to sort things out (MS said the serial number was false until I emailed them a .jpg of the hologram). One year ago at Christmas this happened on my HP OEM laptop. I said "do I want to spend another week fixing this, or do I want to do something else?" As a MS user since Win 2.0, I didn't choose Linux, I was driven there.

If you think Microsoft has a problem with Windows and Office validation try to validate a copy of Money Plus or Streets and Trips after you have changed computers. After the manditory call to India I got a new validation code that lasted untill I logged out of the program. After 4 times I gave up and bought a new copy. Why can't Microsoft follow Adobe's leed and let you remove your software so that it can be installed on a new machine.

It's a shame that Microsoft went to WGA. It's a piece of crap. I have not bought a Microsoft product
(other than Windows that came with my new PC) since WGA was introduced. And I will not until it's dropped. I used to run windows on my spare (old) computers at home, but move them to Ubuntu. For what I need them for they are just fine. Firefox, Open Office, Gimp and many other open source software will open their eyes of thing to come.

@_ :
**These are my opinions only and in no way are they meant to offend anyone. If for any reason you feel the need to contact me in any way regarding these posts, especially for inappropriate wording or a perceived derogatory statements, please feel free to contact me. I am all over the Internet and you can find me there.**

Have a nice day.

Joe;

Sorry to hear that you've been labeled a pirate through the problems with WGA. I've had simular problems in the past myself. I also feel Spencer Chapin's frustration too.

As a IT specialist in Microsoft and I too love my adobe products and see the good in Adobe's licensing transfer to another machine, as in a person updrading to a brand new or better machine and keeping the faith of doing the right thing.

In the past, I usually upgrade to a new PC every six months, I ran into the reactivation processes on where I have to call everyone (though it seems) in India to get my software suites reactivated on the new machine. I used to be a pirate back in my old days long before becoming an IT professional, and often thought to myself, it's my past catching up to me, or something like that.

I purchase my software either online or through a vendor like most of us do. But for me, over time, I got fed up with the reactivation pain. So at the time, I downloaded "things" to generate my reactivation codes. Now I am sure this is illegal by the licensing agreements with the various software companies out there and certainly will not prentend to say, others should do the same thing as I did, but I felt the frustration of the reactivation bug.

I must congradulate companies like Adobe that has license tranfer machenisms or features in their software that allows folks to do this without the need of calling in, or resorting to "Cracks" and trojan infested warez.

When I was working for an enterprise level environment, State Government, we had clones, whole images loaded with the operating system, Office 2007, adobe products, development suites like .Net Studio and so forth. We would simply drop these new images on various new machines, regardless of make an model and everything would work after the specific drivers would also be loaded up. As smooth as this worked for us for state-wide computing, some people would take these images home and use it on their own systems and thus pirating big time -- Even this is not pirate proof.

Unfortunately, no matter what Macrovision, Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec and others do to protect their software out there from "digital theft." It just seems to me, one man's thoughts here Joe, that all this WGAism if you would is hurting in most cases the honest person who purchase software, install it from legit means gets punished or treated like a pirate. However the real elite pirates get away with their warez painlessly and seemingly effortlessly. Do realize that these elite pirates are in some measure excellent programmers developing dll's and exe files that completely replace original application files very effeciantly.

Now think about this for a moment, you get these folks, these "elitests" who have an "agenda" in getting back at the "Man", the "man" being any software company out there and reverse engineering the application, the installation processes and creating certain dlls, exe files, and of course authenticating key generators and whatever else. These pirates are nothing more than knowledgeable and talented code writers who form an underground software conglomerate, or something like a software company in their own right -- Wow, the energy and time they spent forth in doing this.

Of course the big legit companies knows this, trys to keep up with their own patches to be downloaded and short-circuit these elitest pirated applications in hopes of busting the illegal software and forcing those that have this stuff installed to get licensed, and what I've been seeing, it is futile for the most part.

I once witnessed, was privy to a pirate who downloaded Server Enterprise from Microsoft, a trial version good for 180 days and using the MS Downloading resources download the ISO and open it once downloaded and added the "Time Bomb" that disables the time limit set forth by Microsoft, and using an unique and elaberate key generator, that also generated a file to short circuit any watch-dog method used by Microsft and this person is breezing through the WGA and gets all the updates through Microsoft just fine, in fact, I would venture to say, smoother than a legal and legit version goes. I seen simular in the Vista Ultimate version as well, though a little more work, but if one follows the steps outlined in the "document" in ten minutes, their version has no activation, reactivation requirements and slips through the clutches of WGA without so much as a care.

Joe, sure there is a lot of "half-baked" cracks and hacks out there that may work only for a short time or perhaps not at all, and there are others out there that install trojans, worms, and viruses instead.

I don't have any quick answers to any of this, and certainly feel the frustration everyone in the legal software world feels, that's for sure. I sell only licensed software to my clients, but when I am repairing or speaking with a client about software suites for a solution in their productivity endeavors and they tell me, "Why should I purchase it, if I can go out somewhere and download the software for free???" In meaning specifically, a pirated copy.

Unfortunately I know businesses in my area who do not have a single legal license for any of their software -- I refuse to do buisness with this lot, and am I hurting them? No, they'll find someone else in the IT world that will gladly take their business and money, and who also get's hurt in this process other than the Software companies? I'll tell you, people like I do!

My Vista computer is 100% legal bought Vista retail and did a clean install.

It activated just fine. 5 months later I received a message saying that my Operating System was not geuine. Not only that but I couldn't accesss my desktop or anything I could click ok which would log me or click more info which would open my browser.

I had to go through hours of Technical Support before they gave up and said that something on my system caused it. O reilly? Cause I havn't changed my software at all.

So I reformatted and that fixed it. But really WGA and that other crap is too buggy just like eveything else Microsoft produces these days. It's crap just CRAP!!

Sad, sad case, Joe. But let's be thankful that this situation will soon change. Some time ago, we only had the possibility of taking whatever Ms chose to give (that's why many people are wary of Ms.) Now, there is new software, cheap or free, every day there will be more. And every day it will be easier to look Ms in the face and, if their software is mad, bad or just plain crap, we can just say, with all dignity( as the Spaniards say): Anda a que te den por el culo!.

However, we should not fall into the game of "Ms' defenders" who blame piracy(they are desperate). Because a company which charges and earns what Ms does has the duty of giving an excellent product.

At least someone has a good experience with Windows Validation:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=475709

"I just did this for a laugh and didn't expect it to work. I went to microsoft.com using IE4Linux and tried to download Windows Defender, on Xubuntu. Of course, I was asked to do the Genuine Advantage test. I used the alternate authentication method (although IE4Linux does support ActiveX, which is used in the normal authentication method, if lower security settings are used), downloaded and then ran the genuine advantage application (which took quite a while to start). It gave me a code that I pasted into the authentication box, and to my surprise it verified me and forwarded me to the download page. This just goes to show how rubbish they're validation software is."
--------------------------------------------------
Of course, its important to note that their Ubuntu operating system was not pirated! And they say MS validation doesn't work.

I wish I had a story to tell you about my travails with Windows--but I don't. You see I know freedom: I run OS X UNIX and don't get viruses and worms and I don't have my OS vendor question my ethics and deny me the use of software paid for. I can use VMware Fusion on my dual Quad-core to run WIndows all I want but I do less and less frequently. You see I got everything I need on OS X UNIX now (and I can run Linux in a VM if say I want a first-class and free DVD Ripper to backup my DVDs) and a lot more I never had on Windows--including freedom from fascist software lockouts. I know that after a while you grow an affinity for your kidnapper (it's called Stockholm Syndrome and can be cured). But really now, isn't it time to break free of captivity? Every day is the first day of the rest of your computing life. Don't live it in slavery. Break free.

Joe, you say a corrupted file caused the false positive?

You maybe dismayed to learn that sp1 can also cause this;

Service Pack 1 can't save Vista

http://blogs.news-journalonline.com/techtalk/2007/12/service_pack_1_cant_save_vista.html

Quotes from the link (see last paragraph);

"If you have been waiting a year to install Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system because you think the upcoming Service Pack 1 is going to correct all the problems with the original OS -- think again.

By Microsoft's own admission, Service Pack 1, which will probably be pushed out as an update in January, will do little to resolve the biggest headache associated with Vista -- incompatibility with older hardware and software.

To make matters worse, the public beta of Service Pack 1 now available for download has its own set of serious bugs, which is likely to frustrate those who are already using Vista.

I installed SP1 on two Vista machines -- one a laptop that had a clean install of Vista and another a desktop that had been upgrade to Vista from XP. There were no problems on the laptop. But after completing the SP1 install on the desktop, Windows immediately reported I my activation key was already in use and that I would be required to buy a new one in three days -- or lose OS functionality. Great."

I just had a wonderful experience that I just have to share with someone. I upgraded my PC from Vista to XP and my computer performance dramatically improved. As a gamer I've come to the conclusion that Vista is fundamentally flawed, bloated and slow. This could change in the future if they ever figure out how to turn an Edsel into a Chevy.

But the thing that I find most exhilarating is for the first time ever I actually believe it may soon be possible to completely break the chains that have bound me to the �Big Blue Ogre� for so many years. I was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future and she showed me a wonderful vision: many of the the links in the chain that had held me captive were actually already broken, I just didn't realize it yet. She showed me a multitude of Open Source and Free Ware programs around the world that were freely there for the taking. I saw people reformatting and adding programs to their hearts delight. No predatory activation schemes required. Then she showed me another group. She referred to them as the �sheeples�. They were following the �Big Blue Ogre� everywhere he went and were afraid. If they didn't do what the ogre said he growled very loudly shaking the ground and threatening to take away their treasure. The Christmas Ghost showed me that there were really only two more links left in my chain that had to be broken. One link had �Gaming� written on it. The other link was stamped �A Few Applications�. Then I woke up and resumed upgrading my computer to XP...

I was so happy when I realized that the only program I had to activate was my legitimate copy of XP itself. I chose not to install my legitimate copy of Office 2003 because I really don't need it anymore. I prefer Open Office anyway Wow, it really felt good when I didn't have to activate and cross my fingers for my Office Suite). For a host of personal reasons I really doubt that I'll ever buy another Microsoft Office product again.

How I love freedom.

I recently had a really stressful experience. We got a Toshiba laptop for my wife's business use, as her old laptop was on its last leg. First thing I do when I boot it up was to go to Windows Update and get all the recent updates. There were around 40. "Wow, this is going to take awhile," I thought, and it did. Now, I agree that I should've read through the descriptions of each update, but I didn't. In the past I've tried deactivating specific updates from showing up on the next update check and they still show up every time anyways, and I just got tired of constantly having to weed through them. Many people just automatically install updates, right? That was my rationalization at least.

After the updates installed and I rebooted I installed MS Office 2007, and then went back to Windows Update and got more updates, and rebooted again.

Then I installed Kaspersky internet security suite 7.0 and rebooted again.

At this point the computer demanded activation or I would have limited use only. I thought I had 30 days to activate, but, what the heck I have to activate sooner or later anyways, so I carefully type in the activation code straight from the license sticker. I get the warning that I may be the victim of software piracy, that my code is already in use and therefore invalid. I tried again, just to make sure I typed the code correctly and got the same result. Depressed, decided to sleep on it and come back refreshed the next day.

Following day I examined the license, it was for Vista Home Premium. According to the dialog on the screen the computer thinks it is Ultimate, not Premium. So that's why it won't take the activation code for Premium, it's looking for the activation code for Ultimate. One of those updates must have changed something so that the computer now thinks it's Ultimate, is my guess at what happened. It's now reported that there was a problem with an update of Kaspersky a day later, but as I didn't get any suspected virus warning notifications and it was the day before, and I hadn't selected to update Kaspersky, I don't think Kaspersky was the culprit.

So, I can't uninstall any of those updates, because the machine is now hobbled by the activation problem caused by the updates. I try the Toshiba recovery disks and, although the print on the label of the recovery CD has the same model number as my laptop (as you'd expect) the recovery process fails because it says the disk was not designed for that computer. I get to a DOS prompt after booting from the recovery disk again, and try to manually initiate a system restore from the recovery disk, but still, no joy.

Luckily, the store took the computer back. We had had it for only a couple of days after all.

LESSONS LEARNED: I will always and forever check to see what the *&^%$#@ the recommended updates are going to do and ask why I need them. I will never ever again set up a computer for automatic updates from Microsoft. I will try anything to keep from using anything that is named 'Vista'. I will always create restore points before taking a chance with updates, and a new computer should always have back up disks made right away.

So, Microsoft claimed my product activation key was pirated, that software had been pirated, but that was not the case. Sounds like to me that a lot of other piracy false positives have occurred as well. Maybe there's not really such a piracy problem after all? :-)

BTW, when pirates on the high seas attacked ships, they stole whatever was of value and sunk the ship or took it. When Microsoft takes money for a product and then not only doesn't deliver the product but also locks up/hobbles your computer and you have no recourse--- Hmmmmmm Maybe THEY are the real pirates?

Rebellion: It is worse, because the pirate was out of the law. Ms IS the LAW (it named itself) for that the name is tyranny.

Keep it going Microsoft. You're doing an awesome job at pushing your customers to Macs/Linux. Give a pat on the back to your PR department!

I think you meant "... branded my mom ..."
To "brandish" is to wave (menacingly).

Did you really mean the latter? :)

B wrote: "I think you meant '... branded my mom ...'"

Thanks, B. I didn't mean branded, I wrote branded. Copyeditors backread my posts. Looks like I need to backread what they do. Brandish isn't a word I would typically use.

I've restored "branded."

Joe

Personally I haven't seen such problems with my corporate Vista stations. It's maybe because I am using special application deployment and patch management features from Scriptlogic's desktop management tool Desktop Authority that hides out all the online update/validation gotchas from me? I had a server that I installed an additional HDD to increase its space. And what do you think? It burned out all the hardware making the motherboard smoke. Should I say that nobody had warned me that I couldn't install that many HDDs to my system? That all means that nobody's perfect. I agree that's a weird thing that somebody has called you a thief but when you know you are not a thief, why would you worry? Moreover, the software wouldn't make a validation check until you ask it to do by opening update.microsoft.com isn't it. That's one of the reasons why admins perfer configuring software update in an automated mode where everything is independent from the user side.

I personally think that for home use it's STUPID to buy all the software. No one has that money to buy all the things that he want's to use for his personal needs. So the programs should be awailable for free for personal use...