With the new operating system, Microsoft is offering plenty of new graphics tricks, including translucent windows, animated flips between open programs and ‘live icons’ that show a graphical representation of the file in question. But before Vista will display its showiest side, known as Aero, it will run a check to make sure the software was properly purchased. “Those who are not running genuine Windows will not be able to take advantage of the Windows Aero user experience,” a Microsoft representative told CNET News.com on Wednesday. Note: We had a slight problem with our submission system today, but it is now fixed. Submit away, boys and girls!
Someone who is pirating an OS does so to have the most up-to-date OS so that they can run all of their (probably pirated) applications.
The fancy stuff…they probably dont care about.
I personally turned off all the XP eye candy to spare myself the wasted CPU time
Well, I personnaly think that the pirates DO care about the FX. It is usually the pirates that have all the fancy hardware and want everything that shows it off.
Besides, the PIRATES will just find a way that enables them to run it just like they always do… it may prevent your run of the mill consumer to get the special effects to run from a disc that their friend or neighbor burnt for them but the true pirates will figure it out probably with no problem whatsoever.
Was that an admission to running pirated XP? j/k
JRM7
Anybody wanna take up odds on how many hundred thousand valid customers will lose an hour or more of their life fighting with something related to this?
That reminds me of a recent upgrade I made on someone’s PC. He upgraded motherboards, processor, sound card, etc. and when I tried booting XP it made me go into safe mode (I’m assuming because of driver issues) but then wouldn’t let me install the drivers because XP needed to be activated and it couldn’t be activated when in safe mode. Chicken meet egg. Too bad Windows repair didn’t work either.
I understand the need to prevent piracy, but there comes a point where they’re hurting the honest people too. Considering nearly every PC has Windows pre-installed in a legal manner I doubt they’re getting hurt too much.
The non-activated state should never prevent the installation of drivers — the two have nothing to do with each other.
Are you sure that maybe you just weren’t just running as an unpriviledged user?
Nope – it was a really screwy loop. Part of it was the fault of the drivers, as they needed to boot into non-safe mode to complete install. After I did the XP repair it was worse because it still wouldn’t boot into regular mode and as soon as it booted into safe mode it gave an error that repair wasn’t finished and it forced a reboot.
I’m guessing the fault was that XP was loading a driver from the previous install that was blue-screening XP in normal mode no matter what I’d do.
Getting back on topic, perhaps Vista, since it’s supposedly being rewritten from the kernel on down, will handle drivers in a better manner. That or I’m just spoiled by BeOS/Zeta and being able to move drives from PC to PC without dealing with these issues.
There’s no such thing as anti-piracy measures which don’t get in the way of regular use.
The best anti-piracy measure, and I know it sounds crazy, is to make your product worth the price, or the price meet the value of the product.
Why pirate Windows if it’s $20 a machine? Why pirate it if $200 buys a license for 12 machines?
Why download music off limewire if it’s $.10 a song on itunes and $5 an album at Best Buy?
Of course, some people will still pirate, I’d imagine it’s not a linear curve either so there’s surely some ideal point.
Treating your customers like they put bread on your table seems to be a lost art to a lot of American businesses; especially in the software industry.
We get plagued with the same ridiculousness on commercial unix software. License managers are obnoxious! Although they’re much more understandable for $1K software than they are for $100 software: $1K software will generally have a dedicated admin around.
Pirate windows and you :
– don’t have to go through an annoying registration procedure
– don’t waste cpu/gpu power on useless eyecandy
– thus get better performance out of your machine
Was this intended to *discourage* piracy ?
I guess it has to be stated over and over again for people like you:
Vista’s GPU-powered eye candy makes your system FASTER because it lessens the graphics load on the CPU. That’s the whole idea behind “hardware acceleration”. You know, that thing that’ts been around for the last 15 years in the graphics world …
It’s funny how when people talk about XGL/AIGLX it’s like “Wow, my video card can finally be put to use and my CPU will have more time to do other things!”, but when the same people talk about Vista it’s “OMG Vista is going to be wasting my clock cycles”.
Get a clue.
It’s funny how when people talk about XGL/AIGLX it’s like “Wow, my video card can finally be put to use and my CPU will have more time to do other things!”, but when the same people talk about Vista it’s “OMG Vista is going to be wasting my clock cycles”.
Are they really the same people? The same posters? Or is this another one of your usual anti-Linux rants.
You know I’m talking about the typical Windows-hating Linux zealot. They’ll find anything to bitch about when it comes to Windows, but on the Linux side, it’s all praise.
Vista’s GPU-powered eye candy makes your system FASTER because it lessens the graphics load on the CPU. That’s the whole idea behind “hardware acceleration”. You know, that thing that’ts been around for the last 15 years in the graphics world …
Well I don’t have a fancy gpu so I’m guessing mine would handle the old 2D system better than the newfangled one. Some cards are bound not to support the DirectX version required for Aero (what is it these days DX10?)
How about integrated graphic cards with shared memory ? I guess those will be eating more system memory than before now (probably the max allowed to store the application window contents for the new application switcher etc.).
More graphics mem in use for Aero means less for your Applications.
Get a clue.
Get a sense of humour and a dose of politeness while you’re at it.
Integrated graphics with shared memory will use the same amount as before. If you allocate 64 MB to your graphics, then you’ll get 64 MB taken away from system RAM. Why would Vista automatically cause more system RAM to be allocated to the shared video? That is only done through the BIOS.
Sounds like you need to get more than one clue. 🙂
PS: I don’t take too well to people who talk about things they don’t understand. Perhaps it makes me impolite. Perhaps some people just shouldn’t talk.
Yes, you shouldn’t.
That’s the sort of reply you should expect, because on one page you’ve refused to apologize for being rude and implied some guy has ADHD?
Seriously, calm down.
Shared cards aren’t even an issue. I doubt many of them can run Aero.
Not that I can believe any technical person would stand there and argue FOR shared memory video cards.
I was replying to people who are throwing out their opinions without any technical knowledge to back it up.
Vista will eat more system RAM when used with a shared-memory graphics card? What?
It’s that kind of thing that should not make it out past your teeth — or rather your fingers. (I’m not referring to you exactly, by the way)
Actually it doesn’t – it just hides how slow it is by moving the load to another part of the system.
Try running Linux with GNUstep instead of Gnome or KDE, and you’ll suddenly have a system much more responding than anything MS has ever released.
Hardwareaccelerating an extremely poor design is NOT the solution, EVER!
Windows is not a real OS and it is never going to be one. It’s a poor excuse written by a bunch of lamers who knew next to nothing but primitive BASIC.
And to think, I was starting to take you seriously and enjoy your posts.
Oh well, nothing lasts forever.
You should know I think much the same of Gnome/KDE
If you need 3D-hardware acceleration in order to draw two dimensional windows reasonably fast then something is terribly wrong with the design.
Systems like Windows, GNU/Linux w. Gnome/KDE have simply gotten to big and needs to be rewritten.
You should try running Gnome and KDE-apps within GNUstep (with GNUstep Workspace Manager and WindowMaker), and you’ll see how this can is done right. Try opening two windows, place one above the other, and drag it around. See? That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Until you’ve done that you shouldn’t attack me. You can do that when Windows can do better with less resources.
Actually, I’ve never seen the GUI on my NeXT redraw like it does in windows and what not
and its from 1991 
Drag windows over stuff with moving things in them and its still silky smooth.
Yeah
and its a 33mhz 68040 with 96mb of ram… and windows is just *now* getting this smooth.. wtf?
Well, NextSTEP was ahead of it’s time. Amazing isn’t it?
GNUstep isn’t that good but it works fine on a K6 233 MHz with 96 MB of RAM. But NextSTEP was designed to run on modern hardware in mid-80’es so performance and efficiency is just plain fantastic.
I’d like to see more FLOSS Desktop Environments to pickup the GNUstep-code. It would result in great enhancements
I’m however awed that your Next is still running today. You take good care of that, promise?
Don’t worry, I will. It’s my baby
I’m running a mono turbo at the moment. can’t afford a color turbo or color cube yet.
Heres a screenshot of my current desktop. and yes, its playing mp3s while im doing other stuff and yet that is a doom icon, which btw, it plays very nicely 640×480
http://helf.freeshell.org/screen-grab.jpg
By using your 3D card it allows work to be taken away from the CPU for such tasks. I like the idea, especially since I can now get some use out of my 3D card for something besides games.
It’s not that 3D hardware is REQUIRED in order to draw 2D windows reasonably fast — it’s that 3D hardware can draw 2D windows *faster* than 3D hardware.
Just look at your typical mid-range GPU. It probably has more transistors than your entire general-purpose CPU. Those transistors can be put to good use. That’s the entire idea behind hardware acceleration.
I suppose you’ll say that if you need sound-acceleration in order to play 5-channel audio reasonably well then something is terrible wrong toto, eh?
Sound requires less resources than video, so one might reply ‘yes’, but personally I’d expect to use hardware in order to get 5 channel audio, just like using the graphics card to draw the windows.
A lot has been moved from the CPU to the GPU with 2D-acceleration. Fact is, for Windows to draw the windows barely acceptable, it needs to use 3D-hardware acceleration. They are not doing it for fun, but because they can’t get decent performance without, unless they put Windows through a thorough rewrite.
And that’s the problem.
Where do you get the idea that Windows NEEDS 3D hardware to draw windows at an acceptable speed? Seriously.
You seem to think you know more about the architecture of Windows than Microsoft’s own engineers. You’re a good laugh.
Why else would they want to use 3D to draw 2-dimensional shapes?
Try the classic Windows look (disable theming service if enabled), open a few windows, drag one of them around on top of the other windows (and don’t use wireframe – that moves nothing until you release the mouse button). Now compare this with Gnome and KDE, and then compare to other systems like OS/2, SkyOS, Syllable, and of course X11/GNUstep (with WindowMaker).
There you go. Clear proof that Windows has an unacceptable redrawing rate (just like Gnome and KDE), and that’s why they have to use 3D hardware acceleration in order to get fancier looking themes to work acceptable.
The Aero-theme takes more CPU-time than a standard 2D window would if Windows was correctly designed. However, a fancy complex 2D-windows is easier on the CPU if treated as a three-dimensional object. Microsoft should rather than implementing Aero, simply go the other way and simplify the system, in order to get higher efficiency instead of moving the problem around. Using the 3D part of the GPU to draw two dimensional objects is like getting the warmth by wetting your pants.
And don’t forget. 2D is also drawn by the GPU. CPU has very little work to do with normal two dimensional objects (that is, if the drivers have support for 2D hardware acceleration).
http://people.freedesktop.org/~jonsmirl/graphics.html
You really need to read that.
http://people.freedesktop.org/~jonsmirl/architecture.gif
Do you see that little “2D Engine” box? It’s not being worked on for a reason: It’s not the future. It’s done. It’s hit its limitations, and there’s no reason to work on it.
The CPU has most of the work with modern 2D acceleration. It has to:
1.) Decide what widgets to draw.
2.) Decide how to draw widgets.
3.) Process widget drawing commands.
4.) Send this off the the graphics.
5.) Do any necessary storing of windows for later use to avoid steps 2 and 3 later.
Wanna see a really fast system that can use transparency on the CPU? Run e16. Guess how they do it: They stop updating the screen! Wow, only a small sacrifice right? Unless you were watching a video on your other monitor.
On a modern system the CPU will process very little of the graphics. This is a good thing! It wasn’t its job in the first place! We’ve had fancy hardware capable of doing it for the last year or two.
Even GNUStep stands to benefit from these changes (on the X11 side). Gtk+Cairo will end up with a gl backend: Boom, snappier gtk apps.
I imagine windowmaker will eventually composite, and I’m sure the compositor in Xapps can already work on it. Boom, snappier windows.
And Openstep will probably even eventually get a gl backend.
I’d be a windowmaker user, if I could get that stupid single click patch and gcc 4 patch to work together. Not cause it’s fast, just cause I like the environment. Oh yea, and now it, for some reason, hates my dual head setup :/.
I don’t know but probably Gnu step gui lacks decent AA font support and won’t stand a chance when dpi independent cairo based themes are introduced. And for this kind of suff to be feasible you definately need some of 3d accel goodness.
Switch from bitmap based systems to vector IS the rewrite everyone longs for. After it’s finished X will only remain a transport protocol. Whether the rewrite will be successfull (mainly in terms of hw support) is another matter.
It doesn’t change the fact that GTK redraw could be better and it’s slowness cannot be wholly attributed to XWindow flaws.
Actually GNUstep has fine font-antialiazing. Ever heard of FreeType
Syllable, SkyOS and AmigaOS (and some applications for OS/2) uses FreeType as well. So does AROS. Some applications for Windows also uses FreeType. For most systems following rule applies: If nothing is stated in regard to font rendering it’s probably using FreeType
Actually, you don’t need vectorbased, 3D-hardware accelerated drawing engine in order to handle scaling properly. It can easily and effectively be done without. It’s a matter of doing it properly from the beginning. KDE and Gnome can do this pretty well actually, while Windows cannot handle it at all (scaling exists, but doesn’t work well).
You gain nothing from using 3D hardware acceleration as long as you are using two dimensional vectors – but of course the moment you switch to three dimensional vectors, and starts implementing weird animations and all kinds of light effects, then of course 3D hardware acceleration will be necessary.
You need 3d hw to alpha-compose AA canvas.
Of course if you’re serious about vector interfaces only vertex shader powered vector engine is up to the task.
And yes, ubiqutous animation is part of all of this.
You need 3d hw to alpha-compose AA canvas.
Actually not. I don’t know where you get that from? Any sources?
It’s true that it can have advantages to use 3d hw to do so, but only if the theme in use is complex, or there is a lot of fancy animations, or the said system is bloated.
You can do without 3d hw if it’s designed correctly.
I may be that our definition of 2d and 3d differs. I tend to regard a proper Render acceleration as doable only in 3d hw (and not, NVidia’s current solution is suboptimal).
I doubt that 3d will be used in Linux for more than this and composite fun in forseeable future.
In vista it will enable new kinds of UI imo. Animation will be a widget level element rather than part of the skin.
I agree with you that mainstream toolkits (GTK anyone?) are in desperate need for optimization (or worse – complete refactoring). X11 is not slow per se. If someboy’s not convinced, please run (on a dated machine <600Mhz) similar app written in GTK2, GTK1, fox and atena side by side and try to resize windows, switch dektops and so on (the easiest one to find is calculator).
I had quite usable desktop (icewm + rox desktop + some fox apps) on P166 while Gnome2 on P2 400M (enough ram) was completely hopeless. Optimized KDE3 (bunk packages in debian sid) was quite snappy though.
Default KDE was barely bearable.
It also might be that we define “a proper Render acceleration” differently. Or that we have different requirements in regard to the actual implementation. I might be happy with less than you are. That’s not unlikely.
You’re right about that with GTK1 and 2.
The fastest starting app on my maching is Lazarus (GTK1), which starts a few seconds faster than GEdit (GTK2), despite GEdit being the small simple application, and Lazarus the big “bloated” application.
X11 isn’t the problem, but – as you correctly state – rather the mainstream toolkits and DE’s.
GTK2 applications btw. works quite fine within GNUstep Workspace Manager combined with WindowMaker. So I believe Gnome and/or Metacity might be blaimed as well.
Yes, I meant GTK2. GTK1 had its problems (there were toolkits having much better redraw back in the days), but its day and night compared to GTK2.
I believe that most startup problems come from font handling. I made a simple helloworld app that didn’t use fonts (no labels, no buttons) and its startup time was similar to gtk1 apps and rose 5x after adding a single label. Also KDE startup time rose dramatically when they switched do clientside fonts.
GTK2 apps better working in WM may be result of a simple fact that more memory (90% more?) is left for disc cache so that more heavy lib files are preserved in it for quick random access.
As for render, I believe that to accelerate it driver developers have to mess with 3d pipeline or give up using card’s hw and switch to optimized software procedures.
I read an article in which Rasterman pointed that his own opimized sw procedures were in many cases faster than NVidia accelerated render. I think that’s result of tricks that NVidia must employ.
Fast != efficient.
Huh? What are you babling about?
GNUstep is LGPL and GPL, so be happy that the most advanced technology is Free Software.
And GNUstep is efficient. Not as much as good ol’ NextSTEP, but close enough. Try running Gnome/KDE on a K6 233 MHz with 96 MB of RAM and compare performance with GNUstep. GNUstep IS fast AND efficient, even if you don’t like it.
But be happy that we have a FLOSS solution clearly superior to proprietary solutions
Generally, when people say fast they mean low latency. Your car is fast, that means it gets between two points in a short time. They don’t care how much gas it burns to do it, it’s fast.
Your code is fast, that means it finished the input before other programs. How it did it is not being discussed.
It is entirely possible for inefficient code to be faster than efficient code. And it’s being done on graphics processors today. In 5 years you will not be able to get graphics to display quicker, no matter how well you design, via the CPU than you will be able to via the GPU. It’s already that way today, however the systems for doing user interface graphics aren’t stable yet.
And it’s not more efficient code. It’s simply written for specialized hardware. So yes, it’s faster because it does more in less time.
Of course, if you don’t want more that means little to you. But there are nice things about all the overhead being brought in for this. Things like expose become cool instead of obnoxiously slow. Things like window previews in alt+tab and off the taskbar become no big extra deal, where as before you’d have had to dedicate cycles and memory to keeping stored older shots of the window (a faulty approach at best).
You think windowmaker switches desktops fast? How quick do you think Compiz can do it without an animation? It doesn’t have to redraw the windows…
Also, you’ll be interested to know that it actually does, when done correctly, pull 95% of the cost of a GUI off the CPU. It comes down to queueing up some drawing commands and sending them off. Widgets, windows, compositing, off-screen stores: All on the GPU and VRAM. It’s really a good thing.
Until now, in this area, fast and efficient were usually the same thing (although not always, and I’ll give an example later on here). But now we’re seeing code happening on different hardware, some superior for the task. And the line gets blurred.
Ok, so current example of something that’s fast but inefficient: Firefox. It’s quick. Setup pipelining, turn off the initial paint delay, and it’s about as quick as you can get a page with a decent machine. Run it on a 233 and you’ll cry!
Of course, a great example of fast and efficient there is Dillo. With the small sacrifice of css and ssl
.
I’ve actually seen people argue about whether firefox is fast or not, and it usually comes down to one trying to redefine fast as efficient.
Of course, next we have scalable. But that’s not really a concern here.
Great post, well put
*yawn*
Let me know when you actually have something educated to say.
Considering your profile, you are hardly qualified to define ‘educated’, Tom K (or should I say LinuxIsPoo? You sound like him).
Excellent come-back. Zing!
Now please … leave us alone, go learn something about graphics, and then come back here.
Vista’s GPU-powered eye candy makes your system FASTER
One of the dumbest things I’ve ever read here. Congratulations. If it makes your computer so much FASTER than classic mode, how come you need an Alienware just to run it?
Who says you need an Alienware to run it? The clueless anti-Windows zealots here?
Please.
It sounds like you just stopped reading after what you pasted and completely ignored the rest of the comment — you know, the part that actually explained the statement.
ADHD?
1) The Eye candy is faster because it’s on the GPU and not the CPU. Get it? Right now the GPU is only used for gaming or 3D Applications. In Vista it will be used for the UI.
2) The registration procedure is pretty simple. It’s pretty hard to screw up as you only have to press a button and it registers. Wow! That is so hard!
Geeez guys, learn something before you open your mouth.
So If i want to play a game in windows mode it will SUCK because the UI is now using the GPU ASWELL as the Game or will it downgrade the UI to non GPU mode in this scenario or is this an option?
No. DX 10 demos in Microsoft internally have shown 8-10 times the performance on apps running on D 10 compared to DX 9. I am quoting this so how true it is I am not sure but if a beyond3d board members believe it I do as well because they have valid arguments and enough knowledge to back their opinions up.
When games run, there will be no need for the UI so obviously the GPU wont be working on driving the UI. Consider a Mac machine playing Doom 3…what happens to their GUI driven UI? Same principle applies.
Wrong, some games do run with a UI and most can be changed to run in a window instead of fullscreen.
If you are the owner of a key that is blacklisted (it happens accidently sometimes) or your key was leaked. Is it so easy to get it unblocked or a new key? I bet its not if you are a end user of a retail edition (OEM is not a problem most likely) or what if you are a VLK it shouldnt be a problem either just a headache.
Uh, so it’d be like running two instances of a game? Thus, it would hinder performance, would it not? Either way, there IS a performance decrease and I’d have to imagine using the GPU, which by all means should be used for 3D gaming/application.
Number 2 I agree with. It’s not that hard to press ‘Next’ until you’ve registered. Activation, however, is quite annoying. “Hey Microsoft, I upgraded a few parts in my computer, is that cool?”
Two instances of a game? Are you talking about when you’re running the Vista UI and then try running a modern 3d game? Because when you do, the vista UI, desktop composition is disabled until you’re done.
Spot on – I see no negatives and lots of positives on that list.. but then I consider turning luna, shadows and windows animations off in XP a ‘must have’ – WISH you could do that in OSX without having to run MORE software bloating it out even more. Turning all that crap off would be first on my list of to-do’s after a vista install.
Of course, much like their previous attempts at protection schemes does anyone REALLY think a crack won’t hit within a week of the release, if not sooner?
Like the WGA – which has proven SO effective. (not)
I’m gonna admit to something funny here – I run XP cracked. EVEN THOUGH I OWN IT LEGITIMATELY… because for me the bullshit hoops you have to jump through regarding it’s behavior over simple things like swapping certain elements of the system hardware (like hard drives, CPU or video card) much less software upgrades; it’s just simpler to crack the damn thing than it is to deal with their crap. (especially given the behavior of ‘legitimate’ XP installs when you rip out Outlook and Messenger by the balls)
I’m gonna admit to something funny here – I run XP cracked. EVEN THOUGH I OWN IT LEGITIMATELY…
————
Thats one step better than me. I own XP legitimately and I just downloaded the corporate edition and use it. Its just another case of the pirated copy of software/movies/music/etc… providing an easier ownership experience than legitimate copies.
I also own Photoshop and resorted to using an activation keygen upon installation. Now with new movie formats on the horizon, all the DRM stuff is actually turning me off to making purchases. I’ll stick to DVDs or illegal copying of them unless someone out there can provide patches to give me a trouble free product with no DRM.
I’m gonna admit to something funny here – I run XP cracked. EVEN THOUGH I OWN IT LEGITIMATELY… because for me the bullshit hoops you have to jump through regarding it’s behavior over simple things like swapping certain elements of the system hardware (like hard drives, CPU or video card) much less software upgrades; it’s just simpler to crack the damn thing than it is to deal with their crap. (especially given the behavior of ‘legitimate’ XP installs when you rip out Outlook and Messenger by the balls)
I’ve swapped out a CPU, video cards, sound cards, hard drives, mice, keyboards, and buttload of USB devices, and have never had it bark at me once. And even if it did, it would probably take less time to get it running than it would to hunt down the corporate version and install that. Granted, I’ve never swapped out all these at ONCE, but I think you’d pretty much have to change the whole damn computer at the same time before it complained. And it seemed that nobody would have a need to do that more than once, but as soon as the product activation thing for XP was announced, then suddently it seemed like all these people had an urgent need to swap out their motherboards and CPUs on a daily basis. By the way people bitched about it, you’d swear that they were changing boards more than their underwear.
>> I’ve swapped out a CPU, video cards, sound cards, hard drives, mice, keyboards, and buttload of USB devices, and have never had it bark at me once.
So you’ve never gotten the ‘hardware change detected – Windows invalidated’ message? Haven’t used up your ‘alloted’ changes yet? I blew those out on my secondary hard drives alone.
I find that kind of surprising, but then I do have a 3 month upgrade cycle on my machine.
Oh, and I even had it do it once after a power supply upgrade, and even after a BIOS upgrade… and don’t even get me STARTED about WGA’s issues with multi-boot.
Considering the life of a PC on a store shelf is 2 months before changes and they want to invalidate hardware after some changes. Go figure.
I’ve swapped out a CPU, video cards, sound cards, hard drives, mice, keyboards, and buttload of USB devices, and have never had it bark at me once.
——
I upgraded a sound card a while back and upon start up I had to reactivate. So I go to activate, and I am told I need to call MS for my activation. To make things worse, I am stuck waiting for 20 minuts for someone to talk to me. In this sort of situation, I expect that I wait no more than 5 minutes.
Now I run corporate edition and things are great.
I upgraded a sound card a while back and upon start up I had to reactivate. So I go to activate, and I am told I need to call MS for my activation. To make things worse, I am stuck waiting for 20 minuts for someone to talk to me. In this sort of situation, I expect that I wait no more than 5 minutes.
So you got the product activation thing after changing only a soundcard? On one of my boxes, I started off with an internal sound card. I disabled that and installed a Turtle Beach Catalina. Took that out and put in an SB Live Audigy 2 Platimum (with an external part in one of the CD drive bays), and it didn’t even blink at me. I’ve also replaced a PCI TNT2 card with a Geforce4 MX in that same machine.
So you got the product activation thing after changing only a soundcard?
———
Yep. I was quite surprised that it happened. I went from a Sound Blaster Live to a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum.
And even if it did, it would probably take less time to get it running than it would to hunt down the corporate version and install that.
Less time to get it working than finding a corporate version and reinstall, yes. Less time than finding the activation crack that rips part of Winlogon.exe out, no. That takes about 15 seconds, the patching process included.
Note: We had a slight problem with our submission system today, but it is now fixed. Submit away, boys and girls!
Feel free to delete this post, but editing still doesn’t work. Error message like : “You can’t remove all the text from your post.”
I’ve seen this trick before. First you tell people they can’t do somthing with an OS; then, after millions of copies (pirated and leagal) are consumed, a small segment spends days figuring out how to do just what they were told they cant do. After a small song and dance of pretending your upset about the illegally obtained copies, you then throw a party now that you have inssured your continued dominance as the worlds most used OS. Tell the share holders to fire up the barbe, because were still number one. Hey, we blead companies dry, the pions on the streets are just target practice on a slow day.
So it’s Microsofts fault that people pirate Windows to keep the dominance on the desktop?
I’m sorry, but that’s ludicrious.
Why not make the pirate check utility a pre-req to running the whole OS rather than just the Aero UI?
The biggest problem area for license abuse and piracy is Asia (China, specifically), and many of them won’t have the hardware to run Aero anyway. MS should just lock the whole thing down if they want to make a difference.
Because the DOJ told them no on XP.
I don’t think they’re doing it this way for any other reason than to say: “This is not required to get full use of the system and applications for it, just to make it work better.” That way, when the EU and DOJ come tell them that taking customers private information to continue using a product they’ve, more or less, used for 20 years isn’t right; they can say they don’t have to give their information.
I don’t think Microsoft honestly cares if people in China pirate Windows. They’re at a loss there simply because:
1.) They can sell at a price that’s affordable there, and then be consistently yelled at at home.
2.) Sell at the same price, and no one in China can afford it (by no one I mean 95% of the population).
They’ll simply use it as an excuse to try and fight casual piracy in industrialized countries and major piracy (corporate) in China.
Honestly, if this thing works, takes no private info, and doesn’t cause more than 5 minutes of inconvenience it’s fine with me.
I guarantee it won’t work though
. It’ll have obnoxious conditions like: Never lose this 25 digit code. You need a new code for the new version. You can only install on one computer, please call.
The funny thing is it won’t work for long.
There will probably be a piracy version of final Vista with support for Aero, before the final Vista is released.
That’s has been the case before with Windows and I don’t see why it would be different this time. Doesn’t work too well with XP AFAICT from friends (running a perfectly legal copy myself through MSDN AA, just so you know I don’t use piracy software – I usually use GPL’ed software whenever I can).
I personally got sick of all the different versions of Windows and all the privacy issues they violate to enforce copy protection. I don’t think I will bother with the next version of Windows. XP works fine for “legacy” applications, and Linux/BSD have reached the point where I would be more than happy to use it moving forward.
“All the different versions of Windows”?
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=A…
Have you seen that lately?
Are you sick of the Versions of Windows? So i imagine that you dont use linux(300+++ Distros)
That’s the point. They do not want to do that. They want people to use their software, they’ll find ways to make them pay later:
“They’ll get addicted, and then we’ll collect”
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-micropiracy9apr09,0,414067.st…
Great post!
Everyone with eyes should know this, it’s how they got into the government etc. Giving people a product cheap or free and then locking them in. I wish I could do that!
If they can get a pirate to pay $5 for one of their products they are making money (That’s $5 more then they would have gotten!)
But yet when Linux is given for free MS claims it’s communism! LOL! Boy oh boy!
They should call it Crack-dows. LOL! “It gets you hooked even though it’s not good for you”
It is currently possible to bypass the WGA checks, why would that be any different for windows vista? If the bits and bytes of the software are on the harddisk, it can be executed.
“if it bleeds, we can kill it”…heh, agreed
If they crackers are smart enough to get the OS to run without requiring activation, whose to say they won’t be able to crack the check for a genuine copy?
mAx
yeah, it’s not like it took long for a hack of the genuine advantage for XP to get hacked anyway.
When will these companies realize that there will ALWAYS be someone out there who can crack their software? Look at Adobe CS 2. It has a very sophisticated serial number validation system, but how long did it last before someone figured out a way to break it?
As far as I know, windows geniune check util (or what ever it is called) has to be run on your local computer, check your copy of windows and send the result back to microsoft. Bearing this in mind, how long would it take to figure out what kind of a correct respond should be reported back?? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do have doubts, that it is gonna last…
—
Dmitry
If they really wanted, they could make it effective. By checking authenticity of serial number on their servers. But Microsoft is too clever to prevent all pirate versions from running or getting updated.
WGA was intended only for those who aren’t capable to switch to alternative OS themselves but will buy Windows if pirate version stops updating. However their unupdated Windows might get flooded by malware very quickly and leave very bad impressions about the OS.
There’s likely:
1.) Encryption to be dealt with.
2.) A challenge response mechanism happening.
3.) Quality of response checking, where it actually needs to be unique and logical each time to your situation; and match the challenge, and be encrypted with the right key for this connection.
I’m not saying no one will ever crack it. Just saying it’s unlikely Microsoft has written this so that you could crack it with packet sniffing and a quick socket code.
Anyway, I think the best thing Microsoft could do is make you give your name. People get nervous about writing their name, address, and social security number in when they’re pirating software.
Of course, the DOJ told microsoft it couldn’t do this. Oh, and no one wants to give someone their soc when it’s utterly unecessary.
Ok, ok, Aunt Tillie might give her soc.
Only girls buy ’em. But seriously, I think sales won’t be as hot as when with the previous versions. Who cares about Aero… Linux/BSD is just beautiful!
It is great that Microsoft fights against Windows & Offic e pirates, it means more users for Linux & OpenOffice ( among others ).
I personally run all my PCs with the XP theme off. The system feels much snappier that way. Besides, the blue and green colors have no place in a real “work” environment. (That’s just like when I turned off Active Desktop back in the 98/ME days).
It’s actually funny to go to a friend’s house and see their company struggling with the XP theme b/c the machine is chugging along at 128MB or 256MB RAM.
I can see the Aero UI providing some visual/productivity benefit but in the case of entry-level PCs the loss in processing power probably offset what little gain there will be for people who need to do “real” work.
Those with video cards that work with Aero will experience a snappier system because most of the graphics processing will be offloaded to the GPU. Those without capable video cards will simply not get Aero, and no performance penalty.
It’s a win-win situation.
Yeah right. And they said windowsXP would require activation and that it would be near impossible to pirate.
FCKGW…
I’m not so sure this is so much about preventing piracy, but rather about getting user informaiton from actual paying customers. Information that Microsoft and perhaps their partners can use to better target their customers. Pirates will not buy any software, so they are not interesting to Microsoft.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be some kind of checkbox on the registraiton page where the user grante Microsoft the rights to sell or share their information. That checkbox will most likely be checked by default and placed in some hard to see place.
All i have heard about Vista is about the graphics – who gives a crap?
I would much rather hear about improvements to the kernel or networking than about a flashy new progress indicator.
This new Vista eye candy has been available for years to users of Windowblinds and Active Desktop – just get the whole Object Desktop package for $45, keep XP and save about $300 bucks.
Then ignore these articles?
There are improvements to the kernel and especially networking, so you can go read about that instead.
really the only “improvements” are….
1. the graphics.
2. the security that *should* have been in xp.
makes you wonder what the heck microsoft has been doing all these years while developing it. No wonder they had to delay it so many times.
oh wait i know what they have been doing. they have been doing destructive things to their windows os, that will only hurt their market share.
1. they have been adding DRM, they know customers don’t like it.
2. they have been reordering the ui, which will only confuse their customers.
3. they have been devising copy protection schemes that probably won’t stop any piracy, but will definately serve to annoy their paying customers.
i have already switched to linux.
They are collapsing under weight of their own legacy. They are just paying for all crappy architectural solutions they’ve put down to their customers in the past.
If you don’t know what you are talking about, please refrain from commenting.
Most people would prefer to run the lightweight version (without the flashy flashy features) anyway. 🙂
ARRRRR, matey!
Would we all agree it is morally wrong to take something you didn’t pay but wasn’t given away to you? I suppose we can all agree that programmers should get paid for their hard work if they want, right? So if Microsoft wants to prevent people stealing their software, what should they do? It seems like everytime a company comes up with a proposed way to help stop piracy everyone is always so quick to say how horrible they are for their implementation. Well the way I see it, piracy is a problem, and unless you have a better idea don’t dis the current one.
“…unless you have a better idea don’t dis the current one”
I don’t see why I, or anyone else, should be prevented from pointing out legitimate concerns with some system simply because I have not produced a better one. It is not my job to make a better solution. It is in Microsoft’s best interests to listen to criticism; it is also in our interests to make the cricitisms reasonable, but that does not call for a blanket ban on negative comments.
As it is, any system which needs to contact some higher authority is to some extent flawed: why should I be forced to have my machine connected to the internet? Is that a reasonable requirement?
Given MS’s unprecedented market dominance, they should be held up to even higher standards than other companies to avoid abuse of privilege, and if they propose a frankly unreasonable system we should say so, and we should not be expected to propose a solution. After all, we did not force them to choose their cuurent business model, did we?
“I don’t see why I, or anyone else, should be prevented from pointing out legitimate concerns with some system simply because I have not produced a better one. It is not my job to make a better solution. It is in Microsoft’s best interests to listen to criticism; it is also in our interests to make the cricitisms reasonable, but that does not call for a blanket ban on negative comments. ”
My friend, criticism without supplying a possible solution is just plain whining and complaining.
Don’t get me wrong I am no MS fanboy, but I am willing to bet that no matter what MS does will not make you or all the other MS haters out there happy. Short of making Windows GPL you will never be happy with MS.
A lot of people here won’t be happy unless Microsoft GPLs their software, which is.. well.. stupid.
I’m still a little mystified as to what “must have” stuff Aero really offers, same as the compiz/xgl stuff on Linux. So I get a see-through menu and can make a Window look like a carboard box? It really doesn’t do it for me, I’m afraid. I know it looks very nice, but there seems to be quite a price to pay for that. Is there anything in this mew graphics stuff folks can’t live without, I wonder.
Most novelties vista will offer are for developers. And they will make the switch compelling by offering cool Vista-only apps.
If you look at the big picture it always used to be like that. In terms of user experience (ignoring nonfunctional virtues) W98 is was enough already for most people.
Ugh.. 98. Yeah, I guess it was enough for most people. We don’t *really* need the stuff newer operating systems offer, but that are a nice convenience.
98 had horrible stability, a really bad color management systems.. and worst of all, it was the 9x kernel.
Then it seems there’s no new features in Vista for pirates…
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, please refrain from posting.
“If you don’t know what you’re talking about, please refrain from posting.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor
If you couldn’t tell, there’s a very thin line around here, and it’s very hard to tell humor from someone who is just clueless.
Not to be rude, but you need to be more clear when it’s intended as humor, because there are people on here that would say what you did with a straight face.
Is is remotely possible that you spend entirely too much time and effort defending MS any and all perceived criticisms against/jokes about Windows in thread after thread at this site?
Look at what I said. There are many people here who would say what he said with a perfectly straight face. This site is supposed to be meant for serious discussion (not that we can’t joke), so something like that will be presumed to be serious unless (a) it’s stated it’s a joke (b) whoever is reading the comment knows the person and knows they are joking
Follow now?
Not to be rude, but if you didn’t automatically replied everytime someone was critical of Windows, you wouldn’t make these kind of mistakes.
I personally saw it as humor right away. I know you don’t want to be represented as a MS apologist, but you’d help your cause if you didn’t constantly jump to Microsoft defense…
MS is better than Google so there. My mom said so.
I guess the question is what isnt better than Google (aside from searching)…
I guess you haven’t noticed that I’ve been critical of MS a lot more than usual lately
Why do you keep bringing that up though? Does it bother you that I defend Microsoft a lot (but not always)?
I haven’t noticed that. Only your usual attacks on IE7, which is funny because we sort of switch around 180 degrees, with me ‘defending’ MS and you attacking it.:P
Intentionally cutting you down before this turns into a cat fight.
It was pretty obvious the original parent was kidding. Generally, if a reply is one line, it’s either wholly amazing or wholly joking.
And I think I have caught you giving Microsoft a hard time. You’re not on my OSN Microsoft apologist list.
Fair enough. Maybe my perception is just off because of work lately.
But I think most people would agree with me that there are people on here that would say what he said with a straight face. That was my point.
Thanks for the kind words.
so once a VLK is leaked, that licensee is fcuked?
I think protections will be cracked. And i don’t think it will take long time. Remember how quickly previous protections were cracked (like IE7 beta’s validation checks)?
People will find a way around this. They always do.
Ms is soft on piracy what they need to do is lock the os down via hardware profiles, mac address, and or ip address and maybe even live phone or internet pre authorization as well. Ms is the pirates os pirated itself used by pirates to pirate more sotware and this needs to be stopped!
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/oempre…
Preserving OEM Pre-Activation when Re-installing Windows XP
Updated: April 20, 2005
By Stephanie Ybarra
Large PC Manufacturers known as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have the ability to pre-activate Microsoft® Windows XP software installed on new PCs. As a result, end users are typically not required to activate the software during the set up process by typing in the product key found on the Certificate of Authenticity attached to the PC (COA Key).
In order to reduce a significant source of piracy, Microsoft has disabled online activation for COA Keys that are attached to PCs that have been pre-activated by OEMs. This change should have a minimal impact on licensed users who generally do not use their COA Key to activate the software because it has been pre-activated by the OEM. However, if a licensed end user needs to activate because the OEM pre-activation does not work as expected (e.g., after the replacement of a defective motherboard) they can do so via phone-based activation.
To help minimize the potential impact on licensed users, this whitepaper provides steps licensed end users can take to preserve OEM pre-activation when reinstalling the operating system using any of the four scenarios outlined below (sysprep, OOBEinfo, manual and unattended).
The following product keys should be substituted for XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX in the solutions discussed below.
Windows XP Professional 32 bit
MVF4D-W774K-MC4VM-QY6XY- R38TB
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
XT67V-GY7FW-GR6FR-WDK2C-8T97J
Windows XP Professional x64 bit
FM634-HJ3QK-6QVTY-RJY4R-XCR9J
I bet I’ll get Aero on pirated Vista out of the box while honest people will be struggling to complete sophisticated and supposedly secure registration process.
Microsoft don’t seem to realise that anyone who goes out of their way to pirate Vista will probably lay their hands on a Corporate Version that won’t include this sort of check, as with the current XP Pro. I can’t see the big corporates being too happy about their keys being checked all the time, adding a potential support nightmare should it go wrong for some remote sales person connected via dialup in the middle of nowhere.
People will still get hold of VLKs like they do now and use Vista happily ever after.
Corp version will also not have fancy bits on it. ie., Eye candy.
I can’t edit my post for some reason. I just wanted to add that the VLK version is no different than the normal Pro version sans activation so why on earth would it not have the fancy bits? There is no “Corporate” version, there’s no such thing. It’s just a normal version that uses Volume License keys and doesn’t require activation.
Server editions did not run DX too well no? etc. That sets the pattern for Vista SKU builds. The business ones will most likely not come with eye candy and other bits n boobles not needed to do business things.
Incorrect, Server 2003 SP1 includes DirectX 9.0c, and the VLK version is just XP Professional. As you know XP Pro does have the Luna style and all the eye candy turned on.
Im running Enterprise Server 2003 on a machine and Google Earth just wont work in Dx mode.
You have to enable hardware acceleration; open Display Properties, click the Settings tab and then the Advanced tab. Now click the Troubleshoot tab and turn hardware acceleration all the way up. Now run DXDiag and make sure Direct3D is enabled.
The VLK version of XP most certainly does have WGA protection, and besides what XP does or does not have doesn’t have anything to do with what Vista will.
The VLK version of XP most certainly does have WGA protection,
But it doesn’t have Product Activation, which is much more insideous and invasive.
Somebody needs to DDoS the activation servers NON STOP. Please somebody do it
Well ? Why not huh huh?
“EULA:
Blah blah blah stupid legal stuff…
By agreeing to this licence, you give Microsoft the right to sell or use your information in any way
Blah Blah more legal stuff…”
Like that?
Windows vista will increase the internal temperature of your system by 2 degrees celcius, at least by the experement I did. This increase in temperature will reduce the time you HDDs, memory and motherboard chipsets will survive because they are the most vulnerable parts to heat in your system. I will always disable vista’s eye candy graphics mania. And maybe I will not even use vista if it will get infected in a month while using it online.
All I want in the new OS is security nothing else because I suffered from it alot online. And windows vista will determine my future dominant platform I am gonna use.
is a myth, “most” of the code on Vista is NOT managed code which says alot about the state of .NET being ready if most of the Windows platform is NOT using it for this release.
Why would you want an OPERATING SYSTEM running on a MANAGED FRAMEWORK?
As far as the included apps/tools in Windows, porting them to .Net takes a LOT of resources (for development, testing, etc).
Them not using .Net more has little to nothing to do with it’s “state”.
Yes I would like the “SUPPORTING FEATURES / TOOLS / APPS (notepad etc)” working under a managed framework. Indeed yes! There is no reason “APPLICATION” code should be unmanaged these days.
What I meant is the core OS stuff should not be managed, but “supporting” apps should. But that’s a lot of resources and will take a while. Sometimes it might not even be worth it.
I’m not buying Vista anyway. WinXP is good enough, I’ll just switch everything to Mac OS X and create a WinXP partition on my intel-based Mac. When I want to run legacy software, I’ll boot WinXP. I don’t care for Vista’s eye candy, I have that and much more on Tiger already.
I would switch if I could get games on OS X and then I can run Windows apps in VMWare when that is ported.
Why do you keep bringing that up though? Does it bother you that I defend Microsoft a lot (but not always)?
It does a little, to tell you the truth. I just don’t understand why someone would so often go out of his way to defend a multi-billion corporation that represents a threat to diversity and innovation in such a key industry as IT.
You seem like an intelligent, articulate man. Why devote so much of your time to defend the beast that is MS?
(And yes, I have in fact noted that you have been a bit more critical of MS over the past few weeks…so my constant nagging seems to have had an effect! :-D)
I’ll get off your case, I just wanted to point out that just because someone makes a bad joke about MS, you don’t have to correct them on it…
MS has best jokers(marketing) department in the world!
Protection?!?! WGA was hacked in hours. “Unxtensible XP Themes” was hacked in hours.
Also I have one interesting idea why it’s almost(!) impossible to “protect”.
My idea means what Vista’s code of DWM is finished. I don’t think (may be I’m wrong) what MS has time and resources to rewrite DWM. It means what to remove any protection hacker needs just compare final DWM with DWM from latest “leaked” version. DWM isn’t .net application and quite easy “patchable”. Anyway, we’ll see results of this “threat”.
PS: MS already has this “protection” in XP. But theme manager was patched almost immediately after XP’s release.
Another good joke.
You know what number of “.net related” apps in each next “leaked” versions is less than in prevous. MS doing everything to remove any .NET code from OS. Even “notepad” is “old skool” Win32.
Looks like they found a lot of problems. .NET will be remains just a “framework” for next several years.
I’m .NET gekk/developer, but I can understand MS. .NET still has problems with performance (2.0 works almost perfectly but not enough), problems with GUI, code of applications is too open for review. .NET work perfectly on server side, as ASP.NET, but not on the client.
>> Even “notepad” is “old skool” Win32.
I wouldn’t go THAT far, it’s more like a sloppy recompile of the Win16 version with no actual code changes – which is why it still can’t handle files >64k.
That’s incorrect.
All versions of Notepad on NT can handle files larger than 64KB. It could in NT4, and in Win2K, and it can in XP and 2K3.
Only on Win9x/ME is there a 64 KB limition.
Another good joke.
You know what number of “.net related” apps in each next “leaked” versions is less than in prevous. MS doing everything to remove any .NET code from OS. Even “notepad” is “old skool” Win32.
Looks like they found a lot of problems. .NET will be remains just a “framework” for next several years.
I’m .NET gekk/developer, but I can understand MS. .NET still has problems with performance (2.0 works almost perfectly but not enough), problems with GUI, still problems with memory management, and (main reason?) code of applications is too open for review. .NET work perfectly on server side, as ASP.NET, far from client but not on the client.
Windows shouldn’t be so easy to crack. Microsoft should lock down then entire system if it thinks it is being copied. (on the up side, would help Linux adoption)
If this works out for MS, eventually they’ll just completely disable Vista installations that their servers don’t think are “genuine”. Don’t you see the creeping here and where it’s going?
However, I’m not against it, as anything that prevents people from using Windows is a good thing in my book.
Eventually Microsoft will just be selling Windows to corporations (who don’t even have to deal with Product Activation). MS seems to HATE their home users.
“Those who are not running genuine Windows will not be able to take advantage of the Windows Aero user experience”
Indeed, they succeded! Up today, no pirate is running Vista!
Oh, wait… up today *no one* is running Vista!
Maybe they are just delaying it until a DRM is proven enough strong to meke them comfident in using it
Dear MS, would you please mind in first place to write the OS, and a decent one, instead of cutting all innovative features excepting the DRM?
In other words you’re lumping people in together, applying a general label on them, without bothering to realize that they all have distinct opinions, in order to satisfy your own Linux-hating zealotry.
Unfortunately, in your hasty (and faulty) generalization, you confused Windows and Microsoft. Linux enthusiasts may like or dislike Windows (after all, it is possible to like more than one OS), but it is Microsoft they have a beef with – and with good reason.
Of course, that kind of subtlety is lost on you and your highly emotional attacks on anything Linux. That’s because you’re a troll, and trolls can’t possibly enter a logical debate and hope to win.
So keep on with the false generalizations, the ad hominem attacks and such, at least you’re making clear to anyone that they should simply disregard what you say as – like you say on your profile – f***ing garbage.
Heh. This is their final mistake.
Who the hell’s going to use their crap if you can’t even steal it?
… that the Vista version that will run on my PC will be able to display every single feature.