'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

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Fash
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'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Fash »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7126902.stm
Microsoft is to withdraw an anti-piracy tool from Windows Vista, which disables the operating system when invoked, following customer complaints.

The so-called "kill switch" is designed to prevent users with illegal copies of Vista from using certain features.

But the tool has suffered from glitches since it was introduced with many Windows users claiming that legal copies of Vista had been disabled.

Microsoft says its efforts have seen a drop in piracy of its software.

In a statement released by the company, Microsoft corporate vice president Mike Sievert, said: "Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine copies."


'Take action'

"They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action."

Microsoft has described the new approach as a "change of tactics". It said efforts to tackle piracy had seen numbers of fake copies of Vista at half the level of XP, the previous Windows operating system.

The change will take effect with the release of Service Pack 1, a major update to Windows Vista.

Customers who buy a copy of Windows Vista or have the operating system (OS) installed when they buy a new PC are required to validate the OS with Microsoft.

An online tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage, checks the authenticity of the OS to determine if it was legally acquired.

The tool can "lock" Vista from further use if it believes it is an unauthorised copy. But many users have complained that the system is not working because legally bought copies result in error messages.

It was introduced in 2006 as voluntary option, but became mandatory with the release of Vista, and had problems from the day it was introduced. Mr Sievert added: "It's worth re-emphasising that our fundamental strategy has not changed.

"All copies of Windows Vista still require activation and the system will continue to validate from time to time to verify that systems are activated properly."

Microsoft said it had pursued legal action against more than 1,000 dealers of counterfeit Microsoft products in the last year and taken down more than 50,000 "illegal and improper" online software auctions.
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Aslanna
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Re: 'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Aslanna »

Fash wrote:Microsoft says its efforts have seen a drop in piracy of its software.
...

Microsoft has described the new approach as a "change of tactics". It said efforts to tackle piracy had seen numbers of fake copies of Vista at half the level of XP, the previous Windows operating system.
That's because nobody wants to use Vista so there's no reason to pirate it.
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Re: 'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Zaelath »

I stuck with Vista for a good while, but it's inability to do difficult things like play WoW and run windows media player at the same time *cough* have led me back to XP.

Their "vista downgrade" program is a) great since I don't have to run anything but XP on our client's new PCs, b) shitty since it allows MS to inflate their Vista sales figures.

Even with SP1, I doubt I'm going to be bothered reinstalling Vista. I'll wait for Vista 2009, or whatever they call the DRM free OS that will follow this failed experiment.
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Re: 'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Boogahz »

Still haven't had any issues with Vista here. I have no reason to run WMP11 and WoW at the same time, so I have no idea what that's all about. I can run iTunes, WoW, and EQ2 at the same time though!
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Re: 'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Winnow »

Don't know why you'd want to run WMP in XP or Vista.

Media Monkey for music and KMPLayer for videos (recently switched over from Zoomplayer)

Vista is cruising along smoothly for me. The Second Life Client, which is a crash waiting to happen using any OS, is the only problem I have with Vista.

KMPlayer is a very nice, free, all purpose media player I've been using for a few weeks now. It's more stable than Zoomplayer and has an extensive feature set. It's Korean and doesn't have a friendly home page but has a great interface. I don't expect anyone else to use it but it's a great player so I figured I'd mention it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_KMPlayer

As with all media players, grabbing the most minimalistic skin is the best.

It has very extensive codec support combined with a great set of features and UI unlike VNC which I've always hated for it's ugliness and unfriendly customization.

I installed the last stable release and then upgraded to the latest beta since the last stable release is from 1/07 and lot of work has been done since then. Most of you might want to wait until there's an easy install of a new stable release unless you like to tinker.
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Re: 'Kill Switch' removed from Vista

Post by Zaelath »

Winnow wrote:Don't know why you'd want to run WMP in XP or Vista.
Hardly the point. I should be able to, and it was only one example.

This is not the only thing that's crashing out the video driver under Vista, there's a raft of complaints about it.
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