Is Microsoft about to release a Windows "kill switch"?

[Guest]

If this is indeed true, which it sounds like it is if a rep and email
response seem to say, this is seriously bad news. The WGA has severely
screwed up my XP Pro since it was installed and has caused perpetual reboots
etc. How can they pull something like this without testing this terrible
coded WGA?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=84

 

[Travis King]

So... In 30 days if you don't activate Windows XP, it will also shut you
down. I believe Vista is even less with 14.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

WGA offers nothing to the user. It has no functionality for me. It is the
only thing that I have patches coming through on between patch Tuesdays and
I don't see what urgency of that is all about.

The first time it kills a legitimate XP of mine, I start learning more about
OS/X. And that is not an empty comment because I use a MacBook Pro already.

(My MacBook Pro makes a great waffle iron. I leave it on overnight and in
the morning I just pour waffle batter on the keyboard and close the lid.
Two minutes later I have toasty waffles. Now I just need to figure out how
the get the indentations in the tops as well as the bottoms.)

 

[Travis King]

I will agree with Colin here that I get WGA updates on XP all the time. It
does get annoying. I think eventually it will get to the point where people
aren't going to feel safe using Windows (as there are already many that
don't already) to the point that they will not get it anymore because they
won't feel trusted and won't feel like they can do whatever they want on
their computers with this anti-piracy this and this WGA, and DRM, and so on.
It's getting to the point where you have to watch every step you do on your
PC or Windows will taddle tale on you. "Oops, you downloaded a song off of
the Internet, so we will tell the RIAA" and things like that. "Uh oh, you
didn't activate your copy of Windows, so we're shutting you down". "Uh oh,
you shouldn't be at this website, so we will report you." "Uh oh, this
video isn't appropriate, so we're going to report you." You get the
point...

 

[Steve]

I haven't had a problem with WGA as yet, but if something does happen, Suse
10 is looking a whole lot better.

 

[Mario Rosario]

<Stuff Deleted>


I went into the Apple retail store last evening ... had a few minutes to
kill. But I like to check out the Apple hardware. They have several Intel
Dual core Apple laptops on display running OS X. The color is flat black
with a white Apple logo on the cover. It looks real cool, I bet it is even
Vista capable.

(My MacBook Pro makes a great waffle iron. I leave it on overnight and in
the morning I just pour waffle batter on the keyboard and close the lid.
Two minutes later I have toasty waffles. Now I just need to figure out
how the get the indentations in the tops as well as the bottoms.)

< more stuff deleted>

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It is. But the easiest way to install Vista is to first install XP so that
the Mac drivers for XP are in place (to enable the special keyboard keys,
touchpad, any mouse, airport, and so on in XP) and then upgrade to Vista.
It's already been done. The only issues are drivers for the Mac hardware
and those are installed into XP by Boot Camp. A few Mac devices, like the
iSight camera are not supported when running under Windows. The reason I
chose the MacBook Pro over the cheaper MacBook was to get the ATI graphics
adaptor and the ExpressCard/34 adaptor to support Vista better. Not that I
expect to dual boot OS/X with Vista. I have half a dozen Windows computer
running in the house as it is. But I like to keep my options open.

 

[Mario Rosario]

I won't be surprised if it can multi-boot, use grubs then install linux, OS
X, XP, Vista beta, Solaris, uh what else is there? Maybe even MINIX.

But adding or removing hardware is a nightmare because you'll want to make
it work on all OSes installed on the system. I repeat it's a NIGHTMARE!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Multibooting Windows and OS/X is now officially supported by Apple and
appropriate drivers for Windows are included in Apple Boot Camp. Boot Camp
will be a standard feature of Leopard. It is a free beta download now.

 

[Guest]

It is quite possible these examples of yours could happen...

Even though MS has this "privacy policy" thing you never know what's
behind the screen (the code). Vista's new DRM technology is just the
beginning...