Activation Restrictions Create Pirates
<rant>
I understand Microsoft’s desire to reduce pirating, but their activation scheme and the “Windows Genuine Advantage” is annoying. I’ve had it bite me a few times for trivial things, especially with the OS. It always defaults to the “You pirate, you stole this, or it was stolen on your behalf” instead of “oops, for some reason I cannot validate right now.”
When a governing body creates more laws, they only create more criminals. In this case, Microsoft makes it harder for legitimate users to activate and use their product, therefor making them a pirate. I remember one of the key people behind Galactic Civilizations at Stardock making a case for not putting such restrictions in their games for exactly that reason. If you have some users who the restrictions fail for, then you force them to find a workaround (a crack), which only makes the cracks more available.
I seriously doubt Microsoft has made any dent in the overseas pirating of their operating systems. That is where they have the biggest hit in pirates. Instead they force us, their legitimate users to give up our simple liberties with their software in the name of greater security. All for naught.
</rant>
October 24th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Can piracy be stopped by Activation scheme? No. I am a Chinese and I admit that pirate Windows is popular in China here (and a lot of other developing countries). We cannot afford a genuine version because its price is irrational. Even though my Dell notepad ships with an OEM version I find it does not worth the money I pay.
I prefer Linux and hope it is pre-installed on my next PC. In fact, MSFT does not do its best to stop Windows piracy in China. Why? That will force billions of people to turn to Llinux or Solaris, which will surely kill MSFT in the long term.
And you may not know that Chinese people used Kingsoft WPS in the DOS age. Then MSFT came to China with its Word (Office). It never tried to stop pirate Word until Word dominated the market. Sometimes, MSFT smartly uses piracy to kill its competitors.
So, piracy is a freak that we can not easily define it is good or bad.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:06 am
And the software companies are hurting everyone. I have just helped my neighbors, a 78 year old retired man and wife, upgrade from Win98 to Vista because their tax software won’t run on less than WinXP now. After getting the machine setup, it *required* an internet connection to validate the system, new from the brand name store, and threatened to not allow the machine to work after xx days. I had to find a wireless internet connection I could borrow to get them registered, the updates downloaded and the software installed. This couple does their taxes on the machine, and some volunteer word processing for a local hospital and their church. Nice going, Uncle Bill and friends. Tell the old people they are theives and that to do something simple requires thousands of dollars of investment every few years. User friendly? Where did I ever get the idea that that was possible? Old people don’t count anyway, and computers are MUCH more important than their medications, food and utilities.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Ummm…last time I checked CCollins, you didn’t need an internet connection for activation. It is just the simplest way.
For those without an internet connection, there’s the automated phone based activation system. Failing that, there’s 24-7 operators to assist you for the special scenarios.
While I don’t necessarily approve of online activation, at least MS has got things pretty well covered.