freaking windows
I’ve seen the whole Windows Advantage Verify My DNA and Bloodtype thing mentioned in the news recently, but never gave it no mind since I have the thankful position of never using Windows except when I want to play games (Gentoo on my desktop at home and work).
What I just read on Groklaw though makes me really want to reconsider wiping XP off my harddrive and putting Windows 98 or 2000 on there instead. It turns out their little anti-piracy tool that they don’t tell you they are installing tracks a lot of hardware information including your harddrive’s serial number. What the crap?
Now, I’m really not bothered by most of the stuff they are collecting. Basic hardware information, sure that’s fine. System locale, sure. BIOS information (make, version, date) is where I start to get suspsicious and grabbing any kind of serial numbers really pushes the limit for me. Add that along with the fact that the server is *obviously* going to log your IP address and timestamp, they can track exactly which computer in the world is pinging them every time you boot up. That’s just lovely.
Of course, it’s all in the name of security and piracy, right? I’m sure Microsoft would never do anything like track those serial numbers of harddrives for marketing purposes. Or to pinpoint who is pirating what. I tell you what, man. Microsoft is just like America Online: they target the people who don’t know any better and then screw them over for all its worth. If I wasn’t so addicted to computer games, I’d give them up entirely.
June 11th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
After the latest system update I now have a systray icon telling me that I ‘may have an illegal copy of windows’. I’m sure I’ve had all kinds of garbage reported back to Mount Redmond and I am very tempted to uninstall as well. I only use it for occasional things–things I can do without.
June 17th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
I can’t say I’ve noticed it on my laptop, but I so rarely boot into Windows XP on it, I’m not bothered. My desktop runs Windows 2000 (once every blue moon) and Linux — seeing as Windows XP wasn’t around when I acquired (18th birthday/christmas present) that machine.
This grabbing of serial numbers is questionable, but I don’t really have much of a gripe about it. The only time this becomes an issue, is if that piece of hardware dies, you replace it, then Windows deems your licence “pirated”, because the serial numbers no-longer match.
I’ve seen MS Office 2002 (on my father’s machine, I avoid Office like the plague where possible) bitch about a ethernet card being replaced — again, due to hardware failure (the original D-Link card died, and got replaced by an Intel). Umm… hello Microsoft?! It’s still the same fscking computer!
Then again… these annoyances only mean good things for the Open Source community. As people gradually get fed up of being treated like criminals, they’ll start leaving the Microsoft camp in droves. That, plus the stability problems with their OSes (there’s a good reason why I’m able to recall two different Win95 OEM keys off-by-heart), this will possibly be Microsoft’s demise.
This is my opinion of course… time will tell what will happen.