Windows XP, Anyone?

V

Vladimir E. Zyubin

Hi Mark,

In order to achieve understanding, It would be better to explane, what is strange reason MS insert the strings about the changes in the EULA?

Is there any hidden key in the "Run" window to discard the MS condition in the EULA?

--
Best regards,
Vladimir E. Zyubin mailto:[email protected]
 
I apologize for suggesting that I hadn't seen Bin Laden in the MS campus, but I didn't make this initial comparison.

Someone prior to me suggested he be compared to MS.

Mark Hill
 
B
> Can you provide some examples of updates which aren't
> discretionary. I'm
> not aware of any but then I don't buy the story that the EULA
> creates a
> legal obligation on the user to install updates even if they
> don't want to.

It doesn't say that you have to, it says that they can. I don't like using analogies, but I'll try it anyway.

Let's say Fred has a house that has old wiring. It works fine for the most part, but the fuses blow once in a while, and they are a nuisance. Fred gets an electrician to install a new circuit panel with modern circuit breakers. But the electrician won't install the new panel until Fred agree that the electrician will be able to enter Fred's house to install any upgrades that he wants to give you. Fred agrees, as you want to have the new circuit breakers installed, and
he usually keeps the doors locked when he's not around. 2 months later the electrician tells Fred he can install GFI circuit breakers which
will make the home safer. Fred decides that he doesn't want them, so he doesn't ask the electrician to install them. A week later, Fred
comes home and finds that they have been installed anyway. Fred didn't even know that the electrician had left a window unlatched and could
get to the circuit panels. Fred wasn't charged you for the new GFI breakers, but he's still pissed that he lost a freezer full of meat when the new GFI circuit breaker tripped on his old freezer. He tells the electrician that he had no business changing the breakers, he wants
the old ones back, and he owes Fred for the spoiled meat. The electrician says tough, you signed the contract, and by doing so, authorized the electrician to make the change. Upset that Fred does not know how to change back to the old breakers, he buys a new freezer that doesn't
trip the GFIs.

The EULA does not say that they will be updating your system without your regrets, but they can update your system without your request.

> Either Microsoft is breaking the law or their not. If their
> not but you
> don't like the law as it currently stands then by all means lobby to
> have it changed.

If Microsoft changed your system without you giving them permission, that would be breaking the law. By you agreeing to the EULA, they can make changes to your system, and they would be breaking the law. That's the point we are trying to make.

> Personally I do have some sympathy for changing the law to limit what
> Microsoft can do. As I understand it the US legal system has
> determined
> that Microsoft has a monopoly on PC operating systems. Given
> that, I do
> believe it appropriate to provide a degree of special regulation of
> Microsoft. This has been done before where monopolies have
> been found to exist.

Agreed.

> One of the things that does worry me about XP is that it seems to be
> designed to send reports back to Microsoft relating to what
> the users do
> on their computers. As an example this report:
> http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2002/02/h230202mediaplayer_detection.html
>
> suggest that:
>
> "..Microsoft has finally admitted that Windows Media Player 8, the
> standard media player shipped with Windows XP, surveys users and sends
> information back to Microsoft's servers.
> Every time users use their CDs or DVDs, their actions are
> recorded into
> a small file that periodically is transmitted over the Internet to
> Microsoft.."
>
> I've seen other reports suggesting that XP sends data back to Microsft
> whenever you undertake a search. Perhaps some current XP
> users might be
> able to check their gateway logs and confirm if this is still
> happening.
>
> Personally I would certainly find that something to worry about.

Now you're starting to see why many of us don't trust Microsoft.

Mark Blunier
Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the company.
 
C
Hi Jeff

On the contrary, I have not hesitated to make a public apology when I've been wrong. My implication, while perhaps graphic, was that Bill Gates is a greater threat to our personal rights and security. Recent revelations tend to support this and I stand by that implication. I do regret that particular comparison as many have not
considered the particular context in which it was made. I will endeavor to pick less controversial, but equally illustrative personalities to compare our native, would be, dictators with. I simply can't think of any acceptable ones at the moment. To those who were offended outside my intended scope, please accept my apologies and bear in mind
that I mean well and am merely relating my analysis of the concerted intent of all the nebulous, incremental, seemingly unrelated small encroachments on our rights and liberty. Try as I might, I fail to see any that are good for us as
opposed to Microsoft.

Regards

cww
 
M

Michael Griffin

Their XP releases are just fixes to their software to deal with compatability problems with Windows XP. The vendors had to come out with them
in order to support the existing product line. These aren't really new products in themselves.

Something that should be kept in mind is that the problems we have been discussing are problems for the *customers*, not problems that the vendors have had to deal with themselves yet. If Windows doesn't work, why would the vendors care? Their direct competitors would have the same problem, and you're still buying the product in the end.
Of course, if the end customer has any sense, he will write his project spec to dump the problem back in the lap of any integrator quoting on a new project, so I guess this could more realistically be considered a problem for
integrators. As far as the end customer is concerned, the integrator is being paid to have the software and computer expertise, so they ought to be dealing with these problems as part of a proper system design. I suppose challenges
like this are why it is such fun to be an integrator.

There has been a good deal of discussion on this subject. I've been a bit disappointed though that all the solutions proposed so far using Windows XP seem to have been either impractical or illegal.

WIth regards to that last point, I would like to remind people that finding a satisfactory *technical* solution isn't good enough. It also necessary to be absolutely sure that what you are doing is *legal* under Microsoft's new licensing terms. What you want or what you need or what you may have thought you could do in the past is irellevant. Microsoft is getting very picky about
following their new terms exactly to the letter, and they are picking on small companies to make examples of them. You really don't want to be one of those examples.

************************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
************************
 
C
And it's not quite that simple. No matter how good the programming is in competing products, no matter how well they run, even if they are absolutely perfect in their own right, Microsoft controls how well they will work with the other 90+ of the world, and they jigger this with every release. That's what monopoly power is about.
This is one of the most aggravating aspects because people never blame MS for this, they simply declare the competition to be inferior. They can, and have, even rigged the OS so
competing products choke. Again, the competition is "inferior". No competitor has ever been able to compete on a level playing field. Yet here we have people saying there were choices and MS won fair and square. Even with there finally being a choice of an OS that MS can't control, the
secret APIs and assorted other "innovations" still make even the finest competitive product "inferior" when it has to work with Microsoft products. The effect is such that you can really only fairly judge competing products by themselves, on Linux, with cooperating peers. They do a lot better when tested this way. Tested
fairly, Samba on Linux, for example, is a better Windows file server than NT. Making comparisons between MS and anything else on Windows is
watching a game where the "fix" is in so the outcome is known.

Regards

cww
 
D

Donald Pittendrigh

HI All

I ran an installation of XP for 30 days without activation to see what happens 'n it deletes some part of the operating system which prevents it from booting, I wasn't too interested in the mechanism I just wanted to know what would happen as I had heard sensational stories about damaging the hard drive boot sector so it couldn't be used etc. etc. I tested on a multiple boot system and in fact that machine is still running perfectly today but wont boot to the win Xp partition.

If your version of XP is still running after 30 days, the chances that it is legal are rather slim.

Cheers
Donald P
 
A

Anthony Kerstens

> >"End Users have the option of purchasing any product they choose. It
> > appears they've chosen."

> ... The choices are
> there, the market is aware, but the buyer won't spend the money. Who is
> making these choices wither? (assuming that they are withering). Look in
> a mirror.

Ralph,

Well, OS/2 certainly withered and died, didn't it. Obviously, it's not me making the choices, is it? If I started using Corel just because I felt like it, I would still have to keep a Microsoft operating system to do things like run RSLogix, or for that matter, upgrade to the latest version of Wordperfect.

Of course, there's the question of why Rockwell and others are developing for Microsoft to begin with? Let me conjecture that at the very least they saw how the market was and made their choice. If the market was as it used to be, they
might well offer their suite of products for multiple operating systems. For that matter, perhaps someone in the know could offer-up why USData, who used to offer Factorylink in multiple operating systems including Unix and OS/2, is now touting Microsoft .Net?

I understand what you're saying, and yes, I understand how the market works. The market is not perfect. Not everyone participating in the market can afford the luxury of making choices based on what they would like. And not everone
in the market is going to investigate their software options when they can go out and buy a pre-configured system. Certainly, most end-users don't realise there's another option beside Microsoft. For example, although Dell does sell Linux, up front they only offer XP.

Maybe Corel and Redhat need to launch an awareness campaign to compete with Microsoft, but do they have the resouces to do that? Maybe computer suppliers needs to offer systems with choices up front, but wouldn't that simply confuse their average customer?

The bottom line is the market is imperfect, and my software and operating system choices remain at the discretion of others.

Anthony Kerstens P.Eng.
 
P
Vladimir,

"may change" does not necessary mean that they "will" change the codes or that they "must be allowed" to change the codes or that you "grant them the right" to change the codes regardless of your wishes. It could quite
reasonably mean that they are advising you that such a thing "could" happen under certain circumstances. The consipiracy theorist will of course interpret in the worst way but that does not make them right.

As I understand the law, (and I'm not a lawyer) in a contract where wording is ambiguous, the party that didn't write the words has the ability to ask for them to be interpreted in the way which most favours them.

This combined with comments from Microsoft that it is not their intention to force users to install upgrades against their wishes and the fact they provide the facility to turn off automatic upgrades leads me to conclude that it is neither Microsofts intention nor their right under the terms of the EULA to force users to install upgrades. Others interpret the EULA
differently but I think as a minimum there exists uncertainty not the clear cut interpretation some would argue.

Regards

Peter Whalley
Magenta Communications Pty Ltd
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
e-mail: peter*no-spam*@magentacomm.com.au
delete *no-spam* before sending
 
For those of you who don't trust MS's explanation of WPA, I suggest you visit a German company called "Fully Licensed" and see what they say.
They've devoted a TON of effort towards figuring out exactly how WPA works.

Go here for a summary of their efforts ....
"http://www.licenturion.com/xp/wpa-eng.txt":http://www.licenturion.com/xp/wpa-eng.txt

Or go here for a technical discussion on exactly what they found.......
"http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt":http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt

Mark Hill
 
> From: Donald Pittendrigh
> HI All
>
> I ran an installation of XP for 30 days without activation to see what
> happens 'n it deletes some part of the operating system which prevents
> it from booting, I wasn't too interested in the mechanism I just
> wanted to know what would happen as I had heard sensational stories
> about damaging the hard drive boot sector so it couldn't be used etc.
> etc. I tested on a multiple boot system and in fact that machine is
> still running perfectly today but wont boot to the win Xp partition.

Wow, I thought they would at least leave enough system to
log on to Microsoft and activate it.

> If your version of XP is still running after 30 days, the chances that
> it is legal are rather slim.

It must be legal, Gateway would not take a chance on
annoying microsoft.

My wife is an attorney, and she said that if someone
sold a product, there must be a reasonable expectation
that it will continue to function. This puts the
problem onto gateway.

Larry
 
G

George \(Jim\) Hebbard

Curt Wuollet wrote:
><snip> Microsoft controls how well they will work
>with the other 90+ of the world, and they jigger this
>with every release. That's what monopoly power is about.

This thread has been going on too long. While I agree (mostly) with Curt, it's more sour grapes than constructive information.

It's difficult to avoid the flavor of a jihad when discussing operating systems. However, it's true that many who read this list do not know what
a TRS-80 is nor what was lost when Kildall overpriced the 16 bit version of CP/M. (The whole industry has suffered from the lack of file and record locking under DOS).

I watched Excel chase Quattro for many years until giving up in pain. The one clear point is that Microsoft products are a whole lot better because of the competition they faced.

Is Linux better than Windows 2000 Pro? The true answer is sometimes and for some people. Is XP better? Apparently only from a marketing standpoint for Microsoft.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with a solid need for good information and non-emotional posts that >inform< rather than proselytize,
because >we< are often the leaders pulling IT in new directions, and we had better get our stories straight. That is the value of this list-server
from Control.com, for whom my hat is off with great respect for the effort.

=>Jim<=
 
Peter Whalley:
> "may change" does not necessary mean that they "will" change the codes

Actually, while the licence does say "may ... check" and "may provide upgrades", it also says they "*will* be ... downloaded" (emphasis mine).

To quote the EULA: """You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its components
that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation Computer."""

> The consipiracy theorist will of course interpret in the worst way but
> that does not make them right.

If your goal is to CYA (or simply to provide a reliable solution), it's probably a good idea to be pretty paranoid about things.

> This combined with comments from Microsoft that it is not their
> intention to force users to install upgrades against their wishes and
> the fact they provide the facility to turn off automatic upgrades

These things would probably help a lot, but I'm not a lawyer either.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
 
M

Michael Griffin

On October 20, 2002 03:33 pm, Curt Wuollet wrote:
<clip>
> It's not likely that I'll recommend LabView
> anytime soon. It's a pity, from all accounts I've heard
> it works well and doesn't crash. This is how you launch
> and scuttle a product in one fell swoop. Generally, folks
> who want the Linux product, don't want to fall back to
> Windows.
<clip>

I've looked at Labview in the past for production test systems, but each time it wouldn't *quite* do what we wanted. Sometimes we might have been able to make it work, but we couldn't be sure and could afford to sink the man
hours into an approach that might not work out. Labview and other similar products are good when the model they are based on fit what you want to do. They are particularly good when it is more important to get a program working quickly than it is to have one that fits your needs exactly.
However, if you find yourself going to great lengths to work around their limitations when designing a production test system, then you are probably further ahead just writing the program in 'C' or Pascal to begin with.
What you really need when you are writing software for custom production test systems is libraries for the user interface (including graphing), math and signal processing libraries, and routines for logging test results.

I really have to question though whether there is any commercial market yet for specialised third party software libraries or development systems of these types for Linux. It's pretty tough to sell something to people who
believe that software is supposed to be free. You have to sell it to people who are willing to pay money for software and are fed up enough with Windows to take the plunge. I think it will be a couple of years before that market is big enough to be profitable.

The people that I know of in the IT business who are using Linux commercially are using it for web based applications systems. They've no room for sentimentality when it comes to software, and Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP puts
bread on the table. There are no big software companies making big money and big headlines, just a lot of small consultants making enough to pay for mortgages and mini-vans.

I think this is what it is going to take for Linux to be successful in test equipment. It needs a generally accepted collection of software which can be counted on to get the job done, and a pool of professional consultants who know how to use it. Measuring success in the Linux based market by sales of shrink wrapped software is a red herring. Linux and the software that goes
with it is currently more a tool for professional consultants and integrators than a consumer item.
Of course, if you're not a professional consultant or integrator, you shouldn't be building non-trivial test systems anyway, so this still covers a lot of ground.

************************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
************************
 
J

Joe Jansen/ENGR/HQ/KEMET/US

I can believe what they say, and still not agree with your conclusion. Call me paranoid, but every reference to data being sent in that article
refers to data sent during and for the purpose of product activation. It does not in any way address data that can or is sent after the product has been activated. Data streams from Media Player are not conspiracy theory, they are fact. IIRC, MS has acknowledged that some data is collected and sent to MS via media player 9. Note that this does not discount what the
accountants state to be true at all.

I realize that this sounds picky and paranoid, but keep in mind how MS manipulated the 1995 consent decree to their advantage. That is simpy how they operate.

Same thing for the post you put up earlier to lecenturion. Hooray for them, but they state very openly that they were referring to early
versions of WPA. The EULA bundled with SP1 modifies the initial terms of the Win XP EULA. They are silent on the effect of this.

I think you are missing the 2 state nature of this thread. One side of this thread states that XP is not appropriate for industrial automation
because the activation is required to make it work, and weekend hardware fixes in some areas of the world will cause the system to be unusabe again until normal business hours. All references to WPA are of this nature. Again, not much anyone can say about it, because the nature of WPA makes it an added risk if you trigger the "hardware change" reactivation code.

The second portion of this thread involves what MS can push down to your machine with/without your consent, based on what is written in the new
EULA with SP1 for XP, and SP3 for Windows 2000. Those EULAs state that MS may send security updates to your computer when they want to, without consulting with you first. May is interpreted as it is in the sentence "Mother may I?", as opposed to "They may or may not". Only they are specifically stating that they have permission if you install the service pack. Although nobody can document whether this has happened yet, their exploitation of the 1995 consent decree definitely raises at least a
shadow of doubt as to their methods and motives. Make no mistake, DRM is where they are pushing this to. Security updates are DRM security, not
anti-virus security.

To summarize: Although I make no objection to the arguments and documentation that you provide, I don't feel that they directly address the issues that have been raised.

--Joe Jansen
 
B
Why would a report from their own auditors have any bearing? You can get a report written on just about anything and it will say whatever you want it to say.

Bob Peterson
 
Thanks for the link Curt.... but why on earth would any financial institution have a server connected to the internet with Automatic
Update turned on? Or for that matter, have any port left open? Or not have a HUGE firewall ??

This man obviously knows very little about computing. I'd suggest everyone in his establishment grab their money and run !!

The man is an idiot.

Mark
 
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