But the machines that run the OSX that is half the price and twice the OS, are twice the cost of the machines that run the OS that is twice the price and half the OS.

And it can only play half the games windows can!
DUN DUN DUN!
[Also-I know its better for work and stuff. But im a gamer so i <3 me some windows]

No, you get jumped on by a bunch of people who think you don't use windows/steam for a silly reason. Well, steam not so much, but windows definitely.

But you're obviously too smart 4 us all so we might as well just play with our pet rocks and clubs. I mean, everyone knows, censorship, okay, anti-piracy measures, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Rite?

But I also run OSX on my $600 HP laptop.




I can run more games on my Mac than you can on your crappy Celeron with Windows 98.

Civ 4, Sim City 4, Max Payne, Postal 2, WoW, CoD 1 + 2, MoH:AA, KotOR, Tony Hawk American Wasteland, to name a few.

I am intrigued by this.

/me sits back and watches the opinion war

And if you've got a newer mac you can dual boot with XP! Huzzah!

(As it happens I don't, but once I've moved house I'm saving for an iMac)
((In the meantime I have my xbox 360))

Censorship? Where did that come from? Sounds like you have a lot more on your mind that product activation.

Re: OSX, yeah I don't think they have activation, but they have a "registration" screen which is really hard to bypass (but you can do it if you run a google search and follow the instructions). I bet they send the stuff behind your back, but that's just a guess.

I once made the mistake of mentioning that I was running Vista while in a Kubuntu chatroom. One of the Linux zealots then proceeded to inform me that, if I continued to use Vista, Microsoft will put DRM on my files and lock me out of my own files.

I, being a bit open-minded, decided to ask him for his sources. He informed me that he had none; instead, the basis for his claim that Microsoft had the capacity and the potential to place DRM protection on my files; thus, because it was at least somewhat remotely possible, however improbable, it was obvious that they were going to do that.

Okay, let me put it this way. They try to force you to put in registration details, which definitely are sent off (if you only have dialup, it asks permission to dial). It's not hard to imagine that in addition to the information YOU provide, they also send information you don't provide. At the very least, they have access to your ip address and your MAC address (since this is sent with every network request anyway), and since they manufacture every box, they now know the exact box you own, associated with the registration information you provide.

Plus, I never told anyone not to use windows or vista or whatever. I think maybe you're confusing me with that guy you were talking to about DRM and vista?

Also, I find your agument a bit bewildering. A company designs a piece of software that has a specific capability (for instance, "adding DRM to all your files and locking you out of your computer"). Why would they bother if they were not planning on using it for something?

Not really. Throughout this thread, you've given your reason as to not using MS products that use registration or activation as being the possibility that maybe someday, at some point in the future, in an alternate universe with a high or low probability that they could maybe almost possibly collect private information on you.

And if they log your IP address...so what (also, I didn't think that anyone outside of your router had access to your MAC address, since the router uses its routing tables, which typically use IP addresses, to determine where to forward a packet)? Welcome to the Internet, where anyone can do that (if they really want to). Are you going to disconnect yourself from the Internet because you're broadcasting your IP, which is dangerous and possibly even illegal?



My point was that, beyond voluntary hard drive data encryption, no support in Vista exists for this function. What I was doing was making the comparison that you're both making arguments that, because there is a chance that they could do it, it must mean that they will do it.

Dj-Yoshi could possibly launch a DDoS attack on the forums' server. It's unlikely, but, just to be sure, we should IP ban him!

Well, 90% of the stuff that's included with windows XP only gets used occasionally.

About 45% of features in all software never get used. A lot of it comes from some programmer saying "wouldn't it be cool if..."

I agree with this notion.

There is still a disconnect between what I am saying and what you guys are reading. Companies collecting private information about me isn't something that may happen in some far-off future. Have you not witnessed the fact that virtually all windows software, including games, has registration forms and texts and whatnot? Of course they want your information. They want to sell to you in the future, they want to sell your info to other companies, they want all the information they can get. How can you even argue this? There are many, many businesses that do nothing except broker information (hello, the credit bureaus? every bank and credit union ever? [they sell the information to the credit bureaus]). Why is this even part of this discussion? Why do you even care whether I buy MS products or other products that require activation?

Apogee games back in 1990 had registration forms.

NES games had registration cards in them.

Perhaps we should just avoid technology altogether!

They cannot "broker" information that they don't have. Your PC does not send Microsoft your name, address, phone number, social security number, next of kin, favorite vacation spot or your GPS coordinates. The "registration form" is something that Microsoft did not force on you, nor is it something they started. You don't have to register. It doesn't even ask you twice.

Every game ever has some sort of thing wehere you regester right? Atleast every single one i have ever owned does.

Remember back in the old days when the 'registration' process involved things like code wheels? Man, I miss Zool.

Wait what? Wasn't it established that Apple was the one trying to force registration as part of the installation process, not MS? Geesh guys...

At least from what I've observed is that you take a rather look at activation and product registration. It seems like you think that these two things will perform identity theft on you and take your children away. Also, your responses feel like they're more emotional than logical.

The others are just trying to say that you need to perhaps not look at everything of this sort with a paranoid eye. So a company uses registration to market stuff it thinks you might also want. Welcome to capitalism.

$100 bucks says that he isn't installing linux on his new pc.

this thread sucks.

If anyone here is literate they would have read that ubuntu wont work on the other comp so i have abandoned that idea in favor of a dosbox.

you suck

Well it's interesting that you should say that. Today at work I put vmware on my RH Linux system (btw, I hate RH Linux, but vmware is totally cool) so I could run Windows XP which is required for this 7 week architecture spec I have to write in MS WORD. Here is my review:

The bulk of the install was very, very easy (easier than ubuntu, easier than any other windows I've ever installed). The product activation is CRAP though. It basically nags you (and continues to nag you each time you reboot, or in my case, virtually reboot) constantly. People say that product activation isn't an arduous process. Guess what? VMWare has an entire section of their manual and their web site devoted to how crappy activation is. Why? Because every time you change a virtual hardware configuration, you have to reactivate. There are some really cool things that vmware allows you to do, namely have virtual machines that can simulate conditions you want to test your software under. For example:

machines with a little bit of ram
machines with a lot of ram
machines with a lot of free/swap space
machines with a little bit of free/swap space
machines with/without network cards
machines with/without modems
machines with/without sound cards

The VMWare manual warns you that changing these items will force you to constantly reactivate your software, or you get nag screens, and, I'm told, lockouts. Should I have to purchase a new version of Windows XP for each one of these virtual machines?

I also remember something weird about how Vista handles virtual machines (like it's forbidden in the license or something).

VMWare is a really cool product, btw

so do you

Well yeah, activation sucks if you change your hardware every other day...but honestly, it takes more time to change the hardware than it does to reactivate, on average. And most people don't do it.

I have (in the past four years):

Upgraded my RAM (from 512 to 1 GB)
Upgraded my video card (from GeForce 4 4400 (?) to Radeon 9600XT)
Upgraded my RAM (from 1 GB to 1.5 GB)
Added a second hard drive
Added a new optical drive
Upgraded my video card (from Radeon 9600XT to GeForce 7600 GS)
Upgraded my RAM (from 1.5 GB to 2 GB)

Let's count how many times I've had to activate my Windows XP installation:
1. After installation

My best guess is that VMware makes XP think that there's a new motherboard every time you change the hardware configuration. Thus, it requires re-activation. Most people, however, don't change out motherboards that often, and VMware should be able to simulate the system changes you described without presenting to XP a wholly independent system from the one before.

The only time you should ever need to reactivate is after changing the motherboard and hard drive which Windows is installed on.

i know u r but what am i :downs:

Activation is a pain. When I switch to Vista, I'll probably buy the software, and then download the cracked version, if any decent ones are out.

There is not a :downs: big enough for this post.

Vista activation is simple. I did it in 45s. In my case, I had to use a different key than the one built in (it was volume and I needed site for I have Enterprise). There is absolutely no need to circumvent activation. I activated Vista (twice) and I'm still here posting this message with all organs intact.

45 seconds?? Mine was nearly instantaneous. The only time I had to call them was when I tried installing it on a second PC. I though my MSDNAA license might let me do that, oops!

I had to remote into my work machine and retrieve the proper key. -_- The key I had that was there by default was for volume activations. I had to do it like per-something activation. Basically one key has about 500 activations on it so I had to change the key to this one.

Still sounds like more work than it's worth. Run a search for google, say 1% of people have problems w/activation (where it doesn't work, or the people on the other end of the phone are aholes, or whatever). Out of so many million people, it's still a lot. And with my luck... it will happen every time.

The VMWare site says that changing RAM between ranges, say from 128 up to 256 or up to 1G, triggers the activation a lot of the time. And from what I understand, they aren't "presenting a whole new motherboard" or whatever.

This whole argument is silly regardless. I'm not going to purchase MS software, no matter how many people come on here and say, "it works for me" or "I have no problem with giving them the power to lock me out of my PC" or whatever else. Clearly, my installation is going to STOP WORKING or some other "bad" thing will happen if I don't activate within the next 29 days or whatever. This is a perfectly valid use of the license (using a virtual machine to test different hardware configurations) and their decision to treat their customers as criminals is negatively affecting my ability to get my job done (having to explain to the people on the phone each time I change the ram or network config on my virtual machine). Even the nag screen is enough to turn me off on this software. Guess what? There was no activation in VMWare and they're still managing to make money. The software I work on doesn't have activation and we're still in business. It's their attempt to go after the "lost" revenue (the people who use the software but refuse to pay) at the expense of the people who DO pay. Plus, as everyone knows, there are cracks out there for every bit of software EVER, so the whole thing is completely pointless.

Sounds to me like VMWare is broken, not XP.

I've had XP installed on 3 systems for over 2 years now. None of them have had to be reactivated due to hardware changes. Hell, I even ghosted the drive windows was on when I upgraded my HD on my laptop. Windows didn't so much as blink.

The only time Windows should ask you to reactivate is if you change the motherboard or re-install it.

So...unless you're re-installing Windows XP every time you simulate a system change, I'd put my money on the likelihood that VMware is presenting a wholly new system every time you make a system change.

I'm not saying you should buy Windows. I'm saying you should kinda stop spreading disinformation regarding their product activation.

I don't believe I've spread any disinformation. It's annoying, pointless, and shows a fundamental lack of trust for your own customers.