Windows genuine validation is dimmed ?!!! - Bink.nu Forums

Well, it seems that Microsoft now sees the horizon with Vista coming to be clear enough for them to make the move to block the updates to any Windows system that does not pass genuine validation. Now, while I am all for the company trying to protect its works, it may really want to think about this plan of attack on piracy.

There are lots of genuine users out there, who paid good money for the OD or paid to have it bundled with the new system, that want nothing to do with anything that they cannot control on their system put forth by Microsoft; in short, they simply do not trust them. I would be one of these people and for them to take away my choice not to validate my store bought OS (just like I refuse to register any of my MS programs) is just one more reason for me to tell them to go f**k themselves.

Oh, I'll get to use Vista as my job will inevitably suck some more on that golf-inspired teat offered by Microsoft salespeople, but I will not pay for the new OS and will make more permanent my change over to alternate means to enjoy my favourite hobby.

Bill and crew can buy yachts and such on someone else's coin. My coin will remain in my pocket until someone can deliver the goods that I want; a stable, featured, reasonably priced operating system.

Right now, Steve Jobs and his crew are tempting me something fierce with Tiger and the upcoming release of OS X 10.5 Leopard. In using Tiger now with the Mac mini I have from work, I can tell you that I could essentially walk away from Microsoft and be able to continue working as I do and pretty much do anything that I need to do now. And therein lies the rub: I can do what I need to do not what I want to do. What do I want to do?

I want to be able to run a gameserver and play networked games with Famine, MsMittens, KingQ and others. Games like Duke Nukem in 3D, Starcraft, Quake and Unreal Tournament. Sure, most if not all games are eventually released in Mac form, and sure, you can use new high-end graphic cards on current Mac machines, but the versatility and ability to "roll your own" is not present in Jobs' world.

See, I can take my low-end crappy PC box and buy various upgrades to make it viable for gaming. Motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, optical drive, cooling, case, graphics, sound. I can pick and choose the components I want and can afford. I can hobble the system together and make it all work to the level that I am comfortable with. And I can do it all cheaper than what it costs to get a comparable Mac machine with a very strict upgrade path (typically, buy the next model up). Macs moving to the Intel platform may help this a little bit but not much until I can walk into a store and buy the OS to install on the equipment of my choosing. I can do this with Windows. I can do this with Linux. I can do this with various forms of UNIX (including Sun OS and BSD, the foundation of Mac OS X). So, it is possible for Apple to do this; maybe not to the extent of Microsoft so as to limit the incompatibility problems, but definitely better than the option we have now.

Time will tell where the computing world is headed. Personally, I will be standing on the banks watching the wave roll in to hit those poor saps who did not see it coming.

Ciao.

Windows genuine validation is dimmed ?!!! - Bink.nu Forums