NEWS
Customers who find themselves reinstalling Windows XP should be ready for a headache: Microsoft will no longer support activating the product over the internet for PCs which have Windows pre-installed.
Intended to curtail the stealing and selling of certificates of authenticity, the new security measure will start at the end of this month. At first, it will be limited to the Windows XP software preinstalled on systems shipped by the top 20 PC sellers.
A Microsoft representative said on Thursday: "The main reason [for the change] is to address piracy in this area. Microsoft has found various people selling the labels of authenticity that they have copied or have pulled off other PCs."
The change is the latest attempt by Microsoft to target software pirates who try to sell stolen copies of Windows XP or the certificates of authenticity that mark the software as legitimate. The company has a plan to check that people's operating systems are properly licensed before allowing them to download certain updates. The plan, known as the Windows Genuine Advantage initiative, was introduced in January.
Starting 28 February, Microsoft's product security will require that customers who need to reinstall their operating system call a customer service representative to get a code that will reactivate their Windows XP system. New systems shipped from the top 20 PC makers, also known as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), will be preactivated, stated a memo posted to the blog Aviran's Place. The Microsoft representative said the memo was authentic.
"To reduce the illegal trafficking of these OEM product keys, Microsoft will 'disable' the ability to activate these direct OEM Product Keys over the internet," the memo stated. "When a customer or reseller tries to activate using a Product Key found on the list of 'disabled' keys, the online product activation wizard will instruct them to call Microsoft, where a customer service representative can assist them further."
The customer representative will ask several questions, such as where the person bought the Windows XP system, to find out whether the certificate is authentic, the representative said.
Robert Lemos writes for CNET News.com.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Microsoft now believes you are criminal until you prove your innocence. I may be old fashioned but I always thought justice worked the other way round.
2. James Stafford
would be fine if there wasn't the built in need to re install windoze every few months because it gets soooo slow and confused...........
3. anonymous
Of course the system which goes down and needs to be reinstalled "out of hours" has had it. Will one be able to sue Microsoft for damages - unlikly, just tough luck to be using a Microsoft product.
4. Nick Cole
They don't learn do they?
All they achieve is to alienate and irritate the hundreds of millions of legitimate users to try and stop a handful of criminals.
If the software didn't need to be reinstalled so often and was less failure prone and didn't accumulate such a lot of garbage and old and conflicting files then perhaps it wouldn't be such a problem. If they would release a list of files complete with dates, revisions, sizes and CRCs then perhaps it would be easier to rebuild and repair without having to do it from scratch. And of course if we knew which patches to reinstall it would also help. I have accumulated in excess of 30 reinstall sets for all the recent patches, whcih also have to be installed one by one! Which ones can be discarded, and which are essential? I doubt even Microsoft knows. Of course if they had a handle on professional software development controls (or pigs could fly) ............
5. Lionel A Smith
This is the limit. I have a flakey XP installation kindly given to me by the PC builder, one of the top in the UK. Because of this, as I have an important project underway I have not dared install SP2 as I expect it to fail.
There was no prior warning on this as far as I know and it is now the 28th Feb. Hell if XP fails now that will be it. I will go to open source. I have a Linux set here.
Snag is I have a number of important devices which may be awkward to migrate. This is of course what MS want and go out of their way to ensure.
This makes one so angry.
6. Lionel A Smith
Nick Cole you have hit all the nails on the head.
7. Chris
Anonymous, this is American justice're talking about.
The American ruling class are forging the world in their image and if you're not one of them then that's unfortunate.
8. anonymous
Time for Linux! XP is one of the key reasons I moved to Linux in the first place, the system itself is great but the amount of control placed on you just to install it and God help you if you regularly update hardware (as I do) five updates or so and you need to re-install... All a bit too Big Brother for me!
9. anonymous
Today's PCs are typically 6 times as powerful as the famous Cray 1 suppercomputer. I can see no reason why many users should need to upgrade their current PC for many years. I should be allowed to use my 2.6 GHz XP PC for the next 10 years without Microsoft forcing me to replace it.
I am concerned that if I suffer a head crash in 5 years time Microsoft could refuse to help me to re-install XP on what they see as an obsolete system. Microsoft should be forced to treat PCs as appliances such as washing machines and leave it up to the user as to when they want to upgrade.
Users should also be allowed to buy old software packages such as Visual Basic 6 or Office 2000 for at least 10 years after they are published to allow them to continue to use their old computers effectively. Perhaps Microsoft should be forced to turn software packages into shareware when they are no longer prepared to sell them.
In an era of increasing awareness of green issues it is a worthy aim to attempt to use the PC on your desk today until 2015.