XP pirate checks dropped

I use Only legit copies from MS and their approved list. It's got to the point where I hold my breath when windows update says "Checking your copy of windows". And many read the other thread where I noticed a skew in system time offset from Master Supreme Omnipotent MS Headquarters by more than a few hours will cause your system to report it's false piracy message and there is NOTHING you could do. Except change the time to match Supreme Headquarters. As I became very annoyed at that, and since the box was a log server... I elevated its world status to Linux.

I had another PC just last night that was valid for update on one screen then invalid on another It's OEM with the OEM key on the friggin box. IF Linux had good ipod support that box would be an MS FreeZone as well. Hey Apple... WTF?

Who wants to feel like that? That's why the big telecomm companies are hurting and losing out to smaller rivals. They treat people like dog feces. And that is why there are more local independent shops that package linux desktops.

Removing the pirate check on boot is a good thing. MY GOD, Supreme Headquaters is already checking on install and everytime you run an update. But this is MS, they have a burr in their pants that makes them think they can make more money through these tactics. It will be back.

The need to patch and adapt to a changing technical climate I understand. The need for validation I understand. However before you force the machines in my environment to validate they are legitimate do me the favor, as your client/customer/Premier partner, of validating the piece of software you are puting on my machine is not gonig to break my environment.

Like most admins I have enough work without this crap. (Like desktop admins who create images without documenting the group policies they configured, push said images out to an undocumented amount of clients, and blames my team for the reason they are having trouble with their machines.) Oh well, all we can do is monitor these events as they unfold.

Does anyone know how this stuff works with the bulk corporate licences? A lot of those boxes should never get validated?

I was sort of thinking of my time in the domestic appliances sector. Small hotel owners would buy 20 TVs and 20 refrigerators and try to take out only a couple of insurance policies. That would give them virtually 100% cover of the failure probablility, for the cost of four policies :D

Our Enterprise Agreement (EA) licensing is not effected by being turned off (Again my largest complaint comes from the data gathering involved with WGA as well). The head ache we are having is 4 facilities who do not do any type of image deployment. They simply push out the OEM installation with the application the user wants. Its these machine with the OEM licenses we are experiencing a problem with. Though it's only 15-20% of our machines it is still well over 5000 workstations.

The way I undestand the EA licensing keys, and I could be off so please correct me if I am, is during installation the key is identified as one not requiring further authentication. This is similar to installtion with tablet edition, where using the tablet key will prompt you to insert the editional media for tablet configuration (I believe it works the same way with Media edition, but I have never installed it). Additionally if you install with a EA license you notice the registrationand activation steps in PE are skipped.

I keep wondering if this is also a tool for them to track complience with the EA partners and doing their year end true ups.

So far I have only had one do this. It was an OEM Dell Box. Problem solved thanks to SuSE.

Remember my only issue was a time skew so I wonder what would have happened if the rest of my network was off. I bet every single XP pro box would have suddenly went illegal. I can see that happening on larger networks that use a WAN gateway to monitor Internet from several timezones. With each PC set to local time accessing MS through an east coast or west coast gateway from say Japan. Hypothetical that is.

We have over 25 + Win XP's Pro's in our enviroment and they (I probably shouldn't be tempting Murphy with this, but ah what the heck) are all OEM's (Compaq), and I have yet to see any of them experience what everyone else is complaining about, if it helps we always use the same vendor when replacing the PC's, and after being here for 5+ yrs have only had one go bust and the warranty covered it.

All box's are set to Auto update and I ensure the manual updates when required are done, so it must be down to quality maybe?

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so it must be down to quality maybe?

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I agree, the quality of service provided by Microsoft on this issue and poor advantage checking algorithms.