Not surprising ... I figured this might be the purpose, it's been heading in this direction for a long time. Microsoft has the majority of users by the balls ... they're either unaware of the alternatives or scared to switch. It's yet another poorly thought out action by M$ ... are they really going to catch pirates? - No ... there will be some sort of patch released - they'll only affect legit users that get caught in some sort of M$ snafu ... causing them to jump through hoops to get it straighten out. In the end it will have an effect on us all ... M$ will have to change their policy on being able to DL security updates manually or having the installers do a cursory check prior to installing the patch ... whether that means having the tool included in the updates and the requirement to accept and install it before the patch is appied to requiring this as a prerequist and when it's not present denying the patch. The result will be people either unwilling to patch Windows or unable to do so for whatever snafu ... leaving a host of machines/users unpatched ... with one new exploit able to cause a great load on networks effecting everyone and everything.
Well, I am certainly not one of them. In fact, I am using Microsoft only because I need to do it as of my job as a programmer involves working (for the greater part) on Microsoft platforms. That said, almost every tool I use is a Windows port of Unix tools (Cygwin, Vim, Emacs) and I would be unbelievably GLAD to go back to the vastly superior UNIX/Linux systems only. So while I am not watching this thing with amusement (it's always sad and infuriating to see big companies abuse their customers), I am not crying either. In fact, the Internet would only benefit from the decline of Microsoft. And yeah, Microsoft is headed right into being just another Sony, or worse. After all, they never showed much care for their customers, and after all, look at how much trouble the criminal actions of Sony caused them (almost none, that is).
What I feel sorry for are the companies and individuals who worked unbelievably hard to harden and protect the awful (in)security mess that Windows has always been and now see Microsoft itself trying to get their businesses shut out of the door, and Windows itself incorporating the kind of junk what they tried to detect and stop. After all, how can you trust THIS MAN?
This functionality was built in to Windows? I doubt they could see this far ahead. I mean if they did, wouldn't they have just released this when releasing the xp series? I think you'd have to install some sort of WGA first. Which most of us haven't. :T
There are loads of people who have automatic updates turned on, so they will have WGA on there comp, maybe without even knowing it. If you do not watch what is installed and just let automatic update do it's thing this controling software could get in and 'kill' windows. So somewhere between now and the end of this year WGA will be updated to incorparate this kill-switch and if you try to update then and you don't have the latest version of this crap it's bye, bye windows in 30 days.
One off topic post removed. Wilders will not allow means to bypass Microsoft's update procedure to be posted on the forums.
Hello, offtopic? was just a suggestion. and it does not bypass Microsoft, it is a legitimate and free tool from Chip (chip.de) which is found regularily on their magazine dvds. it still uses the microsoft update procedure, just like as if you would download via internet explorer with your deciding which one to install and which one not. is that bypassing ? people who don't have wga installed don't bypass anything do they? if it will be like the predictions so far, that users who don't have wga running won't be able to update windows anymore and the tool would still work then, yes that would be bypassing in my understanding, but as for now it is just an alternative to internet explorer and i doubt that chip would want to write a program for their dvds that is in dischord with microsoft rights. come on, it's alongside vista beta and office beta on the dvd so microsoft definately knows about it.. anyway, in case microsoft will really pull this (killswitch) through i'm done with them. starting to learn ubuntu next week... best,
Hello, People don't get hyped about what someone wrote as a sort of unofficial quote. To shut down a pc remotely, you need to have an insider program with established communications to the remote host. So, it's either automatic updates, some update patch or something of the sort. They cannot just so kill the Windows. So whoever wrote that down is ... naive. But it's certainly helping people flee Microsoft more and more. And with good reason. The most important thing is not to be afraid. And for every programmer in Microsoft doing wga work there will be 3 programmers doing anti-wga work. Mrk
Things are changing on how Microsoft does business. Whether it's good or bad, the buying public will decide. I think it's very clear that no one likes the current method of validating Windows. Time will tell how Microsoft intends to deal with this problem. In the meantime, let's not post links that bypass Microsoft's update procedure on these forums.
Once WGA is installed it can simply check the date and whether it can connect to the internet, and if it can't, it shuts down the system.
I was musing elsewhere that perhaps the suggestion of a heavy-handed approach was initiated by the advertising arm of MSFT? Without such a 'protection scheme' - it's getting difficult to convince anyone that msft has anything someone might want.
To shut down windows, would`t be as easy as monitoring the System Clock? No "external" connection needed. That is "if" the latest WGA were installed.
