Ed Bott's Microsoft Challenge--3/8/01

Being a Microsoft fan and believe in their product line, I have truely believe that the method of requiring activation is essential to protect the product and the investement Microsoft has placed in these products.

It is my opinion this method isthe only protecting that compaines like Microsoft can protect what they have.

Microsoft are the largest software house in the world. Surely they can come up with some form of copy protection that actually works.

There must be any number of ways of makeing a CD uncopyable (I'm just a humble systems engineer and don't know many).

There could be other ways of providing Unique information that could be provided upon purchase of the software - this could be used to customise a legitimate copy of the software.

Biometrics may need to be given to register the softwareat the point of sale - the CD could be created at the POS with this unique fingerprint already included. Obviously this would be expensive to do, but the savings made by reducing piracy would be huge.

Revert back to the old "dissolving floppy" trick.

Make the CD's low cost, or even free. Use them as many times as you want. But put the
license information on a floppy disk, sold at the point of sale store, wether it be an office depot, OEM, mail order etc.

The user would install the software, use the floppy disk to input the license code.

The disks could be written for 2 uses, 3 uses, or a single 50 user for a network install.

Once the code is embedded in the program, the floppy "self destructs" via software.

Users would have to register with microsoft, y'know, those little cards everyone throws away because MS's tech support is so horrid.

Calling a 1-800 number would get users who
trashed their systems and needed to reload a new copy of the license via e-mail or snail mail - their preference.

While this wouldn't reduce piracy, microsoft would be able to cut way back on duplications, but still make the licensing more user friendly than planned.

My office and Windows "SE" supplied with "brand X" won't install on any other brand as it is. Why not just narrow the "group" by using batches of "brand X" computers and reducing the size of the batch as required. It really looks like Microsoft "has us where they wants us" and now can multiply the arrogance factor.

While the "product activation" concept isn't a bad idea (except for those who still don't have an Internet connection), I've read reports that Microsoft intends to limit us to two activations. That part really rankles, as Windows tends to self-destruct periodically, viruses strike, and hardware failures happen, often resulting in the need to re-install software. If I'm going to have to repurchase their grossly overpriced applications every couple of years, I'm going to stop buying Microsoft products and switch to a reliable OS - Linux, perhaps.

I'm sure their reponse will be something to the effect that a phone call will fix everything if I run out of activation opportunities, but I have never received any response from a call to Microsoft; they promise to have someone call, but no one ever has in the past seven years. Nor do they ever respond to an email, so that's not an option either. The best bet is to leave the number of activations unlimited; if they want to know why I'minstalling Access2000 for the eighth time, they can call me to ask, or send me an email - I'll be happy to explain, just don't get in my way!

I think the preferred way for Microsoft to stop piracy, is to make their products more attractive to buy than to steal. Those who illegally copy software are expending some time and some materials, so presumably their customers pay them something for it. If that "something" is $20, as an example, the same customers would happily pay $30 instead to Microsoft, for the good feeling and freedom from anxiety. And selling 100 million copies at $30 a piece should provide a very good rate of return for Microsoft. In other words, try cooperation rather than confrontation, and limit greed.

I remember when Bill was on the soapbox about people making copies of his Basic on CPM machines using 8" floppy disks. "If you give me more money, I will create such cool software..."

The CD burner adds nothing new.

Since then lack of income has NOT been his or Microsoft's problem. Now, as then, large corps pay his inflated software prices because they "have" to.

In fact, if back when he started on this kick everyone HAD to pay those prices, he would have had less market share ( of asmaller, slower growing market )

Go for it, Bill! I know you need the money, the present situation doesn't work for you and never has.... right...

The reason people are up in arms is they have been paying inflated prices to cover the people who copy the software. If Microsoft will cut the price by 80%, then I don't have a problem.

If they just want to keep the revenue going up as the rest of the market's growth flattens out, it is NOT about protecting the software, it is about protecting the revenue stream by squeezing more money out of it, while lowering value by adding new BS for admins to deal with.

Games companies use CD protection that causes CD copying to fail (bad sectors, overlarge files)it's not uncrackable but can deter the casual pirate. Large scale pirates will ALWAYS find a way round copy protection or activation keys.
I would preferthis to an activation process as I tend to change my system on a frequent basis - in the last year I have changed the video card, sound card, motherboard and cpu and added a SCSI card at different times - how many times would I have had to contact Microsoft?

I am sure many solutions will be posed. But it bears repeating that maybe the best solution is NO solution! This strikes me as a problem that is similar to the Napster problem. And I think the answer here is the same as what the answer should have been for Napster. Leave it alone.

Yes, the industry loses money through casual copying. But the music industry loses money when people create their own tapes or CD's of assorted music and share them with their friends. And when people tape music off the radio. The film industry loses money when people tape that movie off of HBO. What about TIVO?

Those companies that deliberately forge copies of Microsoft software for sale or for use on PC's that they sell should be tracked down and prosecuted. Just like people who sell duped CD's on the streets of New York should be arrested. The rest of them (us) should be left alone. It should be a non-issue.

Personally I'm not concerned with the retail version of this issue. What I am concerned with is the volume customer approach.

One of the greatest features of being a Select customer is the ability to install Microsoft products without worrying about license keys. The installtion runs. No problems.

We maintain a software library for our remote support sites. To prevent unnecessary down time we will have to make that activation key accessible. Most likely we will write it on the CD when we burn a new copy (which is completely legal and permissible under our agreement). Great protection, huh?

I've registered my complaint with our Microsoft rep and hopefully if enough of the volume customers do the same we can have an effect. It worked on the operating systems and imaging. It can work on this.

It sure does ignite feelings, doesn't it?

There's no doubt that Microsoft has the right to protect itself from pirates. For me, that is no issue. Nor do I buy the anti-corporate attitude that high price equals excessive greed.

But to Microsoft, I have to ask: why does protecting Microsoft HAVE to mean a greater onus on the user? Limited activations, having to call Microsoft each time we choose to reinstall software that Microsoft's license says we have the right to do? Teacher, may I go to the bathroom now? I REALLY got to go!

Where is the customer service in that attitude? Microsoft, there is another way.

If you expect me to pay upwards of a US$1000 for the "privilege" of asking your permission to install MS Office, you are in for a HUGE disappointment.

Well here is some of the things I noticed that are wrong with the activtion process, first and mainly all they have to do is call inand get the steps to activate the software, get the steps to activate it and write them down(since they do not have to have an internet connection for activation)and pass it along when they copy the disk. A way to avoid this is to incorporate a buffer underrun or other cd-r error onto the disk that the program needs to run, the game software manufactures are already doing this on some games. They should incorporate these errors at the beginning and end of the disk, when the cd-r recieves this error it stops the recording, hence an uncopyable disk, the only problem with this is that there is a lot of different cd-r copying software out there and they may have to incorporate a few error messages into the software. I know that it is not fullproof but neither is the activation method as I stated before.

In the early days of PCs, when Lotus & others had codes on their install diskettes that had to be "recovered" by an uninstall before you could reinstall, a wonderful product called "CopyIIPC" came along that defeated all of this. I made it a policythat my office would not purchase any software that could not be unprotected in this way. I'll do the same again.
The answer is to do what Borland did in the face of this - a software agreement that is so easy to understand that 2nd graders know what it means. Couple this with prices for software that make it just dumb to not buy legitimate copies and you've got a market driven solution to the problem. That's the kind of solution that actually works.

The Microsoft Company has more Billionaires/Millionaires than other companies. This waspossible through fair pricing of their products. Piracy of their product line is the price they are paying for over pricing their products. Microsoft should lower prices until the piracy is curtailed.

I would develop applications that could run from the internet enabling me to charge everyone every time they used my software. To force people to upgrade to my new pay-per-use service, I would make my old pc-oriented software buggy and difficult toinstall and reinstall. What? . . . oh.

I feel that Microsoft does have a right to protect themselves just as every other company and person does. However, I do not feel that they should makes victims out of the innocents. Know what I mean? I do not think they should be forcing users to register their products to be able to use them. I don't register my television but Sony has never complained about it. I realize it's a different concept but the point is the same. I think that they should simply learn to trust people and lower their prices. Honestly, they charge way to much. I mean Sun gives away Officestar which does just about everything you need to do and MS charges out the butt for the same functions. And you have nice open source products and OSes that run 150X better than MS products and they're free. My main complaint is that MS's products are very third rate. If they would make better products and charge a little less then I don't think piracy would remain a major issue.

"Long live King Bill!" Now that the Appeals Court is about to give their blessing to his predatory business practices that eliminated virtually all competition, His Excellency now is putting into action, his grand scheme to insure that his loyal subjects stay in line and pay him the homage and money due his position as Lord and Despot.

I for one think that we have all paid enough to "El Jefe" since we cannot even purchase an x86 computer without his crappy operating system already loaded on it. So if you want a Linux, BeOS or dare I say OS/2 machine, you either have to build it from scratch or buy a pre-assembled machine with a Windows ME or 2000 license and discard the OS. So there goes at least 80 of my bucks into the Daimyo's treasury for something I did not want. I thought that there was a law to protect consumers from having to pay for products they don't want. It seems he has received dispensation from the government since you can't returned the unused license for a refund from the Emperor.

So I say to His Royal Highness: "Go ahead, oppress your loyal subjects all you want. Any so called upgrade from your original release of the 32bit versions of your Office Suite have contained no significant breakthroughs and are designed only with the intention to garner more of our hard earned income. No thanks. For as history does repeat itself, it will be only a matter of time before the bitten hand from which you feed will strike back."

It will be most fitting if the eXPerience proves to Mr. Bill, to be that the only copies of this new OS and suite he can sell are OEM's (pre-installed).

Personally my issue isn't so much with the product activation as it is with the cost of the software in the first place. As others have pointed out I think that the piracy issue would probably be greatly reduced if the software were priced appropriately to the potential value to the consumer.

I think a home user has a hard time justifying the payback on $300-$500 for an office suite, although they may have a use for most all the features. (I know I'd love to have an exchange server for my home network, but I can't justify the cost) However a business should have no problem justifying a higher cost for an employee. The business makes money by having the software, a home consumer just gets a better word processor.

Today I don't think twice about going out and buying and/or upgrading Quicken, Adobe Photodeluxe, Easy CD Creator, Print Shop, etc... as I think that the value I recieve from the product is equal to or greater than the cost.

However, I'm still running Office 97 professional that I got as an OEM on a computer three years ago. I just can't justify the cost of the upgrade.

If the cost come's down, I believe piracy would be reduced and revenues would increase. In the end Microsoft would be making more money than they are now and isn't that why they are doing this in the first place - to make more money?

One method of curbing software theft, might be to provide software for disabled and low income users, for free or at a substantialy reduced price. I live on a socialsecurity check and know others who have fixed incomes. For us softwre purchases and upgrades are next to impossible, downloading second rate software is most often our only choice.

Ok, several points.
1) Drop the price (in half?) to reduce the propensity to steal copies.
2) Use copy protection on the CD's to eliminate most copying.
3) Allow the purchaser to install an unlimited number of times on the same machine (as always).
4) Allow the purchaser to install to different machines but control this by having the software report itself by serial and a unique machine identifier (SID, machine serial number, or whatever) to an MS repository which would only allow two entries in the repository (assuming a single copy license, this could increase for multi user to cover the appropriate number of users). If this is the third (or max number) machine to be entered into the repository with that copy of the software, then the repository could disable the copy that is running on the first reported machine (assuming you want it on the latest one instead of the initial one), but the repopsitory would allow an unlimited number of installations to the same machine. I know, there are people who will object to a 'reporting' feature on software, but I think that could be simply the price of doing business. Another alternative to the central repository is to make the machine look for other copies of itself over any networkit has access to and, if it finds one, to make itself inoperable until it no longer sees the other copy. This would negate the abuse on private networks. Perhaps a combination of these would work best. If the software can access a central repository, it would, if not, it could look for copies of itself on any connection it has. This covers both bases!

The combination of these methods could provide the control that software vendors (not just MS) want while still allowing the user community to re-install with impunity as long as thay are within their licensing limits. Jackie

How about having people that work in the industry buy an "administrative" licence copy of the software. This would allow you to install and re-install the software at will. You're going to buy the product anyway, why not get some sort of beinifit from your expertise administrating it. I have 4 PCs networked together at home for the sole purpose of self education, I can't afford to buy 4 copies of XP (or anything for that matter), how am I supposed to learn the product so that I can administrateit? We should be able to have the ability to reuse a single copy, it's not like we are reselling illegal copies. Microsoft is going to realize that they have shot themselves in the foot as soon as they get millions of people calling in to register, and re-register the next time another big virus hits. I can't imagine the cost of running a call center that can handle the volume of calls that they are going to get. I really think this comes down to the almighty dollar. They have releases 3 major OS's in the last 6 years without this feature, what is so different now?We have top pay for their OS, then we have to pay to learn how to support it, now we have to pay to install it? Wrong, and you think Steve Jobs isn't licking his chops right now...

I figure they've got two options:

1) Al'a Apple computer, somehow incorporate the OS into the hardware.

Sell Windows on a propritary bootable CD based IDE device that auto-detects as a HD. Encase it in amber, paint it fashionable colors, and develop a prime time marketing scheme based on the phrase "Work different". Save the user and machine settings on an EPROM or something. When Windows breaks, you could just return or exchange it. They'd probably have to do away with the registry and three quarters of the code, but who cares.

2) As the last step in the install process, make the CD actually explode in the drive.

It would save the consumer tons of time trying to figure out what went wrong. If the CPU still functioned, theconsumer could simply exchange the shrapnel, free of charge, for a new copy and they could try again.

Don't think of users of your software as thieves and don't make press releases even hinting at it.

Don't use copy-protection. The hack/patch/crack/whatever will be posted about a week before the first official copy of the software is sold. Copy protection only annoys the legitimate owners.

Don't use serial numbers. What is Microsoft up to now - 30 alpha-numeric digits? It's annoying when installing the software.

Don't use a machine-id because the machine-id will change far too often.

Don't both with direct registration. I'll switch my users to StarOffice (or Wordpad) long before I'll let anyone force even the thinnest piece of the "charge-per-use" wedge down my throat.

Do sell the software at a competitive price. I'm amazed that I can buy (for work) a license for Office2000 Developer at less than $92*, but on Pricewatch it's $749.

*Caveat: This is the license, not the CD, which costs an additional $26, and is incredibly overpriced. I pay $0.50 per CD+casewhen I buy them in the small quantities I use. Microsoft should be paying $0.05 or less given the quantities it uses.

I'd rather go back to the days of dongles than repeated reactivations. Make it part of the hardware requirment for there to be usb and use a usb based dongle.

TRY FOR QUANTITY OF LICENSES OVER COST OF LICENSES. YOU WOULD GET MORE RESPONSE FROM PEOPLE IF THEY DIDN'T FEEL THEY WERE BEING GOUGED ON THE PRICE TO BEGIN WITH. SOME PEOPLE FELL VINDICATED WHEN THEY COPY OFFICE, BECAUSE OFFICE COSTS TOO MUCH TO BEGIN WITH. YOU'D GET A LARGER RESPONSE FROM PEOPLE IF OFFICE WAS 100 INSTEAD OF 500.

We all know people who make copies of videos and music CDs. I remember telling a friend that making a copy of a video is illegal - read the FBI warning on the tape. He said he had never read the warning! Look at Napster - clearly stealing music doesn't bother an awful lot of people. People don't really understand the term "copyright." If stealing music and videos is OK, why not software? If you work for a company that follows the laws (and I do) you are used to putting in the serial number whenever you load or re-load software - it is part of the job. My company did get "ripped-off" by a reseller, and when they went out of business, we had to pay a second time for the software we thought we had already purchased.
I just think thatthe people making the most noise about this are "OK" with theft.
I'm sure whatever method Microsoft uses will eventually be compromised.

I agree with some of the others that if Microsoft didn't charge such outrageous prices for their products it "might" not be pirated as often. Or if they didn't keep changing everything around every 18 months and issuing new versions, people might be willing to pay the prices they ask. I realize that research and development is expensive but come on! If they would issue something that works correctly the first time, they would save themselves a lot of time and money! I LIKE their products but the CONSTANT updates, upgrades and service releases make me crazy. When you are trying to maintain over 800 computers it is just blows your mind...

Regarding the question about Microsoft product activation codes:

Why not provide an incentive for activation/registration? Provide Office XP, etc. at a minimal cost, say $5-$15 for the CD. Sell it at the checkout of electronics stores or something.

This basic version would provide general word processing and editing, perhaps a step up from WordPad. It's also a great way to provide a Word "reader" to people so that the MS Word document becomes a standard. (Even more than it is now!)If a user wants to activate the extended features, they register the software (with credit card in hand). Enter the code and voila, full featured Word (or Excel or whatever).

This would obviously really only work for end (home) users. Corporate users would have to use some of the other methods listed in previous answers. But it's a start!

I have read through a number of responses on this site. Many of them reiterate the same thing... Microsoft needs to charge a fair price AND provide a good product for the price it charges. The trouble is that there is too little competition (can yousay Monopoly?) and what you get when you upgrade is too little. I don't see much reason to move to Office 2000 or Windows 2000 from Office 97 and Windows NT, but I will be forced to eventually because Microsoft wants new revenue. Microsoft is trying to be too many things to too many people and it is starting to show. Reminds me of the IBM of the middle 1980's, which if I remember correctly is about the time when they started going down hill!

I don't think there is any truly practical way to prevent piracy. The question then becomes, how do you prevent casual copying at home? While I think that lowering the price would help Microsoft sell more copies of Office, I don't think they would make as much money off those sales, since cutting the price in half would not likely result in doubling of sales.
There are just some people (most home users, I'd argue) that simply do not need Office. They would be fine with Works, or something else cheap and easy to use. But since they can get Office for free, they use it. These are not lost sales for Microsoft.

Software companies cry that if 1,000,000 people are "pirating" their $100 piece of software, that they'velost $100,000,000 in revenue. This is ridiculous, since most of those people would not have gone out to buy the software had it not been free (as in beer).

But back to the question at hand...

Hardware dongles would be a start. Maybe have a dongle that had a unique ID as part of its design. During install, you have to create a "startup floppy" or CD that would burn some bit of the dongle's ID code to removable media. That way multiple products could use the same dongle for their registration. When you move to another computer or reinstall on your existing computer, you would tell the software that it's a reinstall, and then put the disk in so that it could verify the dongle.

Obviously this could be cracked somehow, but with encryption and hardware encoding, it could seriously cut down on casual piracy. Hmm... Now that I've put this out there, I think I need to copyright it, lest someone else make money off my idea! ?MW

OOO! OOO! I know...how about hacking/cracking into Microsoft's network and steal their code. Then blame it on human error, wrong hardware configuration. Oops, done already.

If Microsoft wants to prevent duplication of its operating software, they can do three things: cut the price, reduce the size and simplify the operating system, and make sure it really works before releasing it. For many home users $160 is a lot of money to spend for an upgrade; especially when the upgrades don't completely replace the "old" version.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. I don't need for the software to be "intelligent", I want to know how to make it work. Thanks to the automatic hardware discovery and compatibility features I still have to reformat and reload my Windows OS too frequently.

I feel sorry for Bill Gates loosing so much money. I know he simply can't afford it.
I know he has a right to a FAIR Profit as does everyone. If he would just quit ripping everyone off by selling phony updates full of bugs and start charging a fair price for what he is actually providing, I think we would see a lot less piracy.

I feel sorry for Bill Gates loosing so much money. I know he simply can't afford it.
I know he has a right to a FAIR Profit as does everyone. If he would just quit ripping everyone off by selling phony updates full of bugs and start charging a fair price for what he is actually providing, I think we would see a lot less piracy.

Make the product open source. Offer it for free download. Charge consumers a fee if they want it conveniently prepackaged. Well, maybe not original but some companies are making money off the idea...

If Microsoft would price their products at a reasonable level, they would be less profitable to pirate. For example, Corel Office 2000 is an excellent product, priced at a level that is reasonable. Considering that the purchase of the Corel product also includes some support for the programs, it is foolish to buy or use copies. The inflated prices that Microsoft charges just make it profitable for those who create illegal copies.

Ship the product with a product id number. This number will not allow the user to install the product, but it will grant them access to Microsoft's website to retrieve a valid serial number to be used for the installation. There would be no need for personnal information to be entered, or tracking of a hardware, which I would be against. Microsoft would store the serial numbers in a database, along with the product id, and the number of times that it had been installed. Reports could be drawn from the database, by Microsoft, on a regular basis for the number of times a product id had been used to retrieve a new serial number. If the amount were to exceed 15 per year, then Microsoft could look into invalidate the product id number forcing the purchaser to contact them for a new product id number. That would allow Microsoft to question the individual about the significant number of downloads. I would think that for home user, 15 serial numbers per year would be more than enough.

Sell the software at a reasonable price.
you can get upgrade packages for less than US$100, why not sell the new packages at the same price.
I live in asia and joe public cannot afford the high prices that are charged for new packages.

Sell the software at a reasonable price.
you can get upgrade packages for less than US$100, why not sell the new packages at the same price.
I live in asia and joe public cannot afford the high prices that are charged for new packages.

I don't have an answer for Microsoft, but perhaps a solution for the end-user:

1) Install Redhat/Debian/Whatever...
2) Install VMWARE
3) Install and activate your shiny new copy of XP in a virtual hardware environment.
4) Continue to upgrade your hardware to your heart's content, without reactivation hassles due to hardware changes.

In the meantime, why not use your Linux foundation to firewall and monitor your virtual os...:)

thank you, thank you very much....

A justtification used by casual pirates is that software is too expensive. On the one hand, Microsoft spent a great deal of money to create Windows XP, but they also have quite a bit of cash to spend. If they can afford to "give away" their browser and other software, they can afford to take away that excuse by dropping the price of Windows. If the OS was in the $30-$40 range, no one would bat an eye before buying it. In theory, that's closer to the amount they really sell it for to OEMs for pre-installation anyway, so why not drop the price. This would also give the government one less anti-trust target, which couldn't hurt.

I also believe this is their plan (for at least the consumer os), given the rumors that MS is integrating ad placements and other similar deals into XP.

Its the price, fool. Its been said several times and I can only agree. Make the price $20.00 for a full copy, sell them at Wal-Mart, at the local grocery store checkout counter and it will be too cheap to pass up.

Make the upgrade price $10.00 and watch your sales rise. It won't make the time and effort to copy it worth it.

It also makes their O/S absolute king of the hill. Not only are there tons of applications written for it, but since EVERYONE is using it, its the ONLY O/S you will ever need or buy.

Cut the price and sell a jillion.

It seems fairly obvious that the only solution available is to lower prices to a sane level. A full version of Office is $499! Any component is $339 seperately. At a time when all other software prices are constant or declining, a word processor sells for $339? Absurd.

Microsoft has succeeded in converting Word and Excel into de facto standards - posessing a copy of Word and Excel is no longer optional. Many machines come without these products. People who can't afford them and who need to use type a letter or spreadsheet are almost forced to steal them.

This is why MS won't succeed in deterring "casual copiers" when it comes to XP. The average college student (or average home user) just doesn't have $500 to waste on vastly overpriced software. At these prices, they'll do whatever they need to to copy it- even if it means hex-editing out the copy control by hand.

On the other hand, if a user can purchase a word processor for a fair market price (not one inflated by monopolistic practices) - $75 or so - they might not consider it worthwhile to circumvent the copy protection.

Unfortunately, this isn't gonna happen anytime soon. The only way prices on operating system and office software will fall is real competition. But the Office monopoly props up the Windows monopoly and vice-versa. You can't use Office unless you use Windows, and this keeps the market share for other OSes low enough that MS can pretend to justify not porting office to other OSes (Never mind that Oracle, Sun, Netscape, and others can release software on any platform).

Solution: Microsoft should drop it's appeal of Jackson's decision and be broken up. Software prices would fall through the floor as the self-reinforcing monopoly collapsed and competition drove down the price of of office software.

Two solutions:
1/ Make CDs hard to copy, like game makers do. It will not prevent hard-core pirates, but will definitely prevdnt casual copying.

2/ Reduce price of software. Given half a chance, people tend to prefer to be on the right side of the law. If the prices for MS software were fair, people would buy the products instead of copying. Remember that the price of Window didn't go down since version 3.1, unlike most software and hardware.

L O W E R T H E P R I C E.

How hard is it to figure out? There would be very little market for MS products if they were affordable! I am not talking about the chinsy little 89-buck personal OS piracy here... I am talking about the whopping price of office or server products... or business CALS! GEEZUSPEEZUS!

99% of lost revenue comes from pirated copies of Office and Server Products and the HOME market is a very small piece of that, at least in the US.

MS should cut the cost of ALL products to the point that the average Joe would have to save a little but not take out a second mortgage just to edit a freakin' text file or send a love note to his sister via email.

IF they lower the price AND employ the CD copying technology on CDs (scrap the registration via web or phone ideas - - think of the cost to process all those !@#$%^&* calls! DUH-HUH!?!) they will see bigger numbers in purchases and larger numbers of "registered" users.

winwalker sez: "luke... i am your fah-ther

Microsoft has a right as does any company to protect it's interests. However their approach to preventing "piracy" by using a Datacollection warehouse and activation key method is not the way to do it. So the question is how do you do it?

The answer is quite simple. You DON'T

You Don't Alieniate your customers by automatically assuming that the copy is pirated until activation is performed.

You Don't Over Charge your customers. I have several customers who are still using MS-Office 95 and are installing Star Office 5.2 for MS Office 97/2000 file compatability. Infact I just worked with a client to install over 300 copies of Star Office. That's 300 licenses of Office XP that I know won't be sold.

You Don't force corporations over to Volume License Agreements. I have many customers who prefer to have the retail copies of software so that the users have a copy of the pitty full documentation which ships with the retail copy.

The "casual copying" is what made Microsoft what it is today. People who learned how to use Microsoft products at home brought that knowledge into the workplace and as a result made their products the #1 selling.

I still don't see what constitues a Major Hardware Upgrade, I don't see what information is sent to Microsoft for activation, and I still don't see anything stating the kind of information which collected from the PC's hardware. Above all, I don't see any compelling reason for anyone to even consider upgrading to any of the XP products.

Also if I may add, being forced to activate MS-Windows every time it installed is like a car dealer telling you have to inform the manufacturer of your car of the brand of gasoline you use each time you fill up your tank inorder to start it!

The notion that they are doing this to help the users is ridiculous. If they are worried about piracy in the home market its simply to make their pockets a little fatter. Over 99% of their money comes from business accounts. How much longer will the public put up with Microsoft?s shady tactics? They sell you a product often with known bugs. Make you pay over $100 an hour for them to look at fixing the problem and then even if it is a bug in the code. The problem is sent back to developersand you are under a confidentiality agreement not to mention those bugs in order to help others. Please wake up and see that there are other options out there. Red Hat offers a version of Linux that out of the box is easier to install then windows and is Free. And it also has a start menu and comes with common used programs like AOL instant messenger, ICQ and Winamp. And the tech support is free. And there is an entire site dedicated to walking you through every aspect of the Operating System, from deleting a file to recompiling the kernel (linuxdoc.org). Also for Linux there is a Free Office suite with all the features of Microsoft office. Its called Star Office. And it will save and work with Microsoft Office files. Please understand that there are other options, we as customers do not have to put up with Microsoft?s monopoly tactics. Will this make them change? Probably not right away. But if people start using Linux in their homes then it will spread to the office andthat will make Microsoft stand up and listen.

Microsoft could always open source most of there key software and then sell the support.

I don't think that there truly is ONE answer that can solve this problem. I feel that the best solution for stopping home users from copying the software would be disc encryption that prevented copying of the discs. I do not know how they could solve the resellers problem. I personally feel that activation, if not limited, would be a good way to go. BUT.. BUT.. that is only if it unlimited.
Bill Gates has put alot of effort into Microsoft and built it into the gaint it is today. Through any means needed... I believe Microsoft should go open system. It would solve many many problems and I feel that they would not lose much by the transition.
Weeeell, I've stuck my two cents in.
Goodnight, folks.

Woudln't bootable ROM's be an answer to that problem? That is of course until the hackers find a way to copy the eproms.

Make the software free! Can't steal it if
it's free to anyone who wants it. Shops can
still sell it with all the manuals and gimick
stuff, but if you want to you can always get
it off the net or your friend.
Sound familiar?

Oooops. Nope can't do that because then
they'd be in direct competition with others
that we've come to love and hate (sometimes)

No copy protection is the best copy protection. Items such as OS's and office suites, which so many people use and need, should be free. At least the OS's. If you can't run a built machine without it (software wise), you shouldn't have to pay for it. Make money in custom software, which can cost a whole lot more, and stop exploiting most of the world.

Simple answer: you can't keep people from stealing the product. One piece of software I use at work utilizes a 'plug' that attaches to my serial port and supposedly would keep me from using the software without the hardware plug attached, but even that extreme is easily bypassed with relatively little effort and a fair knowledge of assembly. No protection scheme is foolproof, but this new M$ one seems to be even more of a nuissance for customers. The fact is, they charge far too much for their product already. I upgraded to Windows ME after I was promised that it would make everything so much easier, and now I've heard that they're already dumping it because it's so buggy. Maybe they should put the same effort into product developmentthat they put into copyright protection. I know I'd be more willing to buy software if I knew it didn't suck.

Instead of coming out with a new OS every 2 years, maybe MS should just pick an OS and work on making it better from year to year.

I firmly believe they have the right to protect their property, however there are some areas where they have gone to far. On 3/8/2001 I attended a Microsoft Big Day as a VAP. I was listening to the representative talkin about Piracy and was surprised by one difference that I was unaware of with OEM versions. I quote "If the PC dies or to many hardware upgrades are made to the PC the software license dies with it! Also any upgrades installed upon the original OEM die with it."
I know many people were surprised by this. "If I buy a Compaq, Dell or whatever, with preloaded OEM version software, whether it is the operating system, or applications, If I make to many changes in the PC or I build a new PC and transfer my operating system or applications to the new PC I have violated licensing laws?
This does not apply to retail versions, only the OEM, this makes a good case for not buying the off the shelf computers and sticking with building your own.

I firmly believe they have the right to protect their property, however there are some areas where they have gone to far. On 3/8/2001 I attended a Microsoft Big Day as a VAP. I was listening to the representative talkin about Piracy and was surprised by one difference that I was unaware of with OEM versions. I quote "If the PC dies or to many hardware upgrades are made to the PC the software license dies with it! Also any upgrades installed upon the original OEM die with it."
I know many people were surprised by this. "If I buy a Compaq, Dell or whatever, with preloaded OEM version software, whether it is the operating system, or applications, If I make to many changes in the PC or I build a new PC and transfer my operating system or applications to the new PC I have violated licensing laws?
This does not apply to retail versions, only the OEM, this makes a good case for not buying the off the shelf computers and sticking with building your own.

First and foremost, reduce the price. Most casual copying is because your average Joe and Jane Doe can't shell out $90 for every upgrade on each PC they own. I firmly agree with eliminating pirating, and don't find the new scheme too offensive.As an alternative, how about offering home licenses. IE, give the owner unlimited installs on home PCs, and use caller ID, or call-backs to verify the PC is still at the same residence/phone number. After extended periods, say every three months, repeat the activation. IF the caller ID, or call-back number is the same, continue as usual. The only time intervention is required is on changes of residence or phone numbers. Once the number has been changed, any PC's trying to use the old entries would be "disabled". This may have unforseen quirks, but what validation scheme wouldn't?

Start charging some normal pricing for their buggy software. Microsoft has enough costomers to justify dropping the software by 50%. This way the users won't feel like they've been "thrown over a barrel." In some ways it seemed to justify to still buggy WindowsME release. Initial releases are always costly, on both the purchasing and debugging side. Money for puchase, costly is hours of implementation, and money to upgrade noncompatable hardware, money on loss of hours due to down time. The list just goes on and on.

GibMonkey (tulio@mediaone.net)

Lets assume there is no way to disuade microsoft from using this type of practice. It's really nothing special, high-end professional software vendors have required similar provisions in the past. I was working for a small advertising agency usingAlias Animator, when our SGI workstation blew a chip on the mother board, and it was replaced. After changing the motherboard, Alias refused to run until we spoke to Alias to get a new authorisation code (which they would give us untill we faxed them a copy of our SGI work order to prove we didn't just buy a new machine...)

So if microsoft is convinced they can prevent home and large-scale pirating, let them put there money where their mouth is: Cut the cost of Windows and Office to a level according to what reasonable estimates of number of pirated copies per legal one. The primary reason for home pirating and even large-scale pirating is the people don't like to pay so much for an os. $200 or more for a piece of software that morethan 90% of people who owns or is buying a home computer is an aweful lot. It windows was $50, how many people would be willing to pay that? I suspect alot more than are willing to pay $100 or $200... If windows were cheaper, you could suddenlycut the cost of a low-end computer from $800-$900 down to $650-$700. That would signifigantly increase the size of their customer base, I think.

There is my challange for microsoft: Put your money where your mouth is!

Reduce the price.

Years ago home VHS movie sold in the $80 range, and tape copying was common. Studios tried various copy protection schemes with mixed results. Then one studio tried offering a major film on tape for $20, and it sold like crazy, copying virtually stopped, and now home sales are a big part of the bottom line.

I don't suggest they give away the software, but I wouldn't mind the upcoming registration method if they would significantly reduce the cost to license it.

How about the cd requireing a floppy that has a use only on one pc. The floppy may need to be entered first to write the computers BIOS information and if a copy of the FD is attempted it will erase itsself. This would allow for the cd to test forthe proper FD and then install if the FD checks out. The floppy disk and cd could be used multiple times with the same computer.

The answer is really quite simple : Hardware Keys. Many copmanies allready deal with hardware keys on a regular basis. Why not move that into all markets. The keys could be USB, Serial or even Parallel. I have seen them used for CAD programs as wellas other expensive applications. They are incredibly effective. As well as dificult to replicate. Sure the CD for Windows could be freely handed out. Without the hardware lock the computer will simply not work. That would be the most effective method to battle piracy.

The solution is actually very elegant and very simple. Lower the prices to the marginal economic cost. This solves the piracy issue because there is very little incentive pirate a low cost item. Also, using economic theories, there would be more demand and thus more revenue. Furthermore, there would be less need to advertise because the low price would give the consumers a "I'll give it a shot attitude" and they would more likely buy it on a whim.

Quit Simple for Microsoft to reduce piracy.

Price... Price... Price...

Microsoft Windows in all its forms are way to expensive and so is the cost of Microsoft Office. Make it cheap and they would get a lot more "Home" users buying instead of copying their software. This is the biggest truth of the matter when it comes to piracy.

Piracy is due to exorbant cost of the product and the inability of people to justify the cost or even be able to afford the cost. Corporations can afford the cost's, but the average home/student user isn't in a position to, or able to give up one or two months rent to buy Microsoft Products. Thus the piracy continues.....

Make it cheap and they will want to buy it instead of copy it.

end of story.

We all know that Microsoft is taking this Product Activation way to far. And I think that the only real sulution to stop people pirating software is to make it freely availible or sell it at a realy, realy low price.

As an South African citizen I know that casual coping is the way to go here. I think most if not all home users only buy one copy of Windows/Office, and thats it, we simply cannont afford to spend R800 on a copy of Windows for each of our machines we use. Never mind R1500 to R5000 for a copy of Office.

If Microsoft can't drop the price or make software freely availible, the least thing that can be done is exstend the license to user and not to machine.

Just look at some game developers, some game development compnies does not mind casual coping in house. What I mean by this is they do not mind if I buy a game that its illegle to load the game on my sisters machine but if I would load the game on my friends machine, yes then its illegle. And these componiesstill make a lot of money!

The best thing that Microsoft can do to protect themselves against piracy is price reduction and selling each product for what it is, an addon. After all, why would people buy Windows ME? Because they think they are paying for a NEW OS, not a rehash. Microsoft could have saved themselves a lot of embarassment if they sold ME as an addon and not a NEW OS. XP is trying to achieve what was promised in Windows 2000. Stability, compatability, and integration of Win98 and NT. This, Win2K, was not. Sure, the OS itself didn't crash completely (often), but it was NOT what Microsoft said it would be. If you buy a TV which has all kinds of features like a DTV decoder, and window-in-window display, and whatever, if you take it home and it doesn't do what is says it will do, you take it back. But let's say that customer X holds on to this TV because TV manufacturer X says that these little inconveniences will be taken care of, then customer takes a deep breath and waits. Well what if TV manufacturer X comes back to customer X and says, "Okay boss, here are those features you wanted... oh and BTW that'll cost you another $300 because of all the hard work we had to put into R&D" the customer would find TV manufacturer X's place of business and punch someone in the nose. But lets pretend that customer X didn't have a lot of options, and really needed this TV and didn't really know how to operate the other flavors (think Linux). So he/she drops another $300 takes the TV home andfires it up. No DTV, no window-in-window. This is why arson exists. And I don't know exactly when people stopped wondering why they were still using a Frankenstein Monster of features bolted on to DOS, but if Microsoft wonders why sales are shrinking and people are stealing from them... its because they're finally feeling burned and they plan on getting their money's worth. End of story.

I have a home business upgrading and custom building computers . I don't want to compete against custom builders that cheat on their pricing by pirating Windows . I also don't want to compete against the hobby builder that pays more for parts, but gives his friends or family free software . The last thing I need is my customers more angry at Microsoft . Even now I have customers that want to trade in their old computer, but not their Windows 98 . They don't want to give Bill another dime . I have to drop the trade in value because I will have to buy Windows to recondition the computer and resell it . Now the customer is angry at Bill and me .It doesn't matter if the activation problems are myth or not this will hurt sales for Microsoft andme . Microsoft must improve it's image for their sake and mine . In Canada we had a huge problem with black market cigarettes because taxes on the smokes got to high . All levels of government worked together to lower the taxes, cutting the price ofcigarettes in half . The black market in cigarettes was dead the next day . Legitiment cigarette sales increased with little change in tax revenue . Microsoft needs to allow the same disk to be used on at least two machines in the same home and dropthe price of XP products well below ME and 98 . The public would not only activate XP but help fight pirating if Microsoft showed them up front how much pirating cost all of us . The public will not help Microsoft make more money . The public will work with Microsoft to make computing less costly . Microsoft must improve their image !!!

Oh Great. Now they finally have the market by the balls.

For years they let people load illegal copies of their (OS and other) software knowing full well that as their base grew, all other OS bases would die as developers wrote for the largest market.

Now that they have the market through their monopolistic pratices and now thay have our wallets.

I am so grateful that I finally bought a MAC after 16 years of being on the DOS/Win side...it almost NEVER crashes!

If Microsoft lowered their prices for their software and created a "home use" category for pricing, I believe this would reduce the amount of piracy going on. Why would someone pay $500 for an Office suite for home when they could use that money fora new hard drive or memory upgrade. By encouraging home use of a certain piece of software, it would also increase the chance the software would be used at work where the real revenue would be generated.

A few years ago an old DOS app required a "registration" code before it would work. In fact, a program called CPIC does mush the same, it just cripples the software until a registration code is entered. Once entered, the code is good forever so the software can be moved from machine to machine as needed. Maybe a tie to hardware will work but what a hassle.

How about making the product inexpesive enough that a person can afford to buy it insted of getting a copy from a family member.
$700.00+ For Office 2k pro? this isn't pricing, it's a ripoff

Since most everybody is on the Internet, all Microsoft has to do is track if the same software (with the same ID, etc.) is running on more that one PC. This way they could easily pinpoint the ones who copy illegally the same s/w and run it on more than one computer. It would be transparent, un-intrusive, and allow MS to target just the people who do pirate software - and leave the average, honest cunstomer alone to enjoy the software he/she paid for, instead of forcing them into the telephone "Press One" hell. Folks like me are running a few (4) computers at home, swapping hard drives between them as needed but have a legit operating system for each and every one (plus two that is not being used because those machines are using Unix.) I amconstantly changing my cmputers, my h/w layout, but all my machines always are running legit software. For me it would be a nightmare and would increase my workload and time requirements if every time I swap a hard drive or upgrade a system board, install a SCSI, a new NIC, etc. to go and sit on the telephone and listen to "If you'd like to hear about our wonderful new services press one". You get the picture. Ms has the technology, I suggest they get off their 'armchair' and start using it.

Actually, if Microsoft wants to create a system that inherently has a ton more effort by LAN Admins and PC Techs just in order to
stop piracy they should be willing to contribute the extra labor involved. Requiring codes and registration is sufficient. Beyond that why should MS be able to do a hardware inventory on our machines, or make us do bunch of extra work just so they can prevent others from doing something illegal. Isn't there an amendment that about unlawful search and seizure? LastI heard MS is not a law enforcement agency.

Its very simple! Lower the price of the product and offer some value added features for registering the product. If the price was kept reasonable stealing it would not be very profittable. If you only got say 1 year free tech support with registration people might feel that they were getting value for the money that they spend instead of being ripped off by a greedy vendor.

I think it's clear to me now. It's time for all microsoft users to report to the nearest chip ID implantation clinic usually located next to your local Prometric Testing Facility to have your very own ID chip implanted in your forehead. Along with the chip and at no additional charge is supplied the hardware device that connects to your computer that will authenticate your ID so that you can use your wonderful MS O/S and any Application Software installed. But wait there's more in addition you will receive a CD with the necessary drivers and a gratis copy of the latest version of IE Explorer.
And all this for the modest price of $2500 US.

ORRR...... You can spend a little time and learn how to use LINUX.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITHYOU.

Regards, Technohoe

As a large corporate user I have always wondered why Microsoft haven't come out with a "License Server" software package for their Open License customers. A single server would keep a list of available keys that you purchased, and as installed office systems try to register they simply get a key from the server on the LAN. This would make software tracking much easier as well, and would reduce human errors to zero. As you purchase more Open Licenses, the crummy piece of paper that you get wouldsimply be replaced with a software key with the additional license numbers. This would also allow the administrator to put licenses back in the pool as systems get replaced or rebuilt without fear of having to speak to a microsoft license person viathe telephone (most of which are impossible to understand anyway).

Don't charge too much for the software. That will remove the incentive for people pirating or finding away around the protection sheme.

Make the software cheaper !

If products from Microsoft actually held what they promised and would be cheaper for the "private man" less black copies would exist.
I certainly do not want a company as Microsoft getting a "fingerprint" of my computer, let me pick up a number at the dealer.
It is just one of the big brother tactics of MS. "You shall have no other OS than what I Bill Gates (God ?) sell you and of course no other software."
Keep going that way MS and I?m gonna switch to linux

If Microsoft spent more of their resources trying to perfect their products before releasing them, less money on worthless anti-piracy measures, and quit trying to develop new versions of their software to push on us every year, they may find out they can develop stable "upgrade-free" packages that people will actually want to pay for. They might even be able to lower the price a bit.

I am sick and tired of the continous upgrade cycle. Even though new versions of their software are rarely "needed", MS knows how the fever spreads. I work for a university and when someone sees that their co-worker is running a different version of Windows or Office, you can just bet they will be putting in a request for their own copy the next day...even if they have absolutely no use for it all.

Look out Microsoft...everybody I talk to is sick of it. You may find a lot of loyal followers suddenly hopping aboard the Linux/StarOffice train.

If microsoft (and all software mfgs) would price their software and upgrades at an affordable level for home users you would probibaly find that people would want to have a copy legally registered on their computer.

If on the other hand they keepraising the price, come out with upgrades on a yearly or twice yearly basis, that you have to purchase again to use, they will continue to see the end user using pirated or "borrowed" software.

Be real, over 200 dollars for a home pc os?
Or even look at the cost of networking a small home office for basic needs. Windows 2000 server, ms office 2000 pro along with a decent graphics program, plus any required hardware and perefferals. You are talking about money that not everyone has to throwat their system.

Let microsoft make their money on those that make money off their products. Not hit the home consumer for everything they can.

This is a touchy subject. We do need someway of stopping pirates but we can't invade privacy at the same time. Why doesn't Microsoft give out product ID's that can't be entered by the user. When a user has to enter their own user ID is when you get the piracy. Why doesn't microsoft just issue product IDs that you can't enter. Something burned into the disk from the start of manufacturing. Then in simple form all you would have to do is check for duplicate numbers. You can do this via theinternet. They can do this by checking the software ID when the product is installed for the first time or when you have to upgrade the software. We all know Microsoft can't release a completed product so every upgrade would work. The computer should only have to connect to the internet for a few seconds to submit it's ID number to the Microsoft server. This calling in to Microsoft is just Microsoft being lazy in finding a better way to keep track of their software. If you make the product, it is your responsibility to make sure it is not pirated. Not the consumers. The producer should do the leg work. NOT US.

Solution: Enforcement.

I go to Computer shows all the time. People are there selling copies of Windows for $15-$20. You can browse the newsgroups and download anything you want. Why doesn't Microsoft call for enforcement of the current laws?

My Problem with Activation:

I frequently format my drives and install different Operating Systems (since Microsoft insists on releasing new OSes every few months, I must do this more often). I sometimes dual boot or triple boot between multiple OSes. I recommend reformatting your hard drive at least once a year to clean up all the residual files that get left all over the place (due to all the bugs in the OSes). I should be able to purchase one license for Office XP and use it on this one PC. Am I going to have to call Microsoft once a week because I have installed a different OS? How will Microsoft address this?

Microsoft Hasn't Lost a Dime to Piracy:

If they eliminate or reduce piracy, then I would expect that they would reduce the price of the software. Honest consumers have been paying the price for pirates for years, not Microsoft.

I have no problem with MS' 'Activation' scheme, in general. They have the right to stop the pirating of their product. My problem is I can't afford the currnet scheme. I have five personal PCs at home and one personal PC at work and I like to keep them all as up to date as possible when it comes to OSes and applications. If I have to pay full price for everything I want to put on my six PCs...It's not going to happen. So, I'll either have to decrease the number of PCs I (and family) use, or not update all of them as often as I'd like. Or go to a competive product like Linux. I'd rather see some kind of a bulk pricing scheme where I can get a reasonalble break on each extra personal copy of software that I buy. 1st copy is full price...copies 2-5 25-75% off...and all of them 'activated' and registered with MS. The better the discount, the more I upgrade my other systems and less chance I'll go to the competition. MS gets more money out of me, they control their product by knowing where it's loaded and I get a price break for being a power user. Anything less than that and I have to seriously consider decreasing my PC and my family's PC use, because I won't be able to afford MS'Product Activation program as it's projected to
play out.

Regards,

Wayne Hainsworth
whainswo@tidland.com

Ok....so here's my 2 cents worth....here the largest corporation in the world, which could easily pay off the national debt, is worried about the casual user installing it's operating system on two machines at home. Please.....I'll keep my Windows 98 and 2000 cd's untill I finish migrating to Linux...thank you very much

Why dont Microsoft consider dropping the price and therefore it will be harder for the pirates to make any profit.

Geez - did the price tag on any of the newer MS Products give you an idea??? Hardware is cheap - software isn't. Could this be one of the driving forces behind the move to Linux. Maybe the concept of letting everyone copy it for so long, and then becoming the industry standard wasn't such a good idea. It worked for Autodesk. They used to have a hardware lock on their AutoCad package, but then they got rid of it. Then it was a free for all on illegal copies. Isn't it funny that almost all CAD packages can speak fluent AutoCad. It helped them becone the industry standard in CAD. Now there heading back to hardware locks. It also seems interesting that Microsoft keeps coming out with another expensive upgrade on an all to regular basis.

First making you reg. your software does not stop copying all a reseller would have to do is to but one copy and install it on a computer next they would just ghost the image of the operating system on to a new hard drive and sell.

To keep normalusers from copying the cd why not start by creating a non standard sector and write some code to check that sector, you could write the sector in a way that allows the hard drive to read random error, but when the cd is copied the errors would no longer be random this would keep cds from being copied and still allow user to keep there software.

Items you have not covered so far are what happen if I sell my computer but keep my software?
What happens to me, in my case I have a number of computer that I used to test my software out so today I may be using a P200 and next it maybe a P4 800 meg hertz system do I now need a license for each computer?

This one is simple, dont send the key in the product. You could call in and get it with another coresponding code, eaven if they have to e-mail, snail mail, and have a toll free number they would make less customers angery. It might cost a little more but with the money they make who cares.

Here is a good question for you:
When is someone going to make a decent plug and play OS that will compete with windows?

K. Tague

1961 -- Kennedy lowered taxes and government revenue went up

1981 -- Reagan lowered taxes and government revenue went up

Are you listening Bill?

If the goal is really as noble as just fighting piracy, then lowering the price is the only wayto go... black markets result when any commodity's availability is 'artificially' reduced... it happened with prohibition and it happens all the time in countries with UN sanctions imposed on them... the prevailing theme in all of these post is thatthe only way to curb piracy is to remove the incentive... I don't suscribe to the techno-egalitarian school of thought that suggest that everyone should have equal access to any new technology but I do believe M$ can only benefit from having more reasonable prices and will probably suffer by employing all this new heavy handed Orwellian crap...of course, if the strategy is to maintain a monopoly and inflate the bottom line...well, that's a different issue all together...

The solution is quite simple.

Reduce prices of the home/SOHO products to $20-$50. They will therefore be affordable that people will buy them to get support options rather than pirate them.

Only medium to large corporate customers should pay Microsoft's exorbitant prices.

$300 for ME is ridiculous. It's meerly 98 with a differnt face and less access to DOS.

The lower end Office products are also too expensive and are probably more pirated than the OS.

Microsoft should concentrateon the Corporate user to make it's $$$. Home users are a big market, thanks to Microsoft hoggin the market, but they're also the most cash strapped.

An answer to the problem? Two words: Open Source. Today, a linux product can be obtained free of charge by anyone from any of the linux vendors. Freebies you ask? How can this work? Quite simply - the money is made from supporting the product. You can choose from many support options and packages from Redhat, MandrakeSoft, Debian, etc... If Microsoft were to adopt this policy, piracy wouldnt be the issue that it is, and many people would be willing to pay for the support for Windows and Office Products. As it stands today however, you pay once for the product, and you pay again to them to get support for it - even in the first phone call! Worse Yet, upgrades, which in many cases, tend to be fixes for the last version, result in theend user taking it in the billfold again. Take for example, Windows 95 and 98. There were 3 separate version of Windows 95, each a fix for the previous "release" - each you had to pay to upgrade to. Windows 98 any different? No - Win98 SE rolls out, you pay to upgrade/fix the first product you bought? NT/2000 offers service packs freely downloadable, and there is always Windows Update, but then we go back to the privacy issue there - after all, how can it determine "by sending no information to Microsoft" what is needed on your system? It would appear that we pay for Windows betas that are officially called "released product" only to pay to fix them again. In an Open Source world, the fixes would come faster, be more readily available, and speed up the advancement of the technology by leaps and bounds. Linus knew this early on - when's Microsoft going to "open" up and listen and learn this lesson as well?

This solution would probably only work for small and medium size businesses:

Embed software in Windows XP and Office XP that compares the product ID's and do not permit duplicate product ID's on the network (either client-server or peer to peer).

The best way to combat small-scale piracy to to make the software affordable to the home user. The average home user (many of which now own multiple computers) cannot afford $400-$800 for an office productivity solution; OEMs are the most responsible for MSOffice being dominant in the home. It's much easier to justify mentally having it bundled with a new system than buying it outright at Staples.

Simple plan to stop the casual OfficeXX copier: A Family license. A Basic Family License would cost $79. It would contain the full OfficeXX Media, and license for 2 PCs. Additional licenses (up to 5--to curb corporate misuse) would cost $20. A small business license could cost $199, and cover up to 8 PCs (with additional licenses--up to a total of 20--would be $20 each.

This stepped attitude would not stop the large-scale pirate, but would help remove the "it's too expensive to follow the rules" argument, and MS would get their money.

What's the answer? Hmmmm... For starters, Microsoft can stop being so greedy and charging too much for their new (sic) products. I'm all for capitalism, however when Microsoft keeps regurgitating the same product with a few updates and BUG FIXES,markets it as all-new and then charges an unwitting customer $150-500 for it, that's outrageous. It's SOFTWARE for crying out loud! After the initial R&D there are no raw materials to buy, no production lines to retool, simply contracting out to media companies to burn the CDs and print the certificates. If Microsoft would wake up and realize that no matter what their EULA says (and who in the mainstream market reads EULA's????), the customer feels as if they own the product (and WANTS to OWN something they pay that much money for) Microsoft would learn to charge a closer market rate for their product and sell more. How did the movie industry combat wholesale pirating? New and more aggressive anti-pirating laws didn't help and they certainly didn't do it by making it more difficult for the customer to view the movies. They began pricing the product competitively (as in, what the free market would fly with) to eliminate the financial rewards of pirates. The home movie industry is doing better than it ever has with the sales of VHS tapes and DVD!

Personally, I'm disgusted enough that I'm looking into alternatives to MS. Maybe Linux? I would sure love to see someone port Apple OS X over to an x86 platform just to see someone give MS a run for their money.

I believe that the most common cause of home copies is - sticker shock. Hint to Microsoft - drop the last zero off the price tag. Other "Office" suits are free or priced at $100 to $200.

Microsoft [or someone] could come up with a small encoding device that could be embedded into the cd that would be recognized by a chip in the CD-rom drive. Only authentic cd's would have this embedded device. You could copy till your hearts content, but without the embedded device, it just won't install. This isn't a quick fix, but it could work for any software manufacturer. Just remember, money talks and even our countries most secret, sensitive information always seems to get into the wronghands.

My answer to this problem is..."Not my problem". Microsoft has every right, as I've said before, to defend their intellectual property. The methods they choose in that regard are up to them. However, if they choose a method, such as product activation, that I do not agree with, I have the right to choose another vendor. I even have the right to NOT "upgrade".

If they are REALLY serious about this, though, why not use a copy-protected "key disk"? For instance, you could encrypt your product key to some insane depth, say 3 128-bit passes, and drop that to a floppy so that the floppy's entire file system is one really big file. Sure there are ways around that, but it should survive the casual user.

Microsoft is within thier right to require product activation, but as consumers we are not required to buy Microsoft products. I see it becoming an issue of should I or shouldn't I upgrade from existing Microsoft products to XP? This answer will be no. Win2k is still in it's infancy of wide spread use on the enterprise desktop level. NT had five years or so depending on the company. There will not too many companies who will want to lay out the capital for another upgrade, especially givena sceptical economic outlook and the possibility of greater admin overhead to maintain it. Home users will take what ever is bundled with thier machine at the time of new purchase. For those of us who do revamps on our home machines and networks will use other OS's and office suites than XP. Microsoft should hold on the delivery of XP to the public for a year or two. This might allow for the true 64 bit OS's and allow for developers to write for it. This would also allow for a real "big" delivery of their product that the public will see as needed, not just the bi-yearly upgade.