The world's largest software company has launched a high-level campaign against the one factor it fears could threaten its market dominance above all others: pirated copies of its own products.
From now, users of Microsoft products will face spot-checks of the authenticity of their software before they are allowed to download updates. Read more...
I've completely had it with Microsoft! Repent! Repent!
http://www.ubuntulinux.org
http://www.debian.org
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2004/10/27/248834.aspx
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=81&perpage=1&pagenum=5
And don't forget the upcoming Microsoft VISTA!
(V)iruses
(I)nfections
(S)pyware
(T)rojans
(A)dware
And then there's the whole reliability issue:
brad@merlin:~$ uptime
17:38:39 up 95 days, 17:54, 2 users, load average: 0.10, 0.08, 0.42
-or-
Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195] (C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.
H:\>uptime
\\BWWILLIA has been up for: 5 day(s), 0 hour(s), 36 minute(s), 10 second(s)
(This box will BSOD as soon as I close Outlook on any given day, I guess it survived the weekend for once.)
Merlin (Debian server) has transferred 2.5 Billion packets in that 95 days, so approximately, what? 3.4 Terabytes or a TB/Month. Whee! Geek... That's my job...
Not that I advocate ways to get around anti-piracy methods. But theres a way to get updates through firefox i have been using for quite a while now and it doesn't seem to ask you to validate (For the record, I just finished validating my copy in the real site after i checked at the firefox update site.)
Anyway, here's the link http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/