XP SP-1

[Woogieman]

Recently, at a computer users group, made up mostly of small business owners, during the informal session I asked the question "How many were using Windows XP that they were able to download from the internet?" Approximately 30% admitted to doing so, but I noted that quite a few people that I knew for a fact had interenet copies hadn't admitted this fact. My next question was "How many that had paid for one copy of XP, was running that copy on more than one system?" Of those that paid for XP, nearly 80% had installed it on one more than one machine in their business, "bending" the license agreement. The most repeated justification was that M$ was already cheating the business community and that they were just getting reasonable value for their money to "even out the playing field".

Right or wrong, M$'s sins probably isn't real justification for bending the license agreement; but, most everyday business people are obviously fed up with M$'s business practices. In case you haven't noticed because your own paycheck just keeps on rolling in and you don't have to worry about such mundane details like meeting payrolls, paying bills, etc.; the economy is in the ditch and the near term outlook is not good at all. To have a small business that has 5 to 25 inhouse systems; and to have to pay what most view as intolerable fees to upgrade to XP, seems to be the "straw that broke the camel's back".

I also noted that only a very small percentage of Windows 2000 users had any plans to upgrade to XP; most of the "upgraders" previously had Windows 98 or Me. Also, a surprising number had purchased small Linux based servers to grow their systems - something that a year ago was simply unthinkable.

Sign of the times it seems............



Last edited by Woogieman at Sep 26 2002, 06:22 AM

[rikytik]

My company (10,000 imployees) has a rigourous annual audit to check that installed software on each pc is subject of legit license. It's a big deal.

[Woogieman]

When I was part of a large corporation (56,000+ employees) the practice was the same - big legal problems otherwise.

But for the very small business person who is his own computer "expert", or as is usually the case, hires a local "jack of all trades" moonlighting service dude that downloads and installs XP because the owner was stuck with 98 or ME (complete with crashes as these get a bit old). There's more concern for trying to save their business than get excited about a mickey mouse license. In the curent business climate, a lot of these guys are barely getting by - and that's an understatement.

I'm retired; and my only involvement is acting as an unpaid consultant to try to help a number of these guys survive. I'll tell you - most of them will probably survive, but they'll come out of this "new economy" with their savings gone and deeply in debt. Given the current circumstances, I'm not about to point a finger and scold them because I happen to notice that their OS doesn't exactly follow the rules. In all cases, these same people, in a better business climate, plunked down plenty of dollars for some pretty damn lame M$ products. Just maybe their new version (internet XP) could be considered a Service Patch for some of the really lousey versions they paid handsomely for in the past, IMHO.

[Auraka]

Quote:

Originally posted by Woogieman@Sep 27 2002, 01:43 AM
Just maybe their new version (internet XP) could be considered a Service Patch for some of the really lousey versions they paid handsomely for in the past, IMHO.

What exactly are you trying to say[grin].

OSs' I've paid for: 95/98/98SE/ME(biggest joke of them all), they all became flaky requiring reboots. Looked seriously at 2000 but gaming weighs in pretty heavy in my decision. XP is without a doubt the most stable and game friendly OS that I've used and well worth the OEM price IMHO.

The single reason I haven't paid for XP is activation, and the ability that M$ could refuse to activate for whatever reason. Blue List complicates this by generating keys, a key anyone could buy retail/OEM that's already been activated, or down the road has too many instances running. They can lock you out of software you paid them for.

People who snidely reply "then don't use their software", don't live in reality. There really isn't any viable alternatives to Windows for the masses at this time, including me.

If I could buy corp for OEM price without terms limits, I'd buy in a heartbeat.

[Woogieman]

I read your "ME(biggest joke of them all)" comment with much amusement. I read the notes of a round table discussion wherein a senior M$ exec. (obviously without thinking) commented that ME was the OS that never was.

It seems it was determined early on that the gap between 98/98SE and XP was going to be too great. So a hastily assembled team was assigned to recode more of the 16 bit code over to 32 bit, add some "enhancements" and market it as the next Windows. But the demands of XP continued to quickly strip team members from the ME project to a point where it was released with more "problems" than they would have liked to have. Meaning that releasing products with problems is the norm at M$, I guess. At ME Product intro time, the original team was now down to a skeleton group, with more people trying to abandon the ME ship daily.

I hear that a standing joke in the M$ exec area is: "ME?? Wasn't that a project from Sun Micro?"

Incidently, I also PAID for Wndows early on, starting with version 1.0!!! Man that was sooo bad on the old 286's!!! Still have the original disks as a reminder...



Last edited by Woogieman at Sep 27 2002, 08:43 AM

[Dudelive]

@ Woogieman Since you paid for win 1.0 you also remember using Dos when there was nothing BUT dos. So you as well as some others have paid and paid and paid out the as* for software time and time again when there was NOT a choice. So when it comes down to it some people will just not pay at all. It would seem that I have already bought Xp mutiple times over.

By the way, yes I do remember dos and I don`t mean just dos 6.22 either. LOL..........I also remember the pages and pages of code just to make a game to play. So I think that all should have to go and buy the software that they use, but there should be a way of trying out the complete version. Thank goodness most allow that now, then go buy it if you like it.



Last edited by Dudelive at Oct 1 2002, 09:32 PM

[Woogieman]

I built my first computer (wire wrapped would be the proper term) in July/August of 1974. At that time there was no DOS as there was no hard drives available. You keyed in your rudimentary OpSys commands into your machine before you could do anything - and when you turned it off, you lost everything. Quickly mag tape drives became available with S100 interface cards, allowing you to load your OpSys when you started (or even Paper Tape readers if you wanted). When hard drives came along in late '75-'76 the OpSystem to use was Gary Kildahl's Digital Research DOS (developed mostly using some US Navy dollars - although Kildahl didn't like to admit that). Gates and Allen were still working with (or for - depending on who you believe) Ed Robert's Altair Comapany down in New Mexico trying to peddle their very simple Basic interpreter - that they "borrowed from DEC's PDP series by cross compiling for Intel chips. Intels instruction set was based on the PDP series min-computers so it was a relatively easy task. At that same time there were other more sophisticated Intrepters and Compilers that you could use - but not as inexpensive as M$'s.

Later, when the first 16 Intel chips hit the market, a couple other fellows formed Seattle Computing Company and recompiled Kildahl's DOS over to 16 bits. Then in late '79/'80, IBM went to three companies to get an Operating System for what was going to be IBM's second attempt at the home desktop market (the first attempt, their 5100 series, failed because it was far too expensive). When IBM approached Kildahl to license his OpSys, he sorta told them to take a hike - lotsa stories as why he did so; but he did reluctantly agree to license the software. I have an original Digital REsearch/IBM software pack in my collection of "stuff".

IBM needed software to run on their first machines besides just a dumb OpSys, so they asked Gates & Allen to license Basic to them. When the M$ boys found out that IBM wasn't getting too much co-operation from Kildahl they volunteered to provide an OpSys along with their Basic. The fact that they didn't have an OpSys didn't bother the boys as they knew they could pick up Seattle Computings rip-off of Kidahl's OpSys for a song.

The rest is history - except now when people try to do what they did ("borrow" software, modify it for their own use - and even sell it) they get hostile.

So, do I remember DOS? Yup, I remember what it was like way before DOS!!!!!



Last edited by Woogieman at Oct 3 2002, 12:10 PM

[I_R_lectrishun]

I installed SP1 on a devils own corp version from my superxp cd using a corp key generated by that program that generates keys and everything is still fine. Still able to use windows update and everything.

[rikytik]

Has anyone noticed if Windows Update won't scan on an install using the latest 6 in one with sp-1 integrated?

[suulee]

but, in CHINA, do u know, if an ordinary people want to purchase a
legal WinXP Pro, he must pay RMB 19XX,officeXP----2XXXor3XXX RMB, nearly half or more monthly income of him, so......



Last edited by suulee at Oct 19 2002, 11:09 AM