Microsoft targets Wine

No more updates for virtualized Windows..

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation initiative has set off a firestorm of protest throughout the open source community after programmers uncovered a special function in the software dedicated to detecting Wine, a compatibility layer for running Windows programs in non-Windows environments.

WGA authentication is set to become mandatory for all non-critical Windows updates starting in the second half of 2005. Customers must run a program that verifies their Windows license, or they will not have access to Windows Update or the Microsoft Download Center.

Full details at Betanews.com.

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dissimuloorator
Reply #21 Wednesday, February 23, 2005 11:32 AM
It is just sad that MS is so scared of losing Market Share and Product Revenues, that they purposefully go and break an application that allows them to sell more copies of thier Office Application. It isn't enough that they sell an Office Suite, they want to force the End Users to purchase a MS OpSYS, to boot. I mean some shops are primarily Linux, or some form of *niX variant and maintain MS Office Suite only to be interoperable with businesses that run some form of MSO. I use Open Office myself, but there are so many variants of Windows Docs and other Office formats, that I have to use MSO also, in case I run into some weird formatting issues, that OpenOffice cannot work with properly.

Island Dog
Reply #22 Wednesday, February 23, 2005 3:25 PM
I really doubt Wine is bringing in major sales for Microsoft. Do you really think people are going to buy Office 2003 to run on Wine in Linux?

Memuser
Reply #23 Wednesday, February 23, 2005 11:46 PM
I though one of the fires under Linux was the hatred of MS. If thats the case, then why are these people using a MS product....why not stick with there own king. Also, I find it funny that they hate MS so much yet still need them...thats funny. Now they bitch when MS stops wanting to play with the community that wants MS broken up and out of business.

Jason

Brandon Paddock
Reply #24 Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:37 AM
Man some of you people have thick skulls...

THEY ARE NOT BLOCKING WINE. THEY ARE BLOCKING ANYTHING PRE-XP. WINE GETS VALIDATED IF IT IS IN XP MODE.


THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OFFICE. MICROSOFT DOES NOT, AND HAS SAID THEY WILL NOT, REQUIRE WINDOWS VERIFICATION FOR OFFICE PRODUCTS.


/steps down from soapbox

Get it yet?

Brandon Paddock
Reply #25 Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:48 AM
And how about posting the actual source:

http://winehq.com/hypermail/wine-devel/2005/02/0441.html

It sounds like yes, Microsoft is checking for the registry key, but not failing because of it. The validation works fine when wine is emulating Windows XP. When it's emulating Windows 2000, the validation program gives no error and returns a key - however it doesn't work. The Wine developers are attributing this to a bug in wine's emulation.

So the only time it's failing with the "unsupported OS" error is when wine is emulating an unsupported version of Windows. Kind of makes sense, no?

For all we know, Microsoft put the wine detection in there so that validation COULD work? Heck, we don't even know whose idea it was to put that check in there... Some people see it as a conspiracy to count or possibly block wine users... all 10 of them. But perhaps it was just some lowly Microsoft programmer who uses wine on one of his computers and wanted to make sure the validation would in fact work (when emulating XP?) How would you ever know?

Just don't go ripping apart MS for something they haven't done and claim to have no intention of doing. If they ever actually block wine users (intentionally) from getting something they need (they don't need Windows updates)... then you'll have something to whine about (no pun intended).

Brandon Paddock
Reply #26 Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:55 AM
It is just sad that MS is so scared of losing Market Share and Product Revenues, that they purposefully go and break an application that allows them to sell more copies of thier Office Application. It isn't enough that they sell an Office Suite, they want to force the End Users to purchase a MS OpSYS, to boot. I mean some shops are primarily Linux, or some form of *niX variant and maintain MS Office Suite only to be interoperable with businesses that run some form of MSO. I use Open Office myself, but there are so many variants of Windows Docs and other Office formats, that I have to use MSO also, in case I run into some weird formatting issues, that OpenOffice cannot work with properly.


Did you even read the article?

dissimuloorator
Reply #27 Thursday, February 24, 2005 10:34 AM
Actually I read the Article a week ago. http://tinyurl.com/52p5u [SlashDot Link]

"Still, even if this is only an initial attempt, they appear to want to discriminate wine users, while this may be acceptable for operating system components/updates, this is probably a violation of anti-trust law for all other downloads. It's also the first time Microsoft acknowledges the existence of Wine.

Ivan Leo."

dissimuloorator
Reply #28 Thursday, February 24, 2005 10:58 AM
Additionally...

I do not know you Brandon, but you might be old enough to remember the first iterations of this marketing tactic.

http://tinyurl.com/4bcw8 [eWeek.com]
"Yes, some of us from way back then are still around and writing about this business. And, we were also around when Microsoft finally paid Caldera a fistful of millions of dollars to settle the suit that developed from Microsoft's attempts to crush DR-DOS."


http://tinyurl.com/3mvsf [EarthState.org]
"Microsoft was writing Windows 3.1, an important upgrade to the hugely popular Windows 3.0. In September 1991, a plan was hatched to use this upgrade to kill DR DOS. In an email discovered by the Dept. of Justice, the head of Windows development and Microsoft VP David Cole wrote, "aaronr had some pretty wild ideas after three or so beers--earleh has some too." The plan was to plant code into Windows which would "put competitors on a treadmill" and cause the system to "surely crash at some point shortly later." In order words, Windows would intentionally bomb if it detected DR DOS."

Also Quoted from the Article

"What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect the problem is DR DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS, or decide not to take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office," wrote senior VP Brad Silverberg in a February 1992 email to David Cole. It worked. With the damage done and DR DOS destroyed, Microsoft disabled the killer code in the released version of Windows 3.1.

However, Microsoft didn't bury their tracks well enough. Software guru Andrew Schulman decided to investigate these mysterious bugs and released his findings in the September 1993 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. Based on the work of Geoff Chappell, he discovered the part of Windows that created these unusual error messages. It was encrypted by Microsoft engineers; encryption is a method used to hide information. Oddly, this was the only part of Windows that was encrypted. This code also contained numerous other unusual tricks to trip up any investigation of what it did.


So I say, it looks like business as usual, for Redmond.

Island Dog
Reply #29 Thursday, February 24, 2005 12:01 PM
The Microsoft conspiracy theorists.


dissimuloorator
Reply #30 Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:45 PM
Island Dog

XX
Reply #31 Thursday, February 24, 2005 4:35 PM
It's true.... however, it was pre-windows 95. any more recent examples?

Some of microsoft-hater has super-long memory.

joeKnowledge
Reply #32 Thursday, February 24, 2005 7:29 PM

dissimuloorator
Reply #33 Thursday, February 24, 2005 7:49 PM
http://tinyurl.com/4slmo [Business Week Online]

"The company's demeanor was no different inside the courtroom. Gosling, a Sun vice-president, faced off against Microsoft Associate General Counsel Thomas Burt, who doggedly attacked Gosling's 35-page direct testimony. The key issue -- and the subject of civil litigation between the companies -- is whether Microsoft could make changes to the Sun progamming language. Sun has designed Java so that it can be used to create programs that run on any system that runs a "Java virtual machine" -- software that allows programs written in Java to run on top of a computer operating system. But that works only if all versions of Java are the same."


And now for something completely Different... Let's not forget the Opera Browser incident.
http://tinyurl.com/6098 [Opera.com]

"Two weeks ago it was revealed that Microsoft's MSN portal targeted Opera users, by purposely providing them with a broken page. As a reply to MSN's treatment of its users, Opera Software today released a very special Bork edition of its Opera 7 for Windows browser. "


Or a little more perhaps?
http://tinyurl.com/4aldj [CnetNews.com]
Microsoft has said it has reopened the redesigned MSN site to rival browser makers, but as of Friday morning, the most recent browsers from Mozilla.org and Opera Software still could not access MSN. Netscape users also continued to report access problems."


I know this is a never ending debate. I realize not everyones' hands are clean in thier dealings with each other. MS does not play fair, and that is a fact. Let us not forget all of the Antitrust issues, so recently covered.

Corky_O
Reply #34 Thursday, February 24, 2005 8:40 PM
It would be interesting, though improbable, to see what another company placed in the position Microsoft has been in would do.

Human nature is what it is, and idealism is wonderful - but not very useful in the competitive, even warlike environment of big business.

An interesting experiment.

Anybody think it will happen?

Brandon Paddock
Reply #35 Thursday, February 24, 2005 11:12 PM
Dude... didn't they prove that the Opera incident was a PR stunt by the company's founder?

I don't remember the exact numbers... but it went something like this:

-Opera 6.1 works fine with MSN.com
-Opera 6.2 changes something intentionally that breaks MSN.com
-Opera founder cries out that Microsoft/MSN is discriminating against his page.

Pretty shady if you ask me.

Denise Gardiner
Reply #36 Saturday, February 26, 2005 9:31 AM
I am a "newbie" as it is put, but I can read. It is simple too understand even to someone as green as I am. I believe what Frogboy stated was that is you are too use Microsoft Windows in a non-windows environment (which really is generous of them anyway)then you have to actually have paid for it too get access to the non-critical updates. You will still have access to the critical updates so that you can continue to use their product. If you want more software updates (most free) from them then you have to prove you paid for the darn thing in the first place. So what is the Hubbub Bub?

fizzfoam
Reply #37 Saturday, February 26, 2005 12:08 PM
MS already blocks pirate copies of Windows from updates, so this in itself is nothing new.

If MS wants to complicate the use of their products, let them. It will just give the Linux community more reason to develop better native Linux programs, and make Linux more attractive to the traditonal MS user. They're cutting their own throats with greed; not an unusual behavior at all for an overgrown,mindless corporation, is it?

Meanwhile, IBM and Novell have embraced Linux, and they each have more than a little influence in the PC world. Ultimately, MS will be forced to reduce software prices AND provide better products, or fade away and die. Gates knows it, Ballmer knows it, and the Linux supporters know it. It's possible right now to have a fully functional business running Linux, and applications that are all non-MS, and many businesses see the savings, and are beginning to switch.

The next five years or so should be interesting, in the OS arena.

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