“After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I’ve finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA – something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation. Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into ‘reduced functionality’ mode, where you can’t do anything but use the web browser for half an hour. You’ll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code. How can this crazy situation occur? Read on for the sorry tale.”
‘Driver Updates Causing Vista to Deactivate’
72 Comments
2007-10-24 2:21 am
2007-10-24 4:30 am
2007-10-24 5:53 am
2007-10-24 1:42 pm
2007-10-24 9:12 pm
2007-10-25 5:17 pm
Happened to me a couple of months ago, seemingly out of the blue. After booting into Vista, I was forced into reduced functionality mode.
The irksome thing was that this was on a new HP laptop with Vista pre-installed, there was supposed to be no activation required. The online activation wouldn’t work, the automated activiation wouldn’t work, had to talk to a real person to get it re-activated.
No 3-day warning. No annoying WGA popups. No 50-login limit. Simply a big “fsck you” from MS.
I could live with the inconvenience of passive DRM if I had no alternatives. What I can’t handle is knowing that Microsoft literally has an off-switch and can shut down my legitimately purchased Vista-preinstalled HP Laptop on a whim. If I had been at a customer site for a preso or training session when that happened, I would have been pooched. Imagine how professional that would look, being accused of software piracy on a nice big projector.
Bollocks to activation altogether, if they can’t get their s*** together.
Or maybe they were just vexxed by the much more used openSUSE partition right beside the Vista one.
How bad do things really have to get, before people get sick of this. Complain in droves this kind of customer abuse.
I’m not even talking about moving to a more customer friendly OS, just simply complaining.
This must be against the some law or other.
The other thing that shocks me is I buy an awful lot of hardware, and do do because I can update my machine with impunity. I didn’t even install XP becuase of activation.
I am already sick. I have a 3,4 GHz P4 and 15 fps in WOW. I don’t have to tell you, that I have more while running XP. I huge ripoff I would say. Probably WOW runs better with Wine.
I know this is going to come as a shock to the geeks around here, but this is really just a tempest in a teacup. Here’s why. The vast majority of people DON’T fiddle around with the hardware in their box. They DON’T replace disk controllers. They DON’T replace video cards. Instead, they simply buy a new machine when their old one wears out. They’re completely unaffected by activation woes since their installation was preactivated by the OEM that sold them the box originally. That’s why you haven’t seen very many people complaining. Only the geeks that change the hardware in their boxes have the potential to be affected — and, frankly, they comprise a very small percentage of the overall market.
Yes, but now we’re talking about updating drivers, and when this is caused by the toshiba or whatever manufacturer’s utility included on the machine upgrading drivers or someone having a problem and being told to update their drivers to the newest version, we see the major issue. Well, actually, what will probably end up happening is they’ll think that their computer is worn out and just buy a new one, all because they updated their drivers a few too many times.
I’m still on a pentium 3 laptop, people are amazed at the speed and quietness (fans rarely go on). Its faster then their brand new ones, with a longer battery life, because its running Ubuntu and doesn’t have all that malware that comes with their new computer. And they’re amazed that its lasted as long as it has. I’ve given away some Ubuntu CDs I got from shipit and if they’re scared, I tell them to try it on their old “broken” laptop. I saw this one guy with his old laptop after that, and he told me he realized his old laptop was faster then his new one now that Ubuntu fixed it and was using that as his main laptop now, he said it was probably because he spent more on his old one. I told him to try it out on his new laptop as it should be faster, and he was once again in shock. He mainly used instant messaging and web browsing (webmail et all) and was just shocked at how fast his computer became.
Edited 2007-10-24 01:02
No, we don’t know if simply incrementally updating drivers causes this problem. The author of this article upgraded drivers from DX10 from DX9. That’s essentially a brand new replacement driver. It isn’t just a point upgrade.
I agree with your observation, but would add that this very small percentage in the overall market (early adopters, hobbyists, gamers) have a very large impact on the market, relative tto their size. These are the folks who influence the purchasing for their families, relatives, and friends.
I’ve build 6 machines for family members in the last 4 months. I’ve only installed Vista once. I tell everybody that Vista sucks and I stand by that opinion. “Keep using XP until you can’t anymore.”
To all the Mac detractors, I guess they don’t look so expensive after all – when you consider the hell that is Windows Vista which one is forced to endure.
A slightly more expensive computer with no activation or a dirty cheap underpowered machine loaded with Windows Vista which is riddled with more bugs than a hooker on K road.
“””
“””
I suppose bad enough that it actually bothers a lot of people. Which it doesn’t seem to, yet. Most people don’t make many changes to their machine after the initial purchase. ALways remember that *we* who would be regularly inconvenienced by these things are the exception.
Also, remember that to other people MS is just another company. We, on the other hand, are always on the lookout for signs of more foul plans perpetrated by the Evil Empire. I don’t know if “seeing is believing”, but I *do* know that “believing is seeing”.
I don’t have any control over what OS is placed on our computers at work. But, I don’t have to maintain them either. So, if my employer goes to Vista, that will be their little red wagon. As for me, I don’t have Vista and have no plans to ever own Vista. XP is almost a memory, as well.
So, I guess I’m saying, “Ha”.
As for me, I don’t have Vista and have no plans to ever own Vista. XP is almost a memory, as well.
So, I guess I’m saying, “Ha”.
As for me, I don’t have Vista and have no plans to ever own Vista. Windows 98 is almost a memory, as well… Man, I’m getting old, but I agree with your, “Ha.”
What are you going to do, call the police when your drug dealer shorts your dime bag? This is what happens when the public allows a monopoly power to run amok without censure or rebuke. What next, capturing users’ data and holding it hostage until the copy of Windows, Office <fill in the blank> can be verified as genuine? Glad I gave up Microsoft products years ago.
What next, capturing users’ data and holding it hostage until the copy of Windows, Office <fill in the blank> can be verified as genuine?
Shhhh! Don’t give them (MS) any ideas.
Insert a Linux CD, REBOOT.
Now none of my applications work. Guess that wasn’t the right thing to do afterall.
All your applications will work.
Juse use GNU Applications.
You have everything that you want.
If the thing is not what you want, the source is there, just modify it, and then contribute it to the community.
I’m sure the average Joe Six pack is going to contribute source code.
You can’t just commit code to fix a broken way of thinking.
So you mean to tell me there’s GNU Cubase, GNU Photoshop, GNU Illustrator, etc?
Unless you only use your computer for email & web, or code, then there’s very little worthwhile software available for the Linux platform right now.
Unless you are a professional artist and musician, there’s very little worthwhile to Cubase, Photoshop, or Illustrator.
I daresay that most people’s artistic ability barely merits Microsoft Paint (or Kolourpaint). There are plenty of free (libre) tools that are good enough for 99% of the population.
Cubase? Try a decent audio program like Reaper which lo and behold works on Linux under WINE and with WINE ASIO. Cubase is a bloated POS.
Photoshop, earlier versions, CS2, can be used on Linux but it would be nice if Adobe pulled the fist out of their ass and suppoerted their CS products natively on Linux.
Both Windows and OS-X are annoying but I have to admit, if you want trouble free OS usage of Vista then use the Pirate BIOS EMulation Cracks to bypass activation as it makes the OS much more palatable.
Ok, if people are really so damn dumb to buy software which refuses to work after two simple hardware changes, well… their problem.
If Windows Vista is so utterly clever that it could be told by a software (like reported in the article) of a “major hardware change event” … fine, not my issue.
But combining these facts, this is where the fun begins! Just write some crappy software that issues several “major hardware change events” and render the OS useless!
I’m not into virus writing, but if I would be, that would be the best way to have some serious fun! Even better than that “Your system will shutdown in 30 seconds” virus
(Disclaimer: If you think erasing the hard drive would do it too, you just don’t get it.)
Edited 2007-10-23 19:57
A computer virus that destroys its host is a bad virus. Why ruin the computer when you can run quietly in the background as part of a botnet and allow your master to sell your services for a lot of cash?
Either that, or have a program that really unsubtly tries to hack the new encrypted video path. Aparrently, Vista will immediately shut down at that point.
What is the purpose of all this? ARe they actively trying to make me and others having IT problems in the office?
I seriously hope PCBSD and others take off soon and that app vendors consider this an option as right now I’d be delighted to switch. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen any time soon.
I do use Vista on my laptop (also HP preinstalled), but not on either of my 2 main producitivity boxes. Why? Well to be sincere. Bells and Whistles don’t play very nicely together with high production rate. It’s like flash websites, all that loading and then waiting and then figuring out that the ad agency put all into design and none into content.
It’s such a shame that a company like MS who really make solid software (like Office) can’t get their act together with the OS business….
I seriously hope PCBSD and others take off soon …
I hope so too. But actually, the popular GNU/Linux distros are already so good and easy to use that they are ready to take off right now.
I’m an RPM fan, not a Debian fan, but I’ve experimented with Ubuntu and it’s not surprising that it has captured such a large percentage of GNU/Linux users. It’s so smooth that even the simple-minded can be productive with it today.
I can’t help putting a smile om my face reading all the bad news about Vista. 6 years of developing and there are no usefull new features, all there is is misery.
They should have titled Vista ‘Windows Millenium 2nd edition’.
Edited 2007-10-23 19:59
I am inclined to believe they spent all these years just developing this “Windows Genuine (Dis)Advantage” and nothing more…
Microsoft/Windows/Vista sucks, use a real operating system like Linux people.
I hit the reduced functionality situation a few days ago and I found a little trick to turn around. I don’t know if it’s a known stuff but here’s what I did.
Windows started my default web browser (firefox. Dunno if it works with another one, but it should). I did File/Open. In the file manager, I browsed to the windows folder and on explorer.exe I did a right click and execute. And boom. Full windows back. I don’t know if it works more than half an hour like this, but this was enough for me to rearm the trial period…
Hahaha, how crappy!
Wow, that’s pretty clever. Good work.
“Microsoft/Windows/Vista sucks, use a real operating system like Linux people.”
Microsoft/Windows/Vista sucks, use a real operating system like OSX people.
This is more of a burden in so many ways than it is any kind of blessing.
Once you activate a product, it should REMAIN activated.
All this BS about ‘installing drivers’ – well…to put it bluntly, Linux does a WAY better job of handling supported hardware than Windows does.
And I honestly don’t think very many will disagree with me.
Those are probably pirated drivers anyway
Pirated drivers? Seriously? What company does not provide driver for free?
Or was that a failed attempt at humor?
Actually at one point in time I had seen some drivers that had to be paid for. Sadly enough, I think they were drivers for Linux.
There was such an uproar that the company quickly changed their minds and provided them for free.
I think it was 3D Labs, but I could be wrong about that. Seems it was a professional grade graphics card that wanted people to pay for their drivers that were certified with certain 3D rendering softwares.
Wow…
We had this problem a while back; I installed Vista Ultimate on 4 PCs for work purposes, and after a week one of them deactivated, and we needed to call MSDN support for a new license (used the 10 tries per key…). I seem to recall the only difference was the latest NVIDIA driver on that one test machine!
And the support guy thought I was making it up… Is he going to get it when I get back to work!
And I agree with a previous post; once a product has been activated, it must remain activated.
As soon as it was made public that Windows XP was to be sporting mandatory activation, I purchased what would be my last copy of windows. 98SE. And from that day I experimented with a Linux partition, and Free Software.
Thank you Microsoft, for helping me to see the light in 2002.
And to anyone who thinks it is going to getter better over there in Microsoftland, I say “I hope so, too!”, but go ahead and put Mandriva or Ubuntu on a spare partition or second hard drive. See what happens.
It may not happen the first time, or the second time “Microsoft Windows Crashes”(tm) irretrievably, and you have to go into Linux to rescue your files, but eventually you just don’t bother reinstalling Windows.
Life is just… better over here.
It’s a pity to see a big company like Microsoft, spending such an amount of time on anti-pirating to finally achieve that their real customers are suffering the consequences of such system, while the pirates themselves I am sure are free of all this hassle … just ironic !
A lot of people seem to misunderstand why Microsoft has activation. Anti-piracy measures were never intended to thwart the commercial pirates. Those scumbags are going to work around virtually any kind of anti-piracy technology — since they have the money, time, and motivation to crack it. No, what this is really intended for is the casual pirate — the kind of person who buys a single copy of Windows, and then tries to install it on all of his home machines and his friends’ machines. Microsoft is simply trying to make it so difficult for that kind of user to pirate the software that they’ll throw up their hands and simply buy it.
The so called “casual pirate” maybe exists only in their imagination. Or in the usa, I dunno.
’cause round here NOBODY buys windows. As in “nobody”.
Either it comes preinstalled, or is installed with a borrowed copy.
Your copy of windows will not install/activate? You ask around at work, and someone will have a cd. The non computer savvy users are the ones that install most pirated software, because they don’t know any better.
… is what was Intel software doing replacing fundamental OS software with its code (software updates should not register as a hardware change) without telling him about it….
Where is your proof the the Intel drivers ‘replaced funadamental OS software with its code’
For all the article told us, it could have just updated the (S)ATA controller firmware, or enabled some new hardware feature that changed the device signature.
Windows Plug ‘N Pray.
<insert awesomely witty anti-microsoft/anti-windows/pro-linux comment here>
LOL!
get a mac
I have one. I’m thinking of selling it.
i have a pc that i want to kill with a sledgehammer
Edited 2007-10-24 00:04
get a mac
Never heard that one before.
Usually it’s just get a mac
Seriously though, how would that help? Activation woes would go away, but I’d be locked in to a very narrow set of hardware. I’m much happier without activation, but with a choice of the best hardware to suit my needs (as long as there are drivers) in *nix land.
Granted, there’s a fine market for premade boxes that are made in concert with the software. People like you
So enjoy your Mac (No sarcasm).
i use linux,macos,windows
That’s nice. But if you are doing it on a Mac (most likely, but not the only option) then you are doing it on the “relatively narrow set of hardware” I was talking about. For that reason, as I explained, getting a Mac isn’t the solution for me no matter how many OSs one I could run on it.
4 computers
ibm
noname
ibm laptop
mac
I see. So your original advice to “get a Mac” in order to avoid Windows activation woes was more like “get (buy, for money) a Mac and use it in addition to your other computers”. Yeah, great.
So to summarize: in response to Windows activation suckiness you advise to get a Mac. I say Macs are too hardware limited. You say get the Mac and continue to use my old machine for hardware freedom.
My point was that for me, *nix gets me that freedom from activation and freedom of hardware at the same time without the expense of multiple machines. Macs work for many, but as before “get a Mac” isn’t advice that does me any good.
so you missed the “;)” ?
Well, you have to admit, it surely isn’t very hard to do exactly that. Microsoft virtually invents them for you, almost on a daily basis.
I did see one worrying trend though:
http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/
… but at least you do get the source!
http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/source/
… so Linux is not quite yet up to scratch in the “screw the users” applications field just yet, but at least a start has been made!
… although it has apparently already been cracked!
http://www.alienos.com/articles/2007/02/02/linux-genuine-advantage-…
🙁
Sigh! Linux might **NEVER** get up to par with Windows on this front, at this rate!
Windows 2000 EOL is currently 7/13/2010. Hopefully ReactOS will become usable by then. Until then, I have no intention of subjecting myself to this nonsense.
You can purchase Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition. It also has no activation.
… Don’t know much about you, but not may home users can afford a 4,000$ license fee. [1]
I wonder if you comments was merely sarcastic or simply…
– Gilboa
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/prici…
You can purchase Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition. It also has no activation.
The server I setup running Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Server certainly had activation.
I’m sticking with Windows 2000 on my Windows PC, I’m not bothering with this rubbish.
I dont blame you.
I added a video capture card and had to reregister with MS. This was the #1 reason, and last straw, with MS for me. I converted to Linux that next weekend. I have purchased to MAC laptops since. I will never, unless something horrible happens, own another computer with MS on it as the primary operating system. I have to use the ones at work and find them extremely frustrating. I still have a couple of programs I like that I bought for my XP computer years ago. I was lucky, I had IBM computers and had the recovery disks for them. After using OS X and Linux for the past 3 years I cannot imagine why I suffered under MS for so long…….stupid I guess.
Why you need a Mac with OS-X?
Insert a Ubuntu disk in your Mac, REBOOT!!!
I would, but I find that OS X, with the Unix base (much like Linux), is a very stable and forgiving platform. I like being able to use most of the software I was accustomed to in Linux (which I still use on my desktops) and have rock solid hardware & software integration. I cannot always believe how stable OS X is. I loved my thinkpads, but compared to my MacBook they were dinosaurs. While I really like Linux, I have fallen in love with my MacBook. The user groups, forums, and other websites are easily as helpful as the Ubuntu forums. I am using PCLinuxOS right now, but have used Ubuntu, Kanotix, DSL, Puppy, RedHat, and MEPIS, but, at least right now, I like OS X best. Yes, I am locked into particular hardware, but it has yet to let me down in any way. I cannot say the same for any other OS. The Linux variations are getting better and better, but they can still take a great deal of fiddling with to get right. The Mac worked right straight from the box. Further, I haven’t even used BootCamp or dual booted at all…..haven’t seen the need. I am not an Ubuntu fanboy….I like it but there are some rough spots. PCLinuxOS works quite well, but it too has some issues. I don’t have the money to completely convert to OS X on everything….but, I would if I could.
openSUSE 10.3…running great. Debian on the server…windows and all it’s problems went bye bye 6 years ago…never looked back. Microsoft does NOT care about its customers one iota.
Geez..this is funny news….
Does Microsoft feel they can dictate our hardware configurations? Who the heck paid for the hardware? We did. This sounds like Microsoft telling us what we can & can’t do with our personal property.
I remembered an article that Michael Robertson (Linspire, SiPhone, etc.) wrote regarding this subject some time ago. I found it and did a double-take when I saw it was written back in April 2005. It sounded pretty crazy then but decide for yourself by reading the article, “You Own Nothing,” at: