Microsoft Will Replace Fake Copies of XP
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UK users will be able to replace pirated versions of Windows that they have purchased. Software pirates&#39; increasing skill at creating counterfeit versions of Windows XP has prompted Microsoft to introduce
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As part of its growing effort to thwart piracy, Microsoft is offering free photo slideshow software to customers who verify that they have a genuine copy of Windows.
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More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld?s ?Save XP? petition in the three weeks since it was launched ? many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change. On June 30, Microsoft plans to stop making new licenses to Windows XP available through most outlets, though business users and some consumers will be able to ?downgrade? to XP after that date under certain circumstances. InfoWorld expects to present the petition to Microsoft when it has collected 100,000 signatures.[ Follow all the coverage of and reader reaction to the ?Save XP? campaign. ]Although InfoWorld?s campaign has given a voice to users who prefer to keep the familiar XP, concerns over Vista had been bubbling since its release a year ago. That has been evident not only anecdotally in comments that InfoWorld editors have heard from IT staff and users alike, but also in the slow adoption of Vista in the marketplace.While millions of people have gotten Vista with a new PC, most did not have a choice of what OS was loaded on it, since retailers stopped selling new XP computers in spring 2007 and online sellers (with the recent exception of Dell) made XP available only to business customers.Where people have had a choice, Vista has not been it. Microsoft has reported that it sold 100 million Vista licenses in 2007, which means that roughly four out of 10 new machines shipped with Vista on them. By comparison, nearly 70 percent of PCs shipped with XP in its first year. According to NetApplications, about 11 percent of installed machines use Vista, compared to 75 percent running XP.IT consultant Dimension Data Americas has yet to have any of its midsize business customers convert to Vista, said Jeff Dimock, its vice president of Microsoft solutions ? though he noted that several are working on plans to do so. ?The mid-market has not been upgrading to Vista,? said Karen Hayward, executive vice president at IT outsourcing firm CenterBeam, which provisions OS and other apps to midsize businesses.Compatibility issues and lack of perceived value are the major reasons that businesses and users have avoided Vista. Research firm Gartner advises its clients not to switch to Vista until early 2009, after the first service pack has been released, third-party compatibility is improved, and more Vista-ready hardware is in the hardware purchase cycle, says Michael Silver, a research vice president at Gartner.
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Consumers will be offered a major upgrade of Windows XP after Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 through Windows Update later this week.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is extending the time it will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31, 2008, while custom system builders have until Jan. 31, 2009, to pre-install XP on machines. But becauseÂ sales of VistaÂ PCs have not been as strong as expected, OEMs and retailers have asked Microsoft to extend XP's availability. OEMs and retailers will now have until June 30, 2008, to sell PCs with Vista pre-installed on machines, Microsoft said. Retailers also can sell XP out of the box until that time if they choose, the company said. "While we've been pleased with the positive response we've seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," Microsoft said in a press statement. Microsoft also is extending the life ofÂ Windows XP Starter Edition, the version of XP for emerging markets. The software will be available until June 30, 2010, so users in those markets can take advantage of low-cost, hardware-constrained PCs that Vista may not be compatible with. Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have. Per Microsoft's policy as of 2002, a new Windows OS would stay on the market about four years after its original availability date. But XP was released on Oct. 25, 2001, more than five years beforeÂ Vista limped out the door to consumers Jan. 31, 2007, after several delays and a major code overhaul. Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven't panned out, and in July,Â Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 percent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 percent XP and 78 percent Vista. According to some, that may even be optimistic. Paul Ghysels, a custom system builder who owns the Neighborhood Computer Store in Moraga, California, said that Microsoft has "really blown Vista." He said he's not surprised Microsoft extended the availability of XP for OEMs. "I figured Microsoft would have to come up with something because Vista is so unprepared for the market right now," Ghysels said. He added that the extension likely won't affect his business much, since most of his customers come to him because they are already disillusioned with the major PC manufacturers and thus unlikely to want a name-brand PC pre-loaded with Vista. Vista Service Pack 1Â (SP1), a rollup of updates for the OS that Microsoft has said will be available in the first quarter of 2008, should make Vista more market-worthy. In fact, many consumers and businesses have said they would wait for the update before moving from XP to Vista.
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Indian PC users can expect to see a localized, stripped-down version of Microsoft&#39;s XP operating system early next year. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft plans to ship the low cost version of its PC operating
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Dou Simin is ready to go straight. The 26-year-old engineer owns a PC with a bootlegged copy of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows operating system. But now he's considering replacing it with a new machine loaded with the genuine article.
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Microsoft says it will post the release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to its download site tonight.
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Microsoft has announced that it is planning to distribute the low cost stripped down version of Windows XP in Russia, sources say.
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Microsoft is making a major push to get home and business customers to embrace the security-focused overhaul to its Windows XP computer operating system.
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Microsoft said Wednesday that it plans to clamp down hard on piraters of its next-generation operating systems, crippling both Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" if users fail to activate their copies within 30 days.
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With the first end date deadline for the general availability of Windows XP just six months away, June 30, 2008, there are a number of XP licensing questions that are still on the minds of internal licensing desk managers and enterprise IT departments.Part of the confusion comes from the terminology Microsoft uses to describe the end date for license availability, and part comes from the lack of a simple description of what the terminology actually means.Following conversations with three different Microsoft Volume Licensing Specialists, most of InfoWorld's questions have been answered.There are basically just three types of system licenses available:* An FPP (Full Packaged Product) license, which is the boxed, shrink-wrapped version consumers obtain from retailers. * A Direct OEM/System Builder license, which comes in two versions. For the most part, a Direct OEM license is what a computer manufacturer like Dell, HP, or Lenovo would have preinstalled on the systems they sell. An OEM System Builder license is targeted more at VARs (Value Added Resellers), LARs (Large Account Resellers), and smaller white-box manufacturers who are registered with Microsoft but who buy their license through a distributor like Ingram Micro. * Volume Licensing programs, which include large enterprises as well as government and educational institutions. Volume licenses cover only Windows Client upgrades; otherwise the full operating system license is acquired as FPP or through either Direct OEM or OEM System Builder.The only OS license available through a Volume program is a Windows Vista Business Upgrade. Companies must already have a qualified OS on their systems, such as XP, so terms of buying XP rather than Vista, this scenario is moot. Therefore, the Microsoft end date availability is based on FPP and both versions of the OEM licensing systems.Both FPP licenses purchased from a retailer and Direct OEM licensees have a June 30, 2008 cutoff date for ordering an XP license.This does not mean a retailer or an OEM cannot sell XP after that date. It means neither entity can order XP after that date. If a retailer or an OEM wanted to order thousands of PCs with XP installed they can do so as long as the order is placed before June 30.An OEM System Builder License, used by VARs, LARS, and white-box manufacturers and sold through distribution, have a January 31, 2009 cutoff date for ordering an XP license. Again, if the distributor has enough XP inventory before the January 31 cutoff, it can keep selling XP, and resellers can keep buying it until there is no more inventory, so to speak, left.The same deadlines apply if you wanted to purchase additional licenses for additional virtual machines. It does not matter. Also bear in mind that the preinstalled operating system may not be transferred to another PC.Some complications arise due to the fact that some direct OEMs also have System Builder licenses. It is unclear how that affects their sales to the retail market or if selling direct to their largest customers.If a company discovers it needs more XP-enabled systems but the ordering date is past and the distributors they order from have no XP inventory left, is it too late? The surprising answer is no. Companies can trigger the so-called downgrade option. Microsoft will allow companies to downgrade to XP after an initial purchase of Vista. In other words, if the deadline has come and gone the company orders X number of computers from their supplier with Vista, it then uses the downgrade option to reinstall XP.One Volume Licensing Specialists at Microsoft said that while this may appear to be paying twice for one operating system this is not the case. The purchaser simply owns both OSes, and if in a year or two the company decides to finally upgrade to Vista, it already owns that license.What if your company has a site licenses for, say, 5,000 copies of XP and have used only 4,500. Can it get the other 500 of XP indefinitely? The answer is yes, if they were ordered before the deadline. "This is a perpetual license," said one of the specialists.In point of fact, the current XP ordering deadlines are nothing new, according to Rob Horwitz, CEO of Microsoft Directions, an independent company that follows Microsoft technology. OEMs have always been given about two years to transition to the new operating system, said Horwitz. "In the beginning, Microsoft thought they could speed up the time for shifting to the next OS, but certain realities came into play, such as responding to customer demand for more driver availability and bug fixes in Vista," said Horwitz.
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The change does not apply to existing Windows XP installations upgraded to SP3. Those copies, which have presumably passed the activation stage previously, will not request the key again, Microsoft said.
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Microsoft is starting a scheme to replace pirate versions of Windows XP with legal ones.
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Microsoft Corp. will combat piracy of its flagship operating system by requiring Windows users to verify that their copy of the software is genuine in order to receive timely updates and security fixes, the world's largest software maker said on Wednesday.
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Microsoft has a massive patch for some of the many bugs and security holes in Windows XP. If you&#39;re using Windows XP, you might want to download the software patch and install it.
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The software giant&#39;s much anticipated security-laden upgrade for the Windows XP operating system is finally available for installation.