Quote:
Imperator Fyron said:
You seem to have glossed over the assertion that the segment of the computer using population that installs OSes on their own is very much intersected by the segment of the population that can download and use a crack for WPA,
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Looking over the previous posts, I was puzzled at your focus on those who had installed OSes and I've now just seen your reasoning.
You seem to think activation only occurs during Windows installation.
This however is not the case - sufficient hardware changes will trigger the need for re-activation (see
AumHa: Windows Product Activation for details). So if Microsoft stops XP activations,
everyone running an XP system, pre-installed or not, will have to either upgrade to Vista, find a way to disable WPA or be extremely cautious about any hardware changes (especially for motherboards with integrated NICs).
Whether Microsoft will actually do this is speculation but what should be clear is that (a) Microsoft
can do it and (b) Microsoft will profit
greatly from doing it. Even if you assume that every home user finds and applies a WPA crack, you still have business users who are unlikely to risk this. And they will have to buy retail copies rather than heavily discounted OEM versions.
This however should be enough on activation - it is one reason for moving to GNU/Linux (or another free OS) and the increasingly heavy-handed DRM in Vista will strengthen this. As such it is in all game developers' interests to ensure that their wares work under Wine at the very least.