WinVista – Time to Jump Ship
Windows Vista… [sigh]. I’m done. I just can’t do it anymore. Honestly, the only reason I stick with the Microsoft Windows operating system is because of video games. Really, that’s the only reason. With these new developments coming out about Vista, I’m starting to take a good hard look at if it’s going to be worth it anymore.
A close look at the new EULA shows something really disturbing: Single License Transfer. What does this mean? It means that, as far as Microsoft is concerned, you are only going to have two computers in your life. You install Vista on computer A, but wouldn’t you know it, three months later there’s a new HyperCore Widget-side Bus improvement, so you go out and get the latest and greatest (that must be what you like to do… you have Vista after all, right?). You now install Vista on computer B. That’s it. That’s all she wrote. The fat lady has sung, and the curtain has fallen. If you try to install that copy of Vista on any other computer at this point, it will not function. It has become an unlicensed version of Windows and will run in a brand new mode that Microsoft developed:
Reduced Functionality Mode is the newest form of harassment out of Microsoft.
By choosing Access your computer with reduced functionality, the default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black.
On one hand I can understand the desire of a software company to want to control access to their product, and want to make sure that only people who paid for it actually get to use it. But there is another side to this coin. As an operating system, Windows (or Linux, or OSX for that matter) have a different set of rules applied to them. They are not merely productivity applications, or video games, or task management programs. OSes do not run in a vacuum, separate from the rest of the software industry (as most other programs do). The spread of an operating system influences what types/versions of applications consumers buy FOR that platform. In this way, the pirating of Windows XP has helped to create a huge surge in the demand for WinXP based applications. Thus making it a far more lucrative market, as well as spreading their dominance over the industry. Am I saying that pirating is justified because of this? No. What I’m saying is that despite it being an illegal act, Microsoft has profited immeasurably by it, and is now taking such drastic measures to stop it, that it risks cutting off its own head.
This could have an interesting side effect though. Vista’s EULA is so grotesquely anti-user, and Microsoft is really pushing it so hard as their flagship product, that if people wise up and turn their backs on it, Apple could be in a prime position to release an IBM-compatible OS to the masses. This would, of course, mean that they would have to leave behind their “It’s my house and these are my toys” attitude towards the computer industry. Which they just might in order to pull themselves up out of the single digit percentages they have been stuck in for so long. Gaining more of a PC market would have the automatic consequence of Apple having to be more open than it has been in the past. In order to keep the PC geeks who are so pissed off at Microsoft that they jumped to the enemy, Apple would have to change a little and be more flexible with the new demands of those of us used to the free-market. Apple might just become the best of both worlds then. Wouldn’t that be something.
Man… a cold, dark shiver just ran down my spine.
