Comments on: Microsoft: Vista piracy rate is half that of XP

Software maker hopes to keep that momentum with Vista Service Pack 1 by closing some loopholes, though it will make things a little less miserable for those with non-genuine Vista.

[smokeonit]

LOL

becauese nobody wants vista....!!!!

only the poor souls in offices are stuc with windows...

people that have a choice turn to osX.... vista is the downfall of
microsoft...

[maverick_nick]

LMFAO

Great... another Mac fanboy! I keep on hearing about this supposed downfall of Microsoft and I've been hearing it since Windows 95. In case you haven't heard, the leopard has been mauled by the tiger.

[paulsecic]

Dello

OSX forever. Screw M$

[shekharc]

Vista doesn't deserve piracy!

Whatever you say but this is a fact. Why should anyone put any effort to knock down something as crappy as Vista?!! However, M$oft can console itself that Vista is not getting pirated that much.

If a product deserve piracy, it will be broken up..no matter how difficult it is going to be. One of the perfect examples is those well-spread keys for HD-DVD and Blue-ray disks.

[maverick_nick]

I'm saying it.

You obviously haven't used Vista if you think it's crappy. I'd bet that when the next itteration of Windows is released, everyone will hail Vista as being the best.

Humans are afraid of change, and you are just human.

[The_Decider]

Is it hard to be a constant MS defender?

Who would want Vista, at any price?

Besides, how does MS know piracy rates to any precision?

Vista is garbage and all that "anti-piracy" BS does is treats its customers like criminals and makes them less secure thanks to backdoors that MS put in that steaming pile of maggot ridden feces.

[maverick_nick]

Piracy rates

The rate of piracy isn't an exact figure but rather a statistical one which can be determined by various activities that the user performs. Read your privacy policy and EULA for further information.

Only those customers whom are criminals are treated like criminals. Vista is an excellent operating system, which is something that most people will only come to realize in time.

I appologize for your lack of intelligence.

[dhavleak]

No, it isn't..

Treats its customers like criminals?

So what you're saying is, MS should not care if their OS is pirated?

In case you haven't followed the news, MS does not prosecute customers who are using pirated versions of Windows. They only go after the people *supplying* the pirated version. They are well withing their rights to do this.

I bet you don't *not* enter a shop in the mall because it has metal detectors that beep when some merchandise has not been scanned. These detectors scan you every time you walk in and out of the store -- i.e. they treat you like a criminal, *without* you even having bought anything, and *without* your consent in the form of an EULA).

The only valid complaints against WGA are the danger of false positives (easily fixed by a call to MS's customer service) and the activation service being down (fixed with a call, and a temporary situation at worst). Not ideal, but certainly not on the same scale as your melodramatic "treating it's customers like criminals" accusation.

[cary1]

Shut your.....

Tell me one big software company which doesn't use anti-piracy measures. Apple? Adobe? AutoDesk?

Now please stop whining and go buy a real computer

[iBuzz]

You can't even give Vista away

Ha! The reason the piracy rate is down is because nobody wants
Vista. In fact, I can see people getting stuck with Vista installed
on a new computer and then looking for pirated copies of XP to
install over it. Has anyone checked those numbers? I wouldn't
be surprised if Vista has actually caused the XP piracy rate to go
up! When you bought a computer in the past, you used to get an
OS that worked. Now you have to find a copy of XP to install.

[maverick_nick]

Huh!?

Firstly, did you even read the article? Your lack of knowledge and inability to use the system should be blamed more than anything else. Since you have so much experience with Vista, tell me what doesn't work?

[Wookiee-1138]

Well said.

Bugger vista

[The_happy_switcher]

Half because...

Nobody freakin' wants it!

[maverick_nick]

Boohoo

Another Mac fanboy... Get a life. My OS is bigger than yours and I can see the green in your face. In about 1.5 years Vista will be the biggest OS. Mac fanboys like yourself will still be hopeful.

[cary1]

ggoing by your logic...

nobody wants OS X.. coz there is very little piracy there :P

and Linux is available for FREE. still people prefer to pirate Windows over getting the free OS. That says a lot about quality of product

[piotr102x]

vista sucks

the reason its half that of XP is becouse VIsta palin sucks, you got to have a $5000 pc so it can run good.

[lmtherapyst]

RE: vista sucks...

Subjectivity at its finest, as well as the spelling. Becouse? Palin?

Just so you know, you don't need a $5000 PC to run Vista, I am running Vista on a laptop that cost $1199 and everything is turned on and up, and it gins along nicely...Get a life....

[maverick_nick]

Not Really!!!

I've been running Vista for a few months now, and I can honestly say that it is a lot better than XP. Sure there were a few bugs, which is something you should expect on any new system, but after installing the updates everything is A-OK. I'm loving Vista.

I think that most peoples complaints revolve around the resources that Vista requires. While they may seem a lot now, it won't in about a year or two from now. Perhaps you should be complaining about your crappy PC as opposed to Vista.

[definitivecorp]

i bought a vista system and changed it to xp

who the hell would ever in their right mind want that garbage OS on their computer???!!! i sure as hell didn't so if people that get it for free with a new system delete it and throw away the cd who the hell is gonna pirate it?? thats like punishing your self lol. haha 'VISTA' what a good joke microsoft.

[RompStar_420]

yep, it is junk

I agree Vista is a joke!

I have lots of friends in various fields, some are doctors, nurses, IT people, retail, medical, you name it.

I ask them a simple question, "How do you like Vista?"

Answer: I hate it, it's a piece of sh*&. I get angry replies, people are upset. I don't dare to ask them anything else and I don't give them my opinion.

:-)

[ogman]

Too Funny!

Okay, first of all, Vista was pirated in a week. It is still readily available. 'Nuf said.

But c'mon, who wants it? This is set to be the most removed OS in history. SP1 better be good or even the pirates won't be able to give it away.

[cmsix]

Vista Piracy is half of XP - Of Course

It's a wonder to me it's even that much. No one even wants to steal Vista. That's a little like stealing a dog turd off someone's lawn.

cmsix

[maverick_nick]

What!?

I'm guessing you haven't used Vista!

[renaldo45]

Wow Great Idea!

Here's what we do, see. We tell the consumers who have brain damage and wil believe anything that Vista got lots less pirates and stuff and the morons will buy it, thinkin' it's, like, less piratey, more secure! Then, Ka-Boom! We'll be millionaires, I tell ya!

[mcugaedu]

Good riddance Reduced Functionality

Reduced Functionality Mode was a cyberterrorism opportunity. All an enemy would have to do is corrupt someone at Microsoft, tamper with the central database, and make all the Vista machines in the world stop working. Now that won't be quite so easy to do.

[rcardona2k]

Long Live XP - Vista slayer!

The latest numbers show XP at 78% and Vista at 9% just more than OS X + Linux.

Long live XP - slayer of Vista.

80 million units shipped and trashed

[Andronicus]

Trashing Vista

I have done several "downgrades" from Vista to XP. Vista slows down your computer to a crawl. Even fairly powerfull computers become slower than my Celeron 688MHZ

[maeckg]

lower price now that piracy is lower?

MS could now lower the price since piracy is not as much of an issue. This would also make it more attactive to buy instead of pirating.
One awful downside of Vista are the different versions. One has to deal with no scanner app in Home Premium and no mce in Business edition so the only real solution is Ulitmate. MS could boost sales by just simplifing the versions and letting users upgrade to more features through an online service. Basic should be a simplified, but very fast and very low resource version that would offer better security and usablility for older PCs. For a company that is more about marketing than technology, it is a surprising failure.
By the way; I was quite satisfied with the beta and have had good experiences with the final Ultimate version. More and more sw and hw is working, but I have been through this before with several versions of Windows, so do not expect all the drivers to be available immediately and some new sw versions necessary.
Disappointed about the file system and some of the networking, but they also has some improvements as well. Eye candy is nice and sometimes useful, but I built a machine to run Vista so not an issue. Beta ran OK on a 3 year old 1ghz Pentium with a 750MB of RAM. For businesses, it will take some time to validate the OS for all apps, but more and more new hw and sw will no longer run on 98 or W2K, so get used to Vista guys.
Ubuntu is proving that Linux can be a usable system, but again a lot of hw is not easily supported through no fault of Linux, but the manufacturers. Still not so easy for most users though. Steve Jobs is not ready to let his OS run on just any PC hw: it would destroy the "just works" illusion since most of the system issues of Windows can be traced back to very diverse and poor drivers and bad sw.
MS should be more restrictive on which hw gets compatibility label to encourage better quality.
Note to Balmer: A better, more secure and stable OS would also sell better.

[technikallyright]

Finally...

Finally there is one thoughtful and intelligent comment, thank you!

[Skroob]

Ubuntu is neat!

I installed Ubuntu on my desktop last week in a dual boot config to give it a shot. I got all of the config woes ironed out, afterwards using it is a pleasure.
I do, however, have to keep Vista on my system because most apps I need run on Redmond's cash cow. Though I?m finding that lots of stuff can still run with help of programs like wine.

Why Vista? Because my previous version of XP wasn?t exactly legit, and I was lucky enough to get a legal copy of Ultimate x64 and x32.
As history shows, at least for me, free is the best price for me when it comes to their betaware.

Even though I once did use a non-legit version once, I think people should avoid piracy. I always told myself that when I can afford to do so I will acquire all of my software by legitimate means. While I am still a student, I at least can afford to pay for the software I need, with the exception of Vista, which I got for free.

So, as far as pricing is concerned, maeckg's title states "Lower price now that piracy is lower?"
Yeah, what about it? I remember at some point Redmond saying that piracy affects everyone by increasing software prices, ok. So inversely that means that less piracy will make prices fall? I wish.

[Andronicus]

Funny

Two comments

Everyone I knwo that is pirating OSs is pirating XP.

Vista is rather difficult to pirat. I appears that you need a fake MS server for the OS to check in with every six months. I guess untill someone acctualy cracks it...

[Ilgaz]

Its piracy is low because Pirates don't care

For a pirate, the XP or Vista does NOT matter. As he/she is not
paying, he can download XP and Vista and choose whatever
suits the computer best.

For current time, it seems they don't want to install Vista
because of problems. Nothing to brag about. MS should keep
this data to themselves. They are giving reason to say "Vista,
the OS even pirates don't care about".

[cross platform]

That's Not True!

It's percent wise. Read the article.

[Jamesmeredith2]

You couldnt give me vista

You couldnt give me vista, I have three vista home basic 32-bit OEM disks laying here by my computer. The people that I purchased the computers for wanted windows XP on thier computers so I wiped vista and installed XP. Piracy is lower on vista because no one wants it, it is crap. Did you ever hear of the pirates of the sea attacking fishing boats? what would be the purpose, only if they wanted to stink.

[Lindy01]

Yeah

and Vista has sold more copies than all OS X ever. I seen OS X machines everywhere....NOT.

[The_Raven]

Huh?

If OS X were available for the PC, I bet you'd be wrong. Besides, what does your point prove? Isn't the Windows market share something like 90%. I certainly hope they would sell a lot more than OS X.

[Kings X Rocks!]

The real reason...

IMHO, the real reason there are so many anti-vista postings is that they can't get a pirated copy as easily as they could get xp and that makes them mad.

I especially like the technically oriented "vista is crap" comments. It really does make me wonder why I've enjoyed using it in a corp AD environment for 6 months so far.

It's just a freaking OS...they all have their pros and cons.

[drevas]

Vista

Vista is a flawed OS for gaming. The current DX10 performance doesn't cut it. When you're getting 22 FPS in Crysis running Vista in DX10 mode and getting 30+ with XP in DX9 mode, that's a problem.

So while Vista may work just fine for you, that experience is hardly the norm.

I was a Geek Squad Agent until last March, I can't remember a single customer who liked Vista, and most were peeved that the machines in the store didn't offer an XP alternative.

If it weren't for OEM distros, Vista would be a White Elephant in the same vein as the PS3.

[lizardo_manson]

Vista indeed not good

..and i think you are just a fanboy idiot telling garbage. There's a lot of Vista cracked, the reason about the comments is that Vista really sucks, i have it and quickly uninstalled completely because the overall performance is slow compared to XP. And something like go to some places take more time than XP, just like going to Network connections, so don't come here disrespecting other with your garbage theory.

[The_Decider]

The stupid brigade is out in force today

sheesh

[derrick_madrid]

I bet XP piracy has gone up...

... and keeps ging strong. This article is too funny... ! :)

[Vegaman_Dan]

And I bet I can make up stuff too.

I heard that Apple is buying the new Activision/EA combo company.

Shhhh! It's a secret. But if I say it enough times here without any evidence to back it up, someone might mistake it for truth... you know, kind of like your comments.

What would this new Apple gaming company be called?