Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

I cannot offer you any opinion on Vista, other than the fact I am very
happy not to use Windows products at home.

I like to upgrade computers by replacing parts (CD to DVD burner, for
example, or adding RAM, or hard drives). I do so when I have new
things running that cannot be run nicely on old computers.

I also try not to have hard drives more than 5 years old.

i

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
ups.com...
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

Hi TMT

Try changing to Vista, you may like it. You might also try Fedora.
Neither (in my opinion) should be refered to as an UPgrade. There is just
too much incompatibility of XP stuff with Vista. To me, Vista is just too
much different from XP to be refered to as upgrade.

It sure is difficult to advise anyone to upgrade a computer that is
operating well. If your present computer is slower than you would like.
There are often low cost new computers that are alot faster than the
computers of 4 years ago.
I'd be tempted to tell you to let your pocketbook be your guide to
"upgrading".
I usually find a kid to give outdated computers to.

Jerry

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT


Having had computers since the time of DOS, I have been a Microsoft
customer for more than 20 years. I have suffered all the indignities of
Windows, and I still do on a daily basis on one of my computers.

Last March my wife's computer became just too unbearable to deal with
any longer. I would need to wipe the drive clean because Windows XP had
just become to "gunked up" to be working acceptably any longer.
Multiple program crashes a day, inconsistent booting, every time I would
wonder which program would be left out of the systems tray at a reboot,
inconsistent wireless connection to my router, etc. I needed to wipe
the drive clean and install the OS from scratch, as well as all the
applications and data from scratch. With Windows, this is usually a 2
week process, because I cannot afford to just take the time, and do it
all until the job is done. I also have to make a living.

Having read to rather abysmal reports and reviews of Vista, I had
already decided, that I wasn't going to upgrade to that lame excuse of
an operating system.

So I upgraded to a Mac, running OSX. What a great choice that has been.
I also invested in a great inexpensive application called Parallels
Desktop for the Mac, which allows me to run still needed Windows
applications natively, since the Mac now has an Intel processor. My
Windows applications run faster on her Mac than on my wife's last PC.
It was much cheaper to buy this program and still run some of the
Windows apps she depends on, than having to replace all those apps at
once. I can now do that one by one, over time.

TMT, if you do any multimedia at all, photos, video, music, and/or an
integration of the three, get yourself a Mac. There is absolutely
nothing better around to do anything with multimedia. iTunes, iPod and
iPhone all work much better on the Mac than on the PC. And boy is that
machine quiet. When I turn on my PC with it's half dozen fans in there,
it sound like it wants to take off any time.

BTW, one of the nice things of upgrading, or if necessary reinstalling,
the OS, you can do that without having to erase you HD. Everything
stays in place where it is supposed to be.

Next month when Apple will release their upgrade of OSX, Leopard, I will
buy another Mac, and finally throw out my last PC.

I finally understand all those Mac users who have been proselytizing all
these years. The Mac IS insanely good.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

On Sep 19, 4:09 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

TMT

On Sep 19, 4:09 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

OOPS i think i fired off a blank reply

I just finished an upgrade over here

in my case i put my p3-800 out of its misery after a hardware failure
dropped the IDE bus i COULD have worked around it but i figured at
EIGHT years old it was time to retire it

my house network is

cisco 1760 router
a catlyst 5505 switch
a netgear WAP (NO routing just pure wireless LAN access)

six windows computers including one dedicated for guests
two solaris computers (Both SPARC Platform)
one redhat

And one I havent gotten to yet that i'm looking to make into a PBX

THe UNIX boxes do a few simple specific jobs. terminal server web
server FTP and they silently purr along in a closet under my
staircase.

I dont replace computers unless i scrounge a way better one or i get a
hardware failure that is not worth the cost of the box to repair

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
ups.com...
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT


I replace the mother board and the RAM, since new boards usually require a
different type of RAM than the old mother board used.

Richard W.

I've been running a couple 1 gig's at home since around 2000. A couple
600's and Dos boxes at work. See no need to upgrade for the stuff I do.
Runs all my stuff just fine. I typically run about 5-6 years behind the
curve on computer stuff. Makes it real cheap to build them then.'Course,
can't run RealFlight 3.5, but don't need to either. Have artifacts going
back to my Tandy TL2 on the shelf.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT



--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes
Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive
The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me
No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dependence is Vulnerability:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:00:15 -0700, Abrasha
wrote:

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT


Having had computers since the time of DOS, I have been a Microsoft
customer for more than 20 years. I have suffered all the indignities of
Windows, and I still do on a daily basis on one of my computers.

Last March my wife's computer became just too unbearable to deal with
any longer. I would need to wipe the drive clean because Windows XP had
just become to "gunked up" to be working acceptably any longer.
Multiple program crashes a day, inconsistent booting, every time I would
wonder which program would be left out of the systems tray at a reboot,
inconsistent wireless connection to my router, etc. I needed to wipe
the drive clean and install the OS from scratch, as well as all the
applications and data from scratch. With Windows, this is usually a 2
week process, because I cannot afford to just take the time, and do it
all until the job is done. I also have to make a living.

I look after 25 XP computers in an insurance office, where they get
used heavily. I have only had to re-install windows XP a few times,
when it has become TOTALLY screwed up. Normally just a few good
"tune-up tools" get the computer back up to top speed again.

Reinstalling windows and all the applications is several days of work
(mornings only) so we do what we can to avoid it.

The Macs at the health services office where my wife works go down
much more often than the WinDoze PCs at the insurance office.

XP is about the most solid version of windows so far. 3.1 was the best
previous to the swith to the NT Kernal.

Having read to rather abysmal reports and reviews of Vista, I had
already decided, that I wasn't going to upgrade to that lame excuse of
an operating system.

No vista for me or my clients before at least SP2.

So I upgraded to a Mac, running OSX. What a great choice that has been.
I also invested in a great inexpensive application called Parallels
Desktop for the Mac, which allows me to run still needed Windows
applications natively, since the Mac now has an Intel processor. My
Windows applications run faster on her Mac than on my wife's last PC.
It was much cheaper to buy this program and still run some of the
Windows apps she depends on, than having to replace all those apps at
once. I can now do that one by one, over time.

TMT, if you do any multimedia at all, photos, video, music, and/or an
integration of the three, get yourself a Mac. There is absolutely
nothing better around to do anything with multimedia. iTunes, iPod and
iPhone all work much better on the Mac than on the PC. And boy is that
machine quiet. When I turn on my PC with it's half dozen fans in there,
it sound like it wants to take off any time.

BTW, one of the nice things of upgrading, or if necessary reinstalling,
the OS, you can do that without having to erase you HD. Everything
stays in place where it is supposed to be.

Next month when Apple will release their upgrade of OSX, Leopard, I will
buy another Mac, and finally throw out my last PC.

I finally understand all those Mac users who have been proselytizing all
these years. The Mac IS insanely good.


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:34:25 -0700, Brent
wrote:

On Sep 19, 4:09 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

OOPS i think i fired off a blank reply

I just finished an upgrade over here

in my case i put my p3-800 out of its misery after a hardware failure
dropped the IDE bus i COULD have worked around it but i figured at
EIGHT years old it was time to retire it

my house network is

cisco 1760 router
a catlyst 5505 switch
a netgear WAP (NO routing just pure wireless LAN access)

six windows computers including one dedicated for guests
two solaris computers (Both SPARC Platform)
one redhat

And one I havent gotten to yet that i'm looking to make into a PBX

THe UNIX boxes do a few simple specific jobs. terminal server web
server FTP and they silently purr along in a closet under my
staircase.

I dont replace computers unless i scrounge a way better one or i get a
hardware failure that is not worth the cost of the box to repair


If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It's only obsolete when it won't do what YOU need it to do. I
generally end up upgrading when a new application is required that
will not run on what is there, or when a software upgrade requires it.

Then I look at what spec needs updating and decide whether to replace
the processor, the motherboard and processor, or the entire system. Or
to just add more ram, a larger (or faster) hard drive, or a CD.DVD
burner - whatever.

Usually slide the machines down the line discarding the oldest/lowest
functioning/most troublesome computer.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

It's time to upgrade a computer when an old one gets unsolvable
hardware trouble or a kid graduates. My current computer is an
Athlon XP2000+, which was originally a high school graduation gift to
my son. When he finished college, I got it as a hand-me-down.

Being neither a gamer nor a Microsoft user, I have no need to
constantly upgrade...

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
ups.com...
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT


I sell-off my four or five personal boxes in my lab 2-3 times a year so I
always have new. I've done OSs so often I can have a finished machine from
boxes of parts to functionally loaded in two hours. Don't
upgrade---replace! Sell or donate the old box and get the
"second-to-the-top-of-the-line" components or redi-built. I recommend
components usually but with Dell selling units at Wal-Mart, the whole market
has responded with cheap good stuff in all the box stores. It's a toss-up!
I buy components for specific reasons and applications.

I just built a Vista Ultimate box and I really like it! Sure, it's a lot of
computer with a AMD Athlon 64 FX-74, 4Gb RAM and a terabyte HD. Not
top-of-the-line but fast. It runs Vista just fine, and I like
Vista...didn't think I would, but it's a masterpiece and it hasn't burped
once yet. I wanted to see Directx 10 and it's cool! I wouldn't even think
of Vista on a box older than a year.

On Sep 19, 4:09 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
...
I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.
....
TMT

I put a USB 2.0 card in the older ones and upgrade with external
drives. A IDE hard disk can be made USB with a $20 adapter.

Haven't tried Vista, the company uses XP and I prefer Win2000 with the
compressed-folder patch at home.

I spent 10 years on a MAC and wouldn't have another. They are *very*
good at doing whatever Apple 'knows' you should, but just about
useless for a tinkerer who builds add-in hardware and writes programs
for it. I built a microwave data acquisition system on a NuBus card
and had to operate it by making LabView send it machine-language
instructions. The Apple Certified Programmer quoted me 3 months to
write a driver for a device with only 2 registers (and then he was
laid off). The PC is much easier to play with.

jw

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:07:04 -0700, JR North
wrote:

I've been running a couple 1 gig's at home since around 2000. A couple
600's and Dos boxes at work. See no need to upgrade for the stuff I do.
Runs all my stuff just fine. I typically run about 5-6 years behind the
curve on computer stuff. Makes it real cheap to build them then.'Course,
can't run RealFlight 3.5, but don't need to either. Have artifacts going
back to my Tandy TL2 on the shelf.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT

Still have my Realistic CoCo2 and MC10 sitting on the shelf. CoCo has
an E-Prom burner on it, and OS9 multi-user Operating System (on 16K of
RAM!!!!!!!

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

According to Jim Wilkins :

[ ... ]

I spent 10 years on a MAC and wouldn't have another. They are *very*
good at doing whatever Apple 'knows' you should, but just about
useless for a tinkerer who builds add-in hardware and writes programs
for it. I built a microwave data acquisition system on a NuBus card
and had to operate it by making LabView send it machine-language
instructions. The Apple Certified Programmer quoted me 3 months to
write a driver for a device with only 2 registers (and then he was
laid off). The PC is much easier to play with.

When did you jump ship? Note that the recent ones with OS-X as
the OS are in reality unix boxen, with a GUI from apple spread over the
top in place of the more standard unix X11 windowing system.

But -- under that there is the unix command line, and there is a
good C compiler free (GNU's gcc) from Apple (they really *can't* charge
for it given the license under which it is made available by the FSF.)

Given that -- you have a lot better odds than with a Windows
box, for which you still have to find (and usually pay for) a compiler,
and then integrate it to the OS.

Note that I don't have a Mac box -- but I do have quite a few
other flavors of unix boxen.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 21 Sep 2007 02:23:43 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
When did you jump ship? Note that the recent ones with OS-X as
the OS are in reality unix boxen, with a GUI from apple spread over the
top in place of the more standard unix X11 windowing system.

I thought that Apple GUI was based on X11?

i

According to clarence at snyder dot on dot ca:

[ ... ]

Still have my Realistic CoCo2 and MC10 sitting on the shelf. CoCo has
an E-Prom burner on it, and OS9 multi-user Operating System (on 16K of
RAM!!!!!!!

Hmm ... it has been years since I last used OS-9 (the *real* one
from Microware, not what Apple called their last non-unix-based OS. :-)

It was a fun OS -- back before I got my first real unix box --
and was really impressive on a SWTP 6809 with the right cards in it.
(Somewhat less so on a CoCo, however -- I got one to play with later on.)

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

According to Ignoramus2932 :
On 21 Sep 2007 02:23:43 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
When did you jump ship? Note that the recent ones with OS-X as
the OS are in reality unix boxen, with a GUI from apple spread over the
top in place of the more standard unix X11 windowing system.

I thought that Apple GUI was based on X11?

Not as far as I can tell. X11 programs don't seem to want to
compile and run under it. Though there have been programs ported to the
Apple GUI -- including emacs.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 21 Sep 2007 02:55:03 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
According to Ignoramus2932 :
On 21 Sep 2007 02:23:43 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
When did you jump ship? Note that the recent ones with OS-X as
the OS are in reality unix boxen, with a GUI from apple spread over the
top in place of the more standard unix X11 windowing system.

I thought that Apple GUI was based on X11?

Not as far as I can tell. X11 programs don't seem to want to
compile and run under it. Though there have been programs ported to the
Apple GUI -- including emacs.

Looks like you are right. Here's a good article about it:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/

i

clare, at, snyder.on.ca wrote:

Still have my Realistic CoCo2 and MC10 sitting on the shelf. CoCo has
an E-Prom burner on it, and OS9 multi-user Operating System (on 16K of
RAM!!!!!!!


I had the service manual for the MC 10, and the model III. They may
still be around here, somewhere.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

According to Ignoramus2932 :
On 21 Sep 2007 02:55:03 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
According to Ignoramus2932 :
On 21 Sep 2007 02:23:43 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
When did you jump ship? Note that the recent ones with OS-X as
the OS are in reality unix boxen, with a GUI from apple spread over the
top in place of the more standard unix X11 windowing system.

I thought that Apple GUI was based on X11?

Not as far as I can tell. X11 programs don't seem to want to
compile and run under it. Though there have been programs ported to the
Apple GUI -- including emacs.

Looks like you are right. Here's a good article about it:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/

So -- there is an implementation of it -- which integrates
nicely with the existing GUI for OS-X -- but most systems don't have
that installed.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Looking around I could go by the name of "Too Many Computers" with all
the computers I have.

As they age and needs change, I find that I am to the point where I
need to upgrade again.

I am interested in hearing how you decide when it is time to upgrade
your computer, what do you do with the old one, do you keep any of the
components...in other words how do you go about upgrading your
computer resources.

A comment about how you will deal with upgrading to Vista would be
appreciated too.

Thanks

TMT


From engadget.com today:

It's no shock that Windows Vista isn't, shall we say, universally loved,
and it's also unsurprising that a plethora of businesses have voiced
their preference to keep on runnin' their operations on Windows XP.
Presumably in response, Microsoft is "quietly allowing PC makers to
offer a downgrade option to buyers that get machines with the new
operating system but want to switch to Windows XP," but the program only
applies to Vista Business and Ultimate editions. The likes of Fujitsu,
HP, Lenovo and Dell all have processes in place to ensure that customers
have the ability to downgrade if they so choose, and while some firms
are still selling their PCs with XP pre-installed, debates are already
swirling around how long that tactic can remain in place.

Read more at: http://tinyurl.com/ytrs9x (it's the cnet news site)

Yeah, Vista is a great success, ... not!

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

According to Abrasha :

[ ... ]

It's no shock that Windows Vista isn't, shall we say, universally loved,
and it's also unsurprising that a plethora of businesses have voiced
their preference to keep on runnin' their operations on Windows XP.

[ ... ]

Yeah, Vista is a great success, ... not!

One of the problems was one which was predicted when Microsoft
introduced WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) -- software which checks with a
server run by Microsoft to verify that each copy of Windows (and all
Microsoft software installed on it) are legal copies.

It checks at install time, and whenever new software or hardware
is added. And -- I *think* that it does so at boot time as well, though
I am not sure.

If it believes that something is pirated, it can (and will) shut
down major parts of the OS (including the workplace manager), and slow
down much of the rest.

This might not be so bad -- except that if it can't contact the
server, it *assumes* that the software is pirated.

And Microsoft has already had the servers go down -- for
something like 18 hours, resulting in a lot of people with perfectly
legal copies of Windows Vista being accused by their OS of running
pirated software and thus their OS being crippled.

I followed a pointer to a Microsoft blog site where a lot of
users were muttering "linux" after being shut down like this.

I believe that one of the "security patches" to XP installed the
WGA there, too. So -- unless you personally control what is installed
by the security patches, running XP is not any form of protection.

So -- the question which comes to mind is "To *whose* advantage
is this software?"

Note that this is not personal experience, as I don't run
Windows for anything other than the annual income tax software these
days. :-)

But I wonder what would have happened if some of the Windows
systems doing critical work (such as checking for drug interactions) in
hospitals happened to be shut down by this? Or software running air
traffic control systems?

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Sep 22, 4:50 pm, (DoN. Nichols) wrote:
According to Abrasha :

[ ... ]

It's no shock that Windows Vista isn't, shall we say, universally loved,
and it's also unsurprising that a plethora of businesses have voiced
their preference to keep on runnin' their operations on Windows XP.

[ ... ]

Yeah, Vista is a great success, ... not!

One of the problems was one which was predicted when Microsoft
introduced WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) -- software which checks with a
server run by Microsoft to verify that each copy of Windows (and all
Microsoft software installed on it) are legal copies.

It checks at install time, and whenever new software or hardware
is added. And -- I *think* that it does so at boot time as well, though
I am not sure.

If it believes that something is pirated, it can (and will) shut
down major parts of the OS (including the workplace manager), and slow
down much of the rest.

This might not be so bad -- except that if it can't contact the
server, it *assumes* that the software is pirated.

And Microsoft has already had the servers go down -- for
something like 18 hours, resulting in a lot of people with perfectly
legal copies of Windows Vista being accused by their OS of running
pirated software and thus their OS being crippled.

I followed a pointer to a Microsoft blog site where a lot of
users were muttering "linux" after being shut down like this.

I believe that one of the "security patches" to XP installed the
WGA there, too. So -- unless you personally control what is installed
by the security patches, running XP is not any form of protection.

So -- the question which comes to mind is "To *whose* advantage
is this software?"

Note that this is not personal experience, as I don't run
Windows for anything other than the annual income tax software these
days. :-)

But I wonder what would have happened if some of the Windows
systems doing critical work (such as checking for drug interactions) in
hospitals happened to be shut down by this? Or software running air
traffic control systems?

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. |http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

you only own vista for one instance of installation

reformats as ser the license agreement require you re-purchase a Vista
instance


Hows that for Gouging? IF i run afoul of that issue with M$ i will be
abandining their OS for PC's (I already have for servers)

Brent
Ottawa Canada

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:27:56 -0700, Brent wrote:

You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

Bah. If I have to reinstall, I have ended the use of that instance, and
I still have one instance.

you only own vista for one instance of installation

Given the quality of vista and the need to likely reload it several
times during its usable lifetime, this is either wrong, or purely evil.

reformats as ser the license agreement require you re-purchase a Vista
instance

Can you show me a cite for that? I'd love to have that in MS's own
words.

Hows that for Gouging? IF i run afoul of that issue with M$ i will be
abandining their OS for PC's (I already have for servers)

I switched to Mac shortly after they went to Unix. Haven't looked back.
I maintain 1500+ servers at work, last thing I want to do at home is
dick around with a balky computer.

According to Brent :
On Sep 22, 4:50 pm, (DoN. Nichols) wrote:

[ ... ]

This might not be so bad -- except that if it can't contact the
server, it *assumes* that the software is pirated.

And Microsoft has already had the servers go down -- for
something like 18 hours, resulting in a lot of people with perfectly
legal copies of Windows Vista being accused by their OS of running
pirated software and thus their OS being crippled.

I followed a pointer to a Microsoft blog site where a lot of
users were muttering "linux" after being shut down like this.

[ ... ]

You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

Ouch! Nasty!

you only own vista for one instance of installation

reformats as ser the license agreement require you re-purchase a Vista
instance

If I had ever been tempted to buy vista (which I haven't) this
would be the final straw. :-)

Hows that for Gouging? IF i run afoul of that issue with M$ i will be
abandining their OS for PC's (I already have for servers)

Have you ever heard of them enforcing this? It strikes me as
particularly nasty when a system is badly compromised by a virus where
reformat and reinstall is the only sensible choice (assuming that you
need to keep running the same OS which became vulnerable to the virus in
the first place. :-)

And for contrast, Sun makes Solaris 10 available for download
for free -- you just have to register (once), and tell them your best
guess as to the number of systems you will be running it on at first.
(And, you don't need to enter a license key with each install, either. :-)

After that, you can install on as many systems as you can
collect.

For that matter -- just before the upgrade to Solaris 10 U4,
they would ship you *free* the DVD-ROMs for Solaris 10 for SPARCs, and
for x86 systems, and their fancy development environment (Studio 11)
including the c, c++, and FORTRAN (f77, f90, f95) compilers, as well as
the java development environment (netbeans).

What you download is the images of those DVD ROMs and CD-ROMS,
but having them shipped is more convenient, since the image of the
DVD-ROM is on the order of a day's download or more with a T1
connection. (They provide a program to automate the download, including
retrys if the checksums fail or if the download is interrupted.)

Granted -- the computers to run these cost a lot *new* -- but I
don't think that I've paid more than $250.00 for any of the ones which I
am currently running, and some have been as little as $20.00 at a
hamfest.

And there are quite a few other unix systems free for the
download. I particularly like OpenBSD (enough so I buy a new set of
CD-ROMs every other release or so, instead of downloading it every
time).

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Brent wrote:
On Sep 22, 4:50 pm, (DoN. Nichols) wrote:
According to Abrasha :

[ ... ]

It's no shock that Windows Vista isn't, shall we say, universally loved,
and it's also unsurprising that a plethora of businesses have voiced
their preference to keep on runnin' their operations on Windows XP.
[ ... ]

Yeah, Vista is a great success, ... not!
One of the problems was one which was predicted when Microsoft
introduced WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) -- software which checks with a
server run by Microsoft to verify that each copy of Windows (and all
Microsoft software installed on it) are legal copies.

It checks at install time, and whenever new software or hardware
is added. And -- I *think* that it does so at boot time as well, though
I am not sure.

If it believes that something is pirated, it can (and will) shut
down major parts of the OS (including the workplace manager), and slow
down much of the rest.

This might not be so bad -- except that if it can't contact the
server, it *assumes* that the software is pirated.

And Microsoft has already had the servers go down -- for
something like 18 hours, resulting in a lot of people with perfectly
legal copies of Windows Vista being accused by their OS of running
pirated software and thus their OS being crippled.

I followed a pointer to a Microsoft blog site where a lot of
users were muttering "linux" after being shut down like this.

I believe that one of the "security patches" to XP installed the
WGA there, too. So -- unless you personally control what is installed
by the security patches, running XP is not any form of protection.

So -- the question which comes to mind is "To *whose* advantage
is this software?"

Note that this is not personal experience, as I don't run
Windows for anything other than the annual income tax software these
days. :-)

But I wonder what would have happened if some of the Windows
systems doing critical work (such as checking for drug interactions) in
hospitals happened to be shut down by this? Or software running air
traffic control systems?

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. |http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

you only own vista for one instance of installation


No longer the case:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8140.html

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

On Sep 22, 9:23 pm, Dave Hinz wrote:
On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:27:56 -0700, Brent wrote:
You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

Bah. If I have to reinstall, I have ended the use of that instance, and
I still have one instance.

you only own vista for one instance of installation

Given the quality of vista and the need to likely reload it several
times during its usable lifetime, this is either wrong, or purely evil.

reformats as ser the license agreement require you re-purchase a Vista
instance

Can you show me a cite for that? I'd love to have that in MS's own
words.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windo...ce-38060.shtml

i remember reading it in my copy of the EULA when i read it when i
turned up the new laptop

BUT i dont see it anymore when i go to the horses mouth

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/

SO its either the most popular urban myth ever, Or microsoft realized
their wording of the EULA would trigger a revolt and quietly modified
it


Brent
Ottawa Canada

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windo...ce-38060.shtml

i remember reading it in my copy of the EULA when i read it when i
turned up the new laptop

BUT i dont see it anymore when i go to the horses mouth

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/

SO its either the most popular urban myth ever, Or microsoft realized
their wording of the EULA would trigger a revolt and quietly modified
it




http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8140.html

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

On Sep 23, 3:05 am, Abrasha wrote:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windo...e-One-Installa...

i remember reading it in my copy of the EULA when i read it when i
turned up the new laptop

BUT i dont see it anymore when i go to the horses mouth

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/

SO its either the most popular urban myth ever, Or microsoft realized
their wording of the EULA would trigger a revolt and quietly modified
it

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8140.html

--
Abrashahttp://www.abrasha.com

Thanks

I know i'm nuts but i was pretty sure i remembered reading the
draconian EULA and i'm glad my memory didnt fail me

Brent
Ottawa Canada

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:11:50 -0700, Brent wrote:
On Sep 23, 3:05 am, Abrasha wrote:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8140.html

Thanks
I know i'm nuts but i was pretty sure i remembered reading the
draconian EULA and i'm glad my memory didnt fail me

Well, going from:
"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another
device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes
the 'licensed device.'"
to:
"You may install one copy of the software on the licensed device. You
may use the software on up to two processors on that device at one time.
Except as provided in the Storage and Network Use (Ultimate edition)
sections below, you may not use the software on any other device."

I don't see how either of them said you couldn't re-install on the same
device. The old language just says that if you put it on a second
device, then the first is no longer licensed - says nothing about having
to rebuy if you reinstall.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not in the fan club and despise Microsoft for
so many reasons but, if this is the license language people are
objecting to, it doesn't say what I think you said it's saying, if you
see what I'm saying.

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:27:56 -0700, Brent wrote:

You are aware officially vista is a PER INSTANCE licence. A reformat
officially invalidates your windows license and you do not own your
COPY of the OS on one computer anymore

Bah. If I have to reinstall, I have ended the use of that instance, and
I still have one instance.

you only own vista for one instance of installation

Given the quality of vista and the need to likely reload it several
times during its usable lifetime, this is either wrong, or purely evil.

reformats as ser the license agreement require you re-purchase a Vista
instance

Can you show me a cite for that? I'd love to have that in MS's own
words.

Hows that for Gouging? IF i run afoul of that issue with M$ i will be
abandining their OS for PC's (I already have for servers)

I switched to Mac shortly after they went to Unix. Haven't looked back.
I maintain 1500+ servers at work, last thing I want to do at home is
dick around with a balky computer.


I have the perfect Microsoft solution! I build and sell a bunch of boxes so
I buy an OS for each system but install a "different" build. My end users
then register with the purchased key. I'm just starting to load Vista and I
hate to admit it but...it's nice! I haven't had a single problem in 6
installs and people seem to like it. The down side is Vista wants higher
end newer parts. I see that this has driven prices down so...that's good.

On Sep 23, 9:35 am, Dave Hinz wrote:
On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:11:50 -0700, Brent wrote:
On Sep 23, 3:05 am, Abrasha wrote:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061102-8140.html
Thanks
I know i'm nuts but i was pretty sure i remembered reading the
draconian EULA and i'm glad my memory didnt fail me

Well, going from:
"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another
device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes
the 'licensed device.'"
to:
"You may install one copy of the software on the licensed device. You
may use the software on up to two processors on that device at one time.
Except as provided in the Storage and Network Use (Ultimate edition)
sections below, you may not use the software on any other device."

I don't see how either of them said you couldn't re-install on the same
device. The old language just says that if you put it on a second
device, then the first is no longer licensed - says nothing about having
to rebuy if you reinstall.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not in the fan club and despise Microsoft for
so many reasons but, if this is the license language people are
objecting to, it doesn't say what I think you said it's saying, if you
see what I'm saying.

the original version was a lot more explicit about the transfer
requiring another purchase and that you did not own a copy but an
"instance" of vista

so instead of owning a COPY to use one at a time infinite times you
owned an instance and one reactivation then you were being force to
rebuy as per the original vista EULA