Saturday, February 2nd 2008
Microsoft Warns Users Against Using VLite
Windows Vista is known for a lot of things. Among them is eating memory, both in storage and RAM, like a fat kid through cake. The folks who made VLite, a program designed to let you custom-build a Windows Vista disk without a lot of things you don't need, were very proud of what their program was doing for people who liked a streamlined operating system. Unfortunately for VLite, Microsoft has sent a look of scorn at the makers of the software. A public outcry asks, why? After all, VLite keeps people using Vista, instead of letting them come to the conclusion that XP is more streamlined, and should be used in place of Vista. However, Microsoft's reason for not liking VLite actually makes a lot of sense. When users go merrily chopping programs and processes willy-nilly, they risk keeping Windows Vista from updating properly in the future. Basically, Windows Update would try to update a component that isn't there, making parts of Windows unstable, and possibly bricking the whole system.
As long as you understand the risks, though, and know what you're doing, using VLite should not be a problem, and Microsoft is not going to make VLite copies of Vista illegal.
Source:
Techspot
As long as you understand the risks, though, and know what you're doing, using VLite should not be a problem, and Microsoft is not going to make VLite copies of Vista illegal.
51 Comments on Microsoft Warns Users Against Using VLite
Just imagine this advertisement from Dell, few years from now:
Get a fully loaded high-performance desktop system from Dell, with some of the latest features for work and play. 6 month subscription for Windows 2010 included.
I can see it happening.
ms has for years spyed on users, you know on msn messneger when it would ask if you wanted to join the user experiance program, even if you say no it still sends MS data about your use of msn.........nice huh!!!!
as to the boon for small software makers, BULLSHIT, ms dosnt stop you from pirating small companys software, to get ms to tell you if somebodys using a pirated version of your software or dissable it a company has to pay ms, most truly small ferms cant afford the fees involved, so they dont pay it, many larger ones dont bother because those people who are pirating their software just cant afford to buy it(like a friend of mine who downloaded 3dstudio max for a college class, he couldnt afford to get the version the class recomended and the college didnt offer anything but a demo to students, they gave u a disscount of 40bucks but that still made it to expencive to buy for most students.)
ofcorse these companys would like it if users would/could afford to pay, but many of them also are starting to see that if a college student pirats their software when in school they are more likely to just buy it when they can afford it or need it for a job, or their employer will buy it for them, infact an adoby rep told me that some time back, they know there are ALOT of pirated copys of their newist software versions out there, but they also know that no matter what they do they cant stop it from happening, so they might as well look at it as a chance for future profit from people who enlarge currently cant afford to buy their software.
kinda like ms accdently leeking copys of server 2003 to trial users that where acctualy corp VLK versions that would take a trial key, it was no accdent, they left it up for neerly a month with plenty of reports from users that there was no time bomb!!!!!
ms got alot of sales of server 2003 to large companys and even some sales of webedition/std edition to home users, they knew what they where doing and to this day ms hasnt blacklisted large numbers of 2003 keys dispite alot of the keys in use being made by keygens, one reasion is that ms isnt targeting server 2003 at home users, they want to get corp sales, and home users who use it and talk it up give it good word of mouth, something FAR more powerfull then putting adds on webpages and even tv........
wow i posted a biggy, injoy :D
Yes a 'biggy' pile of crap indeed. I don't mind your ideas, but the grammar and spelling needs an overhaul. Please do try :)
Your comment about the college student not being able to afford the software required for the course. This sounds like a poor oversight by the instutition themselves.
Hey another reason to vote Ron Paul 2008! (I swear more and more the writing is on the wall).
Um, what MS does with it's data 'retrieving' is not illegal, nor is it going to harm your computer. If someone doesn't want MS to have access, then they shouldn't allow them to 'retrieve' it. If they don't know how to stop it, then they shouldn't even be making comments on the subject :)
All I see this announcement as, is a friendly bit of input from MS, letting it's users/consumers know, that while Vlite is a popular program (and I'm sure some of them use it at home), it's not coded as appropriatley as it could be, and without proper care and knowledge/experience, you could have negative and adverse effects/symptoms that you might not otherwise encountered in XP, because of the way Vista is designed.
From having a look through Vista's roots, I could totally agree on the advice they are giving.
As always, you are factually wrong. Alexarelated does not ship with Windows. At least it didn't with mine, and I use both genuine Windows XP and Vista. Chances are that the pirated copies that do the rounds have Alexarelated slipstreamed or added to its installation image manually. Incorrect with the college student part again, it is a logistical nightmare for a small-time developer to keep an eye on every user. But that doesn't mean it can't be done or that an average college student can't afford the software. The Steam platform from Valve is a text-book example of how you can make even the smartest of smart toughguys to run to the store for software, it by far the most aggressive initiatives by a company to fight piracy. Sure there were steam cracked versions here and there but tell me one recent Valve game that got pirated the way it did before Steam. Secondly when a college studen can buy games, music from store, he/she can jollywell afford a $100 operating system.
-Thanks
The bad part about that is you download the damn games from steam lol. :roll:
Goes to show you even the "best" methods to stop pirating are ALL stopgap methods.:eek:
I'll say it again if need be.
An average student CAN'T afford the software.
Even with the big 75% discounts on some software that my Uni gave out, CS3 was still over £300. the students that use it also have bought a roughly £500-700 laptop to have with them and do work. They pay £4000 a year to stay on-campus, with a rough cost of living set at £60 a week for food, with another £100 for bills every month.
Books are extremely expensive as well. My CS course only needed one book for the first semester, but it cost me £65, and the uni had limited stock, with me being an unlucky sod.
The art and media and design students meanwhile had various amounts of books to buy, depending on the course, and the costs went up to around £200 for some. Also, the cost for a year's tuition is £3070.
All together that makes: £12,390 (taking software to count for £300, laptop at £600, £60*52 for food, £100*12 for bills, £100 for books)
That's over £12k in one year. Frankly, I'd be surprised if someone can possibly fit in money for a game, some CDs, or an OS, or hell, even a £3000 piece of software, like, hmmm... 3D Studio Max, maybe?
Could be that the UK is just over-priced again and remember, this is for London, and I'm taking into account living on-campus rather than at home with parents, which would save people way over £6000.Probably not, but it would have been damned useful for me, back when my internet connection was shared by my brother coming home from work and snatching the modem from my room, leaving me to have no internet access, and no Steam (back then, I always had trouble starting it up in offline mode... I remember it now... "There seems to be a problem connecting to the Steam servers. Start in offline mode?"
Yes
"Sorry, we could not connect to the Steam servers at this time. Please try logging in again later."
Goddarnit...)
And the answer to your next 2 questions is no/yes as from what i've heard.
For smaller software like that, I tend to use the free alternatives. I actually prefer 7-zip (just for example), and not just because it's free, it's faster too. Plenty of good free alternatives out there.
I use OO.org, instead of Office most of the time (sometimes I do have trouble in opening some files, especially people that accidentally save in .docx format from Office 07, and get out Office 07, but only when I must), and I find the Express Editions of the MS Visual Studio works well enough for me.Better yet, you can get a Linux distro, with 3D graphics, and support for rather a lot (I've found support is pretty good, with most things getting configured automagically), and a full office suite at your disposal, with easy installation of extra software packages, by using a simple package manager, all for the price of a CD/DVD with postage (from linux.com), or a writable CD/DVD (for downloading and burning).
Linux is getting simpler to use, and it isn't long before it's an extremely viable option for even the least techy users (graphical installs help the process, as even booting XP install disc can be a harrowing experience for some users, confronting a blue screen with white text, and a lot of options that can screw your computer up at every turn).
The people that already use it can atest to how much more user friendly it has become, and I must say, it's usable by a lot of people already (my brother's workplace recently installed Ubuntu on an awful lot of its systems, including the computers in the canteen/rest area, where people are allowed to check their emails, the net, or whatever they wish, within reason, and no-one's had trouble with the machines thus-far).
good example, my buddy was huge into cs, but it became nothing but hacking cs kiddies, he quit, then he found an alternate network cs and cs:s and started again, because on the alternate server/network if you act like a cs kiddie you get a perma bann in no time flat.winrar was good for its day but its been years since they made any real improvement to it, 7-zip as stated above is 100% free and is faster then winrar, with the same compression levels, also i find that on 64bit windows 7z is even faster, its probbly a good 7-10% faster then winrar at the same tasks......
and rarsoft isnt hurting for $ they get payed by alot of larger companys for the rights to use rar compression in their installers for apps and games, tho thats slowly changing now that 7zip is going mainstream and is 100% free, guess rarsoft is gonna have to step up the game somehow ;)
the problem with software prices tends to be that colleges want you to have MS products but most dont offer you cheap software prices unless your major is computer related, i have friends who can get any version of windows for 2-5$ at diffrent colleges across the country because they are mojoring in computer related things, on the other hand if your not in that field your paying 100-400 for a new os to take your classes on, including classes where the teacher requiers everything be sent in to them in ms office formats not open formats like openoffice uses.
its really a racket, i know plenty of people who cant afford to buy the software they need to take their classes if they want to eat that term, or if they want to not live in their car, its insain, books that are $120-150 each, software that is $300-6000, and on top of that they need a decent pc to run it.
in the end theres nothing but finding copys from friends or.....other sorces.
oh and im still snickering about your thinking steam couldnt becracked and was the ultimate anti-piracy tool....ROFL........
you want a good example of how great steam is :)
my buddy bought hl2 the day it came out, went home early from work(Comp time for overtime he works on weekends and such) well he installed hl2, but he had to wait neerly 14hrs inline to get it decryped due to server traffic, in the time he sat waiting sevral of us downloaded an already cracked version of the steam game, played thru most of the game or all of it.
i have had the same experiance with other steam games, since valve parted ways with vivindi i have bought their stuff(i hate vivindi for what they have done to some very good games and game dev companys they bought out) but i never buy them when they first come out, i try b4 i buy, if i like the game and see decent support comming from a game i buy it, if not, well i play and delete it, some games i play 2 levels and delete because dispite having liked the demo the real game sucked like a snowblower in winter in north dakota.
i personaly have zero problem with people pirating some companys wares(warez eheh) because those companys have screwed me and thousands/tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of people out of hard earned $ spent on games that they abandoned, or pached into oblivion(made them unplayable with patches)
but this isnt about piracy, its about ms not building a good os in the first place, ms made vista so it ASSumes its got everything installed, unlike XP vista dosnt cheak whats installed and needs updated, it just ASSumes it all needs updated.......
ms is effectivly warrning people that they made a flawed os with a flawed update system and that if they use a tool to make their os less bloated they may endup with problems when they run windows update.......nice!!!!
"Oh no, they've taken my IP address"
"Oh no, they've taken a log of how long I used Media Player for"
"Oh no, they've taken a log of how long I used XXX for"
I could swear none of you actually take any notice of what Microsoft actually collects as data. It's nothing personal. It's nothing criminal.
But if you're that paranoid. STOP doing ILLEGAL stuff!
please stop posting your FUD as fact, i have been doing the computer tech/IT thing since b4 it was called IT, i have over 12years of experiance with windows, I know what it comes with, and i know what it dosnt come with, you clearly need to do a little more research or get more experiance under your belt.
WileE im glad you backed me here, im hoping some others will post as well.
as to you DarkNova, i dont know exectly what VISTA captures, but i have seen it send 50mb packs of data to MS off a friends laptop, thats a little large for just logging what apps you use and for how long, You honestly DONT KNOW what they are sending, I know your a HUGE unwavering fan of IE7 and WLM and MS in genral, ofcorse most of their beta testers are, but you need to be more secptical about what and why ms is doing something.
its like installing spyware because the maker says it dosnt collect and share your personal info......when really u got no clue what its doing..........
b4 nlite i use to have to run spybot or spysweeper to remove alexa from new 2k/xp installs i did for people, after nlite it saved me a step in setting their system up, Oh and dont talk about adaware, its become a haven for spyware/addware/malware makers who want to pay to get off the remove/detect list.............
You're always having a competitive intent, aren't you :respect:
I'm not a techie, but I do keep reading technical documents freely available by companies, be it Microsoft, Intel or Creative, so yes there could be some FUD by the companies themselves as they're looking for profit.
PS. for a cookie, please ask your buddies to examine exacly what Steam does in a similar way. I feel kinda edgy when the routers activity LED's start dancing when I play a 100% single-player game like a HL-2 mission.
as to how to check them, copy the whole disk to a folder on your hard drive, load nlite, and choose to do all the remove>componants and go next, if i remmber correctly that is, its been a while since i have had to use nlite for more then minor tweaks of my already tweaked installs, once you choose that it should go to the next step and in one of those pulldown menues it should have alexa related and let you remove it.
if that dosnt work check the nlite forums, i know there are topics about removing it!!!
server 2003 and xp x64 dont have alexa apparently, probbly because they are both built off the server platform....... :)
i will check if i can find a copy of 2k on my hdd and see if i can take a screenie of removing alexa!!!!