Neither the Beta nor RC builds are intended for general home users to install and use as their primary OS. Indeed, you are warned against doing this.

The availability of milestone builds such as this is to aid individuals and businesses in testing their software and hardware configurations, to ensure that they won’t have any problems when 7 is released.

You have absolutely no reason to be complaining, because you shouldn’t be using a Beta OS as your primary OS anyways.

Oh great. Another clueless technical editor that’s going to inform us about all that is wrong with IT. Most people would be ashamed to presume expertise in fields of which they know nothing, much less lecture others. Please just go away and find another industry to parasite.

@WaruiKoohii - Sure it is a beta, but let’s be clear here it will be installed by end users not least because of the MS hype. I stand firm that starting to seriously screw with the end user computer THREE MONTHS before the expiry of a free trial is MADNESS.

@usuck - what a perfect username you have chosen. Although I can think of a few better ones…

Personally, I don’t give a rats, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole anyway. I’ll just carry on quietly upgrading people to Linux.

The first to responders to this story are either MS investors or MS marks.I think he has a valid point.I dont see anywhere in his article where he says use W7 as your primary OS.I will try and restore some common sense to you .How about just putting up a nag screen every two hours.Then on 06/01/2010 have it become a non functional OS.See that wasnt so hard.And to tracyanne, I have been doing the same for quite some time now.Come on MS fanboys jump on the we hate Linux bandwagon now.

well…. Windows 7 isn’t actually all that bad, its gonna be a huge success…. but personally, there is nothing i can’t do in Linux that i could do in windows, so Im sticking with Linux. In the next few years the platform is going to be irrelevant anyways…. hence.. cloud computing

I can’t see this as being a problem, also didn’t the RC build come out in May? Meaning that its two months and not three when this starts to happen. Get over it, buy Windows if you want it. If you don’t want to pay for an OS, use Ubuntu or some other flavour of Linux.

Of course it’s mental. Only a complete lunatic would come up with such a customer-hostile scheme, but then that’s what MS is best at innovating– new ways to piss people off. As you said, mr Winder, a polite reminder a short time before expiry is much more sensible. Maybe someday MS will even learn from Linux how to make upgrades and installation painless and easy.

Robert D, the MS ‘turfers are legion and tireless.

This scheme by Microsoft to force their customers to upgrade is really just arrogance unchecked. Only a firm stand by the keyboard manufactures stopped Microsoft from zapping their hapless users with an electric shock. The sad part is Microsoft’s customers blindly accept this insult as business as usual. Time is the only thing that will separate us from accepting these abuses. The digital nature of our lives will only become more integrated. The way we live it now, entrusting it to a single omnipresent company whose prime directive is to satisfy the shareholder, our digital lives would be unlivable to our future selves.

Listen “WaruiKoohii” and “usuck”, there are only two ways you believe what you said. You are complete fools or suffer from paycheck induced ignorance. You are fooling no one here or anywhere. It takes a fair amount of social emptiness to champion a company who’s so abusive to the people who keep them in power. I feel sorry for you. Your world is coming to an end and your beloved Microsoft will drop you like a hot potato. It will take a full time staff of psychologists just to keep you functional.

God forbid that Microsoft doesn’t want you freeloading off an RC, and they actually want you to buy the real product after a while. The two hour shut down allows you to backup any data you have. They could have (like in the Longhorn days) just made it so it went into a “press ctrl+alt+del to login” loop.

Its an RC, still beta software. Its meant to be a testing preview, not some long term solution, and nearly a year to use it is plenty if you look at the intent of an RC. I don’t see why there is such an uproar, because their old Betas/RC’s had even more intrusive behaviors. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t, right guys?

I use ArchLinux, I run (and created) the Linux User’s Group at my college, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t call out ridiculous expectations when necessary.

You’ve called it a scheme to get customers to upgrade, or to somehow swindle them. Customers at large shouldn’t be using the RC, so the argument is moot. If they DO use the RC, its at their own risk, and they should understand the difference between RC and RTM. The Linux community has more important things to do than whine about a 2-hour shutdown limit in an RC from Microsoft. Get a grip. How about fixing X.org or PulseAudio, or the myriad of other things that are half-baked in Linux?

Before June arrives, there will be a crack.

So, I’m waiting on that to run the new version of Windows [sic]

“How about fixing X.org or PulseAudio, or the myriad of other things that are half-baked in Linux?”

I see you’ve done your homework, how refreshing. It was a good video wasn’t it?

If “Customers at large shouldn’t be using the RC”, then why did Microsoft leave it lying around? Their actions said, “hey, everybody, try Windows 7 and while your at it get hooked on it too”.

You need some advice in social interactions. What Microsoft did is unacceptable. If you find it acceptable or even normal then you have lost a level social understanding. You will not get it back until you remove yourself from your abusive relationship with Microsoft and stand back for a while and let your vision clear.

The WGA was my final insult. As an aside, ever notice how Microsoft’s insults always come in three letters? I left my abusive relationship with Microsoft but it wasn’t until a few seasons past by that I began to see just how bad it really was. It sounds kind of funny to talk about it like that but that is how it really is. Your belief in Microsoft comes first, the facts supporting your belief come second. You filter out the facts that don’t support your belief. There’s nothing stopping Microsoft from ratcheting up the insults accept Open Source. Next time you pay less than $400 dollars for an operating system from Microsoft, thank Linux. You’re welcome.

I think the Linux commentors on here should be ashamed of themselves…

Of course it’s timelocked - it’s a pre-release build that once the RTM is out, nobody should be running because it’s not supported!

And for people to say it’s unacceptable, Linux users at that, maybe you should explain Fedora release cycles eh? Maybe there’s a reason why anything older than 2 released (not even 12 mths) finds itself with no updates, no packages and no support from anyone? It’s because its a testing platform for RHEL… sounding like Windows RC/Beta programs now? (yes - having no more packages/updates is akin to being locked out of windows when items break and need updating, like linux software does every 2-4 months)

The nerve of some people, seriously…

I am using the RC right now, and I fail to see how this happening next May is really a bad thing. The beta and the RC are being given away so that the public can try the new OS on their systems. I am still shocked that they (MS) were willing to allow it to be used for that long. Could someone please explain why this is soooo bad of them? I mean after some of the other things MS has done in the past this is not anywhere near the worst. Linux has a nice variety of distros out there, but ATM Windows handles video much better. After a few years of trying different distros I have still not found one that renders my video files correctly (and games too). If someone on here happens to know how to fix these problems, please post a link (I am serious on that). But all that aside, I still don’t see how after using a pre-release of Windows for a year for free, it is bad of them to do this. They are very clear that the beta and the RC are not suppose to be your primary OS. I am using it as my primary OS (because I will agree that Vista is much slower), but I am not going to blame them if something happens to my data (I already have it backed-up on an external drive anyway). I think that offering the beta and the RC were smart moves for MS after the problems that happened when Vista came out. And before the flames come my way. I like to switch between Windows and Ubuntu all the time. I am dual-booting the RC and Ubuntu 9.04. I would have no problem staying with Linux if I could get the video stuff sorted out. But as it stands, I have Windows for media, and Linux for work (aside from random things I need apps that don’t like Wine).

@Daryl Like I said, when it comes to the extended free trial period “it is actually a good idea” and I have no problem with that.

What I was saying, and what I stand by, is that shutting down the user PC every two hours, starting some three months prior to the stated expiry date, is totally blasted bonkers.

Nobody, least of all me, is saying that Microsoft should let people keep the RC version forever. Nobody is saying there should not be some kind of nag system to ensure people know expiry is approaching and they need to upgrade to continue usage.

All I am saying is that Microsoft has obviously gone as mad as a gravel sandwich if it thinks doing it this way is a sensible and above all else customer friendly way to approach it.

@Davey Thank you for giving an actual reply. Now I get what you are talking about. The flame wars that tend to happen make it hard to tell what each side is actually trying to say at times. I agree that the who shutting down every two hours before the thing expires is pretty lame. Although I am sure that if more articles like this pop-up before then, they will try something else (might just be wishful thinking).

Microsoft can do what every they want. Microsoft Rules, Linux Sucks.

Really Microsoft. 3 months before the expiration date. Probably a few months before you even have your product line ready to go your going to piss off your customers. At least wait until they buy the product.

I’m downloading it at the minute. It’s fun to try and does it not give us a timescale for the full release? Even so I’m happy to be able to play about with it until March, It’s on a spare drive and it’s easy to use and compare with XP. It’s a case of remembering it’s an RC and working with it as long as you wish.

To linuxwindows:

…the nerve of some people…etc.

I don’t use Fedora. I use Ubuntu 8.10. Updates, etc. for 3 years, then upgrade again. No hassles, no fees. I stopped using windoze junk/crack in 1998. Stop smoking. Break the habit. Choose freedom/liberty.

Your article is quite a great finding for me living in France. Consumer authorities here have starting to ask computer makers to organize themselves and respond to consumers that ask refund OS they dont’t want to use.
Today 98% end user computers are sold here with vista only. But a lot of consumers would like to remove vista and install XP instead ; some want to install a linux distro of their choice.
Some manufacturers have already agree to refund : Asus, Fujitsu but the big three HP, Dell, Acer, keep on saying : NO.
Governement has asked them to find a vay to have Vista installed, that erases itself if the buyer does’nt buy a license of Vista and enters a serial number.
Computers will still be sold with vista pre-
installed but the buyer must pay for it separately.
The main manufacturers said to the consumer affairs that “this would be technically impossible”
Alejo

@ linuxwindows
“The nerve of some people, seriously…”

Oh really? We are here to keep you honest and that’s a full time job. It’s not called Open Source for nothing. It’s all out there for the World to see, warts and all. All you know about Windows 7 is it’s shiny skin. You have no idea how it’s put together and you never will. Not with any Microsoft OS.

[…] the original issue of this post, an IT Pro blogger asks (in the headline), “Has Microsoft gone mental?” Here is what Mental Microsoft has to say on the matter: “The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. […]

[…] the original issue of this post, an IT Pro blogger asks (in the headline), “Has Microsoft gone mental?” Here is what Mental Microsoft has to say on the matter: “The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. […]

Davey Winder. Proof positive that the “IT Pro” label is just that. A label. It does not guarantee any intelligence, logic, or integrity. You sir, are an embarrassment. Not only is your argument asinine (see first 2 comments), but it’s only going to be used as troll fodder for people like Richard Chapman.

It’s a shame to see all the Microsoft fan-boys jump in and start trolling.

I agree with the author that this approach by Microsoft is underhand. They should just advertise the beta as expiring in March since it becomes unusable after that time - by which they are hoping everyone is hooked on the interface and shells out some cash for the OS.

I’m not seeing any killer features that Windows Vista hadn’t got - it makes Ubuntu seem more appealing

What MS did is unacceptable, blah blah blah. But all the morons out thing will bend over and accept it anyway.

Those of us with a clue stopped recognizing Microsoft as ‘acceptable’ a long fscking time ago, and quite frankly can only stand by laughing as they screw over their fans “yet again”.

TFA does not complain about the release candidate having an expiration date, but for not honoring that given date. If Microsoft wants people to stop using the release candidate in March, make the expiration date in March.

[…] 7 will expire June 2010, and the software giant will let users know they need to pay to upgrade by shutting down the system every two hours for three months. According to Microsoft: “The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on […]

I don’t mind that it expires at all. It does seem a bit strange that they are essentially making it useless once the 2 hour thing kicks in whilst trying to say that it’s available for a year, but what seems particularly anti-customer is that you can’t just pay to upgrade your RC in place with installed apps etc to a full copy. Surely with Windows Update there isn’t going to be that much code difference between the RC and RTM? And to say that I shouldn’t be using it as my main OS, I say that you only get to know an OS by using it properly day to day and doing all the things that you need to do.

“I’m not seeing any killer features that Windows Vista hadn’t got…”

How about the fact that it appears to work already so barring a catastrophic ballsup, (not impossible admittedly!) the RTM version should be way ahead of Vista at launch.
Perhaps more importantly, compare Vista and W7 running on a basic netbook. OK, so maybe easing up on the hardware requirements is not exactly a feature but it sure makes W7 a lot more useable for a lot more people - and get this, I can transfer files across a network at more than 4kbs.
In short, imho, Vista was a travesty that should never have been released. Sure it’s ‘better’ now, but one can’t help thinking that maybe W7 is closer to what Vista was supposed to be…

The real deep issue in my mind is not about the actual shutdown or nagging (while i agree it is hostile [and ungrateful] to early adopters who help shape perception of a new product, it’s a point of view, and viral marketing proponents might advise against it). The higher point here is the fact that the software is shipping with crippling code inside it. Developers know all too well that it can be a double edged sword, if you fail to do proper testing on the triggers for this action, you will end up with a PR nightmare if and when it gets invoked on a legit license.

If i were a decision maker, i would not have allowed this to happen, always err on the side of the early adopter.

1 pissed eary adopter champion is not worth punishing a hundred free loaders.

Let’s see:

Windows 7 is NOT FREE and NOT OPEN SOURCE software. If you want free as in speech or beer, there are alternatives to Windows.

That being said, Windows 7 is slated for an October 2009 release.

The RC, which is clearly stated as EVALUATION SOFTWARE, will warn you in mid-april that is is EVALUATION SOFTWARE and will be expiring.

See the EVALUATION SOFTWARE part? I put it in all caps to help you.

Most time-limited software just shuts down cold as soon as the eval period expires.

You have 6 and a half months before anything at ALL happens to buy it, downgrade back to Vista or XP, or find an alternative platform. So what are you complaining about? All the anti-Microsoft vitriol kind of reads to me like racial stereotyping. Not accurate by any means, but the first thing bigoted individuals stick with.

Were you too stupid to understand the fact that this is not production software? I guess they will give anyone a column nowadays.

No point in flame wars. It very clear to those who have “dynamic” training in IT knows the BS of Microsoft. Havent used them in ten years. This is very typical of that company.

Please stop using the word “mental” this way. It makes you sound like a 13 year old, but moreso is quite disrespectful to those of us who suffer from mental health issues or have family members and friends that do so.

I recommend a donation to NAMI (http://www.nami.org) to right this.

@anonymous:
“mental” simply makes him sound like he’s from the UK, oh hey…it’s a UK publication…that must be a huge coincidence…

Anyway, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about, I run Linux at home, Windows at work, and my wife is stuck with windows due to using Adobe products for graphic design. (I’m aware that they run on Mac, she just doesn’t want a Mac)

Vista on her laptop is dismal at best, and there are no drivers for XP on her hardware, so yeah, I’m giving Win7 a serious look, and have it installed on a machine at work to test.

BUT…

As the author has stated, shutting the PC down every 2 hours for 3 months is just retarded. Yes it’s scheduled for an Oct release…ok…will it actually make it on time?
What if I have it running and I want to wait until SP1 before I fork out the $$ and make it permanent?

Anyway, the author is right, linux vs. windows is irrelevant to this discussion, and M$ is in fact taking steps to screw up what was otherwise a pretty neat idea.

(i.e. Vista users paid for what was arguably its beta release, as in pre-SP1)

The only “mental” part here is using software from Microsoft and not expecting to get screwed.

For the record: MS makes some awesome stuff sometimes. But on the business end, screwing over users and competitors is standard procedure.

Unlike ten years ago, there are plenty of great alternatives, so either stop whining or ditch Windows.

Good grief, man: Every single RC that Microsoft has ever published (for W2K, XP, Vista, etc) expires in exactly the same way. Have you never used an RC or Beta OS from them before??? Of course they have to do this - if they just put up a screen nagging you every couple of hours, nobody would be bothered to upgrade to the released version! Having potentially millions of customers using an out-of-date, unsupported, pre-release, not-fully-tested version of an operating system would REALLY be madness.

Its an RC, get over it ffs.

Duh? Release candidate? It’s not like anyone who installs it doesn’t know what they’re getting. And who really expects a free preview to remain available after the real product is released? Seriously, guys…

Haha, what a fool you are. Nobody respects your writing. Slashdot has just seen how much of a fool you are. You think MS should give out a free version of their next OS that never runs out? LOL failure.

@jph53 At least try reading what has been written before jumping in. If you did that you might notice that I have never said that MS should give out a free version of the OS that never runs out. What I said was that MS saying the W7RC expires June 1st when, in fact, it becomes pretty much unusable three months earlier thanks to the 2 hour shutdown thing, is potty.

So, sorry, it is you who is looking more than a little foolish in my book.

Is this ‘editorial’ serious, or just a whiny Pom on the piss take about semantics?

So MS provide an RC for users and IT Pro’s (clearly yourself excluded), for evaluation and testing purposes, with the express directives that there is an expiry. Better still it’s not a hard deadline that locks you out of the OS should you have data you need to remove. Yet you still complain.

IT’S NOT A FREE OS. You get a taste as a user, you get enterprise level testing for corporate environments. Then you’re suppose to BUY IT.

Where other tech sites praise forward thinking and community involvement in MS’s public beta program, you pick out what has to be the absolutely minor point, such a British thing to do.

Really, nobody would be complaining if it simply expired on March 1st. An extra 3 months sounds fine to me. 2 hours is a very long time to spend on a non-work computer anyway.

Everyone should step back and take a longer view. Take a look at the Charlie Rose interview of Bill Gates and his father and you will see two egocentric,self congratulatory people who after practically stealing Digital Research’s CPM S100 bus OS. Built Microsoft’s OS around that code. Contrast Warren Buffet with Bill Gates. Warren lives in a modest house in his home town and pays himself just a little over $100,000 a year. Bill Gates lives in a 66,000 square foot house with 7 kitchens. He now distributes his worlds biggest fortune to the so called “betterment” of mankind. In my opinion he should be buying Microsoft users new computers and the software of their choice but then maybe I am being “mental.” At 76 years old I am writing books using a $700 Mac Mini and I have XP Pro and Mac OS 5 and Ubuntu running on my dual core machine. I suggest that we all calm down, breath deeply and relax. All company’s have their day and then die a natural death. Unless I miss my guess, Microsoft is showing signs of being in it’s final death throes. Beg, buy or steal a dual core machine and compute until you are dead….

[…] Has Microsoft Gone Mental? Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment Trackback […]

I’m no Microsoft lover (Macs and Solaris are my bag), but presumably this is simply because there will be another version available to install (either another RC, or the final release) long before June 2010.

So, what’s the problem? If you haven’t paid for it or you didn’t properly steal it how can you complain that they shut it down? Don’t install the crap. Any IT professional could have told you that it is a trial. Install it test it all you want, but in the end you scrap it and put a real OS on it.

Personally I will stick with XP and migrate to Linux but that is due to some of MS’s other practices.

What is madness is the utter dribble you have produced and called journalism. It is sensationalism. No wonder you MSM types are a dying breed. Deception through sensationalism is still lying. Why don’t you try your hand at FoxCNNMSNBC.

RC = Release Candidate, not Release Code. Duh.

[…] RC, and it also has every right to get paid for its software that you are using. But then again, is it insane? No, don’t answer that, it is not. It is cold, calculating, and doesn’t give a […]

Windows 7 RC is just a “free” piece of **** for a while, they [MS] can do pretty much what they want with it (and they do), but it’s not necessarily *smart* for them to do so. The utterly retarded “reboot every 2 hours” is as stupid as it sounds: a huge “**** you”, in the usual Microsoft way. No one should be surprised.

Personally, I can’t understand who would use Win7 even if they were paid to do so…

I guess only the MS-fanboys like Karmakaze and friends are the only ones who don’t see how ****** up this whole RC with its features and forced fake updates are..

Use a Real OS that doesn’t **** you up, people

Lets be real. Why keep upgrading. I have a very stable XP build. I am not going to change it. It works and does all the things I want it to. The PC is static as far as upgrades and software. I am not going to change it nor am I going to change anything on it. I think MS is having problems with a very old saying. If it is not broken don’t fix it. I have seen so many companies go through transitional software implementations, spend tons of money, man hours and resources only to find that once they are on the new operating system, nothing really has changed. I mean the employees still have Internet, MS office or LOTUS, the still have emulation to Mainframe or Mid-Range computer systems and all of the printer work. So why in hell would a company go through all of this just to have a new splash screen and what they call a better feel, which now you have to train the users on so they can find what they used to do on the older operating system. Windows XP works great, Vista is a mess of back doors, Windows 7 runs like Linux with a bad Kernel or memory problems

How many times must a business upgrade???????

A brief comment from a non-IT businessman- If an employee of mine came to me and told me that he had engineered our flagship product, which was already taking on water, so that with publicity and a long lead time it would be on a substantial percentage of our client’s machines by a certain date, and that it would then not just piss them off but do so EVERY TWO HOURS!? I would move slowly to summon Security…

I swear you people mis-represent the linux crowd horribly. Then again, maybe all of linux users are as daft as the ones on this blog. Linux may work for you, as a non gamer, but until linux can properly RUN DX games (BF2142, L4d, BF2, CSS, COD4, Supreme Commander, TF2), it will never become a fully accepted operating system by the masses. Does everyone game? No, but until linux plays those games without having to run WINE or some other bs emulation Linux will be a lightweight OS I used on my laptop for internet/video/word docs. Congrats on your lightweight efficient word processing OS, hope it gives you some loving at night.

And don’t even start complaining about how DX isn’t opensource, of course it isn’t, and sure it sucks, but facts are facts. Linux can not play those games without hassle and significantly reduced frames and functionality.

However, to the point in the article - Restarting people’s computer every 2 hours is just stupid. There are many other methods of accomplishing the same notification without pissing off the end user. It’s not a full OS, its a RC, we get it. But Don’t shove it down their throats by taking control of their PC and shutting it down. Just notify with some annoying box, that is justified, not shutting down my computer. I’ll have a free version of 7 by then anyway, gotta love still being connected to MSDNAA.

Ok Mr Winder says “Look, the smart money says that when you arrive at June 1st 2010, the day that the freebie expires, it stops working ”
So it is ok for it to just up and stop working, but it is not ok to allow you to work in 2 hour increments?

It’s “semi-hourly”, not “bi-hourly.” Bi-hourly would be shutting down every half hour.

@Semantics - No, you are wrong. Bi means two, semi means half.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bihourly

@Davey Winder: you are arguing such a petty, moot point.

OK. They aren’t keeping this hidden. Instead of having easily-ignorable nag screens, they have the RC expire nicely in a 3 step process:

1: Warn user for 2 weeks that it is expiring soon
2: Enter Lockdown mode for 3 months, still working enough to allow users to transfer data and upgrade
3: Enter expired mode, where your only alternative is to do a fresh install.

Your alternative is to just have nag screens followed by completely unusable. The 10+ months we have now to test it before it becomes locked down should be plenty if that’s what you’re trying to do. If not, then tough. Either buy Win 7 or reinstall OTHER_OS_HERE which you’ve been using up until now.

Man, are you nuts or what? Are you complaining about the fact that Windows will stop working 3 months before the expiration date??? They set those dates deliberately.

What if the expiration date was 3 months before than it is now? Would you still complain?

You are using an evaluation version of the software, and are bound to its license. Deal with it. And if you don’t like the terms, just look somewhere else. Aka Linux, OS X or whatever. There are plenty of alternatives.

Geez dude, its their software, they write what they want in the EULA.

Its a goddamn release candidate as well, its supposed to be lame to use once the full version is released(sometime late09).

You are a fool.
What earthly reason would anyone want to run the RC in 2010?

The full release will already have been made by that point.

well.. Regarding to microsoft forcing people to upgrade their OS all the time;
“I don’t use Fedora. I use Ubuntu 8.10. Updates, etc. for 3 years, then upgrade again”

Windows XP Pro was supported for free for everyone in the world for 8 years, and extended support for 14 years.

So Ubuntus 3 year support cycle seems bit short, if you ask me.

RC software is always limited in some way, and usually buggy, so what is the hoo-har about?

I hate Microsoft’s stupidity, incompetenec and arrogance as much as anyone else. But it does make me laugh when the Linus evangelists start crowing. Don’t they ever question WHY they have to go on forums proudly announcing that they actually got a particular piece of software to work? LMAO.

I should say that www.itpro.co.uk has lots of interesting information. Looks like the author did a good job. I will be coming back to www.itpro.co.uk for new information. Thank you.

Bi-hourly would actually mean twices an hour, not every two hours. Good job with English, Microsoft.

[…] the name “SPIM”, Microsoft is now making efforts to deal with this, taking legal action which alleges a company called […]

Among other things, the only way to protect yourself from annoying calls and spy gadgets is to use Cell Phone Jammers

You know, I couldn’t care less. So what, I have a copy of the beta of Windows 7 in question, I downloaded it to have a look at it, but other than to test it, I don’t use. In fact for some odd reason it currently informs me that I may have a pirated version, oh well.

By the time June first rolls around, it will have been replaced by something better anyway.

Most big players are honoring the robots.txt convention now. It’s only a few minor (mainly European) SEs that
don’t, as far as we are aware. Email harvesters are a different story, of course.

Microsoft seems to be following America’s recipe for disaster.
Or is it the other way around?

I mean running around the supermarket without your pants on shouting “where is the mustard” mad, would be to start shutting down the user PC every two hours until they upgrade to a paid for OS and to start this nutball feature ,good post,I think so!

Bi-hourly would actually mean twices an hour, not every two hours. Good job with English, Microsoft.

It is rather interesting for me to read that blog. Thanks for it. I like such topics and anything connected to them. I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.

Micro$oft does many things to annoy genuine users - I had to reinstall WinXP a few times a while ago but I had to ring up to get a telephone authorisation number each time despite having the original CD & Product Code.
But I can’t get too worked up about issues with evaluation versions which expire a bit early.

As for bi-hourly, I vote it means twice an hour.

[…] Healthcare Town Hall » Medmal frequency leveling off?Invincible – Patch 3.3.2 Model | IKAS ComputerIT PRO: Blogs: Davey Winder: Has Microsoft gone mental? […]

It’s a little annoying that it shuts down every two hours a full two months before expiry, but you get what you pay for. To the linux fanboys, yes, linux is fantastic, and does most things windows does and some things it does not, but really: This isn’t about linux, this is about windows software and windows users.

Spectacular missing of the point by an awful lot of commentators here. The point being that Microsoft just demonstrated, again, how to present the most awful user experience possible for a given piece of functionality. You’ve go to hand it to them: they are the masters of this particular area, and we should all pay credit where credit is due. They are really, truly, utterly barking mad.

[…] Home Manual IT PRO: Blogs: Davey Winder: Has Microsoft gone mental?What are good but cheap gaming computer parts? | PC and […]

هذا الموقع هو حقا من خلال المشي للجميع من معلومات حول هذا أردت والذين لا يعرفون أن نسأل. سوف محة هنا ، وتكتشف بالتأكيد.

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