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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Windows XP, Part 2: 'Big Brother' has you in his sights


Oct. 21, 2001


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Post Standard

   Microsoft is the company you love to hate. It's a big bumbler. Even when it does things right, it can't help but do them wrong.
   That's what's happening with Windows XP, the new and wonderfully solid operating system Microsoft is introducing this Thursday. Microsoft did so many things right in XP - take a look at last week's article for details -- that it just seems natural that the company that couldn't even shoot its monopoly gun straight would make a jerk of itself in two other ways.
   The first way is called Product Activation. Microsoft supposedly designed it to keep software pirates from copying Windows XP and passing those copies along to their friends. In fact, it's nothing more than a stupid annoyance for honest users.
   Product Activation works this way. When you install Windows XP on your computer, you get 30 days to let it "phone home." It contacts Microsoft over the Internet and registers your computer as the sole PC that can run the copy of XP you bought.
   If you try to install that same copy on another computer, you run into the first problem with Product Activation: When that second PC phones home to register itself, Microsoft's computerized drones will look in their records and find that you already installed XP on the first computer. These drones will then will order XP to stop running.
   In order to legally install XP on another PC, you'll have to remove it from the first one and then get Microsoft's permission to install it again. If you make a big change to your PC, XP will do something totally boffo: It will phone home again because you changed its familiar cocoon.
   If Microsoft thinks you are trying to cheat - if it believes you're actually trying to put XP on a second computer without paying for a second copy of XP - it can order XP to stop working. And that, of course, would leave you without a working PC.
   I realize this sounds crazy. I know it sounds dumb. But Microsoft doesn't know it sounds crazy and dumb. It's the one who is poking you in the eye with a stick when you buy Windows XP. It trusts you not at all. It has zero trust in the people who buy Windows XP. You are automatically assumed to be a pirate, and you cannot run Windows XP legally without allowing it to phone home and report on what you are doing.
   Software pirates, as you might suspect, are not dumb and meek. They already have copies of Windows XP that have been stripped of the activation code. There are Internet sites (don't ask me where they are; I won't tell you) where anyone can download the non-activation version of Windows XP. You could even download a program that removes activation from a normal copy of XP. (Don't ask.)
   So all this tomfoolery does is annoy everyone who is honest. Microsoft hardly acts like a company that has recently been found guilty of running a criminal monopoly. It acts like a brat. It is behaving like a bully.
   The second way Microsoft has made a jerk of itself with Windows XP is easier to understand. Microsoft knows that it is facing a lot of competition from companies that do business on the Internet. Its way of doing business is to take everything it can grab, and so it came up with a way to funnel all Internet transactions, even ones carried on by kids, through its own big servers. It calls this travesty Passport.
   Passport is billed another way, of course. Microsoft would like you to think that Passport is a way to organize your Internet passwords, logons and financial dealings. It even bills it as a way to help your kids find their friends through a new version of Microsoft's instant messaging program. By feeding all these things through its own computer connections (its servers), Microsoft can do practically anything it wants with the data that passes its way.
   Microsoft insists that it would never do anything nefarious with this data. The fact that it is trying to centralize things is enough of a concern. Letting any private company amass that kind of information on millions of people is a bad idea from start to finish.
   So my feelings about the technical quality of Windows XP are tempered by my distaste for Microsoft's bullying. If Product Activation and the Passport system don't bother you, fine. You won't have an intellectual problem with Windows XP. But I'm on the other side. I think this is distasteful, unethical and dreadful.
   But honesty compels me to explain that most of you won't have a single technical problem with Product Activation. Adding a network card or changing your sound card won't trigger XP to phone home, nor will most other things that users typically do to their PCs. The change has to be much more drastic. So most of you probably don't need to worry about whether Product Activation will get in the way.
   And you can simply avoid Passport. When XP tells you it will activate Passport, tell it not to. Use another instant messaging program so you don't have to pay a tithe to Microsoft. Use common sense, too. XP has a lot of wonderful features. It's almost crash proof, it knows how to deal with memory without acting stupid and it is very easy to use.
   To some Windows users, those features, as good as they are, can't overcome the abysmal bullying of Product Activation and Passport. But computing doesn't have to have an ethical backwash. If you like XP, go ahead and enjoy it. At last we have a consumer version of Windows that meets the standards of a good operating system. Despite Product Activation and Passport, XP can be a delight.
   I'm still on the fence, but you might find XP too hard to resist.