VirtualLarry
No Lifer
Well, good news, and bad news.
First the good news, MS has finally released a public patch to fix the problem of applications that listen on 127.x.x.x loopback addresses other than 127.0.0.1 not being able to connect. Patch here
The bad news - well, MS has decided, once again, to restrict public access to their downloads.
I remember last time they tried this, they started restricting public access to their KB articles, unless you "registered" your personal details with MS. That change recieved a huge public backlash, and they relented.
Mostly from 3rd-party support people, that accessed MS's KB to help troubleshoot *other* people's Windows' problems. I can see the same thing starting to happen here. People (like me) that are quite willing to help troubleshoot and repair other's PCs, using information and patches publically available at MS's site, will no longer be able to do so. So if someone is having trouble with their Windows' PC in the future, I'll have to inform them that there is nothing that I can do, they can either pay money to MS for support and to be able to access downloads, or I can switch them to Linux (depending on what they use their computer for) for free, and support will always be free for Linux.
The more MS tries to create a "walled garden" for their users, just like AOL, the more that they are going to alienate them from the rest of the world, just like AOL. This can only hurt MS's market-share in the long term, IMO, even if it does help "cut off" half-a-dozen pirates from accessing update patches. I really hope that MS relents on this issue and reverses this current scheme too.
First the good news, MS has finally released a public patch to fix the problem of applications that listen on 127.x.x.x loopback addresses other than 127.0.0.1 not being able to connect. Patch here
The bad news - well, MS has decided, once again, to restrict public access to their downloads.
I remember last time they tried this, they started restricting public access to their KB articles, unless you "registered" your personal details with MS. That change recieved a huge public backlash, and they relented.
Mostly from 3rd-party support people, that accessed MS's KB to help troubleshoot *other* people's Windows' problems. I can see the same thing starting to happen here. People (like me) that are quite willing to help troubleshoot and repair other's PCs, using information and patches publically available at MS's site, will no longer be able to do so. So if someone is having trouble with their Windows' PC in the future, I'll have to inform them that there is nothing that I can do, they can either pay money to MS for support and to be able to access downloads, or I can switch them to Linux (depending on what they use their computer for) for free, and support will always be free for Linux.
The more MS tries to create a "walled garden" for their users, just like AOL, the more that they are going to alienate them from the rest of the world, just like AOL. This can only hurt MS's market-share in the long term, IMO, even if it does help "cut off" half-a-dozen pirates from accessing update patches. I really hope that MS relents on this issue and reverses this current scheme too.