161–170 of 192 posts
Question since the article doesn't make it clear - if they distribute ISO-s - this is clear DMCA violation. But tool that modifies iso you have obtained legally is definitely not.
It's an interesting question, what if your tool removes the DRM from the ISO or turns Windows 10 into Windows Server.
Interesting case. If Microsoft really demands that a user does not disable features, I am looking forward to some taking this to court. The thing is, software licenses are still largely uncharted territory. If I am not allowed to modify the system as my hardware executes it, will Microsoft take liability for any damage, material or immaterieal that could be caused by it? Think of an upgrade bricking your device (happ…
It is made even more interesting by the fact that to me, as an end user, it is absolutely unclear what i am suppose to delete/modify and what i am not. How do I know that deleting or modifying a particular dll is a violation? It doesnt look any different than any other file. Furthermore, if Windows craps out, which isn't rare, i might have to go into system files and commit dmca violation. As an alterbative, will a M…
For example, the DMCA protects you if the modification is for educational purposes.
If they want to go down the route of arguing a contract violation, then the question about whether or not the contract is fair comes into play. You can't write a contract that takes everything and gives nothing in return. So these license agreements which basically say "You can't don't own anything about this software, we have every right to sue the pants off you if you upset us, and we accept no liability if our software does anything bad" may very well be unenforceable (Doesn't come up that often because people are relatively sane).
The other interesting thing here is that these licenses may be doubly unenforceable as companies have been adding the "you accept all terms and conditions if you push this button". They are right in the same line as the "Warranty void if you remove this sticker" notices.
People should use NTLite to customize their own ISO files (downloaded directly from Microsoft). You can never trust a customized ISO from the internet.
Is that still a thing? How much can you gain from customizing your ISOs using that tool? A few hundred megabytes?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If memory serves the group policy setting does work but only on the Enterprise version of Windows 10.
Just checked: in Windows 8.1 (and therefore, all versions of Windows 10), the "Don't search the web or display web results in Search" Group Policy works fine in Pro/Enterprise/Education/Business. The "Disable Microsoft Consumer Experiences" one only works in Enterprise/Education, however. If you are on Home, and don't have gpedit.msc, make a new DWORD in "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows…
BTW, you only need to log off/log on again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any technical reason why telemetry would be required to make updates work?
How do you have a machine download updates and install them without tracking that it is downloading updates and installing them successfully?
DEVELOPERSDEVELOPERS!!!
#whelovelinux ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Copyright law does not grant you the right to spread something you downloaded even if it was free. Software source code is copyrightable (to a large extent, for the past 30 years) in the US, but a program exe might not be as there's no artistic expression at all in the bit pattern alone. So an exe might just fall under license terms. Source: I have successfully filed software copyrights and trademarks.
That's so wrong it's almost painful. Copyright is the only reason why anyone pays attention to the license associated with compiled software. What would be the point of a license for an artefact not protected by copyright? It also is absurd to suggest that there is artistic expression in source code but not in a direct translation of that same artistic expression. And it's also worth remembering that binaries contain…
It looks like object code became copyrightable in the US in 1983 through a few court cases:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18ba/427b7142a61534006f4fda...
Don't know about other countries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Copyright law does not grant you the right to spread something you downloaded even if it was free. Software source code is copyrightable (to a large extent, for the past 30 years) in the US, but a program exe might not be as there's no artistic expression at all in the bit pattern alone. So an exe might just fall under license terms. Source: I have successfully filed software copyrights and trademarks.
That's a crazy viewpoint, I've never signed any license agreement with microsoft, but if I were to have a copy of a windows 10 ISO, or even just calc.exe, I wouldn't be allowed to share it
The website is down, but yeah, offering customised ISO files with Windows and some tools is clearly a breach of license. You can't just take a paid OS distribution, add some config and plonk it onto github. There's been people patching and customising Windows for many years, but most of the time that was done in the form of gaining an official ISO, patching it with a program on your computer and then using that to in…
But that is not what the DMCA copyright claim says. It does not complain about redistributing the files of a paid OS. The complaint is explicitly about providing a tool to work around technical restrictions, so "just provided an exe and some patch files" will not make microsoft happy. A common copyright claim of someone sharing copies of proprietary files would not make news. Using the DRM circumvention provision in…
Which Windows 7 now refuses to load, because they aren't blessed by Microsoft, who've officially discontinued support.
Microsoft can go to hell in that regard. I didn't ask for them to backport their driver nanny onto my machine at the behest of the media industry. They broke my machine, not the other way around.
I expect to be able to compute. Not be patted on the head and fed platitudes that "Oh, we can't let you do that. We have agreements to abide by which you were never considered to be a party to, yet nevertheless, will be subject to."
If I have to learn to handcode UEFI assembly to un-f my machine, so be it. I could probably load Linux on it, or uninstall that update in particular, but to be frank, at this point, my quest to lobotomize Windows has become a project continued out of spite. I will not accept this kind of velvet gloved, law by corporate compact. Users deserve better. If other companies are so on their last leg they need to excise huge chunks of user agency to remain viable as businesses, that is not my concern. My machine, at a fundamental level, is mine. Not the OS vendors.
We used to do what seemed like a beeter job at respecting that. Alas, those days are seemingly long gone or on the way out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Odd. Did you run gpupdate /force afterwards? I've deployed it to Pro boxes before with no issues.
Nope, I enabled the setting and rebooted and still saw the search results. Does gpupdate /force do something different than what rebooting would do? Also did you do it on Pro boxes with the 2004 update? This behavior of the setting not working only started with 2004.
Rebooting will refresh the group policy, so that should have worked. Maybe try also enabling the "Do not allow Web Search" policy which is adjacent in Admin Templates > Windows Components > Search. That seems to be all the configuration I have to make it work.