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Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

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Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#91

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

malikNF wrote: post #32

Microsoft being Microsoft, its such a shame so many video games still only support MS. Over the years MS has become really user hostile (well may be not as much as my samsung android phone I guess) with constant forced updates, forced adverts for their products. And now a DMCA for a project trying to help folks customize windows? Sigh! Few days ago there was an update on Windows10 and my computer was restarted forcef…

Video games only support Windows because the market share is what it is.

Normal apps are usually easy to port. Native video games, not so much, since they tenf to be quite low-level.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#92

Post by arkades »

dathinab wrote: post #72
p_l wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case is that the tool included a full copy of Windows, modified, and apparently with activation removed. So it got hit like any other site providing "cracked" windows.

No activation was not removed, a license is still required. Is still a modified version being distributed but license activation was not circumvented.

> No activation was not removed, a license is still required.

This was even explicitly stated in the linked article, but for some reason people keep asserting in this thread that it was a cracked version of windows.

Am I missing something, or are people just making big assumptions and not reading the article?

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#93

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

unicornfinder wrote: post #24
lmilcin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft did change. But then it looked how Apple and Google did the same thing, successfully, and sailed away in terms of market share and now it wants to replicate the success. The thing is, I don't think it is going to succeed. The likely thing that is already happening is that power users are leaving Windows and once power users leave the platform will die.

From my perception the power users already left years ago. It's just that with WSL they're very slowly starting to come back.

Hardly. Windows is still a superior platform for many tasks in ways that there are no realistic alternatives for in other OSs, not to mention being generally much less of a headache to work with despite its severely degrading user experience.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#94

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

hkt wrote: post #82
lmilcin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean for this particular tool. I mean for the fact you have less and less to say with regards to your installation. I have been Windows user for many years but around 4-5 years ago I got fed up with the fact Microsoft decides on a daily basis to change completely the stuff I own and not let me have anything to say about it. I don't want to have any Live accounts to log in to my machine, I don't want significa…

I've just returned to Windows for the first time in 20 years having had a pet VM of the kind you describe for Windows tasks before. I am pretty astonished that I am forced to update so often and that Windows still needs reboots for most of its systems. Compared to only updating for the occasional kernel patch when I was a Linux desktop user on Debian it is almost comical.

That's due to a fundamental difference in how each OS handles files. Linux will let you replace a file that is open in another running process, and Windows won't. Each way of doing things has its pros and cons. It isn't the kind of thing that can be easily resolved.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#96

Post by jedieaston »

unicornfinder wrote: post #23
nickjj wrote: post #21

I would consider things like automatically searching Bing for typing anything into the Windows search bar a pretty annoying feature. Especially when 99% of the reason to use such a search is to find a local program or Windows setting to open. Problem is with the 20.04 edition of Windows, there's no user friendly way to do turn that feature off. Putting all of the privacy settings to the most restrictive values doesn'…

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\Explorer", call it "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions", and set it to 1. Upon reboot Bing will no longer appear in your start menu.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#97

Post by joombaga »

lostgame wrote: post #22
jeroenhd wrote: post #16

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…

I’m not sure, but is Windows 10 not slightly different from previous releases insofar as you can directly download the ISO for Windows 10? Unless you had an MSDN subscription it was a little more difficult to grab an ISO back in the day. Of course, it’s still illegal to modify and upload the modified version...but you’d think the patcher would be an even more obvious route than normal these days if it’s so easy to do…

As I understand it the ISO you get without an MSDN subscription is missing a bunch of updates.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#98

Post by lucb1e »

arkades wrote: post #92
dathinab wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No activation was not removed, a license is still required. Is still a modified version being distributed but license activation was not circumvented.

> No activation was not removed, a license is still required. This was even explicitly stated in the linked article, but for some reason people keep asserting in this thread that it was a cracked version of windows. Am I missing something, or are people just making big assumptions and not reading the article?

I can't legally give you something copyrighted even if you can't use it without a valid license code. It's still copyrighted.

But that's not what Microsoft is asserting here: the headline (which arguably conveys the main point) says it's about the anti-circumvention clauses of USA's DMCA law.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#99

Post by LeoNatan25 »

smolder wrote: post #89
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #30

People should use NTLite to customize their own ISO files (downloaded directly from Microsoft). You can never trust a customized ISO from the internet.

NTLite can theoretically be compromised just like an externally sourced .iso.

NTLite comes from a trusted company, in the business of the administration of Windows installations. Still much more trustworthy than some random website allowing ISO downloads.

Re: Removing “Annoying” Windows 10 Features Is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says

#100

Post by vonmoltke »

belorn wrote: post #76
jeroenhd wrote: post #16

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…

The way I read the complaint[1] there are two separate claims made. The first, distributing the modified ISO, appears to be the core DMCA claim:

> BSA has determined that GitHub.com (specifically, content made available on GitHub through the link listed below) is providing access to copyrighted, nonpublic, proprietary information of our member Microsoft. The link leads to copyrighted material pertaining to Microsoft. Specifically, the copyrighted material in question can be found at the following link:

The second claim, concerning technical restrictions, is advanced as an EULA violation:

> Moreover[2], the link provides a work around technical restrictions of the software, which violates Microsoft’s Software License Terms. Please see lines 22 to 30 from the following link: https://github.com/ninjutsu-project/ninjutsu-project.github....

I'm sure MS and the BSA would love to have any EULA violation classified as a DMCA violation, but I don't know if this second claim would hold up. I'm not an IP (or any sort of) lawyer, and my ability to parse legalese is limited, but I think MS/BSA have a much weaker case for this if the complaint did not have claim 1. That is, distributing the tools may "not make microsoft happy", but their legal foundation to take those down is much shakier.

[1] https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/e6911fbf79c67c6f9e834c...

[2] Use of this interjection is what leads me to separate the two quoted sections into two claims.

Edit: "did not have claim 1", not "did not have claim 2"

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