markis00 - 10:28 pm on Jan 28, 2005 (gmt 0)

As long as MS dosen't charge a monthly fee for the service, it shouldn't be too bad. I find MS has all kinds of fees out there for hundreds of different programs, befree, MSN plus, extra hotmail storage capacity, IE tweaks, frontpage, the list goes on. And I think charging to download windows updates or use certain parts of windows would really get people angry. Assuming you went legit and bought a real version of windows and then had to pay monthly to download updates; that would be absurd.

Maybe charging people without legit versions of windows a monthly fee to download updates would be reasonable for MS, seeing as they got the software for free. Although I'm not too sure how MS could detect this, and if they could, it's likely they'd prefer to put those people in jail or fine them instead.

I think MS introducing such security measures are a good step towards eliminating a lot of pirating issues out there, but as we all know, for those that really need to find a way around it, a way will almost always be there. The only thing a measure like this does is deter people from doing it; discourage them somewhat. But people who pirate windows are likely smart, and for something like this, it will just be a small setback for them.

IMO, automatic updates are not worth the pain they cause. Does anyone remember the MyDoom virus that got onto the Microsoft update servers a couple summers back, "you have 1 minute until shutdown" screen. MyDoom is a good way to name it. People kept getting the virus even after formatting because Windows by default has the automatic update enabled upon installation. So people who didn't know much about PCs kept getting the virus over, and over, and over..all the PCs on my home network got them, and my co-worker at the office I worked at then got it, too.

I turned off automatic updates a long time ago for my whole home network, and have not looked back since. I just have my router's firewall up, and the in-house firewalls with XP SP 2. I haven't had any problems, break-ins, viruses, etc. For nearly 3-4 years (save the MyDoom and one really wierd #*$! virus I got which was easy to remove). I think Rogers has a secure network that I'm on, too.