December 12, 2009

Microsoft License Enforcement – anti-piracy efforts

In an effort to level the playing field for honest partners, Microsoft continues to file cases against companies and individuals caught selling infringing software and systems. Every month, Microsoft receives hundreds of piracy reports from customers and from the system builder community. These reports enable Microsoft to investigate and address piracy across the country, and they are critical to the success of our anti-piracy efforts.

Almost all of the cases that Microsoft has recently filed resulted from either customer or channel piracy reports. The most recent round of cases were filed against 15 companies and individuals, including:

• VioSoftware (Lafayette, CO)
• Royal Discount (Boulder, CO)
• SaveintheUSA.com (Los Angeles, CA)
• Dallas Computer (Plano, TX)
• Daroc Computers (El Paso, TX)

For a full listing of all of the cases that have been filed this month and in the past, click here.

Genuine Windows: What’s New with Genuine Windows Volume Activation (VA)?

With the availability of Windows 7, Microsoft has further improved the technologies and tools used for volume license activation. Administrative requirements have been reduced making the VA process easier. Improved interfaces support greater usability and customization. VA Services are now more fully integrated, very manageable, and offer you even better administrative control. To improve performance, VA now has a reduced memory footprint for greater system and network efficiency.

For Partners this all means more efficiency and higher quality delivery of Windows 7 license activation for your clients. The key VA tools are still Key Management Service (KMS) and Multiple Activation Key (MAK). KMS remains the most efficient way to help your client activate all of their Windows 7 installs automatically, rather than requiring each computer to connect to a hosted service. For systems that are not network attached or that don’t have access to a KMS server, you can still also use MAK to independently activate eligible systems directly with Microsoft, either over the Internet or by telephone.

What happens if I help my customer deploy Windows 7 and the genuine software license is not properly activated?The proper activation of the genuine Windows 7 license is an important part of the deployment process and your services portfolio. If your clients do not activate installations of Windows 7 software within the grace period, their computers will default to a “Notification Mode.” Users will still be able to use their systems, however, they will begin to see activation reminders during Logon and in the Action Center. In addition, their Desktop Background color will be set to black as a further reminder that the license needs to be activated.Microsoft listened to your feedback and worked to improve Volume Activation so that you could provide even better service to your customers. You can find additional resources to help you plan and understand Volume Activation here: Video – VA Fundamentals VA Expert advice column VA planning guides VA deployment guides VA FAQs

Re-published from –Genuine News and Tools from Microsoft

Piracy of any kind is a serious offence and not being taken lightly in the industry. Acts of piracy add to cost for law abiding clients like yourselves. Not to mention make our jobs more difficult with managing licensing and activiation. I know I’m glad to hear Windows 7 will make administration easier and more difficult for dishonest OEM’s to pirate. –Dee Rudko, CEO

October 20, 2009

Windows 7 launch October 22nd 2009!

I’ve received many questions about the big launch so I wanted to take a few minutes to give you the real scoop from a trusted Microsoft Certified firm. As many of you remember Windows Vista  was not a very successful product. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Windows 7 is the result of learning from the failures of Vista through meticulously ironing out most of the wrinkles that annoyed Vista users. I’m not hear to talk about if it will have successful launch, but more of an open information forum about what it might mean to our clients. I would like to inform our clients on the do’s and don’ts as well as other easily understood facts that you should know. Let me be clear that I don’t think an XP user should run right out and upgrade, I believe a Vista user would be first in line but not right away. Be sure to ask us if its a good idea in your specific environment before making any major decisions. Our team here at AMRCON has been working with the operating system for months in our lab environment. We’re not ready to give the green light just yet.

Here are a few facts that should be pointed out:

• Windows 7 will require a clean install: One of the lessons learned from Vista was that not enough integration between OEM hardware and 3rd party software vendors was provided. Thus everyone had issues with drivers and getting applications to run. To ensure a clean slate, the Windows 7 OS will require a complete format of your current drive from scratch, then and only then will you be able to recover your data and install your applications. From a technical standpoint this is generally the right way to go and will help alleviate headaches. I would not recommend doing this yourself with out some form of technical proficiency.
• The Economic role: The economy might play a strategic role in how our clients might look at migrations. In the past new migrations were done along with hardware upgrades, it just made better sense. In today’s economy budgets and planning have been reduced. However, with the leaner version of windows you can get away with migrating on older hardware where in the past new versions meant more horsepower requirements. Both the size and memory requirements have been reduced in Win 7. An eventual migration to Win 7 might be a more cost effective solution to those behind the times. Windows XP stands as the solid OS with 71.8% market share and Vista with only 18.8%. Windows 7 will end up taking most of the Vista share and heavily over time into the XP market. Now depending on just how old your hardware is will determine if an upgrade migration is in order or going with a complete hardware refresh along with the new OS.
• XP Mode?: Since Microsoft caught a bad image with suggesting to XP users to migrate to Vista then to Win 7 when it’s launched, many people had great concerns. Business owners expressing the bad taste they had provided a plan. Win 7 will have a XP Mode where a virtual XP service pack 3 environment can run under Win 7 to avoid breaking compatibility with their older applications. We’re still on the fence with this really bringing resolve to those issues.
• User Account Control: Microsoft boasts about having the right fixes in place from the Vista era. But it has been reported on some blogs that some underlying issues may still exist, it may change with the full version release but something to think about.

Is Windows 7 worth it?

It’s going to be a case-by-case basis so talk to AMRCON about your specific thoughts. We believe it will be a reasonable option for companies looking to upgrade hardware in the new year, but not if they require any 3rd party application such as trading and business automation. These companies will need to wait for their respective vendors to play catch up first. However, they would want to consider bundling an upgrade license when they become available. It would be one less cost they will need to worry about in the future. Besides Microsoft has extended the support for XP a few more years but I hope no one waits until the very end. Reason being we’ll loose out on the full integration and usage of the already deployed Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Office 2010 when they become available. Most major vendors have already provided fixes to make themselves Windows 7 friendly.

Keep posted as we continue to report on actual build-outs and migrations. If you have any questions in the meantime feel free to give us a call.