News Microsoft takes down SP2 swappers

MS Stomps on an experimental way of distributing SP2. This from the beeb:

Microsoft has taken steps to stop its security update for Windows being shared on file-swapping networks.

The SP2 update for Windows XP was being used by file-swapping activists to show how such systems can help get large, important files to lots of users.

But legal warnings from Microsoft have forced the file-swappers to end their experiment and stop making the software available to downloaders.

Now the only place people are able to get the update is from Microsoft.

More here

I can see both sides of the argument here - The activists are trying to extol the virtues of P2P, and the fact that it can be used for legal distributions. However, how do you know what you're downloading is the real deal? I guess that's what MS is trying to protect against.

 

heh like that comic

But the legal aspect didn't take doom3 or other games off of p2p either.

 

I think it would have been better for MS just to release an MD5 sum or similar so that people could easily check the authenticity of the file. Of course there's probably a plethora of dodgy underhand reasons as well so it would never have happened

 

I got it from MS's site - it's their bandwidth and came through pretty fast so I don't care seeing as I plenty of download quota. I don't think that it would've been distributed through the P2P networks nearly as much as it was if they'd just made it easily availible to everyone from the strat though...

 

I dunno why they don't give MD5 hashes on their downloads, or even a CRC hash - they wrote a CRC checker program so why not use it? They probably don't bother though as too many users don't know what one is... but hang on, this is a Network Administrator Installation, therefore the people it's aimed at are supposed to be smart (and know this sort of thing). So come on Microsoft, give us MD5 and CRC hashes on your download pages so we can compare!

 

I managed to get SP2 at 250Kps @ work and there is no way in hell MS's bandwidth could have provided that!!

they should just provide methods of verifying file integrity!

 

Hmm

Some Linux vendors (eg, Knoppix and Slackware ) are using BitTorrent as a means of downloading there distributions.

A user downloads the torrent file from their server or a trusted server and so will receive the correct files and untampered files as required. Its very much a possibility to use as a means of distribution.

I imagine that the reason is more political. I doubt Microsoft want to be seen as supporting the file sharing community due to the kind of press coverage that could cause.

 

i've pulled over 3meg a sec from ms on the righjt connrction

 

as for getting the real deal, if microsoft was seeding the file directly (and you saw a microsoft domain) then youd know it was real. it would be as if they were just hosting the file, but other people would be HELPING thats all... how can that be a bad thing?

and ive noticed ms always have fast downloads.. i guess they can afford it hehehe

im a bit paranoid, i think they spent more time on sp2 trying to stop warez than to fix stuff.

 

yeh so true, clearly they have other motives other than 'fear of tampering', such as not 'supporting' p2p networks, this doesnt surprise me tho, microsoft are dead set against doing their bit to end piracy (at least of their product), hence the introduction of the product activation on xp.

 

In other words, if they were to use Bit-Torrent, you could get the Torrent file off Microsoft's own website. Official releases via BT are secure. You can't tamper with the files as they're all hashed and compared constantly while downloading. Any dodgy parts are discarded and redownloaded.

 

erm?
are people actually agreeing with me?

im confused...

 

It's one way for MS to get an idea of how many illegal copies of XP are around, even which countries are the worst offenders.

Not related to piracy, but MS also stopped magazines distributing their software, including IE6 and DirectX as well as patches, over a year ago.

 

My SP2 download from MS started at over 2.1MByte/s and I have a 3Mbit (375KByte) cable connection. It stayed at over 600KB/s for over a minute too, and I don't think it ever dropped much below 400.

Still not sure whether or not I'm going to install it though. I tried making a slipstreamed install CD, haven't tested it yet lol. Related to that, it was originally a dell oem cd, if I just delete the $OEM$ directory on the disc will it still work but not preload the OEM crap?

 

Use nLite for all your slip-streaming and crap-removing needs. All you have to do is copy the files off your CD onto your HD, and let nLite do the rest. It give you options for everything you could possibly want to remove, plus it lets you create an "answer file" for unattended installation (basically just put the disc in and go do something else while windows installs), plus it lets you overcome MS's change protection, and can install the ...err... modded uxtheme.dll file as standard.

But you might not want to totally remove that $OEM$ directory, because if you play with it (and the answer file) yourself you can make it do some pretty damm cool things... how does having, say, AV software, office and your favourite game installed with XP off a custom DVD sound? You can also have it copy your windows product activation file onto your new install so that you don't have to activate windows agains (so long as you're still using the same hardware).

 

^^ wicked post. thanks a lot man i gotta try that!

 

nLite. There's even an option to have the hacked tcpip.sys file added to the ISO to remove the limit on concurrent connections so you can use your p2p programs again.