PDA

View Full Version : Microsoft DRM locks Office 2003 users out of their own documents



Dr. C
December 19th, 2009, 03:31 AM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/dec/18/microsoft-drm-office-problems
Ouch. Time to give thanks for Ubuntu, FLOSS and especially GPL v3

phrostbyte
December 19th, 2009, 03:33 AM
DRM sucks.

I hope we all know this already! 8-[

Psumi
December 19th, 2009, 03:34 AM
*golf clap for microsoft*

pwnst*r
December 19th, 2009, 03:57 AM
meh.

Frak
December 19th, 2009, 04:04 AM
whatever.

Gizenshya
December 19th, 2009, 04:07 AM
Their whole certificate program is crap. I hate it to no end... though I will refrain from ranting...

It blocks perfectly normal and popular programs, like my favorite overclocking software (RivaTuner).

It also caused an error in my Gears of War game, and after googling it, it happened to EVERYONE's Gears of War game. The certificate expired.

What most people don't realize is that since they implemented that software, they can deactivate or alter ANY software on your computer at their will... since all software is now forced to use their certificate system. And all certificates have expiration dates that must be updated every so often. If you don't connect to the internet and get updated certificates for everything (which are manual download, btw-- the Gears of War one came with a patch), then you won't be able to play your game, or use your software, or view/edit your files (only applies to certain types of DRM-protected files). Anyone who wanted to play Gears of War for a while had to

The occasional small software firm forgetting to update was bound to happen. But popular program companies, and game manufacturers... and now Microsoft itself have all failed at some point.

They are basically trying to make Windows like a gigantic iphone- they want a piece of every action ($$$) that happens on a machine that happens to also have their software installed. The time limit on them is another unethical issue. Microsoft (last time I checked) forced all who wanted one for their product to pay $500 (for small things, maybe more for more popular programs). They pay this every year (or however long the period is) forever. But, they won't pay it forever obviously. It is an underhanded way of forcing people to use newer versions of software, by simply disabling the older stuff (because after a time it is no longer worth it to pay the money). And people using older software decreases profits for newer software. More money for M$, less freedom for us.

They added all this certificate crap in background updates, btw. One day everything worked like a champ... the next day, part of my programs had errors and wouldn't work.

The whole situation is screwed. I spent forever finding a way to get my programs to work, finally finding a chinese program that runs at boot that fixed some of the issues with unsigned programs and expired "certificates."

damn... I still ranted. well.. I assure you that this one is shorter than the one I was originally going to write :p

Frak
December 19th, 2009, 04:40 AM
Their whole certificate program is crap. I hate it to no end... though I will refrain from ranting...

It blocks perfectly normal and popular programs, like my favorite overclocking software (RivaTuner).

It also caused an error in my Gears of War game, and after googling it, it happened to EVERYONE's Gears of War game. The certificate expired.

1. You don't have to sign your programs with a certificate.
2. That has nothing to do with RivaTuner.
3. Blame Epic, not Microsoft. Considering the fix was to set your clock back in time to an earlier date, the problem was most likely a malformed timestamp. That's something Epic should have caught, and is not the fault of Microsoft. Microsoft can not just "turn off" applications in your computer. Not all software is signed against a CA.