Microsoft Blocking Wine Users From Downloads Site

IamTheRealMike writes "In January, Microsoft announced a new anti-piracy initiative called Genuine Advantage. From this summer onwards all users of Microsoft Downloads will be required to validate using either an ActiveX control or a standalone tool. Yesterday Ivan Leo Puoti, a Wine developer, discovered that the validation tool checks directly for Wine and bails out with a generic error when found. This is significant as it's not only the first time Microsoft has actively discriminated against users running their programs via Wine, but it's also the first time they've broken radio silence on the project."

Lost another one to FF

Is Firefox secretly paying for this great, new marketing strategy?

the good news

Beer users still have no problems getting to the site.

bah

Didn't they do something like this with the Trillian protocol on MSN Messenger? They hate third parties.

Re:bah

I hate parties with no Wine...

Re:bah

Yahoo! has been known to block Trillian users [zdnet.co.uk] too, as well as AOL [com.com].

Re:bah

They made that change so the login was more secure (ssl instead of md5 hashes)

Re:bah

From digging down in the thread:

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:45:11 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> In any case, at least from a technical point of view, going around such
> test ought to be fairly simple

I don't think we want to go there. I demonstrated a way of checking for
Wine to Rob last night that we really cannot fix or workaround, and if I
can think of it they certainly can too.

Basically if we start integrating workarounds into Wine, it'll lead to an
arms race we cannot possibly win. Better to ensure our users don't need
anything from that website.

thanks -mike

I'm inclined to agree with this assessment.

Re:bah

Better to ensure our users don't need anything from that website.

Well spoken. The same goes for microsoft as well: think about all that effort they put in to all that code over the years to break other software and twist standards and spy on you and keep you from doing anything they don't want... and then think of how much better windows could possibly be if they had spent all that time making the product more functional and fixing all the damned bugs.

Boy can we learn from this... oh wait, we allready have.

I sure as hell don't use windows or windows based apps so news like this is just funny to me when I look at the triple digit uptime on most of the 5000 web servers we run from my own gentoo workstation.

Re:bah

I don't see that this is necessarily discrimination. I would think that if they wanted to fail on Wine, and they had a way of knowing it was Wine (they do, the registry key) it would be trivial to fail in all cases.

However, they don't. They only fail when Wine is emulating earlier versions of Windows, which might be a problem with Wine's emulation. Barring further evidence, I would look at the Wine check as a means to count Wine users, not to block them.

Re:bah

Except that MS already has a history of not allowing their programs to run on other operating systems and throwing generic error messages. You remember DR-DOS/win3.1 right?

Wasn't that judged illegal?
Now if they're doing the same thing with office or their games, and they're refusing to run on wine...

Re:bah

Try again. 1st Yea a case could be made for windows media player and a few things like that but what about office. I bought office 2000. Outlook 2000 had a bug in that if you get more 2 Gig worth of email it will crash and no alow any changes including deleting old messages. So you have to get some utils from were microsoft.com to fix they file and to provent it in the 1st place again you have to go to microsoft.com. So by proventing wine from working they are proventing my from getting import updates and bug fixes for a program I bought and paid for. So much for the free gift idea.

unsupported != deliberately crippled.

"Unsupported configuration" merely means "I'm not going out of my way to make it work for this configuration. If it happens to work, it works, if it happens to fail, it fails. Too bad. I'm not going out of my way to do anything about it." But what Microsoft actually does when they misuse the word "unsupported" is to deliberately cripple the configuration, adding EXTRA code to look for that configuration and deliberately fail on it. (As they did in this case) They go out of their way to ensure it fails.

That means "unsupported" is not telling the whole story. It's deliberate deception.

Re:bah

Trillan can still connect, but it cannot use the HTTP protocol to get through firewalls as the M$ version of the client does. In a corporate environment it would force the user to go and download M$ Messenger.

Re:bah

This may be proof that Bill Gates is a liar...

From interview: [go.com]

JENNINGS: Everybody I talked to seems to, particularly if they are young, seems to think that open sourcing is important and that among the reasons it is important is that it enables them to run more secure systems. Is that true from your point of view?

GATES: Actually no, but that is the kind of competition that we have. Is that they will innovate in that space, we will innovate in our space. And in fact, we do a lot of work to make sure that these things can inter-operate so that a company can have a mix of Microsoft products, Unix products, Mainframe products, and then each time they do a project they can look and say - is the Microsoft solution best? Is the other solution best? And so there will just be a lot of choices there, no one approach is going to replace the other. (emphasis above added)


Now compare the above with this: [winehq.com]

" If you visit the download center with IE you get an activex control, but if you try with Firefox, you'll have to download a little program, that returns a code you have to copy into the download page, to get access to the download you selected. By quickly looking at the program, I noticed it looks for a registry key, this key is... SOFTWARE\Wine\Wine\Config the wine configuration key. the Windows Genuine Advantage program press release says that in the second half of 2005, all users connecting to the Microsoft download center or to windows update will have to validate their copy of windows. Interestingly if you run the validation program on wine, and the version of windows you're emulating is prior to 2000 or is windows server 20003, you get a message saying a validation code couldn't be found, because of technical difficulties or because you're running an unsupported operating system."

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

I agree, they have a perfect right to do this. It is interesting news, however.

A valid and working code is returned if the version is set to xp.

So it doesn't even really stop you.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

I've got to say that they DON'T have a right. I was a victim of their DR-DOS isn't compatible trick. I was forced to go buy Dos 6.0 and then it ATE MY DATA! I became rather negative towards this convicted monopolist when I found out they had done that on purpose!

Oh - did you notice that last sentence - CONVICTED MONOPOLIST. They have to play by a different set of rules.

If they are selling a package - say "Office" and someone wants to run that on another platform, then MS doesn't really have the right to restrict where it runs. They may imply they do through EULA's, etc. but this would like be easily proved as monopolist behavior - and oh yeah - they've been convicted of that already!

This behavior fits that model EXACTLY!

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".

No, they are not. Your assessment is wrong.

If I purchase Office, run it under WINE and want to update it, I'm screwed -- yet I am a legit customer of Microsoft.

Considering you can't really update WINE thru WUS, WTF is the point?

-Charles

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

Microsoft has every right to block someone from updating Office when it's being run from a Non-Microsoft Operating System...

No, they don't. Read the EULA and it says NOTHING of the kind.

I quote from the MS Word 2003 EULA found at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/2/5/12538 ba0-3d24-4f00-aab1-dd9ff4aacfc9/en_client_eula.pdf

"Installation and use. You may:
(a) install and use a copy of the Software on one personal computer or other device; and
(b) install an additional copy of the Software on a second, portable device for the exclusive use of the primary
user of the first copy of the Software."

If you can point out in the EULA where I missed it and there is a statement saying I have to run this software under MS Windows, I'd appreciate it.

Until such time, I have the right to run the software under any OS I want.

-Charles

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

How many people are using Linux and a legitimate copy of Office?

As long as the answer is > 0 does it matter? This is the same logic that supports a MS tax on new machine purchaes. From a business standpoint is this anyway to treat a customer?

Why use Microsoft Office at all when you have accepted the concept of Open Source Software? OpenOffice does the same stuff and performs significantly better under Linux than anything running under Wine or Crossover.

For a number of reasons my work box is a dual booted box running XP and Linux. In order to use email here I must use Outlook (corporate rules). To avoid playing the reboot to get my mail game I'm running MS-Office under Crossover. The copy is legally licensed as part of our site license (we even counted it as a seperate install from the one that runs on the windows partition). Please tell me why I should not be allowed to update Office.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

It's not like their restricting you from running Windows on a competing platform.

What does this have to do with anything, and who said this is what was happening?

I read the article, and unless I missed something, this is NOT the complaint.

I don't use WINE to run Windows(c) OS, I run it to run some (work required) Office apps and some games.

The Office apps were purchased and presumably have rights to be updated the same as any other user of Office apps. Same with the games.

But Microsoft is saying that, because I am using a valid purchased version of their software on an OS other than Windows (by using WINE) they will not allow updates from their servers.

This is the mirror image of their antitrust loss - they were accused of using their market possition (monopoly) in the OS to maintain and grow their market position in other markets, while here they are using their market possition in the other areas to maintain their possition in the OS market.

You say you were a victim of the DR-DOS 'trick', where a competiting product was specifically checked for and then bogus 'error' messages were given, or the applications just didn't work as expected - not because of a problem with DR-DOS, but because the app was PROGRAMMED to work differently when used with DR-DOS. Like is happening here?

You say you worked at WordPerfect. Isn't that the company that worked with Microsoft to be compatable and competitive, then Microsoft changed the APIs and didn't publish them to competitors of their Office (specifically Word(c)) and royally screwed WordPerfect over?

Novell - didn't I hear their networking applications were deliberately 'broken' by Microsoft so that Microsofts' market share of networking would not be threatened? Like here?

They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".

No, they are just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a Microsoft Windows OS customer first (even if you are a valid Microsoft Office customer)." Very different than what you posted.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

If you can hack around this, more power to you, but MS is under no legal or ethical obligation to support your efforts.

Of course, there's a difference between not supporting your efforts, "accidentally" breaking your efforts, and actively trying to stop your efforts from working. This appears to be a pretty clear case of the third item in that list.

Daniel

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

The license for any non-OS product from Microsoft says nothing about having to run it on Windows. They assume you will, but WINE breaks that assumption. They are just pissed off about it... they may actually get themselves in trouble by not allowing people who paid for their products to update them. Just because somebody can run microsoft office on Linux doesn't mean it was pirated.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

Obviously IANAL...

Seems to me that if such terms are in a license, then you don't really NEED any trial to speak of to get a conviction for antitrust. All you need is Exhibit A, the license that *ties* the two products together.

Of course the product that benefits from the tying (the OS) is itself a monopoly. But given that Office is also effectively a monopoly, though it hasn't been declared so in court, doesn't this qualify as a "monopoly maintenance" device, which is also illegal under antitrust.

I believe Microsoft is justified in not giving support for its products running in an unsupported environment. But to restrict patch availability to a product based on the OS running underneath is kind of like a car parts store requiring your Ford registration before you can buy Ford accessories.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

I run Microsoft Office under CodeWeavers' Crossover Office, both of which are licensed (read: I paid for it), so yes, I find the news disturbing.

It also appears to be a very shortsighted move on their part while under a worldwide antitrust microscope.

Let this be a lesson to you...

Don't drink and download.

To be fair though...

It isn't like there is anything particularly ugly about what Microsoft is doing. I mean, they really don't have an obligation to provide downloads of wine users, who are using a (somewhat) compatible competing system rather than theirs.

I use wine to run some things, and I have not paid a dime to microsoft, so I don't exactly expect them to provide me with any services.

Re:To be fair though...

What if you have a valid purchased Office running on Wine and want to get updates for it?

I can understand Microsoft not supporting Windows downloads for Wine, but they should support Office downloads for Office, regardless of how it is run.

Re:To be fair though...

From what I read of the Office '03 licence [microsoft.com], I didn't see that sort of clause there.

Not the first time.

Windows 3.1 deliberately refused to run under DR-DOS, the competitor to MS-DOS at the time. The deliberately vague error was caused by a block of obfuscated code--google for DR-DOS AARD.

So, it's working as designed..

If it's checking to see if you have genuine windows, and it bails out because you're running WINE under Linux, then it is doing it's job correctly.

Wouldn't we be complaining if it *wasn't* working right?

It is, if obfuscation is part of the design

I think what many object to is that they're being vague, at best, about what is the source of the "problem". If a message came up saying something like "Windows emulators are not supported for this operation", then there would be little room to complain. However, this is not the case, and many, myself included, suspect that MS is deliberately being vague about it, rather than having the courage (and smarts) to just be upfront about it.

Re:So, it's working as designed..

You are confusing things here.

Microsoft may have the right to refuse Windows upgrade downloads, but why do they refuse downloads of "productivity" apps like MS Office suite? As long as the software application is duly licensed, what right does Microsoft have to force the user to run it under "Genuine Windows" only?

Advantage Microsoft?

My question is who gains from using the "Genuine Advantage"? I don't see how that would change my Windows expirience on a day-to-day basis.

Re:Advantage Microsoft?

If you look on the Microsoft Genuine Advantage [microsoft.com] site, the focus isn't nerds stealing single copies; would you validate your Windows if you were the one that hacked it? It's the chop shops and small sellers that are cheating their customers by loading illegal copies of MS software but still charging the user as if it's legal. A non-techie consumer that got ripped off was the victim of a crime by the business that sold them the computer and misrepresented the installed software.

Re:Dead software walking...

Realistically, Microsoft isn't going to put themselves out of business, with this stupid trick or any other. They'll be around, and be a damn big company, for a veeery long time.

What I do hope and halfway expect will happen is that they'll find themselves "in trouble" by Wall Street standards -- steadily declining profits turning into steady losses, with a corresponding implosion in stock proce -- and that this will force them to become a good company making a good product at a good price in order to gain their customers' trust and support. It's happened before; if someone had told me 20 years, hell, 10 years, ago that IBM in the 21st c. would be considered one of the good guys, I'd have laughed my ass off.

Re:While I disagree with the action

No, they don't. As a CONVICTED MONOPOLIST they are explicitly prohibited from forcing owners of one of their products (such as Office) to use another of their products (specifically Windows).

Mixed signals

"At Microsoft, security is our number one priority. You should turn off ActiveX controls and click 'no' to any dialog boxes. Service Pack 2 adds protection against these ActiveX controls, and with Windows Server 2003 ActiveX controls and other harmful content are blocked by default. This is for your own safety."

"Ignore all that, turn ActiveX on again, else you won't be able to download from us!"

What the hell?

Re:Mixed signals

No. You don't understand. They originally put ActiveX (and other syware/malware) in MS Windows so they could spy on you and crack into your machine.

They've realised that other crackers (not employed by MS) were using it too much, so they are now making it so only they can take over your machine with ActiveX. Makes perfect sense to me.

BTW, I'm being totally serious.

Its Microsofts Right

Unless you can prove you have a license, they dont have to give you squat.

Having wine installed inst a license to use their DLL's. And in some
cases, even Microsoft applications you have *purchased*. Read your EULA's closely people.

Sure, its irritating as hell, and will make updating to run newer applicatinos a pain, but well within their legal rights.

Best solution is not to have to run wine if at all possible.

yet another lawsuit waiting

Sadly, the only people that are gaining anything, even when MS loses anti-trust cases, are the lawyers. I don't see this one getting that far, though.

I'm guessing that the only real downloads a Wine user would be making are updates for Office, correct? I'm drawing a blank on what else it could be. I haven't had the time to read my MS office EULA yet, but I'm guessing it doesn't specifically call out that it has to be run on Windows. That doesn't mean that MS has to provide you support if you're not. This is an automated incarnation of what has happened for years:
me> I need support
support> You're computer case isn't blue, is it?
me> yes, it is, thanks for asking
support> We don't support our software on computers with blue cases. Thanks for calling.
me> argh!
I think we've all been in that boat at one point or another.

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/ [syslog.org]

DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run.

It's just the same idea of 'compatibility' for Microsoft - changes are intended to break competitor's products.

So...

Wouldn't (shouldn't?) this violate some sort of anti-whatever judgement they've been slapped with somewhere?

This was the only way for Bill...

...to support his childish claims about OSS software having poor interoperability [slashdot.org].

For me it's just another good reason to stay well clear from a software company with such business tactics.

Dr. DOS

Reminds me of this...

How MS played the incompatibility card against DR-DOS [theregister.co.uk]

Bad because....

It's bad because they, under the guise of anti-piracy, (which some may compare to anti-terrorism initiatives) blocked WINE, and made it seem as though it was a pirated product.

To my knowledge WINE is an emulator for windows, so that windows programs may be run without purchasing windows. It is NOT some sort of cracked version of windows. We all know Microsoft hates losing the bling bling, but few linux users are likely to front said bling on top of the cost for the windows program. It comes out to probably 100-2000$ depending on the program, and the cost of Windows Xp Home(which i use because it only costs 100 bucks for easy typing).

That said, WINE shouldn't be reliant on Microsoft for updates. The WINE community should fix it(if it is a bug), no handout thank-you. And Microsoft is not responsible for WINE, they should just plainly state "WINE is not a supported Microsoft product and therefore does not get updates"

Putting this under some cover is bad, and shows microsofts(already known) business tendancies, to be sneaky and mean.

Sneaky-snake!

Re:Bad because....

What planet are you from? These updates are not for wine, they are for MS products. Just because the product in question is running on wine doesn't mean it should not have access to updates.

Maybe MS Should Sell Updates to Wine Users

I've seen a post or two here complaining that they bought MS software and they can run it on any platform they choose.

Well, of they can. This move by MS won't stop that. They didn't buy perpetual upgrades, though, and MS didn't agree to provide perpetual upgrades at no cost to anyone.

So, what are people bitching about? Maybe they'd be happier if MS offered piad subscriptions to updates to non-MS users?

It Had to Happen Eventually

I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. When I first installed Windows Media Player 6 a few years back, I was surprised to see that it was actually downloading codecs from MS. I figured they would have blocked non MS clients from doing this way back then. I can't say this comes as a shock.

On the flipside, I wonder if this means that WINE has moved from the part where MS ignored them and will begin laughing at them. :) I also wonder how much code from the WINE [winehq.org] project (and probably DOSBox [sourceforge.net]) made it into Windows XP for backwards compatibility? ;P I think DOSBox does a much better job of running old DOS games on XP than XP does.

You have to figure that MS bought Connectix for their virtualization technology so that they could actually dump backwards compatibility from the core OS and just use limited virtualization for better backward compatibility. At the same time by dumping all that cruft from the core OS, they can make the OS something more advanced. XP was a pretty big leap from Win2K in that direction (dropping support for CPUs below P II for example). I would have to guess that Longhorn is going to be an even bigger jump which is why it's taking so long.

What if I DO have a copy of their software?

A lot of people are saying MS has the right to restrict downloads to people who own their software. I agree that they are liable to their customers, but some of their customers run wine.

I have a legal copy of Windows which is currently unused. I don't like dual booting. I don't like running under an x86 emulator. I like using Wine (or commercial variants of it) if I absolutely need to run win32 software. At the very least, my license to Windows should entitle me to downloads from MS--not whether or not I am using Windows to download them. They should at least give you the opportunity to enter in your product key. I'd still feel like this was obnoxious & be pissed at them, but at least people in a similar situation would be able to download programs from them.

It's not done...

... `till WINE won't run.

Good old Microsoft.
Same as it ever was.

IE + Wine

Just tested downloading using Internet Explorer running under Wine.
Installed the ActiveX component, and downloaded just fine.

Tried with the AntiSpyware product of theirs.

They're already doing it

I had to go through their process the other day when downloading a Windows Mobile SDK and eMbedded Visual C++. Seems pretty dumb, because it's not exactly like you can get an illegal copy of Windows Mobile. Fortunately, I have a legal copy of Win2K, but I did have to dig up my serial number...

At best it's an inconvenience for me

For the past four years I've been managing a couple of Windows 2K Server farms from a Linux workstation. The simple combination of rdesktop and a WM that has virtual desktops makes for a pretty kickass KVM-a-like with a full workstaton behind it.

So just yesterday I'm at Microsoft's site grabbing a copy of Sonar, a file replication monitoring tool, and it wants to immediately verify my copy of Windows. But I'm grabbing the file from my workstation because the machines it will be applied to don't have direct access to the internet. Luckily for now, I can choose to skip the verification step, but eventually I know I won't be able to.

I would imagine that my scenario is far from unique. It certainly isn't deceptive in any way, but I've got the feeling that it won't be an option for me in the near future.

Active X and Security ....

You know, the thing that caught my eye the most in the summary was that they use an Active X control to check.

My biggest problem with the way that Microsoft does a lot of things is this damned Active X stuff. In order to secure your system, everyone says turn this crap off because it's a huge gaping hole.

In order to do anything with Microsoft's site, you need to set your security settings to abysmal in order to use the damned site. I'm sure a more Windows-savvy user can set it up to have these settings off and still use this stuff.

I find it annoying and most people probably end up leaving themselves with insecure settings so they can get their security updates.

Silly.

Pay close attention Mono users!

This is a sign of things to come for Mono.

Sure, I know that you can do without Genuine Microsoft binaries for much of Mono, but being blocked from having updates sure hurts the compatibility argument to Mono. (ie. updates to the .Net project can easily be withheld and apps written on the MS platform can be forced to link against them)

I know that many Wine libraries are needed for the Forms libaries and this will be a blow for dll updates and changes there.

If Microsoft tries to enforce their patent protections on top of this kind of thing, it will be game-over for the new Gnome development on Mono. Score: Microsoft 1, Linux Desktop -1

Too funny

"Windows Genuine Advantage already helps protect millions of Windows users from an inferior computing experience, viruses and other vulnerabilities that can result from counterfeit software."

You should only have the inferior computing, viruses and vulnuerabilities that result from Genuine Windows products. Don't be fooled by immitations.

Wait there's more....

it also isn't the first time . . .

microsoft has used "generic error" messages to discriminate against users of software it doesn't like.

After winning awards and besting MS-DOS in virtually every comparison, DR-DOS had the rug pulled out from under it when Microsoft released a beta version of Windows 3.0 that detected DR-DOS and gave bogus error messages. [winnetmag.com]

print the article while you can. now that the records from the caldera trial have been destroyed [ksl.com] (along with the copy of the beta they managed to find for the trial, no doubt), microsoft will undoubted resume claiming it's an urban legend, if they have't already, and all mention of this little bit of history is rapidly vanishing from the virtual world as well. pathetic.

the destruction of the caldera trial documents has been mentioned on slashdot once [slashdot.org] or twice [slashdot.org], and i commented on it both [slashdot.org] times [slashdot.org]. pity nobody cared. oh well. history repeats itself again.

Did anyone RTFP?

This all may be true, but I have my doubts that they're checking for Wine specifically. And, am I the only one who bothered reading further? Here's the first reply:

When I run the validation program on my genuine Win2k system, I get the message saying a validation code couldn't be found because of technical difficulties or because I'm running an unsupported operating system. When using IE and thus the ActiveX control there is no problem and my Windows is recognized as genuine. Looks to me the standalone validation program is seriously broken....

"You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO."

But please flame me if I'm wrong;)

Short anti-trust story from the past

In high school and college I had a part time business cutting notches in the ends of cardboard tubes. The company my dad worked for made paper for thermal copying machines (long time ago). To force customers to use only that brand of paper, the copy machine maker built little metal pegs onto the hubs that held the roll, and they wanted my dad's company to cut notches in the tubes that the paper was rolled on, which would engage the pegs. My dad's company didn't have an accurate way to cut these notches, so through some wangling he got me the job as a subcontractor. For a while I used a table saw with a homemade jig to align the tubes. Later I designed a motorized notch-cutting machine and had a retired machinist down the road build it for me.

Little did I know at the time that I was probably helping them violate anti-trust laws. But it sure did help put me through college.

The moral is that this type of practice isn't limited to the software business or to the "big boys".

We're here to protect you

Brilliant move, Microsoft. Now some dweeb living in his mom's basement will write an ActiveX virus that creates the Wine key in the registry, then exits.

The next time you go to Windows Update, whether you run Wine or not...