Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

The offer was free for those that has a fake CD that had to be sent back to Microsoft along with a full report on purchasing details.. If you have a pre-installed windows with a VLK licence then you ended up with very little discount on a genuine item... (there's not real evidence for them to prosecute without physical evidence..and the discounted price is actually more than an OEM copy)

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Reactos is NOT Linux + Wine, it is reverse engineered NT style kernel + Wine.

Yes, Wine is wher the higher level APIs come from, but instead of layering on top of Linux, the aim is am NT style kernel, and ultimately, it seems, the abilty to use Windows drivers.


Personally, I think MS will let them get so far, then drop so many obstacles in their path, skating just on the right side of avoiding anti-competition problems. By the time "XP ressurected" gets anywhere near finished, it may even suit Microsoft's purpose if there is a non-MS alternative for Vista or Windows 7 refusers.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Nor am I... Ok, yes I am. :o:

Yeah, but XP has a load more bloat. Don't get me wrong, I love XP [especially XP64 :D], but it's more bloated than it needs to be. And don't get me started on the registry...! For example, there's loads of stuff in there just in case you happen to connect some obscure bit of equipment that the manufacturer doesn't feel like providing proper [or any] support for.

Having said that, at the moment I'm still working on automating the install & the adding of my various settings & customisations, & testing in a VirtualBox VM. [the latest version is really cool, especially if you have a CPU that supports Hardware Virtualisation] Once I get to a state that I deem acceptable, I'll finally get round to putting my new hardware in. Then I'll work on getting rid of more of the bloat. :D

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

That is really interesting. If it does mean it can run windows devices and a lot of windows programs in emulation then ReactOS could very well be a way forward.

I have just installed the latest build in virtualbox and it literally took 3 minutes. The image is less than 26 meg. I may well try it on the main system to see if it runs all the drivers . I know it is Alpha software but so far I like it

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Sounds really interesting. I must grab that later and get the VM fired up.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

It did not install on my second machine dunno why it just loaded setup files then nothing perhaps it was a chipset issue but they think it will enter beta this year so perhaps then.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

How are you liking the latest version of VirtualBox compared to VMware? I know you were using Workstation, whereas I was using Player, but I think VirtualBox feels a lot quicker than VMware.

If you're in the mood for a bit of OS experimentation, have a go with this:
MenuetOS. 64bit OS that fits on a floppy. :D

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I prefer VMware tbh

Will have a look at the other :)