microsoft copy protection 101
1 of november, 1999
by johnmichael patrick monty monteith
So, lets say you are Bill Gates. You have been busy dealing with the Justice Department, Linux, and America Online for the past year trying to take a piece of your company. And, really, you have not thought of a new business idea for making big bucks in a while. What would you do? Well, I suppose, if you were the richest man in the universe, you could try to come up with an original new product to sell. But, really, why bother with something risky like that? In the end, if you like to make certain you continue to add to your bank account, you will probably try to make a little more money from what you already have.How would you do that? Funny you should ask. Well, as we all know, the American household is moving quickly toward not having a single computer, but having many computers. Lately home networking has been all the rage, with people setting up network connections to share DSL and cable accounts throughout their homes. Then there are the number of people that have both a home desktop system and a laptop for when they go on the road. Unfortunately, if you happen to be Bill Gates, you realize that most of these people would not loose too much sleep over purchasing a single copy of Microsoft Office, Front Page, and other lovely Microsoft products to install on all of the systems at home. To make matters worse for Bill's short changed pockets, small businesses usually do not feel too much guilt by purchasing only a couple copies of a product that is installed on all systems. Then there are those really huge thieves in the world that let their friends and family borrow their latest copy of Microsoft Office to install on their systems without forking over any extra cash in Redmond's general direction.
So, that is the big buck problem. What is the solution? Well, in the olden days, software companies would use what is called 'copy protection' to keep people from doing such a thing. This would include using some form of verification to make certain that the software was installed and running only on a single computer. Usually this meant some verification through the install media itself. As years went on, copy protection became a dirty word because it meant headaches and annoyances for legal software users as well as the non-legal. As a result, software companies resorted to minimal protection techniques, such as product certification keys (that long string of letters and numbers you type in when installing a product). This is a little bit of a hassle, but only for the first time the product is installed. Unfortunately, this form of copy protection does not keep your average user from installing the software products on multiple systems, or letting a friend borrow the product to install it on their computer. In the end, minimal copy protection was only slightly better than no copy protection at all.
So, once again.. You are Bill Gates.. And you want to make more money.. What would you do?
One would think with all of the nasty press Microsoft has gotten over the past year in regard to their monopolistic practices that they might refrain from doing anything that might upset end users. Especially something as drastic as bringing back the old copy protection techniques. Guess again.
Enter the Microsoft Office 2000 Installation Wizard, the newest form of copy protection on the market. First, it is the most ridiculous and complicated mechanism of installing software a manufacturer has ever invented. So, from that perspective Microsoft has made it more difficult to install the software, so that might deter someone from copying it. But, aside from the ease of use factor, this sucker has a few hidden copy protections that you might not realize. Every so often, the software is going to ask for you to put in the original Office discs, and may even ask you to re-run setup from the disc. It comes under the guize of needing a piece of code that was not originally installed, but after installing this on a few dozen machines (legally, I might add), the number of times this software asks for the discs back is clearly a copy protection mechanism.
For example, you have logged in as 'Joe' on Windows, and install Office 2000. Then your wife 'Mary' logs into Windows and tries running Office 2000. What does it do? It will ask you to run the 'setup.exe' file on the Office 2000 CD. Why? Well, supposedly this is a 'feature' to allow preferences to be set up between multiple users of the software. In fact, it is a way of making certain that 'Mary' is a registered user of the software, and the CD did not travel back with 'Joe'.
But, wait! There's more! It just so happens that asking certain online help questions, or trying to import certain documents, or even doing different standard functions within different Office applications will bring up the need to put the CD back in the drive as well. So, if Joe's Dad borrowed the CD to install on his home computer, at some point it is likely that when dear old Dad is using Office 2000, he will find himself needing to get the CD back from Joe to install another piece of the software.
Clever stuff this copy protection, eh?
From a network administrator perspective, it is perhaps the most annoying thing in the world. When a company spends fifty thousand dollars on a Microsoft Office license to install the product on a couple hundred computers, the last thing said company should have to deal with is running around the business with a CD as people start to use Office functions that are not installed.
But, I should not be so hard on Microsoft Office. After all, this seems to be a problem with all new Microsoft products. In fact, even the old forms of copy protection seem to be getting worse, as some Compaq's we recently purchased would not accept the legal product key for Windows 98 release 2 - or our site license product key - or any product key. (Good thing I was planning on formatting the drive anyway.)
Unfortunately with Microsoft owning the market on so many products, it is impossible for consumer complaints to do anything to change their business practices. Even if we all revolted, sending nasty letters of complaint to Microsoft about their silly new copy protection techniques, it probably would not change the way they do business. After all, we will still need to use their products.
