Hi all at MDL, I had a discussion with a friend about the leaking of Windows 8 so early. Would that be a new MS strategy? My personal opinion is that MS will benefit from it, just by following posts on sites like MDL (and many others) and learn from it? I hope they will do (functional). What do you think about this strategy? Is it true?
Not too sure. it would create a buzz but the brilliant guys on this forum would also get that much more time to crack it. Win7 was broken comprehensively within a year, win8 may get broken in 6 months.
No sense in creating solution till we can see the licencing for the non-VL builds and keys associated with default or activation keys
Several months back, many of the Windows Beta testers were complaining about the leaks. What they were implying (and some just outright stated) was that the "real" beta testers were no longer needed. Intentionally leaked version automatically garnered tens of thousands of "new" beta testers whose additional testing completely overshadowed that of the "real" testers. They felt like they'd been thrown under the bus. Their feelings were hurt.
If I were MS, I'd make sure it leaked. What better way to test something than in the hands of hard core users. As far as "cracking" the OS, I'd love to know how many "illegal" version of the OS are running. I'm guessing it is a small % of all in use.
I think it wasn't intentional, they're doing what they can to prevent it, but there's so much people involved that it's hard to control. I do think that they we're prepared for the leak with the feature lock stuff. PS: I'm also waiting for the Ubuntu 11.04 leak, lol
The only real closed beta was Windows me and look how it turned out. All the Ms Win 7 testers got it for free not a big deal
Also, I think there's another reason why they would leak Windows 8, testing anti-piracy methods. The people release the thing to activate windows 8, but by RTM the m$ team would patch it.
Ms will lock it down at rtm escrow so beta hacks and keys wont work anymore need new ones for final copy
If they did the hard job of making the builds trackable, why can't they just make all the 7850 installs unusable after it gets leaked?
Generally I think Microsoft don't want their stuff to leak. Its their biggest source of revenue and they need to protect that, so millions of people with leaked copies would hurt their business... On the other hand, there was something really strange with Windows 7. I'm almost sure that was planned by Microsoft at some point, it was getting crazy, and builds were leaking like every week...! However, I don't think they want Windows 8 to leak at all. They've changed all the watermarks, and there is no codename either, which I think is to stop leaks as well, (who calls their OS Microsoft Confidential? ). They don't want this to leak. I reckon they will try harder to get feedback, besides an M3 build will be given to developers at PDC, and there will apparently be 2 betas and RC for them to get feedback.. All those excuses about MS leaking on purpose to get feedback and fix their OS is nonsense imo...
That happened after the public beta, everybody already have a copy of win7 on hand, so MS doesn't really care about new leaks; also by that time, beta testers, technet subscribers and many other people are getting periodic releases, there is simply no way to control over it.
I believe some leaks are intentional. Everyone using one of these leaked builds is by default providing telemetry to Microsoft via the 'Customer Experience Improvement Program' including and not limited to: -Windows usage behavior including installed and used applications. -File and folder structures on your computer, including the number of filetypes and type of file in folders. -System-specific information, such as hardware, devices, drivers on your computer. -System statistics, such as Boot times, driver/service/application start-up and stop times, time taken to show menu's or applications, ETW reports, USB statistics, most used applications and allot more... -System Configuration, such as what options or components you enable or disable and how often they are utilized. Very early during the Windows 7 development the Kernel Dispatch lock was rewritten and removed entirely (that was a big thing since it had been there since 1995 and many attempts had been made to remove it before without success), the leaking of that build (I forget the number) helped Microsoft know really early into the development if it had substantial performance improvements in the real word (which it did) without relying on lab testing and allowed the removal of several other kernel locks. I highly recommend leaving CEIP enabled as it does not collect any personal information and defiantly helps Microsoft know the performance and characteristics of Windows on your machine and 100% helps improve the performance of all sorts of menus and components or tailor Windows better to suit your usual configuration. Heres hoping more leaks occor to garner better feedback
Of course it is, how should we know other than MS telling us... But the question itself is interesting - and IMO this isn't so unplausible. Creating a hype for all kinds of products works with Apple, so why shouldn't it work for MS? We've seen some frenzies about new OS (Vista, 7....) and with Win8 this even got worse, considering what was/is going on in the forums...and didn't one MS official once say: Better they use pirated MS software than bought software from any other company?