I've been duped by a pirate!

Life Technology
1

Well, not quite duped, but my willingness to ignore the noble efforts of the government’s crack down on local copy merchants has come back to bite me on the ass.

My sob story is thus:

I bought a Compaq laptop at some exhibition down the World Trade Center last year. I was assured by the salesman it would come with English XP and when I received it a couple of days later, I discovered that it did.

Unfortunately, eight months later my computer caught a virus and I had to reboot using the recovery disks that came with set up. Of course, when I rebooted my computer, everything was in Chinese. I took the laptop back to the shop (on Ba de Lu) but they told me they couldn’t give me back an English version because the police had just launched a piracy crack down.

Obviously, ity was a pirate version of XP I was given with my computer. But now that Ive had to use the Chinese reboot disks is there any way I can change the Chinese XP into English?

2

mandrakelinux.com/en/

3

First of all. They are lying to you. Chinese copy software like rats infest sewers. Basically, it was true that the cops were cracking down, but not so much that they wouldn’t slip you a copy if you were buying a new machine and knew the right “password”. Heck, who in Taiwan actually owns a legit copy of XP anyway? Essentially, you were just mafan to them, and they found a convenient excuse.

Having said that: Now time for my pee-wee plug: Mac OS X rocks! Why? Because you can run FreeBSD UNIX, Mac OS X and Windows XP and Windows 2000 all at the same time … oh yes, and Linux at the same time bady in floating windows all sharing the same IP. Did I mention X11??? Oh la la! Web developers eat-your heart out delight! Choice is good.

I meant to do that.

4

[quote=“jeremy”]First of all. They are lying to you. Chinese copy software like rats infest sewers. Basically, it was true that the cops were cracking down, but not so much that they wouldn’t slip you a copy if you were buying a new machine and knew the right “password”. Heck, who in Taiwan actually owns a legit copy of XP anyway? Essentially, you were just mafan to them, and they found a convenient excuse.

Having said that: Now time for my pee-wee plug: Mac OS X rocks! Why? Because you can run FreeBSD UNIX, Mac OS X and Windows XP and Windows 2000 all at the same time … oh yes, and Linux at the same time bady in floating windows all sharing the same IP. Did I mention X11??? Oh la la! Web developers eat-your heart out delight! Choice is good.

I meant to do that.[/quote]

I own a legit copy of XP, but I run it on three drives. :smiling_imp:

5

I have the opposite of whatever Alleycat said. Don’t need it anymore either.

6

For those of you that run Mac OS X and want to test Web apps. on Windows 2000 or XP, I bought the XP OS pack for this:

connectix.com/products/vpc6m.html

Oh, it is so cool. Yes, I hate Windows, but I like having it confied (for testing purposes) in a “window” ON MY MAC! Oh yes, confined baby!, but fully operational,

7

Are there lots of first person shooter games with Mac?

8

Is that the same as an Internet whack-off? :laughing:

9

Oi, lets get back to the subject here, i.e. me. Firstly, I may be a big nose, but, unless she’s been really sly, my girlfriend isn’t and it was her that took my computer in to those nice boys down on Bade Lu.

Secondy, that’s not what I was wanting to know. as I’m already well aware of Taiwan’s love affair with CD-RWs. What you can tell me though, is if there’s anyway I can turn my Chinese version into English either by the, admittedly unlikely, way of getting in contact with Microsoft, or downloading some kind of patch from somewhere. Help much obliged.

Butternuts

10

No, XP cannot be made to run in another language, unlike Apple’s OS. XP does support different language input methods, but menus only display in the OS language. Forget help from Microsoft: they give bugger all support to legal versions.

11

Go down to Guanghua or get your girl to do a Chinese search online and buy yourself another bogus copy. It’ll cost you less than a “legit” version and will probably engender much less grief in the long run.

The VCD and software pirates will even deliver right to your door. Heck, we get fliers in our mailbox for the stuff…

Now, if you wanna end your computer problems without ventilating your head, get yourself a Mac ? I’m 14 months without a single stinking crash on OS X!

12

Microsoft buy connectix…
zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-985149.html

[quote]Microsoft to buy Connectix assets

By Stephen Shankland and Ian Fried
CNET News.com
February 19, 2003, 12:12 PM PT

Microsoft is acquiring some assets of Connectix, including software that permits Windows to run on a Macintosh and an unreleased server program.
Connectix is best known for its 14-year-old Virtual PC software, but has been trying to recast itself as a maker of server virtualization software, which lets a single machine perform like several independent machines running their own operating systems.

Microsoft, which plans to announce the deal on Thursday, declined to comment on financial terms. Some Connectix employees will join Microsoft, although the company did not provide details.

Representatives of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said Virtual PC for the Mac will continue to be sold and that Microsoft plans to continue developing the software, which has more than 1 million active users. A Microsoft executive said the company did not purchase the software to kill it, nor does Microsoft plan to stop developing its native Macintosh software, such as the Mac OS X version of Office.

“Mac OS X applications (are the) best solution for heavy access to applications (like Office),” said Tim McDonough, director of marketing for Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit. “Virtual PC just takes that to the next level–you can now be compatible with applications that only run on the PC.”

Microsoft also is interested in a server virtualization product that Connectix is developing.

VMware, Connectix’s main rival in the server virtualization arena, has the early lead with a product that has been on the market for several years. VMware is profitable and plans to a new product next quarter that enables two-processor virtual machines instead of just single-processor models.

Dividing servers into several independent “partitions,” each with its own copy of an operating system, was pioneered with mainframes and now is common on Unix servers as well. Intel servers running Windows are beginning to catch up.

Partitioning is useful for consolidating several lower-end machines onto a single larger machine, a cost-saving measure. It’s also good for responding to spikes in processing demands because a partition under a heavy load can quickly be assigned more computing resources than a comparatively idle one. If Microsoft incorporates Connectix’s virtualization technology into Windows, the its software could profit from these abilities.

As recently as the past few months, Microsoft executives said the company wasn’t focused on partitioning. Rather, the company’s strategy involves using a single operating system on each server but placing limits on how much of a computer’s resources, such as memory, a specific application can use.

A Connectix representative declined to comment ahead of the official announcement.

[/quote]

ax

13

XP comes on laptops and some desktops with recovery disks, not the full OS. If they’re genuine recovery disks, I’d try contacting Microsoft in Taiwan and trying to get English recovery disks.

14

Great, you can bet that Vitual PC will go down the toliet now. … Maybe not. It’s funny. It took a non-Microsoft company to make such a beautiful product to integrate (and yet isolate) Windows on a Mac. The small company had to survive by actually selling the technology to “customers”. Now that this product will get lost in the monolith of Microsoft, who knows if it will retain its wonderfulness.

But I move off topic again … bad bad moderator.

15

which is better…

Connectix Virtual PC for PC

or

VMWare on XP Pro

???

Kenneth

16

[quote=“KenTaiwan98”]which is better…
Connectix Virtual PC for PC
or
VMWare on XP Pro
[/quote]
In the end it will probably depend on your own requirements, but I read a number of people prefer VMWare for the reasons that it

  • is faster as it doesn’t “emulate” as much as VPC
  • allows you (at least in newer versions) to install something and then make a snapshot image of that installation that you can copy on machines rather than install the system (admins love this feature for “roll-outs”)
    There were more points discussed, but as I don’t need either so far I don’t really remember…
17

Did you pay for a copy of Win XP when you purchased the laptop? If not than this is your fault, end of story. Go down to FNAC and buy a real licensed English copy, and then contact Microsoft support. If you did pay for a copy of legit Win XP than they should have given you the CD’s for it. If you paid, did not get CD’s, and now they won’t help, than go to the cops and have them go bust the guys. You get what you pay for.

18

Why not just download an illegal version from Kazaa. Microsoft have been duping us all for years. :laughing:

19

I’ve moved one of the most recent posts to a new thead called “Operating System Philosophy” to give this tangent a real home.

20

I don’t think that is going to be of any use, since (unless things have changed recently) Microsoft announced that laptop installations of XP had to be patched by the laptop’s manufacturer – at least as of a few months ago, there was no way to install XP onto a laptop from a standard distribution CD.