SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the its-my-way-or-the-highway-said-the-Borg dept.
An Anonymous Coward belatedly writes:
"Sandisk changed the configuration, beginning in 2012, for all USB drives they make so that in future external USB devices will be seen as physical hard drives. This has been done to meet requirements set by Microsoft for Windows 8 which states that all USB devices must be configured to be recognised as fixed drives (nb. this is possibly related to Windows-to-Go). This has caused havoc for many users as Sandisk drives can no longer be used with Windows Recovery or any program that will only write to USB External devices. Sandisk deleted the support page that described why Sandisk USB drives are now configured as fixed drives, although the blog author includes it in his blog.
Beware any USB pen drive which states it is "Windows 8 certified". The device will not be detectable as an external drive in Windows 8. The HP Recovery Disks page says to avoid any Windows-8-certified USB devices."
One comment on the blog suggests that Sandisk might have reverted to more conventional practices for subsequent USB devices.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @08:58AM
It's probably another subtly veiled plot to make it harder to switch out operating systems on your PCs, etc. Look at tablets! x86? Sure, go ahead, load Linux on it! ARM, otherwise the same? (think MS Surface), NO LUCK BUDDY!! This pattern has been repeated over and over. It's deliberate. If they can slowly get people used to not being able to install OSes of their own, then when they try and make all PCs locked down like tablets, there will be fewer screams.
Try loading Fedora on any tablet besides a google nexus or hacker tablet with an ARM chip. Virtualization and chroot does not count.
This is why tablets are really, really evil.
It's about control. Which is about money.
(Score: 5, Informative) by redback on Monday March 03 2014, @09:29AM
try and do a fresh install of windows 8 on a laptop that came with it when you dont have the restore media.
Windows 8 laptops (and presumably some desktops) have the serial key embeded into the mainboard, and its not on a sticker anywhere on the machine. As a result you cannot use a standard install dvd to install it.
Took me a lot of searching and trial+error to find a disk that could do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @11:44AM
The windows 8 internal key is to prevent people from installing one version of Windows 8 on other machines
WHY anyone would WANT to do such a thing, or than being highly negative evil or just plain callous, I do not know
(Score: 4, Informative) by TK on Monday March 03 2014, @02:35PM
Use case: I buy a laptop with Windows 8 on it. Five days after the warranty ends, the motherboard fries. I say "screw it", I'll just build a new desktop PC. In theory, I still own a valid license for Windows 8. In the bad old days, I would be able to borrow a friend's OS install disk, use the license key printed on the bottom of my laptop, and go on my merry way.
Unfortunately, now I have no way of getting that license key, and am forced to buy a new license/copy. I have a problem with that.
Disclaimer: I would never buy Windows 8.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 3, Informative) by mojo chan on Monday March 03 2014, @02:08PM
As a result you cannot use a standard install dvd to install it.
Yes you can. I have done this with a couple of my own laptops using standard install DVDs (OEM). Maybe you were using retail discs, but it has always been the case that retail copies would not install with OEM keys going back to 95. If you are wondering why it's because OEM copies are supposed to be non-transferable, i.e. the sticker is stuck to the PC's case and dies with it, while retail copies can be moved to new machines and have less copy protection.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by dwywit on Monday March 03 2014, @10:27PM
That's the theory. In practice, OEM Win XP would continue to validate itself on a new install. If on the rare occasion it refused, a phone call would quickly get another validation code after speaking to a MS rep. "Customer's machine suffered a power surge and needed a {mainboard/CPU/memory} replacement".
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday March 03 2014, @11:24PM
I must have made hundreds of those calls... As you say, their Indian staff never ever refused to activate the machine.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:43AM
Same here, didn't get to talk to indian staff though, it's been all keypad presses for at least a couple of years for XP. why would it matter what the disk enumerates as under linux? there aren't any restrictions on running your OS from a USB drive like there are on XP (cant say I've tried installing 7 or 8 so cant comment on those)
(Score: 1) by redback on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:48AM
How do you get past the window asking for a key then?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:57AM
It picks up the key from the BIOS.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by redback on Friday March 07 2014, @09:21AM
Not with a standard disk.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Friday March 07 2014, @11:28AM
I reinstalled my laptop from a standard disc and it picked up the key automatically. My laptop doesn't have an actual sticker on it anyway.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2, Informative) by etherscythe on Monday March 03 2014, @05:56PM
Incorrect, although you sometimes have to work at it a little harder (definitely not as intuitive as previous Windows versions, for sure). Standard Win8 DVDs generally are designed specifically for either Core or Pro edition. It is possible to change the source files so that it does not automatically choose the edition for you. One easy way to do this is to use RMPrepUSB [rmprepusb.com] with the Easy2Boot [easy2boot.com] package - it has xml files that pass parameters to the ISO on a bootable flashdrive that bypass this, and can be configured with a number of options. Alternatively you can remaster the ISO if you've got e.g. UtraISO.
There is also a utility [startpage.com] for retrieving the key from the BIOS in case it is not picked up automatically by Windows. Just make sure you check the MSDM key option or you will get the temporary install key rather than the proper BIOS key.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Monday March 03 2014, @11:31AM
Tablets aren't evil. Software creators that try to force pre-selected computing paradigms in order to work around their sh*tty software are evil. Actually, let's keep subjective things like good and evil out of this.
They aren't evil. They just suck.
This is a case of not being able to write software, so using your leverage to force hardware manufacturers dance around your incompetence. And it's pathetic.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 03 2014, @05:20PM
Sorry, but you're wrong: they are indeed evil. Let's look at the definition of "evil", from Wiktionary:
Many of these points apply to this situation. Forcing a pre-selected computing paradigm in order to work around shitty software (or worse, using your leverage to force hardware manufacturers to dance around your imcomptence) is undesirable, and demonstrably harmful. It's obviously a bad practice. It's also unpleasant. You could even argue that it produces or threatens sorrow or distress. I might even go so far as to say their practices are morally corrupt.
Any of these meets the definition of "evil". So yes, they really are evil. Let's call a spade a spade, instead of trying to euphamize things. Microsoft and the tablet makers really are evil, according to the very definition of the word.