Re: DirectX 9 SDK, Microsoft have got balls....

["Zow" Terry Brugger <zow () llnl gov>]

> I wouldn't leap to the statement the original poster has
> a "questionable" copy of the beta.

Indeed - I haven't checked the latest MSDN, but I wouldn't be the least bit 
surprised if it was in there.

> What I *do* find intersting is that MS is placing code on your
> computer that could cause it to NOT FUNCTION and thus cause
> financial loss, damages to your own intellectual property and
> other bad things.
>
> If this was anyone other than MS, it would be called a VIRUS.

Well, just to get caught up on semantics, I believe that the term you're 
looking for is Trojan horse. The defining property of a virus is that it 
duplicate itself for propagation. Furthermore, it can't really be considered a 
Trojan, as they explicitly disclose what it is going to do. A term for this 
type of software popped up years ago in the shareware community: disableware.

> What if the person doesn't want to use Beta 2, or they have
> decided to change directions at their company and thus can't
> spend the time on Beta 2?   Are you saying then that MS has a
> right to nuke a machine and cause a sysadmin to spend time and
> money re-installing the software?

That's exactly what they're saying. Having played with some of MS's other Beta 
1 products in the past, I can see why they're doing this:

1. If you aren't really dedicated to the DirectX platform and are planning to 
release software that is tied to DX9's latest and greatest features, there's 
really no reason to install it.

2. Being a Beta1, it's undoubtably very buggy, and MS doesn't want this 
software floating around for years giving them a bad name. The Mozilla project 
did/does the same thing with their Beta releases for the same reason.

3. It's being distributed for developers, and in my experience developing 
something at as low a level as DirectX for Windows, you had better plan on 
rebuilding your development machine a few times a year. (Okay, it's been a few 
years, so things might have changed, but that's just my dated experience.)

4. If push comes to shove, I bet you can just set the clock back.

> Will MS, pay the beta org losses?
>
> hmmm,   I see tort written all over this against MS

Well, they warned you and you went ahead and installed it anyway. Furthermore, 
nobody's forcing you to install it. If it was required for the latest IE 
security patch or something, I would have a problem with it, but I haven't 
seen anything indicating that this is anything of the sort.

-"Zow"

#include <stddisclaim.h>