Windows 8 & 10 - Thread Updated

[ThatOneDude]

@Lithium I have a buddy with a grandfathered plan that gets new phones all the time (Currently he has the latest iPhone). He said the secret is you buy the phone outright , which I think he does through apple direct and then transfers service to it.

[Lithium]

I would have done that, but my phone is so ancient that it doesn't even have a sim card! Not sure how the transferring thing happens I try to do so much as add texting to my plan and they're like: NEED NEW PLAN! I suppose I could try to buy a brand new phone but really... the old one still works. I'll try and do that when my phone actually dies. Thanks for the info!

[Arkandel]

http://www.pcgamer.com/windows-10-can-disable-pirated-games/

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel
Just like they've been doing with the OS itself, and things like Office, basically forever.

Which is to say their efforts will never catch up to the ways in which people pirate things, and a game getting disabled will last about as long as an Office installation gets rendered invalid, which is precisely as long as it takes you to notice and fix it.

It's specific to Microsoft games, though, and I'd hazard a guess that it's only going to be for stuff running through Games for Windows Live, or whatever they replace it with. Given that even the GfWL games that get pirated usually don't get actually run through GfWL, GfWL just gets spoofed so the game thinks it is, I'll be surprised if this amounts to anything more than a mild inconvenience if anything at all.

[Miss Demeanor]

Here's a gaming related problem.

I just got Beyond Earth, its all installed, everything is verified and looks good. But every time I go to play the game, it brings up that first time 'install' screen, nothing shows on it, and it blips out after 3-5 seconds. I never even get to the main window. Anyone know if Windows 10 is maybe just not playing nice with BE?

[HelloRaptor]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Here's a gaming related problem.

I just got Beyond Earth, its all installed, everything is verified and looks good. But every time I go to play the game, it brings up that first time 'install' screen, nothing shows on it, and it blips out after 3-5 seconds. I never even get to the main window. Anyone know if Windows 10 is maybe just not playing nice with BE?

Mine's working okay? I posted a big list of games earlier from my Steam (and some others) that I'd poked through, at least to make sure they'd open right.

I dunno if you're using Steam, but I have once or twice in the past hit an issue with Steam where it does that cycling of first-time-opening-this-game over and over. I'd suggest you try:

1. Right-click the game, go to properties > local files > verify game cache, try again. If that fails...
2. Properties > local files > browse local files and manually open CivilizationBE_DX11.exe (or CivilizationBE_Mantle.exe if you have an AMD card), see if the game runs. If it does run, wait for the menu to load, exit out, then try to open through Steam again and see if it bypasses the cycling now.

Dunno why #2 seems to work, but I had it happen to me in Win8 and Win7 from time to time as well, where Steam would for some reason think I'd never opened a game before and get stuck on that first bit, but once I opened the game via the .exe directly Steam would work with it just fine.

[Miss Demeanor]

@HelloRaptor I'd already tried the first, upon trying the second I got an error informing me that the MSVCP110.dll file has not been installed yet. I only wish I knew what the Hell file that is. XD

EDIT: grumbles and mutters Damn you C++! Once again you are the bane of my existence! Trying to dl it now.

EDIT EDIT: Success! Thanks HR!

[HelloRaptor]

@Miss-Demeanor
Huzzah!

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel said:

http://www.pcgamer.com/windows-10-can-disable-pirated-games/

As an update, jeeeeeesus internet news sites are blowing their shit up about this, even including awesome clickbait in titles like how Windows 10 will SEARCH OUT AND DESTROY YOUR PIRATE BAY TORRENTS omg omg omg. ;D

Gamespot at least updated itself with some sanity:

[UPDATE] Although Microsoft is yet to provide official clarification on the matter, reports have suggested the EULA cited below pertains to Microsoft services, as opposed to the Windows 10 software itself.

This means the changes made to the license agreement were intended to protect against illicitly obtained Xbox Live and Windows Store content, not all pirated content on a PC.

GameSpot has asked Microsoft for a statement clarifying the policy and will update this story when it has been issued. [UPDATE ENDS]

Windows 10 added the ability to play your XBox games through your Windows 10 PCs. It took about four seconds for people to figure out ways that would help facilitate piracy of XBox games, so Microsoft added safeguards to Windows 10 against that (which will probably be effective for another four seconds).

Yet again, the sky is not falling.

[Miss Demeanor]

Ooooooooooooo, now I can play Guitar Hero from the comfort of my computer! Excuse me whilst I disappear for the next week or so. ^_^

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor The sky was never falling, I had very little doubt the last thing Microsoft wanted was piss off all those users for next to no gain for themselves. However it was still relevant to Windows 10.

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel said:

@HelloRaptor The sky was never falling, I had very little doubt the last thing Microsoft wanted was piss off all those users for next to no gain for themselves. However it was still relevant to Windows 10.

I didn't think you thought the sky was falling, but the preponderance of articles seem to be leaping that way. For example:

"Windows 10 Checks For Pirate Bay Torrents, Bootleg Games And Hardware Automatically"

It flat out does not do one of those things, and only does the other two in an incredibly limited fashion, but similar claims have exploded around the internet.

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor I'm as far from a Windows zealot as it gets. I make a living working on Linux. But a family friend is a self-proclaimed open source supporter and he spams Facebook constantly about the evils of Microsoft products; the things he posts sometimes... you know how sometimes you wish some people wouldn't be on the same side of an argument as yourself? That.

[Miss Demeanor]

Windows 10 sure as Hell hasn't stopped Kickass Torrents or Vuze. I use both from time to time and I've yet to have an issue with it on 10. This whole 'the sky is falling' is just the usual hand-waving screamium from the doom-saying sheeple that read something without truly comprehending what's being said. Fuck those people.

READING COMPREHENSION, MOTHERFUCKERS. DO YOU HAVE IT?!?!?

(Not you two, obviously, or even necessarily anyone on MSB... just in general)

Edit: These are the type of people I always assume are going to end up in a soiled adult diaper, locked away in a Faraday cage and blogging about 'then end of the internet/world' or other such crazy tripe. High-tech versions of the homeless dudes on street corners with 'THE END IS NIGH' cardboard signs, basically.

[Arkandel]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Not you two, obviously, or even necessarily anyone on MSB... just in general)

<bites his tongue until blood is drawn>

[ThatOneDude]

@Miss-Demeanor I wonder if they are just going for something like this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491

Would seem to be the next logical step.

[Miss Demeanor]

@ThatOneDude said:

@Miss-Demeanor I wonder if they are just going for something like this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491

Would seem to be the next logical step.

I don't know if they actively BLOCK apps not signed to or from Microsoft, but they've already got an app thing on Windows 10. Its in the Start Menu. When you download or open something from the net, it now asks you what app you want to use to open it. So I'm sure if they don't already have it, they will soon enough. Can't stop 'progress'.

[HelloRaptor]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@ThatOneDude said:

@Miss-Demeanor I wonder if they are just going for something like this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491

Would seem to be the next logical step.

I don't know if they actively BLOCK apps not signed to or from Microsoft, but they've already got an app thing on Windows 10. Its in the Start Menu. When you download or open something from the net, it now asks you what app you want to use to open it. So I'm sure if they don't already have it, they will soon enough. Can't stop 'progress'.

That's not new, it's just the same old thing where Windows asks you what program you want to use to open things. It's just that when Win10 installs by default it asks you what you want to use the first time you open just about anything, it seems, even shit that should already be associated with a program.

[Miss Demeanor]

@HelloRaptor Fair enough.

[The Tree of Woe]

So there's a glitch a ton of people are getting where your start menu cuts out, sometimes intermittently, sometimes for good.

I got it.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.