Class action suit against Microsoft?
Zalek...@hotmail.com
was done by GRUB and had no problems. One day WinXP crushed and needed
to reinstalled it. Reinstallation of WinXP destroyd GRUB - so I had to
reinstall the GRUB.
I installed Linux many time on the same disk with Win and Linux NEVER
destroyed my dual boot properties. There no valid reason for
Microsoft destroy GRUB except of purposely destroying competing
software. I searched the Web and I am not only one who had this
problem. On the other side Microsoft will not destroy any other
Microsoft OS - special file boot.ini takes care of situation if
someone wants to have dual boot with WinXP and WinMe or other
Microsoft OS.
Are there any lawyers who want to make a buck and a glory?
Zalek
slide
[MSFT setup destroys non MSFT dual boot. He thinks that's intentional]
> Are there any lawyers who want to make a buck and a glory?
>
You will have to prove, at the very least, that Microsoft has
intentionally chosen to destroy GRUB upon setup. I doubt you can simply
because I doubt it's true.
Microsoft's setup, like many setups, will damage or destroy entirely
situations it either doesn't 'know about' or care about. Let me ask you
this: does Microsoft claim that its setup will preserve any and all
existing conditions on your computer? Let me make it easy for you - it
does not.
Even if it were true that Microsoft's installer intentionally destroyed
GRUB, it'd be brutally expensive to prove and once proved, very little
in the way of damages could be demonstrated. Thus the only lawyer who'd
take this case would be one who was demented by Microsoft hatred or both
rich and bored.
D.F. Manno
Zalek...@hotmail.com wrote:
Where's your evidence that Microsoft "destroyed" anything? Computers
crash often enough and for enough different reasons that jumping to
blame the Evil Empire is premature at best.
--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
In a Life without Walls�, who needs Windows�?
Cy Pres
>I think I found a case. On my disk I had Linux and WinXP, dual boot
>was done by GRUB and had no problems. One day WinXP crushed and needed
>to reinstalled it. Reinstallation of WinXP destroyd GRUB - so I had to
>reinstall the GRUB.
The technical issue here is not the same as the legal issue. Both
GRUB's installer and XP's installer modify the Master Boot Record
(MBR). GRUB's loader is on the MBR. XP also modifies the MBR. One
could argue it is unnecessary for it to do so, but I am certain
Microsoft can provide a plausible sounding technical reason for doing
so.
The technical solution to this is simply to backup the MBR before
installing XP, then restore it (along with GRUB's loader), after
installing XP. Alternately, I believe some people may have hacked
XP's installation disk in a variety of ways, but of course, these
would be pirated versions of questionable legality; though there is
probably a nonfrivolous argument that if you already own XP, and are
only using a hacked copy (or hacking it yourself) to get yours to
function as it should already function and to interoperate with
another OS, that it is within the narrow exception of the
anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA for interoperability. I
won't argue this right now, or recommend doing it, though backing up
and restoring the MBR is really the simplest technical solution to
this problem.
Note: this post is neither legal nor technical advice and if you sue
me after trying any of these things, either on your computer or in
court, I will bite your nose off. Messing around with your MBR, even
if you know what you're doing, can hose the drive completely; messing
around with Microsoft, even if you have a team of lawyers and lots of
money, can hose your life completely.
>I installed Linux many time on the same disk with Win and Linux NEVER
>destroyed my dual boot properties. There no valid reason for
>Microsoft destroy GRUB except of purposely destroying competing
>software. I searched the Web and I am not only one who had this
>problem. On the other side Microsoft will not destroy any other
>Microsoft OS - special file boot.ini takes care of situation if
>someone wants to have dual boot with WinXP and WinMe or other
>Microsoft OS.
>Are there any lawyers who want to make a buck and a glory?
There's really no case here. As with most software manufacturers,
Microsoft's EULA disclaims liability for virtually everything. If you
install, you agree to that, to the extent that it is legally
enforceable.
Further, the damage is probably not permanent, if you haven't done
anything else since then to make it permanent. If you can boot from
the Ubuntu (or other flavor) LiveCD, you can probably repair the GRUB
loader if you know what you're doing.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows
explains the process of recovering Ubuntu after Windows destroys the
MBR. It's a lot quicker and easier than suing Microsoft, and unlike
suing Microsoft, will probably actually work.
Mike Jacobs
> Note: this post is neither legal nor technical advice and if you sue
> me after trying any of these things, either on your computer or in
> court, I will bite your nose off. Messing around with your MBR, even
> if you know what you're doing, can hose the drive completely; messing
> around with Microsoft, even if you have a team of lawyers and lots of
> money, can hose your life completely.
LOL. This is one of the pithiest disclaimers I've ever seen on MLM.
8*)
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
(not pithy - just blunt)
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Barry Gold
>I think I found a case. On my disk I had Linux and WinXP, dual boot
>was done by GRUB and had no problems. One day WinXP crushed and needed
>to reinstalled it. Reinstallation of WinXP destroyd GRUB - so I had to
>reinstall the GRUB.
>I installed Linux many time on the same disk with Win and Linux NEVER
>destroyed my dual boot properties. There no valid reason for
>Microsoft destroy GRUB except of purposely destroying competing
>software.
Frankly, I doubt if it's anything like that simple. In fact, I can
just see the dialog in court:
Your lawyer: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we intend to prove that
Microsoft's WinXP installer was intentionally designed to destroy a
competing operating system.
Microsoft's expert witness: We've had a lot of feedback from customers
about how complicated it is to install an operating system. So we
decided to just skip the step where we ask the user to partition the
disk: our default is just to take the whole disk for Windows. That
works for 99% of our customers. We're sorry about the inconvenience
to the other 1%...
Jury: (we dunno).
And when the jury doesn't know/can't decide, that's
a judgment for the defendant: the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.
There's also the fact that you say that WinXP doesn't destroy any
_other_ operating system. SO if it's _just_ GRUB, you should consider
the possibility that GRUB uses the disk in a way that is incompatible
with WinXP's booter.
I remember when I was working on the Solaris disk driver, one problem
we had was that our installer filled in some fields of the parition
record differently from the way Windows 2K did. This worked *most* of
the time -- you could partition the disk with our fdisk, or with the
fdisk on the windows install disk, and dual boot it, and everything
worked fine.
But if you tried to re-partition the disk with Partition Magic or one
of its competitiors, it would trash the Solaris partition. I had to
figure out what Windows fdisk did differently, and make our partition
record look liket theirs.
So maybe GRUB has a similar problem, and it's not even M$ fault.
I would suggest that you get more of your exercise on a treadmill or
stationary bike, and less of it by jumping to conclusions.
--
Barry Gold, webmaster:
Conchord: http://www.conchord.org
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc.: http://www.lasfsinc.org
Seth
>was done by GRUB and had no problems. One day WinXP crushed and needed
>to reinstalled it. Reinstallation of WinXP destroyd GRUB - so I had to
>reinstall the GRUB.
What are the damages claimed? They destroyed a copy of GRUB that you
had to replace at a cost of how much?
>I installed Linux many time on the same disk with Win and Linux NEVER
>destroyed my dual boot properties. There no valid reason for
>Microsoft destroy GRUB except of purposely destroying competing
>software.
Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by
incompetence.
> I searched the Web and I am not only one who had this
>problem. On the other side Microsoft will not destroy any other
>Microsoft OS - special file boot.ini takes care of situation if
>someone wants to have dual boot with WinXP and WinMe or other
>Microsoft OS.
So Microsoft's code isn't competent enough to determine if the MBR is
valid, but only if it's another Microsoft MBR? Are you sure you want
to argue on the side of "Microsoft is more competent than that"?
Seth
Mike
Nice try but......Try installing Windows ME on a disk that already has
XP on it. Or 2000 on the disk with XP. Or XP after Vista, etc. They will
destroy the newer versions.
In the case of Windows and Grub, Windows is designed to co-exist with an
older version of Windows (but only starting with 2000 and later. 95, 98
and ME were never designed to easily dual-boot) but can't boot other
systems but it's not a case of "destroying the competition" but simply a
case of "our boot-loader isn't designed to boot anything but windows."
There's no legal reason (that I'm aware of) that they SHOULD have to
boot other OS's. Older versions of Linux would also wipe Windows just as
quickly.