With Thursday ’s liberation of Boot Camp 1.3 beta , I spent a number of time updating the Windows setup on both the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro . During the update , I also remembered that the MacBook Pro had recently started having wireless connection issues when booted into Windows : it could see , but not get together , my wireless internet , which is protected byWPA2 . I had tried ( halfheartedly ) to set up the job a few time , but since I do n’t often connect to the net when boot into Windows ( as I ’m either testing an OS X - related hint or play a game ! ) , it was n’t at the top of the priority listing . But since I was working on the automobile anyway , I decided to put a flake more effort into troubleshooting .
A quick Google hunt ( “ the boot ingroup ” wpa2 aid ) on my Mac Pro ( as the laptop computer is only link to the web via radio ) came up withthis Apple articleas the top hit . Lo and behold , it described my exact frame-up and problem : Windows XP SP2 , an AirPort Extreme base place , WPA2 protection , and a unsuccessful person to connect to the al-Qaeda station . The Apple clause includes a liaison to Microsoft’sWireless Client Update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 , which supposedly fixes the trouble . Excellent , I think , almost there !
On the Mac Pro , I click Microsoft’sDownload the Wireless Client Update package now relate , thinking I was nearly done — just download the updater , replicate it to a USB stick , and then instal it on my Windows - bring up MacBook Pro . When I snap the link , though , I was present with this quandary :
For those not familiar with it , Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA ) is ( in my opinion at least ) an overly taxing anti - piracy tool built into Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista . Before you could install most update , Microsoft establish and runs a programme that confirms you ’re not using a hijack written matter of Windows . This insurance policy very much assumes that everyone is a thief , and makes you prove your innocence before you ’re allowed to download update . The only exception Microsoft makes to this policy is for security updates : even commandeer versions of Windows can instal security system updates .
In the Apple world , downloading update on one political machine to install on another is simple — either via Apple ’s own Web site , or from within the Software Update tool , which has an option to save the update locally . Apple assumes its exploiter are using lawful purchased copies of OS X , and ( as far as I know ) there are dead no checks of serial numbers at any time . you may , in fact , download Mac software update on a Windows or Linux simple machine if you like ( via the internet browser ) . But on my Windows - booted MBP , it seemed I was stuck in a classical Catch-22 : I needed the wireless darn to get online , but I would only be able to get the patch if I was already online from the very automobile I needed to fix , so I could examine my transcript of Windows XP SP2 was legitimate ( which it is ) . What to do ? ?
For me , gratefully , there was a comparatively simple solvent : use the Ethernet porthole on the MacBook Pro to get on the web . Of course , this have in mind digging out an Ethernet cable , crawling under the desk to connect the laptop computer to the router , and then putting everything away again when I was done update . But what if my Ethernet interface were damaged ? Or what if I had a background motorcar that I by choice kept off the Internet ? Or a desktop machine whose trouble was that it could n’t connect to the internet , and which had only an Ethernet card installed ?
In those case , the only solvent is to have access to another ( genuine ) Windows machine that can get online — not an OS X or Linux system , of course , as they wo n’t be able to overstep the WGA mental testing . Using the functional machine , you would ( after go by the Windows Genuine Advantage test ) then be able to download the bandage you need , put it on a USB control stick , and transfer it to the broken machine .
Now , how does this help prevent Windows piracy ? Not in any meaningful way that I can see , specially when you consider that you’re able to get online from a genuine Windows machine in many places — an net café , the public library , etc . So sit at home with your pirated transcript of Windows , you only need to expend a logical political machine to download the patch . A bit of an incommodiousness , to be certain , but hardly enough to prevent a dedicated pirate from patching their system . ( plain it ’s comparatively simple to get around the WGA testing , but I ’ve never tried . Even more evidence , though , that this system does n’t do much at all to discourage the serious pirates . )
This little incident is another admonisher of how prissy it is to live in the Mac domain every day , where the substance abuser are still mostly presume innocent — and I ’m really hoping this approach continues with the release of OS X 10.5 this fall .
