From: "Geo." 

I was thinking along the same lines and took a guess at what service they
might check with. The Software Licensing service is described like this:

"Enables the download, installation and enforcement of digital
licenses for windows and windows applications. If the service is disabled,
the operating system and licensed applications may run in a reduced
function mode."

I disabled the software licensing service figuring it would give me a taste
of the official reduced function mode so I can see if it acts like what I
experienced with solitaire and network properties. I disabled it at 1:45pm
sunday, so if anything starts degrading now I can just re-enable and
restart it then see if the degradation goes away.

I have too much other network stuff running to monitor traffic right now so
I figured this would be the easiest way to poke drm with a stick and see
how and when it pokes back.

Geo.

"mike"  wrote in message
news:2qifp2pclsranvo4phnip4na2aodbrsqbj{at}4ax.com...
>
> I wonder if something in Vista notices that it cannot phone home, and
> triggers a reduced functionality mode until it can phone home once
> again.  Then certain applications, upon their startup, would check some
> internal data value to see if they run in full or reduced mode.  This
> would prevent each crippled application from having to know how to phone
> home.
>
> The internal data value could be incremented the longer Vista is unable
> to phone home.  Each application would have a threshold at which its
> reduced functionality would kick in.
>
> /m
>
>
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 22:49:10 -0500, "Geo."
 wrote:
>
>>No error message, I would click on it and get the spinning donut (what the
>>hell is that supposed to be anyway, the hourglass signifies time but a
>>spinning psychedelic donut?) then that would end and nothing would happen.
>>No errors in event log, nothing. Same with right clicking on
>>network/properties, spinning donut then nothing. I telneted to my router,
>>removed the routes and within a couple minutes both worked again. No
>>reboot,
>>no nothing happened on the laptop.
>>
>>Prior to this I had tried rebooting several times, didn't help, but once I
>>removed the null routes then it started working again.
>>
>>Geo.
>>
>>"Rich"  wrote in message news:45972cf9{at}w3.nls.net...
>>   "Wasn't able to play spider solitaire" how?  What was the error
>> message?
>>
>>Rich
>>
>>  "Geo."  wrote in message
news:45971e6d{at}w3.nls.net...
>>  So I had blocked vista from talking to MS for the past few days via a
>>series
>>  of null routes in my router. Today I wasn't able to play spider
>> solitare,
>>  removed the routes and a minute later solitare starts up no problem.
>>
>>  You know, I'm really starting to hate this dumb OS.
>>
>>  Geo.

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