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| Microsoft has issued a patch for both Windows 98 Registration Wizard and Office 97. Microsoft states that the patch was made available because "We[Microsoft] believe you should control your personal information and that only you should decide how, when and with whom that information is shared". |
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Credit:
The following patch and removal tool will allow Office 97 customers to prevent the insertion of a unique identifier into any new documents, and to remove the unique identifier number from existing documents:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com
To read about Microsoft's Privacy initiative go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/03-10qa.htm
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Microsoft's Windows 98 Registration Wizard was upgraded due to the fact that Microsoft collected hardware identification data in the past as part of their product support initiatives. But since Microsoft determined that the data is not necessary for them to serve their customers' product support needs, it was removed.
To accomplish this Microsoft are taking four actions:
* Updating Microsoft.com immediately to stop receipt of hardware ID from product registration, thereby eliminating new occurrences of hardware ID.
* Modifying the Windows 98 Registration Wizard feature in a subsequent service release of Windows 98 to ensure that hardware identification data is never created, let alone sent, as part of the registration process.
* Provide a software tool for download that users can use to delete hardware registration information from the Windows registry.
* Purging hardware ID information that was gathered without the customer having chosen to provide Microsoft with this information. Microsoft is confident today that the hardware information is not being stored in their marketing databases, and they are investigating whether it is being stored in other databases within Microsoft.
Microsoft's Office 97 was upgraded due to the fact that Microsoft used a unique identification number that was inserted into every Office 97 document. The unique identifier contained information that is derived in part from a network card, which can give some information on the computer on which it was created.
* Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch. This patch, once applied, will prevent the insertion of a unique identifier number into all new Office 97 documents.
* Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool. This is a utility that can be used to remove the unique identifier from previously created Office 97 documents. Office 97 customers who are concerned about the presence of the unique identifier number can run the utility against any Office 97 document.
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