I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
101–110 of 268 posts
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certain applications that professionals need are only available on Windows. Most games are as well. Even for software with Mac/*nix versions, a person may have quite a bit of money tied up in Windows-only licenses. I'm not commenting on whether pirating Windows is ethical. I'm just pointing out that sometimes you'll have to ditch a lot of software to ditch Windows.
You're just reinforcing their argument. By not using the competition, you're ensuring the market for those products on the competition's OS doesn't exist. It's actively strengthening Microsoft's hold on the markets you frequent.
You've got a point. That why Microsoft turns a blind eye on piracy in developing countries. Piracy is the only way they can get os market share they want. That's the reason why their copyright technical protections are so lousy.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#103If you don't like their product or policies, don't use it. If you use it then you should pay for it. Use Linux, a BSD Unix, or a Mac. People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
I believe this is the main reason Microsoft never really went about pirates in China. Just imagine if they were fighting it so hard, that most Chinese would use Linux now, which could've caused other users in other countries to use it, too. That would pretty much mean Windows would have only 50% market share, perhaps less. I mean, I'm sure a big chunk of that 90% market share they have now is with pirated licenses.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple tried rental of TV shows. They shuttered it: http://allthingsd.com/20110826/apple-pulls-the-plug-on-tv-re...
But look at the price point. Originally $1.99 per episode to just rent it. Even $0.99 sounds a lot to me. That's almost $50 for an entire series. What's the average amount of time someone would spend watching TV series per night? An episode of this, an episode of that, 3 or 4 times a week. Suddenly you're spending vastly more than cable. That's more than a modern box set will cost you, e.g. Boardwalk Empire, just rel…
I agree that shows are generally overpriced but you've selected some bad examples - Boardwalk empire had 12 episodes so even at $3 an episode (premium content or HD) that's still less than the $40 you'd pay on Amazon.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
A pirated .iso already modifies the data from the official release because it has to break the activation code somehow. Thus, you can't check it against any official hash. From there, the best you can hope for is to find a "canonical" hacked version and check against that, but since most people aren't really capable of breaking protections, they'll trust whatever shows up on the pirate bay.
Most pirated ISOs I've seen aren't activation-cracked. I've had to download a few legitimately for systems that only came with a 'recovery partition', and whose hard drive failed or needed upgrading. I try to only download 'legit' ISOs (OEM or regular), or at least ISOs that look legit. It would be nice if I had some way of verifying them against each other to see if they've been modified.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#106If you don't like their product or policies, don't use it. If you use it then you should pay for it. Use Linux, a BSD Unix, or a Mac. People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
Microsoft has tried their damndest to ensure that you must buy their OS in order to use a computer. They've done this directly using the Windows Tax, and indirectly with over two decades of anti-competitive business practices, some merely shady and others outright illegal. "If you don't like it, then don't use it" is pretty useless advice in this situation.
And the amazing thing is that they managed to do it again for Android. Except this time Apple is in a better spot than they were with PC operating systems.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#107The result has been the same for as long as Windows has had serial keys: Pirates find a way around them, they share keys, they disable activation, they patch files, they block hostnames in their hosts files. Regular users jump through hoops, have activation issues, lose their discs, need to phone in, etc.
I'm anti-piracy in general, but whenever I install Windows 7 I always bypass the activation because I've had too many problems going legit.
Likewise with Photoshop. At a previous company, we had a license that would let us install on up to five machines. At some point, we hit that limit and couldn't activate it. The confusing thing was that we only had three machines running it (the main user's desktop, her laptop, and another coworker's laptop). What we realized was that we'd reinstalled her laptop and the coworker's laptop recently, and both of those machines were still activated.
When we called Adobe, they pointed us to a KB article on how to de-activate a Photoshop install, but that requires that it still be installed and working. Adobe said that they couldn't actually de-activate those machines. After some arguing back and forth, they agreed to add another machine to our account (so now we have six machines registered, four with it installed, and two using it concurrently). Now, every time we reformat a machine, we have to call them again because no one remembers to de-register Photoshop before they reformat a user's machine.
iTunes lets you register five computers, and if you hit the limit, de-register them all to start over again. How hard is that?
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would this still be legal though? You are still using an unlicensed copy regardless of whether or not you happen to additionally own another copy. For all they know you might install your licensed copy on another computer later and not remove your unlicensed one.
I have no idea whether it's technically legal, actually. But I'm working off two premises: 1. The author doesn't care about legality, since he's finally resorting to piracy anyway. 2. The author would like to compensate MS for the use of a Windows license. If those are true, then buying a copy but actually using a pirate copy does what the author wants.
Eh, the author wants to pay MS money for the product, but also to be able to use the product without jumping through a bunch of stupid pointless frustrating hoops.
MS insists these hoops are needed.
The author, after years of giving MS money and jumping through hoops decides to stop giving them money, and stop jumping through the hoops.
The author is trying to tell MS, in the post and with the lost sale, that the anti-piracy measures are totally counter-productive, and have pushed a paying customer into a pirate.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would this still be legal though? You are still using an unlicensed copy regardless of whether or not you happen to additionally own another copy. For all they know you might install your licensed copy on another computer later and not remove your unlicensed one.
I have no idea whether it's technically legal, actually. But I'm working off two premises: 1. The author doesn't care about legality, since he's finally resorting to piracy anyway. 2. The author would like to compensate MS for the use of a Windows license. If those are true, then buying a copy but actually using a pirate copy does what the author wants.
[deleted]
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
A pirated .iso already modifies the data from the official release because it has to break the activation code somehow. Thus, you can't check it against any official hash. From there, the best you can hope for is to find a "canonical" hacked version and check against that, but since most people aren't really capable of breaking protections, they'll trust whatever shows up on the pirate bay.
Most pirated ISOs I've seen aren't activation-cracked. I've had to download a few legitimately for systems that only came with a 'recovery partition', and whose hard drive failed or needed upgrading. I try to only download 'legit' ISOs (OEM or regular), or at least ISOs that look legit. It would be nice if I had some way of verifying them against each other to see if they've been modified.
You can compare SHA1 hashes using this TechNet page for reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/default... (click "Details" to reveal the SHA1 hash).