111–120 of 268 posts
Claiming that you have the moral authority to pirate it is just wrong, doing so re-enforces the need for MSFT to have even stricter anti-piracy measures.
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I hit the activation limit on my family pack (3 copies) and was never given any instructions on what to do. My system would go black and eventually become unusable. Instead of telling me how to reactivate the copies I bought, Microsoft puts up a message on how to purchase another new copy of Windows. I'm done with this company now. I bought a Mac, and I'm not coming back.
FWIW, I hit the activation limit in WinXP, and the activation dialog had a phone number and some numbers I had to read to the person on the line. A few minutes later everything was fine. (I'm a MS employee but I was doing this at home with my "I'm a customer" hat on)
In any case, it's not a problem for me anymore, as I now only run a pirated copy of Windows 7 in a virtual machine on my Macbook for testing on.
Windows activation is shockingly easy. Enter your key and when you go online it verifies it. If you're not connected to the internet make a 5 minute phone call. If you don't want to do that, no problem - there is no need to activate for up to 180 days. Really don't want to activate? No problem - it'll just turn your screen black and announce it's unlicensed software. It seems the author's only significant complaint i…
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Microsoft Store officially tells you that your download time has expired after you purchase a Windows license, and wish to re-download / re-install more than 3 months after your purchase. The official solution is to buy an additional copy of the Windows license which will provide you with a new download URL. I knows this because I complained to the @microsoftstore twitter account: after purchasing 2 copies of Windows…
I've never had any problems with the copy of windows 7 I bought from the microsoft online store. I've had to redownload it two or three times now, and it's always been there (although the page is near impossible to find). I had a screenshot of the page, but imgur is down today so I can't link it.
"Be kindly informed that the availability of the software download, purchased at the Microsoft Store, is limited to one year.
Please understand that as you placed your order more than one year ago, Microsoft Store does not have access to your order and cannot reset the download link."
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In response to #1 If I'm paying you to watch it, there better not be any commercials ;)
I think the OP meant that there should be a 'buy' option with no commercials and unlimited viewings, and a rent option possibly with commercials and a limited number of viewings.
These are great points and a good portion of piraters do so for these exact reasons. There are always going to be people who steal content/apps instead of paying for them but I am sure more than a few people pirate purely because it is a better user experience than what is currently offered. TV shows are a great example. I cut my cable about a year ago and haven't looked back since. I refuse to pay a premium for chan…
Apple tried rental of TV shows. They shuttered it: http://allthingsd.com/20110826/apple-pulls-the-plug-on-tv-re...
These are great points and a good portion of piraters do so for these exact reasons. There are always going to be people who steal content/apps instead of paying for them but I am sure more than a few people pirate purely because it is a better user experience than what is currently offered. TV shows are a great example. I cut my cable about a year ago and haven't looked back since. I refuse to pay a premium for chan…
Earlier 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…
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OK. The primary application that I need Windows for is Quickbooks Enterprise. I also still use my Windows Photoshop license since it was expensive, and not transferrable to OS X. My primary operating system is already OS X, and I only use Debian Stable on servers. I run Windows in a VM when I need those application, and only when I need those applications. How would you suggest replacing Quickbooks Enterprise? Do I j…
Microsoft has 90% desktop market share. Software developers won't support other operating systems until they have more market share, and people won't switch to other OS'es until there's more software. If the software you need only runs on Windows then you should pay for Windows. Those that can move to Mac, Linux, etc and get away with using Wine or other alternatives should. The markets for alternative OS'es will gro…
"Why do pirates have a better experience than customers?" This pretty much sums it up. I couldn't agree more.
In many cases, like downloading movies, I agree. But with Windows, I couldn't disagree more. I used to pirate every version of Windows I owned, back in the days of Windows 98 and up to Windows XP it was a breeze. Starting around Windows XP SP3, it got a bit more difficult. It was easy to pirate, but after a few weeks/months of use, you get the Genuine Advantage warning. With Windows 7, it is even worse. So I decided…
However, when you get on the wrong side of it, it is a pain in the ass of Lovecraftian proportions. I don't know if it's my luck, choice in hardware, or what, but I've had perfectly valid (retail!) keys start throwing WGA errors after working fine for a few months. After spending literally hours on the phone with someone who speaks broken english, I took my crippled XP install (this was back in the pre service-pack 2 days where failing activation meant you got locked out after a few minutes), went to a torrent site, and downloaded an activator.
2 hours (spent on the phone in a fruitless endeavor with the best of Indian tech support) and 5 minutes (spent downloading and running a crack) later, I finally was able to use my bought and paid for software.
After that, I pulled down an ISO with the service packs and cracks and other goodies slipstreamed in (XP Ultimate Edition by Johnny, still exists out there somewhere), burned it to a disc, and haven't used "legitimate" channels since.
Microsoft does not have my permission to use my CPU cycles and power to inflate their antipiracy metrics.