Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. It used to be that you got a “restore disk” with your new computer. I’ve had a few dells that had this, Apple used to as well. Now if anything, there is a rescue partition or a utility that knows how to download an rescue image. Without a valid license key you shouldn’t be able to use the restore disk. A lot of people who got these just threw them away. This guy was trying to help them reset their computer to a g…
Microsoft provides free downloads of Windows 8/10 installation media on their website, saying they'd "prefer you buy a new license" is a little disingenuous. What they don't want is people distributing installation media outside their authorized channels, counterfeiting is a huge problem for their Windows/Office business and they have a huge motivation to combat it. Was this counterfeiting? Most certainly not in spir…
If you had to restore a PC 10 years ago, your only options were to obtain a restore disk from the PC manufacturer, use a restore partition on the HDD (assuming it was intact) or buy Windows.
In the past, I had to get restore disk images on BitTorrent to fix friends computers.