[richard.tyfty]

When pirates get a better experience?

I just upgraded a PC and kept the original hard drive so that I wouldn't have to reinstall everything. Win 7 complained about the hardware change (it was everything pretty much, mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU etc) and deactivated. After much struggling with the online automated system it failed but did go through over the phone.

Office 2010 on the other hand... Nothing will reactivate it. The call centre person told me to uninstall and reinstall it. Next time I will just pirate the thing, it's gotta be better for my blood pressure than shouting at some incompetent person who barely speaks English.

Gahhhhh!

Rant over.

[thideras]

I understand the frustration of activating products fully. Every time I reinstall Windows/Office, I have to call in to activate.

You should reinstall Windows when you make large hardware changes (mainly the motherboard). It won't stop it from needing to be activated (or calling in), but it should fix any broken installs.

[manu2b]

If I may: as soon as you have the original product, I believe installing a cracked version is not illegal.

Am I wrong?

[Knufire]

If you torrent a copy of Windows, MS doesn't care. You can obtain the software in whatever way you want. When you pay, you pay for the license key. If you're activating Windows in any way that isn't a legitimate key, then it's illegal.

I don't bother with Windows CDs anymore. I just downloaded AN ISO and "burned" it to a bookable flash drive, as it installs way quicker. But to be legal, I still have to use the key off the disk.

What you're talking about is short of similar to the deal with game ROMs. Technically, to be legal, you should be ripping the ROM off your own cartridges, but most companies have stated that they're okay with ROM downloads as long as you own the game. Though I'm sure there are some that aren't okay with this.

This is the major problem with the software industry. Because if all of these gray areas and ambiguities, a lot of people end up ignoring the letter of the law and just following what they are morally okay with. Which, in actuality, isn't always legal, though they're convinced its okay.

Woo moral philosophy? xD

[manu2b]

Moral, ethic...
That's usually the way I handle this kind of dilemma.

[Operant]

It really is an issue with their lovely activation system (read: PITA). My standing has always been that if you have legally purchased the software, you have a right to get it however you like as long as you use legal means to activate it. Using a loader to bypass this would obviously not fall into here. However, if there is no way at all for you to legally activate the software, then I would say cracking it would be acceptable (permitting you keep your key for yourself and do not try to sell it).

On an unrelated note, I am interested to see what happens to these "loaders" when the whole Secure Boot debacle plays out.

(Edited this to further reflect my views)

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by Operant

It really is an issue with their lovely activation system (read: PITA). My standing has always been that if you have legally purchased the software, you have a right to get it however you like as long as you use legal means to activate it. Using a loader to bypass this would obviously not fall into here. I am interested to see what happens to these "loaders" when the whole Secure Boot debacle plays out.

It's been my belief that regardless of what they do, someone will find a hack through it.

They just need to start enforcing the law and actually reprimanding people who do this.

[Operant]

Originally Posted by Knufire

It's been my belief that regardless of what they do, someone will find a hack through it.

They just need to start enforcing the law and actually reprimanding people who do this.

I do agree that piracy is generally bad (I have seen cases where it has helped but this could be debated indefinitely). As for the punishments, I really am not sure how far the punishments should go. I do know that restrictive laws like ACTA should not be implemented as this creates more problems then the ones it aims to solve.

If developers made software easier to buy and update, then I think piracy would go down a bit. A lot of the DRM implemented to combat piracy does nothing to actually stop it but instead encourages users to pirate software (this is mirrored in the movie industry) to avoid having to jump through "the hoops."

I would love to see what the profit margin on a Windows 7 disc is. To calculate this, I would take the total cost of the windows 7 development teams and the production teams (disc manufacturers, etc.) and subtract it from their total income from windows 7 purchases. I have always felt that windows 7 is priced higher than it should be due to microsoft's massive market share but this is an entirely different matter.

Sorry if I went on a bit of a tangent. Multitasking induces that

[Psykoikonov]

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

Found this, no more M$ office for me. The same would go for Win 7 except of Linux's steep learning curve for some of the things that come easily on Windows.

[c627627]

Consider yourself lucky that you swapped that much hardware and Windows still booted in.

Windows installation is configured to the specific motherboard chipset etc. so unless you are swapping to a similar motherboard chipset, Windows reinstallation is recommended for performance and stability reasons.


If you can't vouch for the Windows installation files, then the virii, spyware, etc. may already be in there with your first boot, so I would definitely ask friends or relatives to borrow their installation disc if you no longer have yours.

[txus.palacios]

Originally Posted by Operant

I do agree that piracy is generally bad (I have seen cases where it has helped but this could be debated indefinitely). As for the punishments, I really am not sure how far the punishments should go. I do know that restrictive laws like ACTA should not be implemented as this creates more problems then the ones it aims to solve.

If developers made software easier to buy and update, then I think piracy would go down a bit. A lot of the DRM implemented to combat piracy does nothing to actually stop it but instead encourages users to pirate software (this is mirrored in the movie industry) to avoid having to jump through "the hoops."

I would love to see what the profit margin on a Windows 7 disc is. To calculate this, I would take the total cost of the windows 7 development teams and the production teams (disc manufacturers, etc.) and subtract it from their total income from windows 7 purchases. I have always felt that windows 7 is priced higher than it should be due to microsoft's massive market share but this is an entirely different matter.

Sorry if I went on a bit of a tangent. Multitasking induces that

I still remember Ubisoft's DRM failures, and how I ended up cracking my game just because it didn't let me play when Ubisoft servers were busy. I have my original key, my box, everything. Just that I will not play with such a stupid DRM.