Microsoft Replaces Your Pirated Windows, For Free

th3d0ct0r writes "ZDNet reports that Microsoft is now willing to replace your pirated version of Windows XP. As part of the recently started "Windows Genuine advantage" program, Alex Hilton explains that this incentive aims to bring out customers who bought PC's with Windows XP preinstalled from vendors that pirated the Microsoft OS. Not only do they offer amnesty to anyone coming forth with a pirated version, but also to ship an original version of their product with a valid license to replace the pirated one, each customer being able to get up to 5 such replacements. Hilton says: "Our goal is not to prosecute the individual, our goal is to get to the source".

Comments

Important to note

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only a pilot program for the UK, and it requires a proof of purchase (so they have someone to go after).

Re:Important to note

[Curate]

Win2k Pro is stable, and with SP4, relatively secure.
As is XP.

Win2k Pro DOES NOT have integrated DRM, and no "activation".
How are these even an issue, unless you are a pirate?

Win2k Pro uses less system resources
If XP uses more resources, then it's only marginally so. And that's pretty normal; not many OSes use fewer resources as new versions are released.

, does everything XP does better than XP does.
It's the exact opposite. XP's feature set is a superset of W2K Pro's. One difference you mentioned already is hyperthreading. That *is* a big deal if you have a hyperthreading CPU; you want to make full use of your hardware, don't you?

Another difference is support for dual monitors. Other posters will note that they have gotten dual monitors to work with W2K. Well, you can do it with certain video cards (mostly dual-head cards), but it is up to the video card driver writer to add support for it. However, in Windows XP, you can simply use any arbitrary combination of video cards; the work of creating the virtual desktop is done in the OS itself.

Fast user switching. A built-in firewall. Sound card emulation in NTVDM (try playing Doom on W2K, then try it on XP); better compatibility with DOS apps in general. A skinnable/themeable GUI (don't like the default? go back to the W2K look and feel). ClearType. Improved power management. Device driver rollback. Network bridging. Faster boot time.

And then there are lots of little improvements here and there, such as new command line options for various commands.

Really, it's pretty sad if you think W2K is better than XP in any way, shape, or form. Maybe you were just trolling. Otherwise feel free to continue to use W2K in blissful ignorance.

Re:Okay?

[kfg]

Can someone please explain to me WHY they would do this?

Oh sure, that's easy enough. OEMs are selling boxes preloaded with pirate versions of Windows. Microsoft would like to set the dogs on them, but it would be prohibitively expensive to track them all down, assuming they could do so at all.

By getting the customers themselves to identify them they find out who they are at no actual cost (since these wouldn't be paying customers anyway, and the cost of goods to MS is zilch).

It's pretty straight forward.

KFG

Re:How do you know?

[jasoneyre]

Click About... Is this copy of Windows Legal? in the My Computer window.

And stuff... :)

Cheerz, Jason.

Re:How do you know?

[Radi-0-head]

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/YourPC.mspx

That's how you know.

Re:How do you know?

[mottie]

If you are running Windows XP SP1/SP2 or Windows Server 2003, the Windows Validation Assistant can scan your product key to help you determine whether your computer's operating system is genuine

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/ww/wi ndows/default.mspx