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Paul Thurrott's WGA Woes Solved

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the egg-on-faces dept.

David Horn writes "Last week Slashdot ran an article regarding the trouble Paul Thurrott had with WGA. It turns out that after talking to Microsoft, he was actually running a pirated version of Windows, legitimately purchased from an online vendor. Paul admits that 'the truth is, I just made a mistake. If we learn something from that mistake, fantastic, but I wasn't trying to set up a life lesson for anyone, let alone myself.'"

3 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You can't cheat an honest man. by mikeisme77 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Newegg.com has the same policy about only selling XP MCE 2005 with hardware (utilizing the loophole) and I don't think anybody on Slashdot would say they're not a reputable online vendor...

    --
    Read my blog posts on usability.
  2. Re:He is full of shit... by kimvette · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If some company would sell me invalid copy (pirated) ofo software on purpose I would post EVERY DETAIL on that company that I have.


    I've been down that road. I went to one of those computer shows a few years ago to look for some now-esoteric equipment like SCSI cases, various SCSI connectors, and so forth. I checked out the software deals, bought a bunch of Norton Antivirus licenses (legit) and Quickbooks Pro. Turned out the Quickbooks CD was counterfeit and wouldn't register/activate. I called Intuit and learned it was a counterfeit. Everything appeared legit to me, but I haven't studied their typefaces or anything. Turns out the "Quickbooks Pro" silkscreening was slightly flawed, and the serial number/install key sticker was a totally different style from what was supposed to be there. The manual and packaging seemed real enough though. Anyway, Quicken met me halfway and gave me a great deal on new legit licenses - three seats (which basically came to three seats for the price of two), when they could have been real jackasses and not give me any discount at all. What I did for them was give them the name, number, and (claimed) address of the dealer from whom I purchased Quickbooks, and checked various show schedules to find the next few they'd be attending so that Quicken could send reps to to bust then. If they fucked me out of $179 with very real-looking packaging, chances are I am not the only one they're ripping off. All in all Intuit was damned courteous when they owed me NOTHING for my inconvenience.

    The fact that their software is badly architected and requires admin privileges though, is not so forgiveable. :(
    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  3. I don't get these parts... by hendridm · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So I had to figure out a way to post articles, preferably from within Vista.

    Firefox? Opera? Was it not compatible with anything but IE 6? Sounds lousy.

    My main machine dual boots between XP and Vista, but it's a pain to reboot just to post an article or two. So I decided the best thing to do would be to use one of the XP-based VHDs I had and post the articles using IE 6 from within a virtual machine. I grabbed the smallest one, which happened to be Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and installed it on the PC ... I ended up switching out the XP MCE 2005 VM for a Windows 2000 VM, because it's smaller (and thus boots up and goes to sleep more quickly) and the version of IE 6 included with Windows 2000 can save Web passwords.

    1. So which one is smaller then?
    2. I find it amazing that Windows 2000 has a faster startup and shutdown time than anything. Am I alone here?
    3. "The version of IE 6?" Correct me if I wrong, but I believe my IE 6 on Windows XP/SP2 saves web passwords?!?