Options for 'Fixing' A Pirated Copy of Windows

PunkOfLinux writes "My parents are running a pirated copy of windows that my mom received from a teacher at school. My parents want to go legit, and buy a copy of Windows, but they are afraid of deleting everything and having to reinstall all their programs. Seeing as I know you guys will have an answer, I'm going to ask you: What would you do in this situation?"

Comments

Re:Let's get the answer out of the way

[LoonyMike]

Yes, it's easy to google for it, provided you already know that the solution relies in a key changer.

Do NOT fear the Windows Reinstall.

[mikelieman]

IF your folks are worried about a reinstall, they're NOT ready to survive a catastropic harddrive crash.

Much less full reload to clear an infection.

Re:Buy an OEM copy

[(H)elix1]

The legit vendors meet the letter of the law by shipping a cable or some other trinket that qualifies the media as OEM. That part is not a grey area. Yup, the transfer issue is why I mentioned the retail version - but you would have to transfer from three machines to break even. If you have more than three machines, odds are the volume pricing is for you...

Re:Let's get the answer out of the way

[Tim C]

a number of drivers did require reinstall

It's actually alluded to on the page that you linked to, but it bears spelling out explicitly:

The repair install option returns Windows to the state it is in when freshly installed from the CD used

In other words, while you keep all your settings, files, etc, it wipes out any drivers, service packs or other updates that you have installed since installing from the CD. An XP SP1 install CD used to repair an up-to-date XP install is going to wipe out SP2, and a whole host of other updates.

That's why you had to reinstall the drivers - they weren't on the CD so they were nuked.

Re:"What would you do in this situation?"

[MSFanBoi2]

Buy a Mac? YOu honestly advocate going out and spending at least 600 bucks (of couse that would require at least another 512 MB of ram, a keyboard and a mouse and possibly a new monitor0, not to mention the costs of replacing software as well as the loss of all the data on the Windows based PC? Lets not even get into the costs of getting them familiar with the Mac over the PC.

Linux? Once again, they loose most, if not all their software, and probably the same with the data.

Sorry when a person asks for help getting a copy of Windows LEGIT, they are not asking to move to another OS.

What your post is, is nothing more than rabid fanboism at it's best.

I fear the re-install

[RebornData]

Sorry to go on an off-topic rant here, but...

I'm a consultant who helps small business and home users. I can't tell you how many times I have talked to customers who (in the past) have had another tech come along and do a re-install without understanding all of the implications.

There is value in a machine's configuration! The customizations, tweaks, and even icon arrangements people create to make their systems work and lives easier are time-consuming to recreate, and there can be a major loss of productivity if they have to re-do it all from scratch. I'm a professional, and it's not uncommon for it to take me 3-5 hours to do a good job of getting all of the software, utilities, and configuration changes done for a typical business machine. Just because you can rebuild your own gaming rig from scratch in two hours (because you do it once a month) doesn't meant that this is a course of action that makes sense for everyone.

This is why I always recommend *full* backups of the entire system... not just "important" documents. And it's why I do a full re-install as an absolute last resort. I can count the number of re-installs I've been forced into in the last *year* on one hand.

The good news is that if you know what you're doing (unfortunately many techs don't) VERY few problems require a rebuild. It's very possible to clean off even the "worst" infections fairly quickly, with high confidence that everything is gone. I charge a two-hour flat rate for *any* infection cleanup (including kernel rootkits), and that usually works out to my advantage. Hard drives often have only failed in a few sectors... I commonly am able to image the failed drive to a new one, and repair the windows install using a combination of sfc, system restore, misc subsystem fixes, and (in the worst cases) a repair re-install.

The benefit to the user is that they get their machine back *exactly the way it was*, the same day, without a large repair bill. The benefit to me is that the customer is happy and calls me back the next time they have a problem... instead of cursing me the whole time they are trying to rebuild their system the way they had it.

If you are a tech and haven't learned this stuff, you are doing your customers and yourself a disservice.

-R

Re:Why bother?

[Mr. Hankey]

I wouldn't - copyright controls copying, not removing property such that the original owner will no longer have. It involves potential profits as opposed to physical objects. They're completely different things.

Do Complete Backups *First*

[billstewart]

If they're running a new enough version of Windows to care about the problem, but are afraid of reinstalling all their software, they probably aren't the type of people to do good backups, but their system should support external USB drives. So they should go spend $100-150 to get an external hard drive, drag&drop all their data onto it, and see if there's a good backup program that'll do something useful with installed programs (any recommendations?).

*Then* they can think about doing a Windows key update or if necessary reinstalling.