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How Pirated Software Impacts Free Software
jmglov writes "Dave Gutteridge has an unusual take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of open source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, 'how much does Windows cost?'"
Actually that doesn't always work. In fact, unless something has changed in the past couple of years, this -rarely- works. When I was doing this often, I found that the installed key would almost invariably fail to validate the OEM setup unless you had a copy of the XP OEM disc from that manufacturer. Same revision of XP, same everything except for the manufacturer. It got to the point that we had to make copies of the OEM discs for each manufacturer just to do re-installs.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
They usually charge extra for the disk anymore. They now like to use a separate partition on the HDD to store the restore image. It's frequently accessible via a boot menu.
I've never gotten a good answer about what's supposed to be done when the HDD dies out of warranty.
Depending on your make/model or bitchiness level, many of the OEM's will ship you a disk. . . for a price.
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
And the problem is -- it is better. Look at modern desktop distros like Ubuntu. Nowadays they support a lot of hardware out of the box without having to do the work of loading a single driver. Everything is clean and well-integrated. Most applications that people need are installed right out of the box. It doesn't suffer from the maladies of spyware, adware, or viruses/worms/trojans or drive-by downloads.
My blog
No, no, no - you're misunderstanding what I'm saying entirely. Don't ever use the discs that come with the computer. Get your own copy of an OEM disc, whether borrowed or purchased like here:
8 2E16832116049
8 2E16832116059
8 2E16832116056
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N
I have one copy of each and they are most widely used discs as a person who fixes computers for people for a living. The sticker on any OEM computer will work with the appropriate disc, and that's all you need.
... to get rid of the Microsoft monopoly, and happen to be proficient at C programming:
you could cooperate with the ReactOS project (a windows compatible OS) and lend them a hand or two.
I'd love to help them, but I have little spare time and I'm not very good with C - just C++.
I'd love to understand the sociology behind the fact that computer makers put their own name on poorly designed software. Don't the computer makers have anyone smart enough to understand their crud software is self-destructive? Are they so stupid they don't know their software is poorly designed?
I guess that often the non-technical people at technically-oriented companies don't know and don't care what they do. For them, it's just a job. For a technically knowledgeable person, their work is often a satisfying intellectual challenge. But non-technical people seem to be part of an incompatible culture; they lead somewhat robotic lives in which things don't have to work.
How else to explain Toshiba's brainless slogan, "In touch with tomorrow"? Woooooo--oooooo. Spacey. Do Toshiba managers smoke dope? A better slogan would be "In touch with reality."
I once asked a Toshiba technical support representative for tomorrow's stock quotes. Apparently the company has no special connection with tomorrow, unfortunately, in spite of the fact that they say they do, every time I turn on my laptop.
Let's start a campaign to move all the non-technical managers of technical companies into retirement, where they can watch the blinking clocks on their VRCs.