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Free Netbook From Microsoft, Then Things Got Weird

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.

paiute writes "Matt Karolian, a Marketing Communications major at Emerson College in Boston 'won' a netbook in a Microsoft re-tweet competition (whatever that is). Then the prize arrived, and it was not exactly the high-quality major award he had expected from Microsoft."

5 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Licenses. by baldusi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unless he uses Linux, FreeBSD or any other OSS, he's exposing himself to infringing on Microsoft copyright (how can that be penalized more heavily than physical robbery, is beyond me).
    And he has just make a very public questioning of the legality of his software ownership.
    I do think he should press to get proper licensing. How does he knows that it was properly activated and it's not a crack? WPA itself has lots of false negatives as it is.

    1. Re:Licenses. by Penguinoflight · · Score: 2, Informative

      While it's clear that publishing something like this could raise some flags I have to disagree. If he wants to keep the system as-is then documenting the received condition should serve to protect him.

      Lack of a COA is not lack of proper licensing. There's nothing that requires Microsoft to provide a COA with a promotional item, and should there be a case brought against the new owner it's still the copyright holder's responsibility to prove the lack of license and the presence of use.

      --
      "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
      1 John 4:14
  2. Re:Who cares? by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Forget virus/rootkit scans. Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

    (in this case, replace "nuke it from orbit" with "install Linux on it")

  3. He should know better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    > ..it was not exactly the high-quality major award he had expected from Microsoft."

    Expecting anything high quality from Microsoft is a mistake.

  4. Test PC? by tafkadasoh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This looks like a test PC. Hardware vendors ship their newest products to big software companies so they can play around with it, check performance, etc. I'm guessing some product manager got one, used it for a couple of weeks to test Win7+Office. Then he/she got a newer model, so he/she gave the old one away in this contest and forgot to wipe the hard drive. So keep the Key. Maybe it's an internal debug key you can use forever on any machine...