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Microsoft Offers Pirates Amnesty and Free Windows 10 Upgrades

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft will make Windows 10 available as a free upgrade even to pirated copies of other Windows operating systems in China. Terry Myerson of Microsoft's operating systems unit made the announcement at the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China, and then told Reuters, "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10." Microsoft has a history of attempting to tackle massive and rising software piracy rates in Asia and developing countries, and periodically offers low-cost "licence amnesties" to the worst-offending countries, such as Indonesia and Kenya. Update: 03/18 14:59 GMT by S : Microsoft has clarified that the free upgrade will be offered for unlicensed copies of Windows worldwide, not just in China.

322 comments

  1. where do I sign up by MancunianMaskMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have hokey windows97 license which has been used very occasionally for years despite "Genuine Advantage" warnings. Since I just upgraded my computer can I swap that for shiny new windows10? I'm not chinese BTW

    1. Re:where do I sign up by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Windows 97? Wow, how did you get ahold of that version. I had to wait for Windows 98.

    2. Re:where do I sign up by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

      Windows 97? Wow, how did you get ahold of that version.

      From a Shanghai street vendor, of course.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    3. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got mine from Europe (which is the market where Windows 97 originated)

    4. Re:where do I sign up by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      Does win 97 in a VirtualBox qualify as well?

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    5. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In all seriousness, Windows 95, OEM Service Release 2 (aka "Detroit") was often referred to as "Windows 97" in the SE Asia pirate markets. I still have my "Windows 97" install CD that I bought in Phnom Penh.

    6. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The upgrades are being pushed through windows update and you need at least windows 7 in order to get it. unfortunately this rules out the 68 windows xp machines I still have running in house so looks like we will most likely still be running xp for the foreseeable future. At least until I win the mega millions and donate money to the company..

    7. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      68? What the hell does your power bill look like?

    8. Re:where do I sign up by nobuddy · · Score: 1

      I imagine like any other small to medium business office looks like.

    9. Re:where do I sign up by PixetaledPikachu · · Score: 1

      The upgrades are being pushed through windows update and you need at least windows 7 in order to get it. unfortunately this rules out the 68 windows xp machines I still have running in house so looks like we will most likely still be running xp for the foreseeable future. At least until I win the mega millions and donate money to the company..

      Since Microsoft will provide the upgrade to pirated copies, you can always put pirated win7 install on those boxes so they can get the upgrade via windows update

    10. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be silly. Everyone knows you get the best software in Beijing.

    11. Re:where do I sign up by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Have hokey windows97 license which has been used very occasionally for years

      Windows97 ? You must have been scammed. I'm running Windows99 myself and I'm sure it's genuine.

    12. Re:where do I sign up by hucker75 · · Score: 1

      I suspect he read the post as "in MY house".

    13. Re:where do I sign up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am chinese, but not from china, can I get one?

  2. so, the key to amnesty... by tekrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is to be overwhelming.

    In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists, but in China, where piracy accounts for 80% of all desktops, there is amnesty. Go figure.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    1. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft has done this king of thing before. They used to offer Office at over 90% discount to students. No point trying to charge them money they don't have, they will just pirate. Microsoft found a way to turn them into paying customers, which is better than nothing.

      Since Windows 10 has an app market, maybe they will get a few sales too.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't put some millions of people in jail. Even in china.

    3. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It is the sway of the majority, just that really. I dont think its some big right/wrong issue

    4. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Chinese people are too big to flail.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    5. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

      "Go figure," is actually the correct way to view this.

      There's money in it for Microsoft.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    6. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft has done this king of thing before. They used to offer Office at over 90% discount to students. No point trying to charge them money they don't have, they will just pirate. Microsoft found a way to turn them into paying customers, which is better than nothing.

      this statement is so wrong. the reason why academic licenses for windows and office are sold at such deep discounts is to get the students hooked on the software early and turn them into customers-for-life... a $30 office and $30 windows (the approximate prices at colleges around here) now turns into sales of full priced office every 3-5 years and windows on every pc they buy in the future, in addition to the promotion of microsoft as a personal, business and enterprise software provider. it has absolutely nothing to do with the ease at which college students can pirate the software if they chose to.

    7. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      Same policy happens in the US too - if you fail to repay $1000 the debt collectors come for you, your credit history is wiped and you could even go to jail. If you fail to repay $1bn the government gives you more money.

      Anyway, I wonder if the Chinese can start selling their newly-legitimised copies of Windows 10 on ebay?

    8. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go figure.

      In the US and other industrialized countries Microsoft already has Windows dominating the OS market, whereas in China and other developing countries they would have severely jeopardized their OS's local majority share (with severe global consequences in the long-term) if they had effectively gone after piracy there.

    9. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I think the key to amnesty is for Microsoft to decide that getting an upgrade out everywhere is essential to their business plan. I think the primary purpose of 'Windows 10 upgrades free for everyone' is to get Metro everywhere and jumpstart the WinPhone app store. But I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 10 (and their new 'not IE' version of IE) also forces Bing on you in ways they weren't allowed to in Windows 7 - assuming the clock has run out on the EU's monopoly remedies.

      In other words, the Windows 10 upgrade is free (even for pirated copies) because Microsoft wants to be able to use their desktop monopoly to help their other failing properties. Business as usual...

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    10. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      And there's back doors in it for the Chinese.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    11. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure what you said is any different than what GP said. Whether a student pays $30 to run windows/office now or pirates it to run windows/office now, they are probably just as likely to get hooked long term.

    12. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is to be overwhelming.

      That's standard modus operandi.

      Embezzle $1m, go to jail.
      Embezzle $100m, get fired as CEO, collect massive golden parachute, go work for someone else for more money.
      Embezzle $10b, get a taxpayer funded bailout.

    13. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the USA we do, for hardened criminals who destroy families with addiction while stealing from hard-working tobacco farmers and brewers.

    14. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Opposite effect. After being able to purchase a copy at $30, I can't fathom paying more than that for future versions, so I pirate it for free. Getting me "hooked" just makes me steal it, it doesn't make me pay 10x what I used to pay.

    15. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by mlts · · Score: 1

      The ironic thing is that MS has nothing to lose. If they get pirates paying yuan for licenses, MS has a net gain.

      MS will always make their numbers. If they fail in every other venture, they just do a price hike for their enterprise software, and they have more than made up for the losses. Most big businesses have made the move in the past five years from SPARC/POWER/PA-RISC equipment to commodity x86 machines, then from hardware to virtualization and VM farms... so it is highly unlikely there would be a move away from MS even if they double their prices for all customers.

    16. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      I recently read about one journalist reporting from Mali.

      he was given choice of 3% or 30% tax rate. he chose the 3%. the tax officials said that even if they get 3% that's an improvement over the 1% they're mostly getting...

      anyways, ms is also giving windows and dev tools licenses to companies that bother to ask, mostly, anywhere. win8 was such a fuckup that they changed to giving it for free, which pretty much tells why win8 was such a fuckup, due to them wanting to move people to getting software from windows store - this is why they're giving it away, why tablet licenses for 8 cost zilch and why they're giving legit licenses to everyone in china(basically). they want to give them legit licenses so they can use it in a legit way they figure out, it's not like they cared about sketchy copies that much before either.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    17. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Let's not ignore the free-as-in-beer alternatives, such as Open Office and its forks.

    18. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why not, everyone else does.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    19. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > ... key to amnesty is for Microsoft to decide that getting an downgrade out everywhere ...

      FTFY: You misspelt downgrade. :-)

    20. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Microsoft are really just the last ones to make their OS free. Android, various flavours of Linux, MacOS and iOS are all free and competing with Windows for market share. Microsoft already offers Windows 8 for free on devices with screens under 13", the only requirement being that the default search engine is Bing (and it can be changed).

      That's the market now. Free OS, cheap hardware, and you make your money with an app store and other free services that carry advertising. I expect there will be a free version of Office too soon. Parts of it, like OneNote, are already free.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    21. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This, essentially.
      If you were to treat Windows 10 as hardware (I guess you could call it foundational support), they are using it for pushing software as the main financial income for them.

      To be honest, they could have done this far better and actually gotten way more money if they did this way back during the IE Bundling shitstorm.
      If they offered an online download site back then, maybe had a browser page open that had 3 main categories for each software type, Microsoft products, 3rd party products, Top Downloads.
      That way they wouldn't have been abusing their position, they'd be offering a competitive market place for software downloads at a minimal profit on their part, rivalling sites like Download and such over time.

      Now? They'll be lucky if Windows 10 isn't the biggest mistake in the history of Windows.
      All indicators point to it being fairly decent, but I remember saying the exact same thing with Vista, 7 and 8. None of them have even remotely lived up to how superior Windows XP was compared to their predecessors.
      The stupidly ridiculous specs that were and still are needed to run it basically make it blacklisted by a considerable number of businesses, many have even switched to Linux because of it, and many are stuck on XP because of it.
      If they can make Win10 run on low-spec machines really well, and actually make a distro / package / setup of Win10 geared for Office environments, they might finally get people off an ageing OS. Will they have? Fuck no, Microsoft are clueless. They still think Ribbon is better than toolbars, even though their own damn usability study proved otherwise. Several times. Toolbars and context menus rule the land.

      Microsoft need all the luck in the world. Actually they don't need luck, everyone else just needs to hope they fired those disaster of a group of designers that worked on the previous OSes, as well as the people involved in the general UI coding.
      Just because I have a GPU, doesn't mean you should use a sizeable amount of it to make your shiny UI a few FPS faster. I'd rather have nice flat old classic Windows themes than that tablet-tier trash. I don't want a window border half the width of my damn mouse pointer thank you very much.
      Here's also hoping they actually standardized their actual windowing system again, since they broke and changed it repeatedly through every iteration from Vista to 8.1. STOP, PLEASE.

    22. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by bws111 · · Score: 1

      In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists

      Really? Remind me again which pirate was sentenced to death, life imprisonment without possibility of parole, or even life imprisonment.

      Oh, that never happened? Thought not.

    23. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft has done this king of thing before. They used to offer Office at over 90% discount to students. No point trying to charge them money they don't have, they will just pirate. Microsoft found a way to turn them into paying customers, which is better than nothing.

      More than 90%. I think my dad got a copy of Office 2010 for $10 when his company did a massive infrastructure upgrade and upgraded their entire system.

      The goal is strictly marketing - if you convince people to use Windows, they'll probably stick with Windows. You may not get much money out of them, but there are long term issues to worry about - namely, platform support. If you want developers to write for your platform, you need to convince them that your platform is worth writing for. If a Chinese user is forced to choose between Windows and Linux, and they start going Linux, it hurts Windows because developers might start writing for Linux instead.

      Microsoft had to lose the mobile battle to figure that part out - that it's no longer "if you build it, they will come." You have to convince them to come.

      Windows is under constant threat - even Microsoft itself is hurting it through competition (i.e., Xbox) removing a reason to use Windows.

      If they can convince people to stick with Windows, they're more likely to stick with Windows and Office in the long run.

      Ask Microsoft how much HP pays them for the Windows license on the Stream 7 tablet ($100 tablet)? It's basically zip. Nada. Microsoft is basically giving away Windows licenses to super-cheap tablets to compete with Android. (Not that I mind, I have an iPad, but picked up a Stream 7, basically because it's a full PC for $100. It's no screamer, but for $100, it's pretty neat that you have access to everything on the desktop, including Steam, a bunch of ancient Windows 3.1 apps I use, etc.)

    24. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      if you fail to repay $1000 the debt collectors come for you, your credit history is wiped and you could even go to jail.

      Citation?

      The debt collectors actions are civil, not criminal and have no power of their own to have you arrested or jailed.

      Now, if the debt collector sues you in court, you fail to appear or fail to pay when the judge has ordered you to repay promptly and do not... then you can get hit with a contempt of court charge which could result in jail time... though this is not unique to debt collections, any engagement with a judge can have the same outcome.

    25. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For good reason. Emacs + LaTeX rules!

    26. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Nah, he spelt it right. But it's not really an upgrade to Windows, but to the NSA backdoors built into Windows via the NSA PPP(tm) Panopticon Partnership Program.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    27. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, if the debt collector sues you in court, you fail to appear or fail to pay when the judge has ordered you to repay promptly and do not... then you can get hit with a contempt of court charge which could result in jail time... though this is not unique to debt collections, any engagement with a judge can have the same outcome.

      Citation?

      You can't be held in contempt for not showing up to a civil hearing, you just lose by default. And you won't go to jail for not paying a judgement, the courts will just impose wage and tax return garnishing that is then collected by your employer and the IRS.

    28. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Remind me again which pirate was sentenced to death

      Jack Sparrow.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    29. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by jratcliffe · · Score: 1

      Hey now, that sounds suspiciously like nuance, you know that's not allowed around here.

    30. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      Garnishing someone's tax return is not feasable for the majority of debts. I'm not sure if it's even possible for a federal return, outside student loans and debts to the government. Some states allow you to garnish a state tax return.
      You can absolutely be arrested for failure to appear on a civil court case, even small claims. I sued someone afew years back and went back and forth with them multiple times. They were smart enough to show up every time I could have had them held in contempt.

      In my jurisdiction, for an average person, you have to sue them and pay filing fees, then appear and get a default judgement, then file to collect your default judgement. If they don't show for that, you can get a "body attachment" and they will have an arrest warrant issued. If they have an interaction with the police, they will be arrested and held, usually until they cough up some percentage of the debt.

      This process takes a long time and is difficult for a person to follow through, I ended up settling the debt after 3 or 4 months of court appointments.
      Companies with can keep hounding you and if you miss the right court appointment you are SOL.

    31. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The housing crisis wasn't embezzlement. It was more like throwing everyone's money in a big hole and setting it on fire.

    32. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And there's back doors in it for the Chinese.

      Maybe not just for them. It's nice that Microsoft is willing to let people (and pirates - Arrrg!) upgrade for free, but it makes me wonder why they're so eager for everyone to have Windows 10. What's in it that they want to be ubiquitous and/or available? Backdoors, spyware, etc...? New ways to track people or help the authorities (and various 3-letter agencies) track usage? More A/V controls to appease the RIAA and MPAA?

      Ya, I get they want more market share - in something - but it still sounds fishy.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    33. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too big? I feel like that would be an arms race that Americans can win handily.

    34. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      That's standard modus operandi.

      Embezzle $1m, go to jail.
      Embezzle $100m, get fired as CEO, collect massive golden parachute, go work for someone else for more money.
      Embezzle $10b, get a taxpayer funded bailout.

      Reminds me of a bit in the Eddie Izzard standup performance Dress to Kill:

      You know, we think if somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that's what they do. 20 people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can't deal with it, you know? Someone's killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning. I can't even get down the gym! Your diary must look odd: “Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch- death, death, death -afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower"

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    35. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I once took a Chinese girl in the backdoor, but that's another story...

    36. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by rahvin112 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They haven't done this kind of thing before. The rumors are this is SaaS in that you can download and install it for free and even use it for a year for free but after a year they hold the whole thing hostage and demand money from you. SaaS in the retail non-business market is just insane, I hope the rumors aren't true but I suspect they are given the success they've had with office365.

    37. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Remind me again which pirate was sentenced to death

      Jack Sparrow.

      Forcing him to use Windows would have been worse...

      Recall that Patrick Henry exclaimed "Give me liberty, or give me death!" not "... or give me Windows!"

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    38. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      And, of course, the NSA has partnered with Microsoft to install new, more covert, monitoring backdoors into Windows 10, and the American government is obviously keen on getting that surveillance network globally installed with maximum penetration...so they probably subsidize every copy of windows that gets installed (and shows up in their monitoring network), whether it was purchased or not.

      Anyone who thinks this isn't exactly what is going on (given the Snowden and subsequent revelations) is simply being naive. You should automatically assume that any proprietary software you obtain (including the firmware on your hardware) is spying on you. Because it is.

    39. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by blackomegax · · Score: 1

      If only there was some other OS that runs exceptionally well on commodity and server x86 hardware....and was free....

    40. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bet you voted for that. Twice.
      http://www.cnet.com/news/joe-bidens-pro-riaa-pro-fbi-tech-voting-record/

    41. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by blackomegax · · Score: 1

      Windows 7 is so far ahead of XP that it's not even funny. Lightyears. Any hardware that windows 7 DOESN'T RUN ON IT to the point the install refuses, is on the edge of physical death and true obsolescence. Any company stuck in that era isn't agile enough to be terribly competitive and will fail in time.

    42. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's still that cheap, at most universities they have a deal where you can buy it for $11 bucks... anyone can afford a premium software at that cost, especially for the whole suite

    43. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Nay, it is heresy! Long live vim! :q! the heretic!

      As a child with a GameBoy once told his younger sibling: this console ain't big enough for the two of us.

    44. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Ravaldy · · Score: 1

      In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists

      Citation please.

    45. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      It's not that the OS is free now. They still get their cut with just about every new PC sold. It's just that Windows - as in 'platform for running WIN32 apps' - is no longer in development. But it's what everybody uses, so nobody needs to upgrade beyond Windows 7 (or even XP - if it weren't for unpatched security holes). So they really can't charge for upgrades anyway.

      Microsoft understands that the money they lose by not selling upgrades to Windows 10 isn't worth going after. They need to move everybody to their new platform - which has some serious adoption problems. Free upgrades can help there, and if they can get everybody back onto the upgrade mill, maybe they can start charging for upgrades again someday. But more important is to prime the pump for Windows Mobile and Bing. WinMob, because they're losing badly in mobile. Bing, because they think they need to bring down Google - and because they wouldn't mind taking a big chunk of Google's search advertising revenue stream while they're at it.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    46. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by bws111 · · Score: 1

      That was Britain, not the US

    47. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by 4pins · · Score: 2

      It doesn't seem fishy to me at all. I am sure Microsoft is tired of the stories about how their old operating systems are more popular than their current one. Their last two releases (8.0 & 8.1) have flopped. Windows XP is still more popular than both of them combined! A fair amount of this stems from people running old operating systems on old hardware and they hope a free upgrade on the software side will create the appearance of a win.

      --
      I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
    48. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is just now coming around to the idea that software OS is completely commoditized and that they need an install base at any cost. Even free. Most users are perfectly happy with Android or iOS or Chrombooks. The cost of those OSs? Effectively zero.

      Microsoft has actually acknowledged this for a long time (The real price of bundled windows is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the retail price) - It's just that Microsoft's internal business culture has prevented them from selling a low price retail box.

      You can buy a windows 8.1 (Yes full windows 8.1. Not the weird crippled metro-only arm port nobody uses) tablet for 150 bucks. Some even lower.. The retail price of a windows 8.1 /upgrade/ is 99.

      For end users, windows will become like ChromeOS or Android - Free OS, make money on services.

      For business users not much will change for now. Enterprise windows deployments have not changed much.. But sooner or later everything will move to some sort of desktop/app virtualization where the end user's comp can be anything. It's just a display/interface.

    49. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      App store?
      Or, because smartphones running Windows 10 will interact more conveniently with desktops and laptops running Windows 10 than will other phones?

    50. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Any hardware that windows 7 DOESN'T RUN ON IT to the point the install refuses, is on the edge of physical death and true obsolescence.

      I have a number of machines in daily use that disprove this assertion.

    51. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by jawtheshark · · Score: 1
      I run XP Pro in a Xen DomU, which I can access over RDP using a VPN or a SSH tunnel. It is, by far, the most stable XP installation I ever had and I only use it when necessary. Test a website for work from XP? No problem! The oddball software I can't get for Linux? Same thing.

      The best part: It is "Gold" as in , I have a perfect installation. Something goes wrong, and I got back to the LVM snapshot where it was pristine. This never happened, but sometimes, instead of uninstalling stuff I need to test, I just rollback any way. It runs wonderfully on one E3-1260L core and 512MB RAM.

      This is exactly how Windows XP should be used these days, and it works perfectly fine. XP for Win32 functionality, the rest on Linux.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    52. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft has never really cared about people who pirate their software. They are probably the only company that actually gets it. You can't stop piracy so don't even try.

    53. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Citation?

      I love it when I challenge someone for a citation and the first response is someone demanding a citation from me (without any of their own).

      You can't be held in contempt for not showing up to a civil hearing, you just lose by default.

      While there should have been an or in there... and failure to appear is a valid cause to be arrested in some states... such as Minnesota: http://www.startribune.com/inv...

      I've a friend in California whose ex was issued a bench warrant for failing to show up to a child support hearing (there had been a long series of them and he missed two in a row).

      And you won't go to jail for not paying a judgement,

      You clearly don't know how much power a judge has.

      Don't believe me? Try this:

      1. You give me your email address
      2. I send you an email, in response you send me a signed and notarized document promising to pay me $50,000 within 30 days as a thanks for the email.
      3. Fail to pay me within 30 days.
      4. After multiple attempts by me to collect on this debt, I go to court and get a judgment against you to pay me the full amount of debt within 30 days (I'll skip the interest in this case).
      5. Fail to pay me within the next 30 days.
      6. I return to the judge and tell them that you still have not complied with their order.
      7. They give you one last chance to comply within the next 7 days.
      8. 7 days elapse without payment
      9. Judge holds you in contempt.

      See how easy that was?

    54. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Threni · · Score: 1

      You know nothing about computers. Why are you even on this site?

    55. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Threni · · Score: 1

      We're not talking about rumours here, though.

    56. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by sverdlichenko · · Score: 1

      It's also a lessons learned from WinXP support story. Nobody is happy making patches to 10-years old OS, and stopping this was a major PR issue.

    57. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by hendrips · · Score: 1, Informative

      Microsoft has denied that particular rumor. Of course, they might be lying or they might change their mind, but for now there are no official plans for a "free trial" model.

    58. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by nobuddy · · Score: 1

      I was disappointed when they took all the desktop and server OS out of DreamSpark. That was a great source of licenses for virtual machine learning environments.

    59. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by sosume · · Score: 1

      > But sooner or later everything will move to some sort of desktop/app virtualization where the end user's comp can be anything. It's just a display/interface.

      Always the same story since I started out in IT. First centralization, then decentralization. First coupling, then decoupling. First the terminal, then the fat client, then the thin client. First the server web apps, then the native client apps and so on and so on. It's just ping pong.

    60. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by theArtificial · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just looked at the tablet, and on the Microsoft Store the unit is $79. Pretty wild, how's the screen on this?

      --
      Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
    61. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They haven't done this kind of thing before. The rumors are this is SaaS in that you can download and install it for free and even use it for a year for free but after a year they hold the whole thing hostage and demand money from you. SaaS in the retail non-business market is just insane, I hope the rumors aren't true but I suspect they are given the success they've had with office365.

      That rumor started with a blogger misreading a Microsoft press release. While the wording was a bit poor, it was clearly referring to the fact you will only have a year to claim a free version.

    62. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Meneth · · Score: 2

      Remind me again which pirate was sentenced to death

      Jack Sparrow.

      Captain Jack Sparrow.

    63. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by theArtificial · · Score: 1

      Still not /. enough!

      1. You give me your email address
      2. ???
      3. Judge holds you in contempt.

      --
      Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
    64. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      vim killed at least one pc that I've worked on and called me some pretty nasty things, but Id still use it before I'd use LibreOffice calc.

    65. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Its not "nuance", its "correcting blatantly false nonsense".

      Theres no "debtors prison" anymore.

    66. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

      Bullshit.

      It's generally not contempt of court not to pay a judgment. There are special cases where it sometimes can be with child support, but, as a general rule, you're just wrong on this. Even with child support, if you show up in court and prove you can't pay the debt, it's not contempt of court.

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    67. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of my debt collectors just offer to reduce the owed amount by 50%-75% if I pay it in one lump sum.

    68. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Worked in Seattle for a tech company and my boss was a manager at Microsoft before that. He always told us their view was they are okay with the piracy on one condition, you aren't making money off it. once you are they will look for you and drop the hammer for it.

      Better to pirate and use Microsoft, then use something else and have that spread.

    69. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by amoeba1911 · · Score: 1

      Nah, the money went in the pockets of crooks.

    70. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A former co-worker found this out. A number of years ago, he moved to California, got married.

      Fast forward to 2008. CA's economy tanked (and is still flaccid), co-worker lost his job, and his wife divorced him, leaving him with the house (and its mortgage), but no real assets. Said wife got a pretty hefty child support judgement (even though she is now married to someone else.)

      Well, for a few years, this former co-worker would be arrested, asked by the judge why child support was not being paid, refused to accept the fact that the guy had no job (and was living with one of his friends due to the foreclosure), tossed in the county clink for six months. After he got released, 2-3 weeks later, he would get arrested again, judge wouldn't accept unemployment as a reason and toss him in county for another half-year.

      He is now in Mexico doing tourist guide stuff, and because Mexico doesn't recognize child support as a "felony", he won't be extradited to the US.

      So, yes... a judge has a lot of power.

    71. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Dragonslicer · · Score: 2

      The much simpler, less-conspiracy-theory reason would be that it's easier to stop supporting old versions of Windows when users can update to the newest version for free.

    72. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Yep. There seems to be (at least officially) no plans yet for a subscription-only Windows, but I believe they will go that route. At least they'll try and see how it goes.
      After all, they're doing something similar with Office: They're encouraging everyone to get the subscription version. It's a no brainer, although cheaper initially it'll make Microsoft more money on the long run.
      The fact they're esentially giving away Windows 10 strongly suggests they've thought of a way to get more money from us on the long run. And I hate this: I prefer knowing how much money I'm gonna pay upfront

    73. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      That may have been at one point. However With XP onword, you having to call Microsoft because you have the OS install on a partition and you tried to either boot directly to it, or connect to it via a VM.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    74. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      They want you to use their new and wonderful app store of which they'll get a cut of every sale.
      They want you to use all the services they've integrated to the OS: OneDrive, Bing, Cortana, etc. so that you might get a subscription for one of them, or giving them your data to mine (the Google model) or that you get so accustomed to the Microsoft ecosystem that you buy one of their phones or tablets.
      And I don't like it either since it means that Microsoft it's sure it'll get more money from you on the long run than if you'd paid for the OS upfront. It also means that they'll likely integrate more of their services into the OS à la Google with Android.

    75. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by I4ko · · Score: 1

      I prefer 1280x800 (16:10) better than 1366x768 (16:9). It is an IPS but a little dark from what I remember seeing the unit in the store. All in all not bad, but still prefer my Surface RT to this one (can hook up the Surface RT to a big monitor)

    76. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      They have only denied it will be subscription only. That would be a true denial if they retained their current business licensing and subjected the retail market to SaaS.

      I don't trust them, they want SaaS to even out their revenue flow and Windows IS going to go that way. 10 might be a stepping stone where they offer both, but I have no doubt in mind SaaS windows will arrive with windows 10.

    77. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by ITRambo · · Score: 1

      They want everyone to be ready for the deluge of HoloLens porn that will be flooding the market next year. Money is to be made only if everyone has a HoloLens setup. It only works on Windows 10. It'll get big once your favorite "adult star" is in the room with you, as long as you keep your HoloLens on. This is Hypnotoad level stuff. Maybe.

    78. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Chuckstar · · Score: 1

      The money mostly just disappeared. Question for you if you don't believe me: If the stock market declines in value tomorrow, where did all the money go?

    79. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only there was. I can't think of a single one...

    80. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 1

      The goal is strictly marketing - if you convince people to use Windows, they'll probably stick with Windows. You may not get much money out of them, but there are long term issues to worry about - namely, platform support. If you want developers to write for your platform, you need to convince them that your platform is worth writing for. If a Chinese user is forced to choose between Windows and Linux, and they start going Linux, it hurts Windows because developers might start writing for Linux instead.

      Linux distros are free because.... They also happen to need developers, users and have bills to pay, it's just totally not a marketing gimmick? The most popular distros are run by non-profits?

      I see this as fair competition. We've got companies bundling every piece of software they can with their system in these enormous OS repositories, and giving it away for free, while Microsoft almost got broken up over shipping a web browser. Yup, they abused a monopoly, and hurt the software market. Look at Linux today, WHAT software "market"? MySQL gets snubbed for MariaDB, OpenOffice for LibreOffice. Microsoft has to use a browser ballot?

      When will Microsoft be allowed to operate just like everybody else, bundling and dumping like they couldn't have dreamed of twenty years ago?

    81. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Oh.

      So that explains why the Internet economy never took off ...

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    82. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 2

      I hope this is true. I was planning on upgrading from Windows7 (hey, at least they aren't trying to make me use the silly smart screen this time) because of gaming and games and also playing on my computer.
      If I get a "activate genuine account" message in a year, I'll be right pissed.

    83. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I think every software company wants all their customers to be on the same version.....it really reduces the amount of work necessary.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    84. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      Well, it depends - which country, and who you owe to. If you owe the council for local taxes, you can (and people have) been sent to jail for a short time to name one, popularised case.

      Similarly you can (in the UK) be sent down for not paying child maintenance payments.

      your citation sir
      http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/b...

      But still, my point is about the inequity of life - if you''re a big player things are applied differently to you.

    85. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Dogers · · Score: 1

      We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.

      This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.

      http://blogs.windows.com/blogg...

      --
      I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
    86. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists

      Have you got citation for that? I can't think of an instance where any person has been prosecuted for pirating a Windows license much less treated like a "murderer" or a "rapist" for it.

    87. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting for someone to cite something which calls what I'm saying bullshit... odd that? Oh right... /.

      Getting a contempt order is by no means an automatic thing... you first have to go back to the judge and inform them of the violation, maybe even give a chance to the violator an opportunity to respond... it's then up to the judge if and how they will proceed... in fact this is the same process under which (then) President Bill Clinton was held in contempt. Judicial notices can be fun.

      Same goes for a writ of mandamus... once you have a judges order in hand against a civil servant who is refusing to do their job things tend to get moving as a contempt order is always a risk.

    88. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

      Yes, protocol on Slashdot with alleged bullshit things is that burden of proof is on the bullshitter. Since, you know, you made the original claim?

      But I'll throw you a bone. I won't even use insult you with lmgtfy.com. Aren't I a nice guy?

      http://www.nolo.com/legal-ency...

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    89. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how did the cops keep finding him if he was just 'living with one of his friends'?? If the cops can't find you, they can't arrest you. If they don't know where you live, they can't serve you with a summons to appear in court.

      Your former coworker could have just worked cash jobs and stayed in California. Sounds like he didn't try too hard to maintain invisibility.

    90. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists, but in China, where piracy accounts for 80% of all desktops, there is amnesty. Go figure.

      I think that they know how unmarketable their new windows is. After people overwhelmingly rejected windows 8 they are desperate to get the market share up as a bragging point before the shareholders start dropping the hammer on upper management.

    91. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't read the clarification from Terry Myerson. http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next-generation-of-windows-windows-10/

      The upgrade for free for a year means you can upgrade to Windows 10 within the first year for free. After that first year, you will be charged an upgrade fee. After the upgrade, all subsequent updates will be supported for the lifetime of the device at no cost. I suppose if you're a lawyer you can claim Microsoft only mentions updates and never specify if there will be a fee required in order to use the OS.

    92. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      10 might be a stepping stone where they offer both, but I have no doubt in mind SaaS windows will arrive with windows 10.

      Not until having cellular data access in laptops becomes commonplace. Even now while they do have SaaS offerings they haven't replaced any software with a SaaS-only offering much less doing so with the operating system doing that would be fraught with problems and drive people straight to alternatives. What you suggest makes absolutely no sense at all.

    93. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And there's back doors in it for the Chinese.

      Maybe not just for them. It's nice that Microsoft is willing to let people (and pirates - Arrrg!) upgrade for free, but it makes me wonder why they're so eager for everyone to have Windows 10. What's in it that they want to be ubiquitous and/or available? Backdoors, spyware, etc...? New ways to track people or help the authorities (and various 3-letter agencies) track usage? More A/V controls to appease the RIAA and MPAA?

      Ya, I get they want more market share - in something - but it still sounds fishy.

      They could just as easily push out a backdoor in a critical update, if the backdoors weren't aready in earlier versions. A more likely explanation is that they want users to use the new windows 10 app store.

    94. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      What causes the value of the stock market to decline? Cashing out. The money will go to speculators and other finance brokers who skim money out of the system by buying and selling when appropriate and not "investing".

      Money doesn't disappear. It is simply hidden.

    95. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by dave420 · · Score: 1

      You believe they will, even though there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that. You might want to work on your logic there, bub. Microsoft makes money from everyone using Windows, whether they paid for Windows or not, simply because it keeps their market share up. These people who use it at home for free also use it at work, and they need to buy the extra software and support and so on, which Microsoft happily makes money from.

      There is an easy way to stop the hateful situation - read about this stuff and stop making up answers for already-answered questions :)

    96. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that

      There is evidence: Microsoft has been one of the most abusive companies.

    97. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like more to the story. You can't just "divorce" and leave the other person with the debt. You have to sign off on it, otherwise everything is to be liquidated, debts paid as much as possible, then any remaining value or debt will be evenly split.

    98. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Not only did you not read the article I had mentioned previously which pointed to people ending up in jail (even if for brief periods) due to debts, but you didn't even read the one you linked to!

      However, there are a few situations when you might face jail time in connection with a debt.

      The funny thing is that it even goes on to name some of them! See that first one... about violating a court order? That normally is referred to a contempt, and getting locked up for a day or 90 is one of the possible punishments.

    99. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      No, that's not the only way it can decline. The value of a stock is what you can get somebody to pay for it. If you could sell your shares for $100 each yesterday, and only $80 today, you've lost 20% of your value. That can happen with a sudden loss of confidence in the company, without anybody cashing out. The value of my house has fluctuated a lot over the years, affecting my net worth.

      Similarly, if a bank invests heavily in some sort of security, and carries it as value on its books, and the security turns out to be worthless, the bank can be badly hurt financially without any money changing hands.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    100. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

      Please read the link again, and/or work on your reading comprehension skills. The part you talk about is referring to not showing up to court when summoned, not failing to pay a monetary judgment.

      Generally, once you have a judgment, it's up to you as a creditor to enforce it. You can do this in a number of ways, including enlisting a sheriff to help you (for a fee). But the debtor doesn't end up in prison for not paying a judgment.

      Do you see how "not showing up to court" != "not paying a judgment"? Like I said earlier, the only way you can end up in jail for not paying a debt is if it's child support or a fine. These exceptions are perpetually controversial because they're basically debtors' prison, although supposedly inability to pay is a defense to the contempt charge.

      In any case, I've thoroughly skewered your stupid "send me an email saying you'll pay me $10000" or whatever hypothetical. Unsecured creditors have no ability to force you into jail. Just make your court appearances, stupid.

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    101. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the USA, the relatively small number of pirates are treated worse than murderers and rapists

      Really? Remind me again which pirate was sentenced to death, life imprisonment without possibility of parole, or even life imprisonment.

      Oh, that never happened? Thought not.

      Aaron Swartz

    102. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Chuckstar · · Score: 1

      In fact, cashing out is never where the money goes. If you own a stock, and you sell it to me for $100, then nothing changes. No value created or destroyed. There's still $100 out there, and there's still the stock out there. Where value is destroyed is when no one is willing to pay $100 for the stock anymore, which can happen for a variety of reasons. But the $10 that gets lost when the $100 stock goes down to $90 doesn't actually go anywhere. It just disappears from the ledger.

    103. Re:so, the key to amnesty... by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      --Even a "free" upgrade won't get traction if the user interface is crap. See Win 8.x, Vista, Slashdot Beta. On the plus side, I've been evaluating the Win10 beta and it's *not* crap (so far.)

      --I should qualify my next statement by saying that I hate Win 8.x with the fire of a thousand burning suns, and refuse to use it or work on it AT ALL, even if someone wants to pay me for it.

      --I still like Win7 the best, especially for business (but my main bare-hardware desktop is still Xubuntu--64-LTS.) As long as they don't take the Win10 GUI changes in a wrong direction, I'm willing to try Win10 at this point; but I'm still keeping full-partition image backups of all my Win7 installs and VMs just in case.

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
  3. Windows Piracy Increases 4000% in China. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "If I pirate old windows I get Windows 10 for free?"

    1. Re:Windows Piracy Increases 4000% in China. by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      And the NSA gets to pwn you for free.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Windows Piracy Increases 4000% in China. by AqD · · Score: 1

      They make money from enterprise.

      Your copy of Windows serves nothing more than advertisement for them, to remind you that Windows is the computer OS.

    3. Re:Windows Piracy Increases 4000% in China. by leptons · · Score: 1

      > And the NSA gets to pwn you for free.

      This is exactly what I'm thinking too.. they seem to be falling over themselves trying to get people to install the new windows - for free, even for all the pirates.

      In light of all the NSA abuses, computers are becoming less interesting to me. About all I use them for now is to write software to make money. Beyond that, I don't trust them at all, thanks to the creepy NSA, facebook, and others who want to know too damned much about everyone.

  4. Nice try... by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 1

    Giving them a new windows version is a bullet-proof method to continuously crash their computers, preventing them from pirating other software.

    1. Re:Nice try... by denis-The-menace · · Score: 1

      Nah, the NSA pay the difference for having a Windows-bot in china.

      --
      Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
    2. Re:Nice try... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice Windows XP joke

  5. This is Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should take out the stupid activation! and go back to only using a serial.

    The more entities using their product the more SALES in the long run!

    1. Re:This is Great by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 0

      Not going to happen. The idea is to get you used to having the OS phone home for "activation". Then you are ripe for milking annually to keep them from sending you the "de-activation" packet. They want to go to an annual subscription model, like Adobe. Then they can make you teabagging cock-smokers pay EVERY year instead of every 3-5 like now.

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
  6. Don't take it - its a trap by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't take it - its a trap! They'll have you locked in and in future you'll pay

    1. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly what I'm thinking. They're gonna do a pay to play upgrade or something. I can see it now. When there is a certificate just for MS Licensing...expect there to be fees.

    2. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Simulant · · Score: 2

      Pretty much this. This is not a gift horse this is playing catch up. The question now is which surveillance/sales & marketing platform do you trust the most?

    3. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Then you pirate the upgrade. Come on now.

    4. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by dave420 · · Score: 0

      What difference does it make if they get a free copy or pirate the software? They'll still be using Windows either way. Oh, it's Chrisq. You're not too good with logic, but great with gut-feelings and knee-jerk reactions. I'm surprised you didn't attempt to ham-fistedly twist this into an anti-Islam tirade like you usually do.

    5. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't take it - its a trap! They'll have you locked in and in future you'll pay

      Hehe. I'm sure Linux Foundation paid you some nice bucks to write that.

    6. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by reve_etrange · · Score: 1

      What difference does it make if they get a free copy or pirate the software?

      That's how it seems to me, too...but then why should a pirate upgrade? Pirate Windows works great (or so I'm told, I swear).

      --
      .: Semper Absurda :.
    7. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by luther349 · · Score: 1

      it was stated before anyone who takes the free upgraded keeps it for life of the pc.

    8. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 1

      My suspicion is that MS is planning to roll out a life cycle for consumer Windows 10 that matches OS X. That is, you should expect to pay for a service pack in the form of a point revision in a year or two.

      --
      The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
    9. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, bruh. You're great with hyperbole, ad hominem, and cramming hyphens in any-where they can fit!

    10. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by denisbergeron · · Score: 1

      Windows 10 is a one year subscription. isn't it ?

      --
      Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
    11. Re:Don't take it - its a trap by dave420 · · Score: 1

      No.

  7. Funded by the NSA? by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funded by the NSA? After all we don't want them compiling their own OSs with home grown backdoors instead of American ones

    1. Re:Funded by the NSA? by darkmeridian · · Score: 2

      At any other point in time, I would have laughed at such conspiracy theories. However, there is a good chance that the NSA simply wants to keep its backdoors. Now, there may not be intentionally backdoors in Windows, but certainly, as Stuxnet has revealed, the NSA has a very good understanding of the security flaws in Windows. Why risk losing good intel because of a new operating system that is based on Linux?

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    2. Re:Funded by the NSA? by Eloking · · Score: 1

      Funded by the NSA? After all we don't want them compiling their own OSs with home grown backdoors instead of American ones

      Oh come out, how exactly are we going to be "locked in" and forced to pay? Worst case you just format and re-install whatever genuine/non-genuine version of windows you had in the first place.

      --
      Elok
    3. Re:Funded by the NSA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      considering that the updated summary says EVERYONE worldwide will be eligible.. one must have to wonder what the motivations are for such a generous offer.... surely you'll have to provide a name, address, phone and email to register for a microsoft account in order to get the 'free' windows 10 (which should NOT be needed... an iso/usb builder and key should be offered right from windows update.. no personal data provided).. but will you have to confess? will you have to (digitally) sign an agreement not to pirate anything in the future? will your personal information be shared with the feds? nsa? fbi? ice? bsa? anyone else?

      if it sounds too good to be true... and pirating any windows 7/8 to get a free 10 would qualify....... it probably is.. there's a catch.. we just don't know what it is yet.

    4. Re:Funded by the NSA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ubuntu Kylin is stock ubuntu with different locale and some pre-installed apps that fit the Chinese region (e.g. a chinese calendar). It's all verifiable down to comparing files from debian, ubuntu and ubuntu kylin. Stop the conspiracy crap.

    5. Re:Funded by the NSA? by duck_rifted · · Score: 1

      Attempt 3 to make this brief.

      The Linux community is amazing, but Windows is tried by fire. Black hats have more motivation to target Windows because it's the predominant consumer operating system, and vulnerabilities can only be patched at a rate less than or equal to the rate at which they are found. Windows has held that status for a long time now, giving it a head start.

      The NSA does not set their priorities like black hats do; they're after intel rather than grandma's pension or little Billy's passwords. If we assume that the NSA studies Linux with veracity equal to Windows, then they know about exploits that black hats wouldn't find for years to come if Linux and Windows swapped places in the market.

      On the other hand, it's impossible to know the extent to which Microsoft cooperates with the NSA. Paranoia where that's concerned is not constructive, but that doesn't mean we have to blindly trust either. It's okay to say that we don't know (though people hate to do that). However, this remains true for teams developing Linux distros.

      I can't find where the Linux developers and Windows developers aren't one-to-one in traits relevant to this topic aside from the security head start that Windows has, which in turn means that Linux is a softer target. The only argument I can come up with to tell myself that I'm wrong, stupid, and my opinion is yucky is that we could just blindly trust Linux developers to know what they don't know. That's just silly, even if they're damn fine examples of technically proficient people.

  8. Free is still too expensive by JoeyRox · · Score: 0

    I demand $300 in reparations for having to endure the huge shit pile that is Windows 8.

    1. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh. I'm using Windows 8.1 and like it. Apart from the start menu you can configure it to look just like Windows 7. Is there something specific about 8 you find problematic or do you just not like Windows?

    2. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about the first bootup bit where you have to link your fucking admin account to a fucking online account? It's the first piece of shit I disabled once I had my machine up and ready to go. Second was that abomination of a start screen.

    3. Re:Free is still too expensive by narcc · · Score: 1

      It's better than 7, so I don't have any complaints. It takes 5 minutes to get your start menu back, if that's what's bothering you.

    4. Re:Free is still too expensive by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

      The major change in Windows 8 was the UI but you're saying if I use via third-party software to roll back the UI to Windows 7 then Windows 8 is good. That's like saying the Spanish Inquisition is a party once you factor out all the murders.

    5. Re:Free is still too expensive by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Informative

      How about the first bootup bit where you have to link your fucking admin account to a fucking online account?

      You don't have to. You can just create a local account.

      Second was that abomination of a start screen.

      That's only a bother until you install a Start-menu replacement.

    6. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have several problems with 8 and 8.1

      1. Fucking thing loses keyboard and mouse on fucking boot. I can click on my user icon to log in, but the mouse disappears and the keyboard no longer functions. This isn't the first time I've encountered this, either. Several other people's laptops and desktops developed this problem. Nothing short of a reinstall fixes the problem.

      2. Driver support is wonky as fuck. It likes to use MICROSOFT DRIVERS instead of the actual OEM driver package for video cards, which causes older OpenGL games to not work with some of my older hardware (Win7 is guilty of this as well but it's nowhere near as painful to remedy.) My only solution is to use old out of date drivers to get that functionality back, and that's becoming increasingly difficult to do.

      3. It's still a shitty touchscreen interface hammered into what is typically a no-touch operating environment (typical desktops and laptops.)

      4. Win8's RDP gets HALF the fucking RemoteFX/VDI performance that the Win7 RDP gets for 3D applications when connecting to a Hyper-V VM that uses RemoteFX.

      You want me to go on? I'll quickly educate you about your ignorance.

    7. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you get to that part of the install, unplug your network cable, hit the back button, and proceed. You'll then be prompted to just setup a local account.

    8. Re:Free is still too expensive by mlts · · Score: 1

      I've found 8.1 not that bad. BitLocker can be used to protect the startup drive without a TPM needed, chkdsk can be run on a drive without needing to be dismounted, Storage Spaces, ReFS, and deduplication are quite nice features. Even running BitLocker on drives without needing a key protector is useful, since a format command zeroes out the master volume keys, making data virtually impossible to retrieve. Plus, Hyper-V is a decent hypervisor (tier 1 hypervisors are relatively rare... especially ones which let you use the computer's main console for daily work.)

      Only complaint I have is that 8.1 needs the same backup utility that Windows Server 2012R2 has. Technically both are wbadmin utilities, but the server version is extremely useful.

    9. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like the new start menu. The search is certainly better. Hit Windows key, type first few letters of your app, hit enter. Way nicer than Windows 7.

    10. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The inquisition
      What a show!
      The inquisition
      Here we go!

      (sung with an imitation of Mel Brooks' voice)

    11. Re:Free is still too expensive by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be fair, creating a local account is very discouraged, hidden AND you have no access to the Windows Store. You dont get the full OS without an MS account. Its an ok solution to a shit sandwich.

      --
      Good-bye
    12. Re:Free is still too expensive by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Way nicer? Windows 7 has precisely the same search in the Start Menu!

      What actually happens is that one is just forced to use the Start Screen's search because the Start Screen is otherwise an unusable mess.

    13. Re:Free is still too expensive by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      NO need for that, the options are all there at install, even with net on. You dont HAVE to make an MS account, but you have to be diligent and look for the local account at creation. They hid the local account creation in GFWL, Win 8 and Win 10. In each instance you have to scroll down to see the options to create a local account. The point is MS is being shitheads about local accounts so its understandable people dont know about them.

      --
      Good-bye
    14. Re:Free is still too expensive by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Nicer than how in Windows 7 you hit the Windows key and then type the first few letters of your app and hit enter?

    15. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's basically all I do in Win7 today, and is part of the reason why the Start menu in 8 wasn't really that big of a deal.

    16. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well considering it works the exact same way in Windows 7, but it does so without the shitty fullscreen UI, I'm not sure how Windows 8 could be doing it any better. Care to elaborate?

    17. Re:Free is still too expensive by Binestar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I call shenanigans. You're not going to do anything with a windows 8 machine until you install third party software anyways. What is the issue with installing a third party start menu? If the product is available and does what you want for the price you want (classic shell is free), what's the problem?

      Disk IO is better in windows 8 than in 7
      Startup times are better

      I wouldn't necessarily spend money to upgrade from 7 to 8 on an existing PC, but new PC, I'd just get it with 8.1 to start.

      --
      Do you Gentoo!?
    18. Re:Free is still too expensive by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      1. I've never had that problem in 8, though it did happen with my work computer that is on 7.

      2. I guess I'm not using any really old hardware. I was using a 3 year old graphics card though and never had any problems with using non-microsoft drivers.

      3. The tiled start screen is dumb but I almost never see it. It was the first thing I saw when I booted the computer for the first time. But then I switched to the desktop view with the windows key and since then it has always gone straight to the desktop after reboots. Now the only time I see it is when I use the OS to search for something, no addons, mods, or cryptic settings required.

      4. I've never used RDP on 8 as it's my home computer, but sounds like a plausible complaint. That said I'm not sure how that'd even come up as a problem, are you using RDP to play a video game on a remote server?

      In my experience 8 is just as shitty as 7. Which makes sense as 8 is mainly 7 with some extra UI changes which you can mostly avoid anyways.

    19. Re:Free is still too expensive by JohnFen · · Score: 2

      AND you have no access to the Windows Store.

      That's a benefit, not a drawback.

    20. Re:Free is still too expensive by JohnFen · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Disk IO is better in windows 8 than in 7

      But not enough to matter unless you're doing something special.

      Startup times are better

      Why do people cite this as if it matters?

    21. Re:Free is still too expensive by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      Yes and no. I do use some of the apps, like Plex. It would be nice to use those apps without an MS account. Its weird to me that my PC has executables i cant do anything with.

      --
      Good-bye
    22. Re:Free is still too expensive by thebes · · Score: 1

      Hidden? Not the last time I checked. If you skip the Wi-Fi setup, you CAN'T create the online account, so you create the local account. No access to Windows Store? Boo. Hoo.

    23. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 8 has no easy way to change many common settings particularly when it comes to fonts and displays. You don't like the size of the system font or typeface? Good luck. You use dark title bars? Good luck. How do you customize screens? Only though hacks and workarounds. How can you change the thickness of window borders? The default ones are way too fat. Good luck with that too.

    24. Re:Free is still too expensive by weszz · · Score: 1

      So with this free upgrade... Will Hyper V still be included on the client side if we have it now or will we have to pay for it? Can't seem to find any answers on that...

    25. Re:Free is still too expensive by narcc · · Score: 1

      Performance is better over all, which is what matters most. The UI change is what bothers most people, so they can use one of several free tools to replace it. I've adapted and no longer care that things are different.

      Though I've found that I use the search feature in windows 7 a lot more than I did prior to my exposure to windows 8. It's surprisingly convenient.

    26. Re:Free is still too expensive by dissy · · Score: 1

      The major change in Windows 8 was the UI but you're saying if I use via third-party software to roll back the UI to Windows 7 then Windows 8 is good. That's like saying the Spanish Inquisition is a party once you factor out all the murders.

      So what you're saying is you haven't installed Firefox or Chrome but instead are using solely the built in Internet Explorer browser? With no antivirus?

      Hate to break it to you, but you very likely already have a ton of third party viruses, trojans, keyloggers, and network scanners installed too :P

    27. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are startup times better? Both versions start up fast from sleep/hibernate mode, as anyone would expect.

    28. Re:Free is still too expensive by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So what, it's down to a game of name the feature and you get to decide how valid it is for an argument? You're talking like it's the exact same OS under the UI, it's not and there are considerable improvements beyond just Disk IO including management interfaces, tablet integration, power management, encryption, and then add on it the user facing features like the improved file copy interaction, more intelligent handling of wifi and other networks, better bluetooth, native support for USB3.0, and I'm bored.

      You can read the rest on any review site. Suffice to say that Windows 8.1 with classic shell is a hell of an improvement over Windows 7.

    29. Re:Free is still too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can still use and log into the Windows Store with a Microsoft account while being logged into the computer with a local account.

  9. When I read Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I get the image of Peter Sellers trying to pronounce 'bomb".....

  10. Arrrr! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

    Makes me wish I be a Chinee pirate. Besept I don't need Wind O'Tain, and I don't know how to say 'Arrrr' in Chinees. And I hear tell their ships are all junks.
     

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  11. must have been a hell of an announcement. by nimbius · · Score: 1

    Microsoft: upgrade to our locked down version of an OS no ones tested for compatibility with your existing applications so we can stamp out a tiny fraction of our perceived losses to piracy, and in exchange we will spare you nonexistent prosecution in an overloaded court system that generally doesnt care about your non-crime.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  12. Trojan horse by DrXym · · Score: 1

    Windows 10 will be "free" the way some websites are free - basic functionality is free but there will be lots of annoying limitations and barriers throughout that encourage users to pay for a premium version or take out a subscription. You only have to look at previous Windows editions to see the sort of things they can gimp to encourage people to pay out more and I bet they go all out this time around.

    1. Re:Trojan horse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you're running Windows 7 starter, the only differences between home and pro versions has been RDP and bitlocker. I know Slashdot is anti-Microsoft, but all these FUD posts are ridiculous! Have any of these haters even used Windows since 98/XP???

    2. Re:Trojan horse by dave420 · · Score: 1

      I heard it comes alive at night and eats cats!

      Stick to the facts, lest you wind up showing everyone you're more interested in having a pop at Microsoft than engaging in actual discourse. Like you just did.

    3. Re:Trojan horse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here are the comparison charts: Windows 7, Windows 8. You will meet limitations only if you need some specialized enterprise features.

    4. Re: Trojan horse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bit locker comes with the enterprise version.

    5. Re:Trojan horse by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Microsoft have stated their intention of monetizing the platform and it's quite clear they want it to become a subscription service. So no it's not FUD.

    6. Re:Trojan horse by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      Psst. They have always charged money for the platform. The difference now is that for the next 12 months they will not charge for upgrades. You seem to have it backwards.

      People misunderstood the time-limited nature of that offer as it being a subscription service, but that was just wrong. Once you have upgraded to Windows 10 you won't have to pay a cent to keep using that OS on your PC. It will never expire and revert to a subscription system, because if they did that it would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft with allegations of turning the OS into ransomware.

      So yes, it is FUD. It is FUD to tell people not to believe what Microsoft is saying now because you have imagined a future where they will suddenly force people to pay for their free product retrospectively. That really is the very definition of FUD.

    7. Re:Trojan horse by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      So yes, it is FUD. It is FUD to tell people not to believe what Microsoft is saying now because you have imagined a future where they will suddenly force people to pay for their free product retrospectively. That really is the very definition of FUD.

      This is correct, but it's FUD of Microsoft's own doing. Microsoft has a long and storied history of being less than honest, so it's entirely understandable that people will be looking for the "gotcha" in anything they say.

    8. Re:Trojan horse by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Once you have upgraded to Windows 10 you won't have to pay a cent to keep using that OS on your PC. It will never expire and revert to a subscription system, because if they did that it would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft with allegations of turning the OS into ransomware.

      I never said it would. I'm quite certain it will be free for its lifetime and will work in a basic form whether you pay or not. But that doesn't mean it won't wall off certainly functionality, or nag you to upgrade, or throw banner / interstitial ads all over because that's probably what it will do.

      So yes, it is FUD.

      No it isn't. They've already stated their intentions and constructing a straw man of my words doesn't change that.

    9. Re:Trojan horse by DrXym · · Score: 1

      The gotcha in this case is so blazingly obvious that I fail to see why anyone is arguing over it. Microsoft have stated time and again they want to move to a subscription model and they want to monetize Windows 10. Given those facts it is easy to think of ways they intend to do it and there is plenty of precedent around the web, and in service platforms to have a pretty good idea.

  13. wind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    might as well piss into the wind

  14. Upgrade from XP by Harald+Paulsen · · Score: 1

    I would love to upgrade my Windows XP Professional, that I actually paid good money for.

    Yeah I know.. I should probably upgrade, but since Windows 7 was more expensive than Windows 8, and it's Windows 7 I wanted, it has been postponed for some time now.

    --
    Harald
    1. Re:Upgrade from XP by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      keep your xp license, get a rebuilder's license for 7 for $70.

      or, wait for 10, maybe it will be cheap at first

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Upgrade from XP by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      Or just wait until Win 10 comes out, pirate Win 7, then use the free upgrade to 10.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
    3. Re:Upgrade from XP by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Or just wait until Win 10 comes out, pirate Win 7, then use the free upgrade to 10.

      How do you imagine that you're going to establish eligibility without activating Windows?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re: Upgrade from XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you not read the article at the top of this page that says you do not need a genuine license to upgrade

    5. Re: Upgrade from XP by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Did you not read the article at the top of this page that says you do not need a genuine license to upgrade

      in China.

      I don't rule out that cat being in China, but I'm betting against it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re: Upgrade from XP by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      So I guess the huge "EDIT - This applies worldwide" part of the summary was hard to see? It was there at least 7 hours before you commented.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
  15. Huh by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    I have lived in China for quite some time, and just thinking about it, I do not think I have ever seen a Chinese desktop computer running anything but XP. You can relax and stop throwing sales figures at me, Mr. Paid Microsoft Shill/Social Media Consultant who is surely monitoring this thread, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying I've never seen it. Oh, wait, once, I remember it was at someone's house and I was surprised to see Vista running. But business/office desktops? All XP. I keep a directory on my USB stick full of programs to make XP less painful.

    You have to realize, there are people out there whose first computer ran XP, and who are 30 years old now and it's all they've ever used. How is someone like this going to react to this new version of Windows? Will there be free training courses to go along with the free licenses?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Huh by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      You have to realize, there are people out there whose first computer ran XP, and who are 30 years old now and it's all they've ever used.

      I realized that there were plenty of people who only used Amiga OS, DOS, Unix for ten years and then had to dramatically change for work reasons to something like Windows and they did it successfully.

      How is someone like this going to react to this new version of Windows?

      If they act like a baby and refuse to learn, there are plenty of other people available looking for work these days that already know the new OS.

      Will there be free training courses to go along with the free licenses?

      I did a quick search, I found plenty of courses on Youtube, plenty of resources on Google. So, to answer your question, these are available without licenses too.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  16. So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing... by ip_freely_2000 · · Score: 0

    ...and Microsoft gets to pay support people to answer questions from people that never paid for their software. So dumb. Microsoft would be better off to cut these people loose and have them run Macs or Chrome or desktop Android. If someone is willing to run hacked XP or 7 for all this time, they're never going to be paying customers. So why support them? Why have market share if you never get revenue?

  17. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  18. A brilliant strategy to get everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to install NSA 10. Being a massive economy and the home to a tremendous amount of people, China was a given target for this strategy.

  19. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's a brilliant idea. You are smart!!

  20. Virtual Machines FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I stopped running Microsoft software on "real" hardware when Microsoft decided they could suddenly render my PC next to useless with their "Genuine Advantage" Check. With enough memory, and a virtual machine, I restore in minutes the next time Microsoft decides to s**t all over itself.

    1. Re:Virtual Machines FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure how a black background and "This OS is not genuine" renders a PC next to useless. MS has backed down a lot since the days of Windows Vista/2008 where a failure to activate meant the computer would lose a lot of functionality.

      I do agree on the virtual machine thing. Hyper-V is the best, especially on the latest version of Windows (since AVMA completely takes care of activation issues for client VMs.) However, I still prefer VMWare Workstation on the desktop PC, even though Hyper-V is improving quite well.

      Regardless of hypervisor, I do think using Windows VMs is a wise thing, because it helps compartmentalize things (the Quicken stuff is kept well away from the gaming stuff), as well as provides security when Web browsing. If the browser gets compromised and the OS pwned, a simple snapshot rollback does this, and coupled with rolling back the snapshot right before doing the monthly patches, it provides decently effective protection against malware (especially if one has adblocking in place in the VM.)

    2. Re:Virtual Machines FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't run Windows on bare hardware in 16 years. For your reason and for the fact that Windows is insecure as hell, no way I'm running that as my primary OS.

  21. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All those XP users you still see in market share graphs are essentially pirates. Windows XP SP2 is the most easily pirated Windows OS ever. It isn't just China with huge piracy numbers either. You want Microsoft to write them off and never try to convert them to paying customers? All because you aren't getting "rewarded"?

    Nice.

  22. It's sometime in the next decade since 1998 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." -- Bill Gates, July 2, 1998

  23. More Un-Paid volunteer Beta Testers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft offers an Amnesty so they can recruit more volunteer unpaid beta testers, what we would call "Cutomers",

    The more people they have testing their s**t, that they can verify, the more fixes they can push out, and have those hapless souls test it for FREE!

    Why even have a QA dept when you can distribute your testing across millions of machines, all at no cost to Microsoft.

  24. this is so wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a very important appeal of using windows is pirating windows itself, so you can have a dvd with windows 10 ultimate x64 written on it with a red permanent marker, it makes no sense to use the real thing even if its free, if they give away their windows and no one pirates it i will not use windows 10 and stick with my pirated 7 and my pirated 8.0 (that bitch is so nasty btw, cant even update to 8.1 because of my seriously fucked up activation method but i dont care because im a nasty pirate, yarrr!!!).
    Windows 10 has to have some kind of protection and some kind of activation for it to be worth my time, you have to get the iso from the internets and you have to check sha and all that technocrap to check if its been tampered with and then install it while twisting your nipples and wondering, its a russian hacker reading all my emails? does he know about my shemale secret fetish?.
    Otherwise its just... its just linux!!!!!!!!!. Imagine you just install windows 10 and it works and it even has the menus and icons where they are supposed to be, where a regular human could find them, imagine it even comes with transparency and cool special effects... im telling you, its wrong, ITS WRONG!!!!!!!!

  25. Subsidy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, I have to subsidize other Windows users now?

  26. They want you to subscibe to Office at $10/month by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet the old versions of Office won't work on Windows 10 and then if you want Office you will have to pay the low rate of $10 a month for 5 home users or $12 a month per biz user (however they calculate / enforce the diff for these things?)

    They probably figure $10 a month is better than no money.

    They might also will have some way to start turning off your OS if you pirate something else that they want you to pay for.

    I've seen windows 7 turn off when it can't connect to the mothership for too long.

  27. `In your face, customer!` by xonen · · Score: 0

    I feel stupid for paying now. MS just said that they are ok with stealing their software. For consumers & small businesses who actually consciously purchased a license - MS just showed us their middle finger to show how valued we dear customers are.

    And now since MS said that stealing propriety software is ok, some other software vendors may not be happy with them. Pirating photoshop or games or whatever is just accepted, according to MS. Don't search for really free alternatives, they rather have you steal/copy it than using an alternative.

    Really, i don't like stealing software. That's why i stick to free solutions quite often. It's also not why i like Linux, but a nice added benefit, and added benefit of OS in general. But now i feel stupid because one of the richest companies in the world say i was a moron by paying them in the first place, and that they don't care if you play the game fair or not. I suddenly regret any penny i payed them over the last 20 years.

    --
    A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
    1. Re:`In your face, customer!` by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really, i don't like stealing software. That's why i stick to free solutions quite often.

      It's not stealing if you just make a copy. No one loses anything in the process.

    2. Re:`In your face, customer!` by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      No one loses anything in the process

      Wrong, (paid or free) alternatives that would have been used instead lost a user. In doing so, it likely reduced interest/community/userbase/funding of that product which prevents it from becoming more of a competitor. Software piracy has a different affect from music, movies etc.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  28. Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No self respecting pirate would be worth his salt if he sold himself out to M$

  29. Hardware, too? by petes_PoV · · Score: 1

    My pirated WinXP runs on a P3 box with only 256MB of RAM. Can I get a Microsoft upgrade for some hardware that is good enough to run W10. A 64-bit quad core with 16GB of ram and a 4TB disk would be nice.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Hardware, too? by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      In my testing C1D + GMA950 ran Windows 10 smoothly with all eye candy turned on.

    2. Re:Hardware, too? by blackomegax · · Score: 1

      You can get a 100 dollar tablet that will run circles around your p3

  30. awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    picked up a 7 pro Dell OEM license that didn't even check to see if it was installing on a Dell for cheap so not sweating here, much

  31. Other OSes have been doing this by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ubuntu has been doing that since the beginning - free upgrade from any version to any version! Even for the pirated ones!

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:Other OSes have been doing this by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 1

      Really??
      I'll go pirate it right away! Anyone have a piratebay link?

    2. Re:Other OSes have been doing this by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      Really??
      I'll go pirate it right away! Anyone have a piratebay link?

      Nope. Ubuntu copy protection is so fantastically unbreakable that there are no piratebay links! It's incredible!

  32. So why buy it? by CODiNE · · Score: 2

    Since it's been confirmed as worldwide, what's the point in anyone at all paying for it?

    I have a genuine copy, but instead of paying the upgrade fee I could pirate the same thing and legally update for free. Heck I'll just use VM clones on my valid copy and keep the original around just in case.

    What's the catch? Will they lose future upgrade rights have have to buy a full copy later on?

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    1. Re:So why buy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Simple, there market share is going down the toilet. They want to keep as much as possible when the dust finally settles.

      Its a sinking ship that will probably never sink completely but they will never dominate the market like they did over the past 2 decades....the pendulum is shifting and this is pre-emptive damage control.

    2. Re:So why buy it? by Ksevio · · Score: 2

      I think the key is that most people aren't going to upgrade their OS so they're basically lost sales anyways. The few people that build their computer and know how to stick an old Windows on it to get the free upgrade aren't worth the effort. This has pretty much always been the case when "upgrade" versions just required a few Windows files on the disk before they would be able to be installed.

      The vast majority buy a computer with the OS already on it and won't buy an upgraded OS for that, so Microsoft is basically just getting everyone used to their latest ecosystem (keeps them from looking at alternatives).

    3. Re:So why buy it? by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      there market share...
      Where?

    4. Re:So why buy it? by rahvin112 · · Score: 0, Troll

      The catch is it's software as a service (SaaS), you only get the first year for free. After that it's a yearly or monthly fee.

    5. Re:So why buy it? by Cederic · · Score: 1

      I have a genuine copy, but instead of paying the upgrade fee I could pirate the same thing and legally update for free

      The upgrade will be free for legitimate copies too.

      eck I'll just use VM clones on my valid copy and keep the original around just in case.

      See, that's very tempting. Set up a bunch of VMs and make them legitimate through the upgrade..

    6. Re:So why buy it? by luther349 · · Score: 1

      well how many people actually buy a full copy of windows.very few. they run what comes with there pc until they buy a new pc in most cases. most of there pirate copy's are people who run older or custom rigs and would probably never buy it anyways. there bringing them in the fold with legit copy's. .

    7. Re:So why buy it? by luther349 · · Score: 2

      yep look how long xp stuck around with microsoft begging people to upgrade. they where forced to extend support many times. that far more expensive then just offering those guys a free copy of the latest os.

    8. Re:So why buy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No. You will have it free for the life of your computer as stated over and over again.

    9. Re:So why buy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please, share where you found this essential knowledge.

    10. Re:So why buy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Will come down to what their definition of a "qualified machine" is I guess? Having a few legitimate copies of windows would be useful for testing.

    11. Re:So why buy it? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Recently most people haven't been buying upgrades anyway, so they might have decided the increase in goodwill would be worth the small loss in revenue.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    12. Re:So why buy it? by gronofer · · Score: 1

      Good question. If Microsoft are taking this route, why not just make Windows 10 free? It seems like getting one of these free copies will involve a convoluted process of installing a "pirate" edition (where do I find one that's malware free?) before "upgrading" to the real thing.

      However, I'm still tempted by the offer, perhaps I'll try to set up a Windows boot partition and a VM to go on my current Linux-only machine.

    13. Re:So why buy it? by gronofer · · Score: 1

      Yeah, exactly. Hopefully VMs would even be portable to new machines.

    14. Re:So why buy it? by gronofer · · Score: 1

      Actually now I've read the actual article, I'm not sure that they are in any way authorizing the pirate copies, but only upgrading them to Windows 10. They will later "make it easy for them to move to legitimate copies.â

    15. Re:So why buy it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They've said their goal is to make asking "What version of Windows are you running?" as meaningless as "What version of Facebook are you running?" We'll see how that turns out.

      I'm curious if you'll be able to upgrade from an unactivated install. An unactivated install is just one where the user hasn't yet decided if it's legit or pirated -- but if they're allowing upgrades either way, it shouldn't matter if it's activated.

      The really big difference is that this is the first time they have offered a new version of Windows through Windows Update. I suspect the only reason they don't allow upgrades from all previous versions is just that the older versions don't support something they use in the upgrade process and they don't want to support everything. If I'm right, that means all you have to do is install any supported version of Windows without activating it and then just run Windows update.

      By the way, faking an older install in order to pay the cheaper upgrade price was always a bad idea. The upgraded license will still be invalid so you might as well just save your money and pirate it or pay for the full version. Upgrade licenses aren't valid without a valid license for the old version. These days you can buy a license online for your already pirated install. All you have to do is click "change product key" and enter the purchased key and you're 100% legal.

  33. Genius! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are going to effectively brick all computers older than 5 years because of the resource demands. And getting suitable replacements without actually paying the Windows tax is not all that easy.

    Expect the availability of Linux-capable used computers to sky-rocket.

    1. Re:Genius! by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      You will have to have over 10 years old computer before Windows 10 starts to show resource problems. The actual problem would probably be that Windows 10 will likely require some CPU instructions to be present that older CPUs do not feature.

    2. Re:Genius! by luther349 · · Score: 1

      its the same regs as vista so your box has to be pretty dam old not to be able to run it and probably does not run 7 or 8 anyways.

    3. Re:Genius! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My xps 410 is 9 years old and is running 10 in virtualbox. I've really meant upgrade to a quad core so Stockfish can announce mate in 100 rather than mate in 45. No, I don't think it's likely at all that windows would restrict cpu extensions, aside from hardware virtualization, which they already do. Maybe i'll buy a new computer aft3r all. But I sure won't be putting Linux on it.

  34. Difference? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somehow, I have a feeling that this is the same thing as what is currently in place: Rat out the store that sold you the pirated version of Windows and you get the license for free.

    1. Re:Difference? by luther349 · · Score: 1

      or it just does not have a check to see if your legit or not.

  35. It makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is the only company that still sells consumer-grade operating systems these days. All of the consumer grade Linux distros of yesteryear (e.g. SuSE, Redhat, Mandrake, etc) stopped shipping boxes and paid versions, Apple stopped charging for OS updates, there are no consumer grade UNIX vendors anymore (apart from Apple, who stopped charging), it was just Microsoft. And I think they've seen the writing on the wall. Enterprise is a different matter of course.

    1. Re:It makes sense by luther349 · · Score: 1

      most of there sales come in the form of new pcs anyways. all windows piracy stems from custom rigs and upgrades.

    2. Re:It makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. It's always been pretty much one PC, one Windows license, paid for by the OEM. This is just making it official. I'm pretty sure they will save more money in reduced support costs by having everyone on Windows 10 than they lose from lost boxed copy sales. It's win-win for everyone. They should have done it a long time ago but it probably took them this long to accept that people aren't going to pay for upgrades.

  36. Makes Me Wonder by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

    If there are extra packages installed that MS is considering using to track how these markets move, distribution models methods, sites used, etc etc.

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  37. Re:Worse than? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you mean non-violent crimes or non-violet creams - IMHO the latter are the biggest crime perpetrated by confectioners

  38. hum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't it make more sense for MS to charge $20 - $35 for a Windows 10 license that way they get more customers(high volume sell$$$) on board including those who pirate.

    1. Re:hum by luther349 · · Score: 1

      they tried that rought before discounted upgrades didn't do anything.

  39. Avoiding "Windows? Nien!" pundits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now how are we supposed to interpret the "passable OS" vs "you must be kidding its so bad OS" between MS operating system versions?

  40. So, basically, free Windows by hyperar · · Score: 1

    So Windows upgrade will be free for everyone, legal and illegal copies... so you just need to download a pirate copy (we all know that everyone already has one) and you'll have a free Windows.

  41. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All those XP users

    I think this is the real reason they're offering the upgrade for free worldwide. Setting aside any implications about trying to make customers out of pirates or NSA backdoors or what-have-you, simply getting everyone off of XP has HUGE benefits for Microsoft in terms of security, compatibility, and how their OS is perceived. Even free it's simply worth it to get everyone to use a less buggy version of their OS, because doing so weakens the general perception that all Windows products (such as IE, which is more-or-less tied to the OS version) are garbage, while at the same time dealing a serious blow to some of the most massive botnets in the world.

  42. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by thewolfkin · · Score: 1

    ...and Microsoft gets to pay support people to answer questions from people that never paid for their software. So dumb. Microsoft would be better off to cut these people loose and have them run Macs or Chrome or desktop Android. If someone is willing to run hacked XP or 7 for all this time, they're never going to be paying customers. So why support them? Why have market share if you never get revenue?

    because they are not in isolation. They're a part of the internet. When their idiocy gets them infected with someone it spreads to the rest of us. It may not be the best solution but there's reasoning behind it.

    --
    Just another second banana
  43. Re:I want to get paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mod me troll, but upgrading for free will not do it for me, I want to get paid to upgrade to W10... even than will think about it

  44. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by dfeifer · · Score: 1

    Not all. There are plenty of businesses out there that are still using windows xp either due to compatibility with older special in house programs or they just don't have the money to upgrade their systems. Unfortunately I fall in to the later. Upgrading 68 systems to windows 7 or above is a huge cost for us and the general consensus from upper management is if it isn't broken don't fix it. so, on average we replace 4-6 systems a year. Figure by 2025 we should finally be off of xp.

  45. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

    Customers get nothing? I think that you will find that customers also get a free upgrade to Windows 10. Everyone is rewarded!

  46. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is the Republican way. The former ruler of Symantec now rules Microsoft, and he is an incompetent moron who only got his job because of his race. He is such a diehard Republican that at Microsoft he fired many of the good employees. My two roommates that work there now make $12/hour in QA for Microsoft's attempt at an SQL server. Symantec is a disaster and the same guy is doing the same to Microsoft.

  47. Meh by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    I've been playing with Windows 10 for a while now, and it is pretty underwhelming in the sense that it is not significantly better than Windows 7. The only thing 10 really brings to the table is a handful of new "features" that don't benefit me (Cortana, etc.).

    I won't be bothering to upgrade my Windows machines even for free.

  48. Re:I want to get paid by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I do not want this deal - my embroidery software requires XP, and the sewing machine will not work with newer software. There is no way I would replace my old "Made in Switzerland" machine, with a modern "made in Korea" one.

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  49. What are "qualified" devices? by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

    Every time Microsoft talks about the free upgrade, there are always those weasel words in there about "qualified" devices. So what devices qualify?

    --
    Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  50. They don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does MS even know which computers running Windows are running a legally licensed (i.e. "genuine") OS? I suspect not. They aren't doing this to be nice, they are doing this because they don't have any choice. The overhead of attempting verify whether your old Windows OS is licensed or not would be enormous, if it is even at all possible.

    1. Re:They don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That information wouldn't be hard to collect. They know how many copies they sold. Unless you never hit Windows Update, they have a pretty good idea how many copies are installed. Subtract one from the other and you have the number of pirated copies.

  51. Former Crack Dealers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are the new marketing execs former crack dealers?

  52. Tron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did Microsoft's largest stockholder lose his father in mysterious circumstances which included working to establish a religious cult of some sort, by any change?

  53. Still Waiting for The Other Shoe by ewhac · · Score: 0
    A few week ago we heard that upgrades from Win7 and Win8 to Windows 10 would be "free for the first year," a deliberately ambiguous phrasing that they have yet to clarify. Now they're offering "free" Win10 upgrades from unsanctioned copies of Win[78] as well.

    All of which makes me deeply suspicious of what this "free" version of Windows actually is. We clearly haven't been told the whole story yet.

    1. Re:Still Waiting for The Other Shoe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They've clarified this many times. It will be no cost if you choose to upgrade in the first year; otherwise you will have to pay money if you wait more than a year to get Windows 10.

    2. Re:Still Waiting for The Other Shoe by dissy · · Score: 1

      Windows 10 would be "free for the first year," a deliberately ambiguous phrasing that they have yet to clarify.

      Ambiguous?

      If it was released tomorrow (Mar 19th 2015) then the deadline would be a year after (Mar 19th 2016)

      If you install/upgrade-to 10 before the deadline, it is free.
      Upon and after the deadline, you will have to buy it in order to install/upgrade-to.

      The only thing ambiguous about it is our lack of knowing when Win10 will be released, which we need first before we can "add one to it" and give you a more direct answer.

    3. Re:Still Waiting for The Other Shoe by ewhac · · Score: 1

      They've clarified this many times.

      No, they haven't. All the "clarifications" I can find are simply regurgitations of the same ambiguous phrasing.

      When you realize that Microsoft have been openly discussing a subscription-based version of Windows, then the phrase, "Free for the first year," takes on an entirely different meaning, now doesn't it? Microsoft has not clarified this, even to discredit it.

      And even if MS isn't planning on a subscription-based flavor of Windows, they still have been abundantly less than clear exactly which version of Windows 10 you'll be receiving for free. Will it be a kind-for-kind trade (Home version for Home version, "Pro" version for "Pro" version, etc.), or will everyone get the lowest tier SKU available, probably with Bing plastered everywhere?

      It would be nice if I were wrong about this. But Microsoft's history demands that I be very suspicious of Gateses bearing gifts.

    4. Re:Still Waiting for The Other Shoe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's been clarified ad nauseam that you'll have one year to upgrade and that all copies of Windows 10 will be valid for the life of the device. It looks like you'll only ever pay for Windows once per device (either indirectly through an OEM or directly if you build a machine yourself) and you'll get updates for the life of the machine, as long as Windows still supports the hardware.

      Which is pretty much how everything else works now. OS/X and iOS come with the machine, but you better bet Apple factors the cost of their development into the hardware cost, but their upgrades are now free (again, as long as the hardware is still supported). Linux is free, so upgrades are obviously free. Even if you pay for support, it's per device per year, so upgrades don't cost you extra then either. Android is free (sort of) so upgrades are free if the manufacturer bothers to provide them, but they don't have much incentive to do that. In a way, Android is not a complete consumer OS but a kit for developing a complete OS. You can bet the manufacturer's costs are factored in there just like iOS.

      TL;DR nobody is charging for OS upgrades anymore, not even Microsoft.

  54. For 1 year.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I'm guessing that after that year if you do not pay for another year, that your Windows 10 becomes ransomware.

    How deep will it imbed itself? Will a *nix install be possible without formatting C:? Will it encrypt drives beyond on civilian (as opposed to corporate) OS versions?

  55. Re:I want to get paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think ownership of a sewing machine is a valid reason to use an unsupported OS and never upgrade again.

  56. You are naive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Given that the NSA was caught red-handed injecting spyware into consumer routers there is *every* reason to believe they worked with Microsoft to bake backdoors directly into the Windows basic feature set.

    This is not "conspiracy theory" nonsense, this is the NSA doing exactly what its job description says it should do, and what we know as fact that they have already done.

    More generally, your level of trust of strangers should be at best inversely proportional to the level of power they have over you. As convenient as it would be if this were not true, history forces this realization upon us.

  57. Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Free spyware for all!

  58. Re:I want to get paid by nobuddy · · Score: 1

    Out of curiosity, how or why does it fail? UAC issues or drivers?

  59. Under NO circumstances lose against Linux by DougPaulson · · Score: 1

    "Bottom line do our best to show the great value of our software to these customers and ensure we get paid for it under NO circumstances lose against Linux before ensuring we have used this program actively and in a smart way" ref.

  60. Re:I want to get paid by theArtificial · · Score: 3, Informative

    Poke it into a VM. I've got old hardware that doesn't have drivers supported on the host machine, but work fine through the VM. Should you not want to be tied to a particular machine this is an option you may want to look into.

    --
    Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
  61. So... How do they make money? by duck_rifted · · Score: 1

    I mean this to be a neutral comment; neither pro nor anti Microsoft. Basically, they're going to give away the latest version of Windows for free. But they're also an enormous business, and let's face it, they have bills. Employees to pay, lights to keep on, penguin cages to clean. So, people get on Windows 10, and then maybe send data that helps with advertising, and maybe buy stuff from the Windows store.

    There are two other possibilities. The less popular thing to suggest will be that Windows 10 isn't exactly the most private thing. Don't beat me up! I'm not saying it's that way; only that it's within the great wide world of possibility that it's that way. It's also within the great wide world of possibility that we'll all have flying cars next year, so there are degrees of likeliness and truth. Our flying cars next year could be RC and have a max altitude of three inches. It doesn't say much for something to simply be possible, but this isn't a possibility we'll analyze much unless we end up with reason to.

    The other possibility is that Windows 10 users will be an enormous testing pool that will help perfect the operating system to get businesses, governments, and other important people using it. Then, money comes from organizational licensing and support. We know that MS has lost some ground in that market with W8, so this could be the plan. It would make sense, wouldn't it? It's a strategy that can make people like them and in the long run keep them on top.

    I don't have the answer to this question, but I really want to know it. It's not only a matter of wanting to see Microsoft do well enough to stick around, though that's part of it. They've also played a huge, awesome intrigue card.

    1. Re:So... How do they make money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > There are two other possibilities.

      There are any number of possibilities. Another one is that when Microsoft have said "Windows as a Service" they mean that it will be a paid-for service to use the OS.. After the first year, or after the "supported life of the device" (ie the OEM's warranty period), the users will be expected to pay to continue using it, or at least to keep it updated.

      Obviously they want to have as many users commit to Windows 10 and Office before they realise they will have to pay to continue using it at some point.

    2. Re:So... How do they make money? by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      Software like Office, and professional services.

      Windows is the razor; Office, Exchange, Sql Server, support contracts, and so on, are the razor blades.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    3. Re:So... How do they make money? by duck_rifted · · Score: 1

      If they start doing Office and professional services (Azure, etc) by tiered subscription, then that would actually work! But we're still talking niche markets; developers and students, professionals. I get the feeling there's going to be a new product that we don't know about yet. Something with very wide appeal.

  62. Re:So cheaters are rewarded, customers get nothing by bzipitidoo · · Score: 1

    The cheater here is Microsoft, not any of us. Microsoft has committed many crimes. It is a convicted monopolist. It deserved to be convicted. And it's totally unapologetic and lacking remorse, Obviously, the punishment wasn't harsh enough. You talk as if poor, poor MS is bleeding to death, when the facts are that it has vast reserves of money and its chief, Bill Gates, has frequently been the wealthiest individual in the world.

    Microsoft's cheating is far more egregious than the supposed cheating of all the software pirates in the world.. Remember the Microsoft Tax? Many people, including myself, paid for a copy of Windows we never used or in some cases even received. That's only one of the many, many dirty things MS has done over the years. At the least, MS owes everyone several free copies of Windows.

    But that's a bandaid on the real problem, which is the brokenness of the entire business model of selling copies of software. Copyright is dying. MS should understand that. If they don't, it speaks very poorly of their technological understanding and prowess. I suspect they do, and made a deliberate decision to align themselves with the few other copyright extremists in the world, who are mostly in Big Media and Big Pharma, but also includes Monsanto. It was an extremely anti-social move. They used and abused copyright, doing such monstrous things as creating the BSA, and encouraging disgruntled employees to rat out their employers for supposed copyright infringement. Instead of standing against Disney's attempts to steal from the public domain with their lobbying for copyright extension, MS joined them! They loudly announce that they view everyone else in the world, you, me, and all our relatives, friends, and associates, as software pirates. No one should take that. I am NOT going to accept being accused of piracy, when it is the laws that are in the wrong. If copyright is abolished, then there's no more piracy, no more infringement. MS could have been at the forefront of new business models and technology, instead they chose to align with the reactionaries who will not admit that copyrivght needs major reform if not total abolishment.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  63. Not sure how this is news by stackOVFL · · Score: 1

    Windows has always been free for pirates! :P

  64. They must be real desperate by johanw · · Score: 1

    I think MS is affraid that windows 10 will be just as much a disaster in sales as windows 8 and they are pushing to prevent it. I think I pass, my illegal copy of windows 7 is doing just fine.

  65. fishy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds great in theory but on the conspiracy side.. There may be a reason why they want all pcs to win 10.

  66. But ..... by nukenerd · · Score: 1

    But will it come with a full set of manuals ?

  67. We're really gonna need you to focus up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Davy Jones. Giant squid.

  68. Yarrr! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For those not paying attention: THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY BLACK PARROT.

    Well played, matey!

  69. You will still have to pay. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There will be a subscription clause that will eventually require a monthly fee. Microsoft wants to move to a subscription payment model, and this is how they will do it.

  70. Free Windows 10 Upgrade by gatfirls · · Score: 1

    (90 day evaluation)

  71. Important to remember that.... by wilsonmark · · Score: 1

    .... any pirated version of Windows that is updated to Windows 10 remains nongenuine and unsupported -- so says Microsoft (http://betanews.com/2015/03/18/pirates-can-upgrade-to-windows-10-for-free-but-they-wont-be-supported-by-microsoft/)

  72. whoops by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I see the announcement was made in china, but it's for everyone.

    That's annoying, since I just paid for Windows 7.

    I guess I learned my lesson, and I will never pay for another Microsoft product.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  73. Re:Mr. "product mgr." (aka - a bullshitter) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You only get to talk to ME that way when you can do better YOURSELF, blowhard.

    He talks to you regardless. You then listen and get so incensed by what he says that you follow him and reply to his posts desperately seeking his attention, never has there been an audience as slavish as you.

  74. Re:I want to get paid by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

    Poke it into a VM. I've got old hardware that doesn't have drivers supported on the host machine, but work fine through the VM. Should you not want to be tied to a particular machine this is an option you may want to look into.

    I'm not so sure this will work with Windows XP, at least not as "easily" as described in your link. Windows XP likes to BSoD on boot if you restore an image from one set of hardware onto another set of hardware; something to do with XP blindly loading the installed motherboard drivers I think.

    --
    People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
  75. Re:I want to get paid by zvar · · Score: 1

    While this was quite common, it was not 100% of the time. If you go from IDE to SATA it typically works. And if it does not simply remove the reg keys for the IDE controller. https://www.raymond.cc/blog/mo... shows one how both before moving the hard drive, and after.

  76. What about US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No for love for US. Thanks Microsoft. I hope all of US starts pirating so that you can give US free upgrades as well.

  77. Re:I want to get paid by antdude · · Score: 1

    I had hardware drivers and softwares that don't work well in updated Windows XP Pro SP3 VMs. :(

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  78. pig in a poke by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    Do we know yet exactly what we are getting with win 10?

    I mean, I don't think I'm going to trade in my win-whatever if it means I get a shiny new os....that I have to pay monthly (or whatever) or they remotely kill it.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:pig in a poke by vandamme · · Score: 1

      It will be in your EULA, page 317, in a footnote.

  79. Can I then downgrade? by aybiss · · Score: 1

    Would be great if we can also force them into giving downgrades like they had to with Vista. If I can get a free Windows 10 and downgrade it to Windows 7 my OS needs (from Microsoft) will be met permanently.

    --
    It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
  80. Re:I want to get paid by theArtificial · · Score: 1

    I think we've all been bitten by the upgrade bug. I've become conservative with updates to setups that work. Sierra was extremely effective at branding "save early, save often" into my impressionable formative brain. While the times have changed I've taken this to heart and make liberal use of snapshots when doing anything in a VM. I'm not certain which platform you're using but most of them have roughly similar features. Not to say I don't cowboy things from time to time :)

    --
    Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
  81. Re:I want to get paid by theArtificial · · Score: 1

    Nonetheless it sounds like a worthy experiment :) There are passionate people who are far more experienced I who've graciously shared their wisdom and experiences, all it takes is asking the right questions. If it's a single piece of hardware with drivers on hand, why not provision a fresh image and just install the drivers again? No sense in making a production out of it unnecessarily, unless that's your cup of tea!

    --
    Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
  82. Re:I want to get paid by dave420 · · Score: 1

    That's why Microsoft released Sysprep. Run that, then make your image. When you boot the image, it will detect all hardware and not assume it is running on the machine the image was taken from. This works in Windows 2000, XP, & Vista, at least.

  83. Re:Mr. "product mgr." (aka - a bullshitter) by dave420 · · Score: 1

    Does your anti-spam HOSTS solution block inline spam like every single one of your posts? Your competitors do... strange how you never mention that when you vomit your incessant nonsense across Slashdot.

  84. But is it legal to mod your copy? by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 1

    Posting this after the story update that says the Microsoft offer is WORLDWIDE and not just made for China:

    The question I find interesting is whether MS will allow modded copies to circulate, similar to the way say Google allows Cyanogenmod to come out with their own Android distro. I can't see how MS can prevent modded copies. Maybe MS will build a "time-bomb" into Win 10 that forces you to upgrade to a paying version of Win 10+. But I'm sure since it's a consumer oriented OS there are enough holes in it that would allow the OS to run virtually forever or until the last Intel-based machine comes out of the factory floor.

    The way I see it, this "offer" is going to be permanent. There's no turning or shall we say cutting back on the free beer. Whether this is a good thing or not is another story altogether. Go ahead, enjoy your freeware (spyware?).

  85. Dave420 = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Evidence of my subject above is right here Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

  86. Dave420 = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Evidence of my subject's right here Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

  87. Windows is only free... by vandamme · · Score: 1

    ...if your privacy is worth nothing.

    And yes, I have escaped from the MS ball and chain. Hasta la Vista!

  88. Hum, if this is Windows 10 future, well, F$#k MS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows 7/8/8.1 previews and other beta versions were stable compared to all Windows 10(frustrating piece of shit) builds, even vista. With Windows 10 I can't install the updates so it undo's the changes because something went wrong with the installation and then under windows options it tries to install the same updates again with the same result, stuck in a loop. I got online instructions to modify the registry and use powershell($_."*Syntax nightmare*") to fix the update issue but same result. Plus, There is no more visible build option in updates so I can't move to build 10041 and I'm not wasting anymore time with online research figuring out how to install the build.

    This is way worse I mean way way worse than linux issues at least with linux it was easy to research and fix. I don't care if Windows 10 is still in beta It's a piece of frustrating fucking shit garbage including the ugly fucking start menu. Linux DE's(customized, skin themes, etc..) have better looking and more intuitive than any windows. Wow, I read that you will be able to turn on transparencies for the start menu, wwwwooooooowwwwwww. Daman! what's with the shitty fucking fonts even KDE plasma default font settings look better and easier on the eyes.

    Netflix( I was waiting for this one for a long time) runs excellent on linux, libreoffice is just fine and don't need VBA or to spend $400 on an office suite, there plenty of programs for linux. Don't run any adobe or autodesk programs anymore. I don't game anymore on PC.

  89. Self serving at best by niftymitch · · Score: 1

    This seems self serving.

    Since the set of Mockrosoft products serve as host to the largest
    collection of hacked robot farms out there this is interesting. Hardening
    their server and other products seems too hard for MS. It seems to me that this may
    prove to be the single most cost effective strategy there is to reduce
    the size of distributed attack farms. That alone would make their server
    products measurably better to customers. It would allow sites
    to maintain desirable uptime and availability numbers.

    It also reduces the impact on software engineering in Redmond because
    this makes is easier to slowly walk away from previous Windowz versions.

    Without knowing the truth, I would assert their cash flow is not dominated by selling updates, it is
    Office and new hardware tax.

    It may also enable improved markets for new Office products for Asian languages.
    Back porting and compatibility in Office 2xxx-new is baggage that might
    be left behind.

    It is a big bet that Win-10 will run well enough on the older hardware
    and a big bet on the quality of the release.

    It could pay off...
    It could just make Linux+GNU a better choice.

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  90. is it so bad it turned out to be free !? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    be careful sounds like a trap

  91. Re:Dave420 = "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" by dave420 · · Score: 1

    And your hosts solution can't block the spam you flood on Slashdot. Go see a doctor - this is getting even more pathetic than anyone is comfortable with. Schizophrenia is no joke.

  92. Let's see who's "pathetic" troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Prove these wrong - Can adblock do 16 things hosts do for speed, security, & reliability:

    1.) Protect vs. malicious sites/servers (beyond malicious ads: See 2-10 next)
    2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnets + stop communication to C&C servers
    3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnets + stop communication to C&C servers
    4.) Protect vs. DGA botnets + stop communication to C&C servers
    5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (adds reliability)
    6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned dns
    7.) Protect vs. trackers
    8.) Protect vs. spam
    9.) Protect vs. phishing
    10.) Protect vs. bandwidth caps
    11.) Get you past a dnsbl
    12.) Keep you off dns request logs
    13.) Speed up websurfing by adblocks & hardcoded fav. sites
    14.) Work on ANY webbound app (think stand-alone email programs) multiplatform.
    15.) Give you easily texteditor controlled data for the above
    16.) Do all that & block ads (better than addons) more efficiently in cpu cycles + memory usage

    * ANSWER ="NO" to each above on AdBlock doing it as well or at all!

    APK

    P.S.=> AdBlock does FAR less than hosts do & FAR less efficiently - hosts by way of comparison, do MORE w/ less + Hosts start w/ the IP stack before REDUNDANT inefficient addons BEGIN to operate (as 1st resolver queried):

    AdBlock's 4++gb & 100% CPU usage flooring inefficiency -> https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth... + ClarityRay defeats it + it 'souled-out' & is crippled by default paid off to not do its job http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/... & ABP too http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...

    AdBlock adds complexity/room for breakdown/exploit + from a slower mode of operations (usermode = more messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode).

    For the BEST hosts file?

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...

    MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus http://www.av-test.org/en/news...

    ... apk

  93. It's not polite to talk w/ your mouth full by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your mouth's full of your words you're eating http://slashdot.org/comments.p... after you were fairly called out and RAN. You *really* need to change your diet Dave420! Eating your words != GOOD NUTRITION!

    Tell us, how does eating your words taste flavored with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat rammed down your throat since your foot's in your mouth?

    Above all else: Get some manners, Dave420 - it's NOT POLITE to talk w/ your mouth full (lmao) of those words of yours you're eating, hahahaha.

    (Amazing you can still talk your gibberish bullshit, actually, considering your mouth's full as you "eat your words" (lmao))

  94. Mr. "product mgr." (aka - a bullshitter) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Hey APK.. you only get to say something when you actually write a piece of software that does not need a 3 year education for the operator to work with it" - by I4ko (695382) on Wednesday March 18, 2015 @04:22PM (#49286645)

    See subject: It doesn't - just an IQ above 10 below plantlife (like yours isn't obviously). You only get to talk to ME that way when you can do better YOURSELF, blowhard.

    ---

    "and... err... you know.. .actually works, instead of just taking 100% cpu for 4 hours." - by I4ko (695382) on Wednesday March 18, 2015 @04:22PM (#49286645)

    My system does nearly 4 million record entries in well under 35 minutes (older Core I7 920)!

    I'd think a "bigshot product manager" like YOU CLAIM TO BE could afford the same or better system as I possess - apparently not (you must be a shoe salesman @ best/most then).

    ---

    "when the same can be achieved with curl/wget, bash, grep, sort and cat under Cygwin in less than 3 minutes.... Your software does not work" - by I4ko (695382) on Wednesday March 18, 2015 @04:22PM (#49286645)

    Doubt it. You don't seem to UNDERSTAND how the data for hosts files works then (obviously) - it's NOT that simple since many providers of them use diff. formats + pack the files with a LOT of "b.s." comments etc. & junk - to get the BEST hosts file, my program shears ALL OF THAT, clean away (string processing's expensive on CPU, but then again, seeing you're a mere "mgt. STOOGE"? I can see your lack of education, experience, & understanding on that note... lol, what else can I say?).

    Plus, that'd mean installing ALL KINDS OF "moving parts" bullshit with runtimes too (overheads galore) - I do it from 1 SINGLE PART I wrote myself... unlike YOUR LIMITED "skillset" making you USE the tools others wrote (but not you yourself).

    APK

    P.S.=> Above ALL else? Listen blowhard: Try doing what I did & get results like my ware being hosted & recommended by the folks @ MalwareBytes here http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

    ... apk

  95. wow by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 1

    Are you kidding me?