Microsoft Says Free Windows 10 Upgrades For Pirates Will Be Unsupported

An anonymous reader writes with this story about some of the fine print to Microsoft's offer of Windows 10 upgrades to pirates. "When Microsoft confirmed it will offer free Windows 10 upgrades to pirates worldwide, many were shocked. VentureBeat has been trying to get more details from the company, which disclosed today that after PCs with pirated copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are upgraded to Windows 10, they will remain in a 'non-genuine' status and Microsoft will not support them. 'With Windows 10, although non-genuine PCs may be able to upgrade to Windows 10, the upgrade will not change the genuine state of the license,' a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. 'Non-genuine Windows is not published by Microsoft. It is not properly licensed or supported by Microsoft or a trusted partner. If a device was considered non-genuine or mislicensed prior to the upgrade, that device will continue to be considered non-genuine or mislicensed after the upgrade. According to industry experts, use of pirated software, including Non-genuine Windows, results in a higher risk of malware, fraud — identity theft, credit card theft, etc. — public exposure of your personal information, and a higher risk for poor performance or feature malfunctions.' Yet this doesn't provide enough answers. After a pirate upgrades to Windows 10 for free, does this 'non-genuine' version expire and become unusable after a certain period of time? Does no support mean no security updates for pirates?"

Comments

This is pretty common.

[jaseuk]

They have a similar policy with Home Usage Policies. It's a "Ghost" License, not really a true license with warranty rights, support, transfers etc.. You can use the product legally, but you don't own any license. don't expect to be able to transfer the policy or seek technical support.

This copy won't expire, but you can't really re-sell it, transfer it or seek any other benefits. The product will technically "work" fine and will receive updates and so on without issue. One area which isn't guaranteed is if Microsoft continue this trend of free upgrades from earlier OS, they might not permit free upgrade for this pirate/amnesty copy.

Jason.

Re:This is pretty common.

[Jax Omen]

Many of us who are "stupid and clueless enough to voluntarily run Windows" simply don't have a choice, the software we want/need to use is locked to Windows.

In my case, Desktop = Windows because 3 of the 3 games I spend most of my PC time playing are Windows-exclusive, laptop (which is more general-computing) is running Linux.

Re:This is pretty common.

[jaseuk]

No - They've given you an amnesty license. Just don't automatically expect to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 or to use any phone / e-mail support. Don't expect other rights you'd get with full copies, such as any downgrade rights or the ability to transfer it to another computer or person.

Security patches/updates will work fine. These are legal restrictions not usage restrictions. It'll look like any other copy of Windows and work like any other copy of Windows. You just can't put it in a box and put it on e-bay, it's at that point it no longer exists.

Jason.

Re:They'd be shooting themselves in the foot

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Disallowing security updates to run on non-genuine copies of Windows is not exactly in Microsoft's best interest.

After push back YEARS ago, Microsoft allowed security updates for non-genuine users. No "feature feature improvement" type downloads though.

Interestingly, with Windows 7 at least, OEM-SLP loader method of "piracy" has remained bullet-proof. In the past 5 years it's been in use, it has always reported genuine, no altering MS binaries, and MS can't tell the difference between you and someone that bought their HP PC at Best buy.

So far with Win 8.x phony KMS servers has made it indistinguishable from a computer activating on a company's LAN.

XP you could just harvest VL keys from university and workplaces attended.

There are clean ways to "pirate" any MS OS, starting with a clean genuine install ISO, yet people end up with junky malware filled garbage.

In any case even if you get a free upgrade on this "genuine" pirated copy, I would expect to remain genuine, but not be able to call in for tech support, etc.

Re:They'd be shooting themselves in the foot

[Threni]

OEM, sure. But it's not my understanding that if you buy a PC and buy the full, expensive version of windows and the PC dies and you buy a new pc then you need to buy another copy of windows. Otherwise....why would anyone pay for the full version; you'd get the oem, right?