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

More important to me

[darkain]

What about all the PCs that were shipped with valid licenses, but for whatever reason, techs (such as myself) have had to install a fresh copy of Windows on the box. Could be a failed drive, or other failed hardware, or whatever, reason doesn't matter too much. The point is that it shipped with a legit copy of Windows, and often times doesn't have a recovery disk or an OEM copy of Windows. What are we supposed to do then as techs? Tell the customer "SUCKS TO BE YOU" or "GOTTA PAY FOR THE THING YOU ALREADY PAID FOR, AGAIN" - or just suck it up and install a "non-genuine" license key on the box? Are these users totally SOL out of having a genuine upgrade to Windows 10 because the previous version of Windows that shipped with the system became broken?

Re:More important to me

[Anonymous Coward]

What about all the PCs that were shipped with valid licenses, but for whatever reason, techs (such as myself) have had to install a fresh copy of Windows on the box. Could be a failed drive, or other failed hardware, or whatever, reason doesn't matter too much. The point is that it shipped with a legit copy of Windows, and often times doesn't have a recovery disk or an OEM copy of Windows. What are we supposed to do then as techs? Tell the customer "SUCKS TO BE YOU" or "GOTTA PAY FOR THE THING YOU ALREADY PAID FOR, AGAIN" - or just suck it up and install a "non-genuine" license key on the box? Are these users totally SOL out of having a genuine upgrade to Windows 10 because the previous version of Windows that shipped with the system became broken?

If you're installing pirated versions of Windows on computers people bring to you to fix and you're not telling them, then passing the computer back as legitimately fixed, you are one sleazy jackass.

Please, tell us where you work so we can NEVER go there.

Re:More important to me

[AK Marc]

I have a full-XP license copied off a retail box. It's installed on one computer in the world. While that computer was dead, I tried to use it on a different computer. It came up as "not valid". an hour on the phone, and they still hadn't offered me a new key. How long must one yell at them to get a new key when they report a valid one as invalid?

Re:This is pretty common.

[ckatko]

So in other words, Microsoft knows you're being a dick and using pirated software, but they're not going to do anything to hurt you even though they know you're guilty--except not patch your software which costs them bandwidth.

I disagree with lots of their policies, but this one is rather gratuitous and undeserved on our part.

They abuse the word "genuine."

[Anonymous Coward]

If the software is actually a copy of Windows 10, then it is "genuine" by the definition of the word. If it was a linux distro with a windowing front end that made it look like Windows 10, THEN it would be non-genuine.

Calling "unlicensed" "ungenuine" is a conscious abuse of language intended to instill fear where there is no need for it. Which, of course, suits Microsoft just fine.

Not a genuine advantage

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"the agent won't help them without a valid key"

Not a genuine advantage with 99% of users (pirates included) outside the US (figure pulled off my behind). When was the last time you called tech support for support and not visit some online forum or your local tech guru.

The real issue: will the software police break down your door if you get reported using a legally upgraded "pirate" version? Can you just say, but the kind folks at Redmond say I get a pass, my sins have been forgiven?

Re:They'd be shooting themselves in the foot

[PixetaledPikachu]

Hey stupid. The legit uses have legal copies and will get updates.

Hey genius! Those machines running broken illegal copies will get infected and become zombies. Who will get DDOSed by them? Those with legal copies, or services used by those legit users

Re:Oh dear.

[hairyfeet]

You are arguing a classic "is ought" fallacy, because the code IS there somebody OUGHT to have done the audit but we have 100% undeniable proof this is bullshit...Shellshock. if the Bash shell, the oldest and therefor by that argument most looked at code on the planet can have a major exploit for THAT long? Then your entire argument just falls apart.