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Comment by CoryMathews | Hacker News Reader

I do not see any problem at all with this.

Its a completely valid thing for Microsoft to do. If you do not buy the software then you cannot use it. It's not a free OS. If you want a free OS go download some flavor of linux. Otherwise if you want windows you buy it. Why wouldn't they try to keep out people who have pirated their software?

They could have made it auto forward all of ones information to the police, since technically they stole the software. I think annoying you with some pop-ups is a much more friendly way.

The downvotes tell me we have some pirated versions out there ;)

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The concern is about a) false positives, b) what happens on non-internet connected machines inside secure facilities e.g. nuclear power stations, banks, police stations, hospitals &c. &c.

So the only victims will ever be valid paying customers.

As far as b) is concerned, it says if it can't connect to the validation server nothing happens. No penalty.

As far as a) is concerned, call customer support. It says you might be able to get it for free if you are a victim of fraud, and if not you should be able to clear it up. You can easily bypass the activation limit by calling support, so something like a false positive should be easily correctable.

I really don't see any valid excuse against this unless you pirate. And if you don't like the system for any legitimate reason, don't buy Windows.

And what if the company goes away? Or is acquired by another company that doesn't want to support it?

Don't forget, this isn't just Windows. Other companies will point at MS and use it to justify their own actions.

If the company goes away then the servers that invalidate your Windows will not do so anymore.

This system would be a problem, but only if having a working OS depended on Microsoft keeping its servers up.

I'm reasonably sure the Eula states that you, quite specifically, cannot use Windows for things such as Nuclear Power Plants.

Likewise, if you were using it, wouldn't you be talking to Microsoft about specially hardened version of the software (or to a linux vendor who could provide the same)?.

You might not run the reactor with it or the heart monitors but ancillary staff need terminals for which Windows is suited and if I was running the place I'd want an air gap.

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