Inside Windows Product Activation (2001)
licenturion.com
licenturion.com
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/15/23958751/microsoft-windo...
If you're using a Win 10 upgrade or Win11 fresh key, it's expected you wouldn't encounter it.
Then again, the manufacturer probably should've made sure the replacement motherboard was covered by a license.
Does anyone remember when this shift happened, and what was the justification? Has Microsoft given up on making money on end-user windows licenses, relying instead on OEM licenses and monetizing users with shitty ads?
The VMs were time locked I believe and would shut down after a few hours (at least the more recent ones do).
Running windows on bare metal still requires you to pay for it
In the license yes, technically unlicensed windows actually works but you can’t e.g. change the desktop wallpaper. Kind of the same principle applies to the dev vm: it works fine (during its validity period) but it is not licensed for production use.
Running a VM also requires you to pay for it. But it's the license that requires it, nothing in the software will stop you from using it.
But then you download a new one.
I think it was `slmgr -rearm`
Don't know why they would ship with this...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10I...
If you install it without inputting a product key, it'll be more or less fully functional. There is no time limit to this.
My memory is pretty terrible these days, but it might have been to allow testing different versions of internet explorer?
The VMs were discontinued recently.
When you use Windows, you don't use the alternatives, don't consider the alternatives, and don't change your habits, which makes one even more inclined to stick to Windows. That's why Microsoft is careful to not make it too hard to acquire a copy of Windows. (On the other hand, it makes it hard for hardware makers to offer anything else, and for businesses to switch or elude.) A regular user doesn't care about the OS anyway, and would follow any shepherd. As a wrapper to run browser and multimedia player, Linux was ready for desktop long ago — see famous anti-Linux stunts at Microsoft.
Moreover, the leaders today don't profit from software, they profit from data collection and control over their “free” services. The bigger the user numbers, the more money you can get, and when Windows activation can be done by typing some commands on a vanilla system, it is effectively “free” for everyone who wants to take it.
you will see "not activated" or something on the bottom right. and you cannot change theme (you can still change it before you go online the first time, or via registry)
Still, I think Windows nowadays is hostile towards both nix and old-time Windows users. I kinda wish ReactOS was more active so that people who are tied to Windows ecosystem have some sane alternative.
I guess it's working as intended since it only refused to work with me in weird cases, and other times it was tolerable annoyances at time.
In Windows XP, if the system wasn't activated after the initial grace period, you couldn't log in at all. That was obviously a bad UX when something has gone wrong.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 loosened things - allowing you to log in and use basic functionality.
Later versions of Windows (including Windows 10 and Windows 11) are more or less fully functional without activation (or even inputting a product key). Some personalisation features are disabled and you will have a watermark on the desktop, but other than that it's pretty normal. There is no time limit for this, unlike some of the free virtual machine images Microsoft provides for web dev testing purposes.
The only justification I can see is that it does provide a better user experience if there's an activation problem. With Windows 10 and 11 being free upgrades for a huge range of consumers, they know that most people have a licence anyway.
Windows 10 and 11 have also emphasised the digital licence model - installing without a product key. This requires that the system is functional without activation, so that you can get online to verify the digital licence.
Considering all the data collection and dark patterns in Windows, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more lucrative this way.
By the way, the thing you mention isn’t just for VMs, you can download Windows from Microsoft and install it on bare metal, having it run indefinitely as long as you’re OK with a watermark on the bottom right.
Sigh. Remember when you could just pay companies money for a product, and get something that they at least kinda tried to have be ok, and then buy an upgrade if you thought they'd delivered enough value, or not if not, and on your own schedule? And maybe just enter a serial number you'd got and that was it, no internet needed? Good times!
Unplug from the Matrix and board the Nebuchadnezzar.
If anything, I'd recommend a new user use something like Pop_OS!; or at least some more newbie friendly DEB or RPM distro (Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc).
now that gnome just copies apple, which is even worse than not being gpl, kde is clearly the most user focused. and it's mostly gpl now.
the amount of usability and configs you get on kde are incomparable today. recommending gnome based distros is a mistake mac-captives make a lot
about distros, any well regarded with rolling releases is enough.
Jumping to Manjaro/Arch as a first is a terrible idea, and more likely to frustrate new users away from Linux.
i disagree. linux is a learning experience in itself. just don't tell people to fdisk disk alone right from the beginning. but that's the beauty of rolling distros. help them once and mostly forget :)
you accept software is not eternal and bugs are there. instead of accepting blue screens/spinning beachball/etc as facts of life, you understand they are like idiot lights on your car dashboard. instead of ignoring you take your car to a mechanic, who will tell you something obvious had you read the manual.
Linux is the same. you see a crash, you message the friend who told you to use Linux or google the error. yeah, it's annoying, but only if you live in neverland were comercial software have no bugs.
and again, ubuntu/rh/etc does nothing but try to push this lie to opensource.
I said:
> more likely to frustrate new users away from Linux.
Because, as little as you may agree, most people are well aware that Arch is more complicated/advanced than the "beginner distros"; and one of the major turn-away points for Linux is it's complexity. Thus why it maintains a minuscule sliver of consumer users.
That's not me disliking Linux (I use it as my primary OS, for about 20 years now), that's just being in tune with reality.
Good luck trying to open your old backups for legal/accounting reasons......
But then in the new order[0] “recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that agencies buy and manage software licenses in a decentralized manner, struggle to create accurate inventories, often purchase unneeded capabilities, and generally do not facilitate better purchasing by sharing pricing or terms and conditions across the Government. Furthermore, most agencies do not have a designated central oversight authority to manage software agreements. This memorandum addresses these and other challenges in information technology
And
“ Enterprise Software Category Team (ESCT),6 co-managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and OMB, will guide the development of Government-wide software license agreements for mandatory agency use, and OMB will encourage or direct use of best-in-class existing software licensing agreements. This memorandum further requires agencies to develop implementation plans, in accordance with ESCT guidance, to address how agencies will move from their existing agreements to those mandated by the ESCT. Agencies must also justify and obtain ESCT approval to pursue new agreements that overlap or conflict with the ESCT mandated agreements.”
It goes on.
Perpetual licenses are a good idea to have as an option because the company or product might disappear, or in some cases, as I have seen, a company will refuse to sell a licensed version of something for less than benevolent reasons.
We can all appreciate the efficiency of adding more bureaucracy and lawyers (general counsel) and layers of managers (the various committees you now have to wrangle into agreement).
It occurred to me though that part of the utility of small group acquisitions is that different organizations can buy what they need or want when they decide to without this mess, and the licensing can be arranged to suit the need of that organization. I think this also damages the small seller or company that makes niche programs. Perhaps my business gets contracts from small specialized government teams and groups because it’s a better option for them than the Microsoft sized competition, and now they have to deal with the additional mess of justifying this purchase in addition to being on the same contract terms and volume purchase agreements with the Microsoft sized companies as say the entire IRS.
So, my quickbooks compatible software for managing and displaying old versions’ files used by a dozen people in Navy purchasing is at odds with a license from quickbooks used by IRS to allow examiners access to older versions. My income becomes maintenance fees to QB. (This is hypothetical)
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_...
Why bother with Win11 to run old software? A Windows VM from the same era would be much more suitable.
But honestly mainly it comes down to that I just kinda expected it to work? I hadn't dealt with Microsoft, or Intuit for that matter, in a very long time. I think last time I did was Windows 7 era and I don't remember it being particularly bad. I sorta just thought, "well, I'll just go get a legit copy of Windows, there's a sale going on even, and it'll have good backwards compat like always and this will all be quick and easy". I mean, clearly you know better, and now I do too, and I'll figure stuff out. This isn't even remotely the most gnarly software I've needed to deal with in the past few weeks. But I didn't expect it to be this much of a PITA either. This is supposed to be a pretty easy glide path, it's not some 18 year old panoramic x-ray imaging software.
Edit: Oh goodie, reinstalling and just discovered how stupid irritating it is to have a local account under Windows nowadays. "Cut off internet at the right time, hit shift+f10, type oobe\bypassnro, reboot, shift+f10 again, ipconfig /release, close command prompt" ok. Nice. I mean yeah, making an MS account is free, but this is just a VM and I don't want to bother and don't see why I should need to. I guess most people just go with the flow for this but geez.
sometimes being a paying customer is undesirable for the company so you just get bad service. it's the same with media if you don't want to just consume the latest mass distributed garbage.
you obviously won't get sued for running old software at your home. so why bother having more trouble to pay when you're clearly not a desired customer.
it's like entering a store and insisting to pay for the free samples and annoying everyone.
Anyone who tells you that Windows is great because you never have to touch the CLI is either lying, or they've only ever had trivial interactions with a Windows system.
Yeah, that's a good one. What I have found, coming back from Linux, is that I have to tinker about the same amount as I did in Linux, just with shittier tools, and less documented processes. My last, biggest WTF is a paired bluetooth headphone which doesn't want to actually connect, but I can't remove the pairing either, so now it's stuck in limbo. Good times.
For example, some people use windows vms to run old games. And those old games aren't even available for macos.