Microsoft: Pirated Win 7 Causes Malware Outbreak

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Imo WGA is a great tool. I hate the fact that I have to accept installing it in an otherwise noninteractive enviroment, but the tool successfully prevents most wannabe pirates from not buying a license. I find the windows license too expensive, but the wga system is legit nevertheless. If it wouldn't block windows updates what good would it do to have it? If pirated versions then attract malware, so be it. It's the customers choice if he wants to pay for security or not. Saving money can be costly ; that's nothing new.
 
Since when should piracy be rewarded? I agree that WGA should get a second look so that it causes legit users less hassles, however, having this sort of system in place is at least attempting to thwart piracy.

[citation][nom]sanchz[/nom]Then, MS MUST understand that people in developing countries (I live in one) are NOT able to pay for a $110 OS which can just be downloaded for free. [/citation]
Then live without a new OS. No money, no product. Use linux since that is free.

"After all, if 41-percent of the world is running pirated Windows, maybe Microsoft should reconsider WGA?"

That 41% is the reason why we even have WGA. Now THAT is kicking yourself in the ass. Pretty sad how everyone feels justified in receiving a product for free.
 
Honestly, if people don't want to pay for Windows, they should just use Linux instead of pirating Windows.

If you want an OS for free, then choose a freeware option, instead of stealing a paid-for product. Otherwise, don't complain about a company's attempt to stop illegal copies from working correctly.
 
Most of these pirated copies are running windows updates no problem. The fact is that if Microsoft does away with WGA it would not matter because they would still pirate Windows, the Chinese steal, that's their culture. Also did anyone here about the Chinese anti virus company IO Bits getting busted for stealing other companies tech. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10389650-245.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0&refresh=1257342862873
It's no wonder the Chinese progress so fast when you don't need to spend money on R&D but can just steal every thing and save time and money. I also don't know why countries keep turning a blind eye to the massive espionage campaigns they run in all levels of society, whether college students, business, government, military etc.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/spies/
 
If you use a PC everyday on Win7, you should just buy it.

Someday you'll work (perhaps already like me), so, what if someone steal part of your paycheck or steal a part of your work and claim his own ?

The licence cost 2 to 4 day of work and it's valid for at least 3 years. (time for build a new version). You don't have to try to patch your Genuire... cause a lot of trouble and I don't talk about time lost.
I think people find the price high and actually doesn't count time lost on genuire patch... surf "how to" on the web.

You don't need to paid for Win7 Ultimate. Win7 Home Premium or Professional are enough.

On other part, I paid for Win 7 Professional and I feel "bad" because my licence is just a sticker (COA). MS should register your COA to your name/fullname/passcode when you active it. So if someone stole your PC, you should be able to report it to MS, identify the next web connection using this key. And if the key is use on another PC (because someone stole me my retail box), I should just call and they give me another one.

I think MS doesn't take time "to THINK" for stop PIRATING version.
They have some many thing to think about it...
 
Why does Microsoft give a shit about the people who get malware because of their pirated copy. Hell if I was Microsoft I would embed code that if you copy wasn't genuine to flood your computer with malware viruses etc. And don't give me that crap that half these places don't have internet or phones to activate it.
 
MS has a right to defend their products. No dispute about that. The article is suggesting, however, that doing so may cause MS more harm than good. Consider: The possibility exists that Windows has such a strong market share today *because* it can be pirated. If, as some folks here have suggested, that 41% of Windows installations (illegitimate) suddenly turn to Linux, Windows loses its overwhelming market dominance (which is what allows them to sell their OS at such high prices). If 39% (or whatever share of the OS market it works out to)of the world starts using Linux, especially in the massive BRIC countries, MS will have a shaky future as that 39% will surely only grow. If Linux jumped to 39% tomorrow, it can be expected that there will be a surge of development. Linux will lose all of the problems that currently stop it from replacing Windows. I'm playing devil's advocate here and putting this forth as a worst case, yet plausible, scenario.
 
you guys defending piracy as a way of getting potential customers....
o god..
its like letting a bank robber rob your bank, in the hopes that they will like it so much they'll come back the next day and open a savings account there..
or stealing stuff from walmart, but hoping that the great product they stole will convince them to buy it next time they need it from walmart...instead of proving that its awesome and easy to steal...

some people have such disregard for intellectual work... i don't think you guys understand how much work goes into an operating system...
 
[citation][nom]psycho sykes[/nom]WRONG! 99.99% is the correct ratio..I used to use one (Win Me) when I was 6 years old.. And my father never knew about it! And guess what? Back then the piracy rate was a lot lower and I wasn't able to get updates to work proberly.. With Windows 7 and Vista intrducing WGA the rate got from around 50% to about 99.99%..[/citation]
I don't believe this claim!
Most people I know either have a legit vista license, or they're running on pirated corporation licensed xp versions (those not requiring activation). Those on xp are afraid to upgrade as they don't think they'll make it work. Sure there are plenty of kids who're content with reinstalling every 3 months and run pirated vistas (not updating) but I doubt it's 99% of all pirated windows. Besides, I just returned from a customer who had two legit windows xp mashines that still sat around on sp2 and ie6 and ie7 respectively. So if even legit versions aren't updated, what makes you think that 99% of all illigal ones are?
 
[citation][nom]Miharu[/nom]MS should register your COA to your name/fullname/passcode when you active it. So if someone stole your PC, you should be able to report it to MS, identify the next web connection using this key. And if the key is use on another PC (because someone stole me my retail box..[/citation]

This will not happen for 2 reasons. One is that it would require more of a database than what it is now. Another is that people are generally paranoid and don't want to even percieve that there might be a chance of someone, especially MS, to watch what they're doing.
 
[citation][nom]ssddx[/nom]Since when should piracy be rewarded? I agree that WGA should get a second look so that it causes legit users less hassles, however, having this sort of system in place is at least attempting to thwart piracy.Then live without a new OS. No money, no product. Use linux since that is free."After all, if 41-percent of the world is running pirated Windows, maybe Microsoft should reconsider WGA?"That 41% is the reason why we even have WGA. Now THAT is kicking yourself in the ass. Pretty sad how everyone feels justified in receiving a product for free.[/citation]

I think that if Microsoft lowered the prices of their OS they could tap into that 41% and still come out making a profit.
 
There's always going to be a way to pirate windows, the more knowledge you have the better you can do it. If done right, there is no difference between a pirated installation and a legit one, including the ability to update, of course. This is just a pathetic attempt for microsoft to cut on the piracy by convincing ppl that only genuine copies of windows are protected, which isnt true any way you look at it.
 
[citation][nom]psycho sykes[/nom]Well, I do like WGA.. It prevents those bloody pirates (SW) from matching us who paid $$ for the OS (my school did.. not me!)..HOWEVER I do hate it also.. Because when I'm forced to connect to the internet every couple of days.. Contact the stupid MS customer support here in my country each time I re-install (OEM|Quite often).. Makes me wonder how people will interact when they find out that some of the currently existing WGA cracks requires you just a restart and everything is OK for the next OS release?!! I think that MS is countring US by WGA not the pirates nor those using their copies...[/citation]

If you're reinstalling that often you might want to look in to other methods of keeping a system running well. At least image your system disk after a fresh install and then use that backup to reinstate the system (after a nice defrag).... and OEM is meant for system builders who then provide a reinstate disk or partition... I don't understand why people bought oem for w7, over here (UK) the retail version was actually going cheaper (for home premium anyway)
 
[citation][nom]BlueScreenDeath[/nom]I have 1 legit copy of W7. I'm not going to spend another $100 to buy another legit copy so I can install it on my 2ndary harddrive as a backup.[/citation]

Huh, just use your secondary hardrive to backup an image of your primary... by secondary hard drive do you, perchance, mean secondary 'computer' ?
 
[citation][nom]Eccentric909[/nom]Honestly, if people don't want to pay for Windows, they should just use Linux instead of pirating Windows.[/citation]

Trust me, Microsoft would MUCH rather people pirate Windows than start using Linux.

"Although 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, 1998
(http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html)
 
[citation][nom]acecombat[/nom]"After all, if 41-percent of the world is running pirated Windows, maybe Microsoft should reconsider WGA?"They should...I purchased Vista and when I changed some hardware after a HDD crash and reinstalled, my old activation code no longer worked, I then had to call them and waste ~20 mins explaining what I changed to get it activated. I then vowed to never purchase an OS that requires such an activation system again.[/citation]

Really? If the OS install is a year old, the activation resets allowing you to reinstall it and activate again.

If it was just a HDD change then you shouldn't have run into that problem because it has 10 things it checks (HDDs being one) and you need to have 7/10 same hardware setup.

Even if so It only would take me 5 minutes to do it and that was when i installed the same copy of XP on multiple machines.
 
China is a whole different story, anti-piracy is of such a low importance in that country, their number one antivirus software (called 360 something, not the IOBIT 360 Security) actually suggest users to TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATES and it uses its own PROPRIETARY UPDATER to download updates from M$'s website, this whole process, of course, does not give a s**t about WGA.
 
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