U.S. Army Base Allegedly Using Pirated Windows 7

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This just in, our life protecting, underpaid, and bored out of their mind service personal have a North American copy of Star Wars in Afghanistan. How dare they! What is next? They might watch an American football game without the express permission from the NFL!
 
If you're pushing win8 on anyone you should be fired. All it is, is more tax dollars for training, support calls etc going down the drain for something that doesn't do anything for users. It slows you down and causes IT calls. DIE win8 die 😉 For the same reason you should have passed on Vista, you should pass on win8. There is nothing wrong with win7 for YEARS. Quit paying political favors to companies who don't deserve my tax dollars. You gain nothing in perf here. Why do it? Boot times? Don't make me laugh. I don't reboot for weeks at home or work on XP64 or win7 64. Pretty much patch tuesdays...LOL.

If this OS made employees work 25-50% faster/more productive then its worth 617mil. If not why am I wasting money on upgrading? I haven't met anyone yet in IT or home users that says win8 speeds me up. Everyone says even more stuff is buried even deeper than win7 and requires more clicks to get to (including myself, which is why it lasted less than a month).
 
My question is why is a military organisation doing even using windows, sure its good for gamers and the average computer user. I thought a locked down version of Linux would be better, easier to keep sensitive data away from prying eyes and I guess they didn't learn from the Navy's incident on the USS Yorktown
 
once you leave american soil, american laws no longer apply on foreign soil, waters or international waters.
american laws only apply outside of the USA to american people per american law.
good luck finding an internet connection to activate and or a support telephone line to connect to microsoft to activate windows.
even the windows 7 database at the CIA has never connected to the internet in anyway what so ever and 'microsoft' has never patched these machines, only in house CIA staff are allowed to even touch these computers.

to allow u.s. military machines to access the internet with out being quarantined from hacking and infecting the entire system with virus that would compromise red, white, blue, black ops as well as ghost ops....well that's the most sure fire way to be put infront of a firing squad.
 
My question is why is a military organisation doing even using windows, sure its good for gamers and the average computer user. I thought a locked down version of Linux would be better, easier to keep sensitive data away from prying eyes and I guess they didn't learn from the Navy's incident on the USS Yorktown
 
I doubt that they are intentionally using pirated copies. They probably misplaced keys or something. However, there is still a chance that they ARE using pirated copies.
 
I have this problem at work. we have a site wide license which means every computer on my site is licensed. Its a stupid problem with some images and KMS server... This solder is begging to be famous but comes across as being a idiot.
 
all the computers were probably licensed i know mine is but when you gotta reinstall from scratch just coz your license number is pre SP1 it makes no sense. You download the current build and try and shoehorn your license number in or just end up using a keygen, then a couple of security patches down the line they cotton on and your suddnly flagged as running "pirated software" Some tech guy probably got told to reformat all these rigs and just slapped the latest release on, tis what id do 😛 One would however expect the military to have a pretty well developed framework for this stuff v0v
 
Remember when microsoft made an error message pop up if you were running DR-DOS instead of MS-DOS with some other microsoft software? The only actual problem was the error message.
 
Agreed with above comment from nbelote, need knowledge of what legal software and piracy is, windows7 computers or programs when not activating them will also cause the not genuine to happen , see it all the time on our tested gaming systems.
 
This article is total Bunk. The DoD negotiated a DoD wide license with Microsoft for all Microsoft products. Employees of DoD can also get a discounted price to use individual MS products for private use. The should contact their computer support center for more information. Just because it appears to be a recorded DVD does not necessarily mean it is pirated. It "sounds" like their local computer support folks are dropping the ball as they require a special key for activation. But I can assure you DoD organizations do not use pirated software. I am surprised at the report as they are supposed to be linked to the Army Active directory as well.
 


The Yorktown incident had very little do with WinNT as the OS, and everything to do with a crappily written application. The user interface accepted an incorrect user input (a zero, I believe), and crashed.

Given a similarly crappy application, any other underlying OS would have done the same. The application was at fault, not the OS.

Or are you somehow suggesting it is impossible to write bad software for Linux?
 
Its on the internet it has to be true!
I guess it just makes a great story no how unlikely it might be so that the media can rake in that extra bit of money for ppl looking for something interesting to read.
 
Microsoft doesn't really care if people pirate their OS anyways. As long as people are using Windows instead of Mac or others they could care less how you got it.
 
This article and the Soldier in question have completely missed the point. The Army has and enterprise license agreement from Microsoft. They're welcome to install as many copies of Win7 (or office or sharepoint or just about anything else MS makes) as they want to. None of it is pirated - it's already been paid for.

It sounds like they never got around to activating it for whatever reason (they probably have their license server messed up). But it's not piracy. It's already paid for.
 


Exactly. It is actually impossible for them to 'pirate' Windows. It is already paid for.

Those particular copies may not be activated (missed connection to the local KMS server), but that does NOT mean the Army is using pirated software.
 
Would like to add that my school had this happen to all the computers after someone accidentally unplugged the Cisco switch. Office claimed invalid software. The licenses are definitely valid.
 
Yes they are that dumb. I often install an operating system to test new hard drives and related hardware as video cards. You can use the operating system for 30 days. When the clock runs out your system will not longer boot. This is better than registering the operating system, only having to uninstall and reinstall; which produces problems with Microsoft; who does not like seeing the same registration number appearing time after time. Point here is the operating system will simply not boot up; and in such cases will need to be reinstalled and of course registered for continue usage. So don't feel sorry for Microsoft who has been screwing millions of people out an operating system; because the computers people buy with the system already installed (OEM) do not provide a real fully certified operating system disk. Here your operating system is on a recovery disk or separate hard drive partition and when you toss out the computer you toss out your operating system, because it cannot be used on another computer whereas a retail certified copy can. I have complained "I want a fully certified operating system disk" to these computer companies; and they simply lie to you; that you have one.
 


1. You always have the option of using something else. Linux, Unix, Apple.
2. Every consumer prebuilt PC I've seen either includes the reinstall disks, or gives you the option to create one from a partition existing on the hard drive.
3. They are not entirely truthful, but asking that question is a little ambiguous. Is it a fully certified, legal copy? Yes. Can you transfer it? No.
But who are you buying that OS license from? HP/Dell/Gateway/whoever! That is part of the licensing agreement. You're not buying it from Microsoft.
You can always buy a fully transferable OS, direct from Microsoft.

Again...you always have the option of using something other than Windows. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
 
USAFRet

If you know the other systems then you know Microsoft. You know their tactics; you know they water-downed their operating systems. You know their service packs are os re-writes. You know they sold MSDOS. etc. What your talking about is companies who assemble computers (the parts from overseas) I can by direct from China all you need is a business tax ID. This is how I buy bulk memory modules. I am a builder since 1994, these companies you mentioned are "Microsoft Partners" many will not sell you a computer with no operating system. If you think Microsoft does get paid for each issue of their software "think again" Because the home market users are not knowledgeable they have been suckered into these OEM arrangements. one time install and many times factory recover useless software installations. I build for everyday customers and small business and also get the Microsoft software discounts. This way my customers get a real Microsoft Certified Disk. As for the rest my own personal interests.these rest with John McAfee's proposed new operating system. (no more ducks lined up in a row) You can't expect most home users to run a computer other than Windows. Especially when they can't find the "Start" button. Never the less my customers have families and (it is) and has been, my intentions to make sure they get a good computer for their hard earned money. Therefore you may better understand my comments here.

1. You always have the option of using something else. Linux, Unix, Apple.
2. Every consumer prebuilt PC I've seen either includes the reinstall disks, or gives you the option to create one from a partition existing on the hard drive.
3. They are not entirely truthful, but asking that question is a little ambiguous. Is it a fully certified, legal copy? Yes. Can you transfer it? No.
But who are you buying that OS license from? HP/Dell/Gateway/whoever! That is part of the licensing agreement. You're not buying it from Microsoft.
You can always buy a fully transferable OS, direct from Microsoft.

Again...you always have the option of using something other than Windows. Don't like it? Don't buy it.[/quotemsg]

 



Facts be damned! They're guilty, I tell you, guilty! Because 'Merica!
 
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