I've just come from a new prospective customer's office. I was called in to troubleshoot why his machines (six), were rejected in getting updates. I did not set up his units.

This, I must share with our community here.

After being initially LIED to, I finally got the truth from one of the gals. The owners' son set up the office. Talked dad into saving some bucks by not buying six copies of XP Pro.

He borrows a friends' XP and comes in with a "GENERATED LIST OF PRODUCT KEYS". He proceeds to install Pro on all the machines using the counterfeit keys. Now, each installation program eventually accepted one of these; and the initial Activation process obviously let it through as well.

The problem comes in retrieving Updates.

Microsoft has a "Validation" screen one must get through before the patches can be downloaded. This extra check point retrieves the key, using a keyfinder utility, from the Registry, and cross-references it to a legally issued list of Product Keys. (Servers can hold an awful lot of data). The program determines the bogus nature of the comps' key, and denies access to the updates.

Firstly, I was flabbergasted that a business owner wouldn't want to be legal software-wise; and secondly, to have a problem with an $850-$950 layout? It might have even been less if they called M$, and asked to "buy" five additional licenses. I think you can get a discount in that scenario from the retail box full-version price.

I never cease to being amazed at the colossal stupidity of some people!!!!

I got paid my 2 hours min; but I walked away from this low-life and his business.

 

 

 

Reply

One word - LOL

I know what it's like to get invited to fix somebody's PC, and then get lied to! Once I was fixing a friend's PC at his place, and he answered with "nope, didn't do anything" to any question I asked him about any recent changes or program installations that he may have initiated on his PC. He doesn't understand that it's not embarrassing to answer that question! It's his PC and he has the full right to do anything with it, and answering my questions can only speed things up! (turns out that he tried to reinstall Windows himself, and failed)

Anyway, that really is grade A stupid! Their "repair" costs will eventually rise above the price of 5 legal Microsoft Windows XP copies, and then they will (hopefully) learn their lesson sooner or later!

Reply

That is so stupid. That company could legally get in tons of trouble. That is why when i purchase a computer, i always purchase the operating system from the vendor and just use that disk if i ever change to a used computer instead of the one i bought and so forth. First of all, it is a legal cd key and as long as you use one computer or use it on a home network the cd key will be valid and validate ok.

There is only one time i would say it is ok to use a illegal cd key and that is if you decide you want to try an expensive piece of software. Why would go out and buy a $200 piece of software only to determine you dont like it and would never use it. I know most things have trials but like when windows Vista comes out, im sure ill want to just see what it is like (plus you never buy a new windows OS til atleast a year after its initial release because they always are so buggy) and then just remove it and use your normal OS / other software that is free or you already own.

Reply

You know what's really funny? When you go to fix someone's computer, and everything is pirated, and yet they insist that it is all legal, or, "Well... I have this friend...and... yea". I laugh everytime that happens to me. I just walk out, and say that I'll fix their computer when they actually buy the software. Well, I don't have many clients anymore.

Reply

Lol, That's a funny. But I think all the person is trying to do is safe a buck or two. I can honestly say that if I had two options, 1. Buy six "Windows Xp pro" disc, 2. Get six cd keys. Then I would try option 2, because those software cost like 100 dollars. I wouldn't want to waste 600 dollars on some softwares. I can buy a new computer with that kind of money. Unless im a successfull businessmen.

Reply

There is some more information follow-up to share. In my first post, I hadn't remembered everything I learned from the day.

For those of you that might think you can get by with "generated" keys, heed this:

While trying to assess this offices' problems, I was given two separate messages at the update site and the validation site.

One was that IE 6 was not the version expected; and the other was that Outlook Express was not the version expected. I can only gather from this (educated guess), considering the deep integration of these two programs with the OS, that the use of a counterfeit key somehow prevents the complete fusion between these three.

Even if the owners' kid found a "hack" around the validation site, IE and OE will not update!

This businessman is going to wind spending double or triple to fix his problems than what it would have cost him to go legal in the first place.

If he doesn't, he will be operating with poorly maintained comps as far as security is concerned.

Before I wrote this, the latest prices are $50-$60 for Home & under $100 for Pro (as per Price Grabber). For goodness sakes, unless one is poor, that is not a lot of money for a pretty decent operating system.

 

 

 

Reply

I agree if you have a profit making bussiness then you really invest in making sure the software that you use is leagal.........maybe if your wana save some money & your busssiness is now starting you can use illegal software for a limited time till you aquire the funds to buy the software legally..............but you must know you cant expect any support or fixes... if the software fails

Reply

simply, if you want to save money, just switch to open source operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD.

xboxrulz

Reply

But I also never cease to be amazed by the stupidity of M$. The stupid idea to introduce update validation came after M$ ECC encryption algorithm had been broken to the core by two warez groups. The first keygen on the internet was, people think, leaked from inside, by the later keygens by another group on a series of M$ stupid products, from 32bit Server 2003 to x64 OSes to ISA server, are genuinely written by some geniuses working on ECC. That’s why M$ feels so threatened that they introduced this stupid validation thing, which was cracked just two days after its introduction. The people at M$ never realize that the scene was there well before they wrote DOS, and it was like the revolutionary spirit. You can kill the martyrs, but you cannot kill the spirit. From IRC to BT to encrypted file sharing (say, Japanese’s Share), the scene will go on and on and will live longer than M$. I think with those geniuses at the scene, Vista will be the next target. M$ may have to switch from ECC (which is also in M$ DRM with WMV) to other algorithm.

Reply

From what I know, there's no way Microsoft will ever escape the piracy problem. The only way is to make your operating system cheap enough so most people can afford it, the "Walmart" way.

xboxrulz

Reply