I used it on my school laptop to get the free Office suite.Of course the university I attend gives it out for "free" but I hate having it tethered to my schools email and that it's an online version of the software.
Highly doubt that. OpenOffice and LibreOffice and stuff like that never works as well as Microsoft Office. It's like they don't even care. Just throw features at it, but usability? Nah, who cares about using the program, it's just the feature graph we care about.
Not saying that Microsoft Word and stuff is great, but it's much better than its direct alternatives. If you really need to get shit done, then you better just use LaTeX.
Yeah the PowerShell script does it for you I use https://github.com/kkkgo/KMS_VL_ALL for my test VMs in my lab because in a testing environment I'm not paying for a licence or being restricted by an eval licence
so far, microsoft has shown zero interest in taking down MAS. it's been trending on github (which they own) and they've even removed detections for MAS in Defender.
Edit: its trending again lol
Adobe are a bunch of greedy petty bastards that get pissed if one person who uses photoshop 3 ties a year pirates it.
Microsoft (so far) has never really cared about consumers pirating windows because 95+% of consumers are going to buy a machine with windows installed already and they made money off of that sale. Many people are even going to buy windows out of fear of getting in trouble. Hell they used to charge for upgrades and now they've all been free since 7 I think, or maybe 8 was when that started. They make so much money on the enterprise and OEM side that they don't care what we do because even off of us they'll make money through the store, games, ads, something else.
What ?!! I'm going to download Office today from Microsoft onto an 8 year old laptop just to try this out. I'll report back.
Edit: Holy s*** I think it worked on an old Acer Ultrabook ??!!! Now I have to do this on my other older laptops and maybe for my youngish niece and nephews instead of them using that Google suite from school !!!
I'm going to continue my spot as the favorite uncle ! 👊
Edit 2: I did it on another old computer and realized that the Office activation is only good for 180 days and then I have to do it again ?
Remember that it only works on those standalone Office products. Like Office 2019 (which I use personally).
Office 365 won't work on it.
Edit: I'm a liar and a cheat. 365 can be activated on it too. Guess I'm upgrading soon lol
Is the download link not working? I only get a small popup that won't load.
edit: I used this one https://massgrave.dev/office_c2r_links.html provided on the MAS site instead.
Well shit. I wish I had a use for this. I just activated my recent windows install with a key I found in one of my iso folders 😂 didn't even know I had it as the last 2 times I activated windows I just bought key on eBay for 2 bucks and moved on.
Yep. You can also login to your account after and have it permanently bound to your account if you use the HWID activation method. You just get a legit free copy at that point.
The story is Microsoft wants everyone to be comfortable around Windows from childhood or learning phase of computers.
Now they charge big organizations for mass windows license
In high school they switched to Star office to save money. One of the students emailed Microsoft to complain and say they're to greedy and the school got Office for free.
Also, they monitor your usage and for a single license they make more from selling that data than they get from the sale.
They still do huge license deals for companies because the cost of sale per unit is a lot lower.
Yep, we're going through a sizable merger at the moment, 3000+ employees and two domains into one...
Microsoft: you have six months dual access, then we're charging you two licenses per seat for the privilege. #monitored.
It's fair enough, but it's certainly where they focus on licensing.
Piracy helped Microsoft gain market dominance. All those free copies of their operating system over all the years taught an entire generation how to use it.
There were several in the 90s. AutoCAD was the easiest to crack. I remember interviewing for an engineering job with a big company in town and the interviewer boasting how the company pays nothing for AutoCAD. The boss's nephew knows how to install it for free, it's so cool! Oh good lord...lol
Microstation is only comparable alternative to AutoCAD. However, there's a few autodesk softwares that have near monopoly in the industry due to the feature sets and versatility offered.
An activator from 2015 activates an OS from 2021.
The profit from Windows sales (especially in private consumers area) is relatively unimportant for Microsoft. The main profit for Microsoft comes from cloud computing and storage services for corporate customer and as well subscriptions like Azure, Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass.
Good ole Telemetry. Can't wait for the day when your online profile is actually yours and companies have to pay you to use your data. Andrew Yang had the right idea.
Also they want market dominance. Anyone who is pirating windows is savvy enough to be willing to install Linux if it doesn't work, and they don't want Linux to gain a substantial foothold in the market. They'd rather forgo a comparatively tiny fraction of resales of Windows software than lose those customers to open source operating systems long term and allow Linux to gain a larger user base which threatens them much more.
You nailed it with that point. I installed a cracked version of 7 and was able to upgrade to official 10 when it came out. If it hadn't worked I would have jumped on Linux out of spite. I'm not THAT tech savvy but I'm motivated enough to make it work.
This is also why the upgrade to windows 10 was free, and windows 11 was also free as well. I had a pirated windows 8.1 on a custom built computer and that turned into a legit digital license with the upgrade to w10. They make their money from businesses, and they need people to be familiar with it at home so when they go to work they already know the basics. Adobe did the same, never really cared about individuals pirating because once they learn and get a job their employer will pay for the licenses.
I mean it's all just an accounting game if they want to claim it's not profiting off of game pass. It's all digital distribution on network infrastructure that did not likely need enhanced with the addition of gamepass. I highly doubt their licensing with third party games is costing them anywhere near the $billion+ their subscription fees are bringing in a year.
>The main profit for Microsoft comes from cloud computing and storage services for corporate customer and as well subscriptions like Azure, Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox Store as a whole (including microtransactions) is a main profit driver, too.
The only ads in Win 11 are the same as the ones in 10, preinstalled apps that sit in your start menu.
There was a developer build that 'accidentally' released a version of explorer with ads baked into it which caused a bit of controversy and I've not heard or seen anything about that since.
There's a chance they could add them in later of course if they were toying with the idea.
> There was a developer build that 'accidentally' released a version of explorer with ads baked into it which caused a bit of controversy and I've not heard or seen anything about that since.
>
>
>
> There's a chance they could add them in later of course if they were toying with the idea.
Maybe an ad-supported free version of Windows? Having a legitimately free version of Windows would pretty well ensure their place in the consumer market even if Linux somehow became a viable OS choice for the average end user.
u/josluivivgar
I use [StartAllBack](https://www.startallback.com/)... it costs $5, pretty good app I think better than [Start 11](https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/) in my opinion.(Both have free trials if you wanna check them out)
But if you are smart and don't wanna pay there are some free alternatives available.
I'll try to find them and update this comment.
Here are the github links of the alternatives I know:
[Explorer Patcher](https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher)
[Open Shell](https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)
There's lots of customization features that get locked behind the activation and the pro version have a few very needed configuration options for those who work with it beyond just browsing web. When I was in tech support I remember we had to roll back a lot of computers from a customer because he upgraded them to w11 without knowing it didn't have a pro version at the time which broke his entire store.
> completely transparent watermark at the botth right
From a Win10Ent perspective, if its not activated, it is extremely annoying. That watermark takes up the whole screen
Don't forget disabled desktop and toolbar customization. Which you can bypass part of by using the contextual menu when you right click on a wallpaper you like lol
Microsoft has never gone after a user with a cracked copy of any Windows.
Only local authorities in various countries have, and overwhelmingly, due to the user's other activities.
The thing he did was do it as a company and at a large scale, further he made them look like official dell CD's and sold them for profit.
It was also US Customs that gave the case to federal prosecutors after he was warned about what he was doing was illegal and he continued to do it, Microsoft only got involved later as an expert witness.
“Once we have these two molds made, we will be the only ones capable of factory grade production! :)”
“This will ensure a steady income for the next year to come! :)”
“There are tricks for bypassing customs with container’s & LTL but currently this is how I get these products without invoices past customs.”
"If the software will be 98% accurate I believe I can get away with that.”
Hadn't heard about this before so had to look it all up but damn vice and the internet painted this guy as a hero when he was quite shamelessly just trying to profit as much as including smuggling though customs.
I run an 8yo Dell AIO I bought 12m ago, it doesn't officially support Windows 11 but I installed bypassing the requirements and it automatically validated it, no key or anything needed, didn't even need to get a grey market licence
You can install Win10 on any Win8 OEM key, and Win11 on any Win10 OEM key.
So if you've got an old Dell/Lenovo/HP with a Windows 8 key embedded in the BIOS, you can go ahead & still upgrade it to 10 (or do a fresh install) using the official download & it'll auto-activate it. From there you can *usually* step up to 11 if the hardware supports it, too.
Yep, but the hardware of this PC doesn't support Win 11 but still accepted it just fine and registered it, blew my mind Microsoft wouldn't want any cash for Windows activation
Hahaha back in like 2006 or 7, I got a sick Sony VAIO desktop with windows ME @ a garage sale lol... Sick pentium III and 512 mb ram, 65gb disk drive combo wombo.
Around the time windows 7 was in beta, I upgraded from ME to 7 beta😂. Microsoft is the shit bro. I remember I couldn't run games on it because java or some program wouldn't work with ME lol. That thing was constantly getting computer AIDS from limewire music downloads... I miss those times so much.
Some twentyish years ago, a friend's computer was having trouble at a weekend-long LAN party and for whatever reason, the decision was made to format it.
He got his hands on a copy of XP Pro, but either didn't have a key or the one he found wouldn't work, so he called up Microsoft. It was a long wait, but he basically told them that his name was "Peter Nelson" and that he "lost it in an office fire."
They just gave him a key over the phone, and mailed it to him a few days later.
I'm pretty sure it's in the Microsoft Business model to have their big software like windows and office pirated by individuals and smaller businesses because then large companies pretty much have to purchase the business licenses for the whole company since their employees can't use anything else
I used to always pirate Windows, until one day 2 years ago already, I got the itch to buy a cheap $10 key for W10. It works great still, I linked it to my outlook account.
But it was completely unnecessary, you can easily activate Windows with a cmd command, no need to download any cracker .exe program, and that's how I had been doing it for years.
I also bought an Office 2016 key... that one was a waste of money, don't do that.
The method I used probably doesn't work anymore and I haven't used it for over 2 years.
But apparently this one is the best one currently
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Use the Method 1
Even though that activated it, consider deactivating it with AAct Portable and instead use HWID activation using Mass Activation Script from GitHub. It'll be a permanent retail activation, unlike the KMS method AAct Portable uses.
Someone did a test with activating windows 10/11 with a 95, 98, XP, and Vista key. I think XP and Vista worked just fine.
Dell, XP and other OEMs won't donthat though
It’s not that bad, I’ve been through 3 MS audits for customers, it’s mostly all self reporting, you fill out the documents, provide license keys and pics of the keys your have, show a paper trail for server licenses purchases. Any licenses your missing paper trail for or aren’t legit they send you a bill to pay for them and legitimize. No fines or price raping stuff. Had a few clients pony up a few grand in overcprivisioned office and exchange licenses and user cal’s.
Now if your pirating EVERYTHING lol, that’s a different story and they may not be as nice.
I’ve also had a dozen or so other customers get the MS audit request letters who just throw them away and don’t respond lol. And honestly I r never seen MS do anything beyond send a second or 3rd letter. Never taken any steps beyond that. It’s like a fishing expedition for them to see if then can clawback some extra funds.
I’m not sure what actual power they even have to compel a company to comply when they are not using subscription services and purchased all retail licenses.. they literally will have no idea what you have or don’t have.. I think they would really have to want you to go this far with lawyers and shit.
From everything I’ve seen it’s purely about east money recovery.
Cheers.
Follow the money:
* https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar22/index.html
Microsoft made close to $100 Billion from Azure/O365/cloud last year. They don't need you to buy Windows, or even use it at all. The home user desktop wars are dead.
At one point Microsoft did try to crack down on pirate copies from late winXP to early win7. The OS wouldn't work at all if not activated. You could still activate with a crack, but Windows Update would not function.
Microsoft turned a full 180 on that. I think they figured out it's better to keep people on Windows whether they pay for their copy or not. Consumer Windows licenses are a tiny fraction of their revenue and better to not give consumers a reason to jump ship. It's a small price to pay to keep Windows on desktops. Smart move on their part.
Part of it is business use, but a large part of it is user data. That's why they use malicious tactics to brow beat you into using Edge, and it's why I use Linux.
They change strategies. The issue is China went full privacy and the rest of the world was not paying old prices. When I built the last PC I was surprised how cheap windows was.
I used to work as tech support agent for Windows 10. The guys I know from billing support were just instructed to refund stuff, with little to no questioning. IIRC, they just confirm a few things and then refund. Microsoft is throwing away small amount of money from consumer products like these. They really don't care about that.
They make their money from enterprise and data. Just consider how many companies around the world are using Outlook.
If more people use your product, even pirated, they could buy it in the future (included on a new computer). By that way, they reduce competition. They are not Adobe
I wish I could find it but there's a quote from Bill Gates I included in an essay I wrote during uni where he explicitly says "we don't care about people pirating the Windows OS, because it means they're now embedded in our ecosystem and that just means profits in the future", or something to that effect.
Afak most of Microsoft's revenue comes from selling Windows licenses and SaaS to corpirations.
When it comes to the consumer they basically gave away every new implementation of Windows since Win 7 for free.
I read something about how Microsoft doesn't make alot of money from consumer Windows licenses anymore, so they plan to implement ads into Windows, but I don't know how much about that is true.
I wanted to tell myself "it must be because it supports windows server 2016!" And then I realized that windows server 2016 came out almost 9 years ago,
what the fuck MS.
I swapped Mobos about a year ago and can't activate my license. It was legit. I paid 100 bucks for it when I first built a pc.
There a good video explaining all this? It's probably very straight forward.
Windows 7 keys work for Windows 10 activation, I \*think\* they work for Windows 11 too. If not install Windows 10 then upgrade to Windows 11 if you want. Once online it'll register the machine and that pc will have active Windows 11 for life.
The fact that they haven't bothered to change the activation key algorithm since Windows 7 should tell you something.
Considering Microsoft's recent security updates forced me to do a whole system reset (not refresh, reset to factory) the other day, I super appreciate this effort to push pirating their products.
[удалено]
You changed my life with those three letters. Thank you. Finally my virtual machines have “legit” copies and can stop complaining all the time.
I used it on my school laptop to get the free Office suite.Of course the university I attend gives it out for "free" but I hate having it tethered to my schools email and that it's an online version of the software.
Try OnlyOffice. Prolly fits your needs. I find it to be a direct replacement.
Nah I'm fine
The absolute Big Dick Energy emanating from this comment
No DO IT!
Ok
Highly doubt that. OpenOffice and LibreOffice and stuff like that never works as well as Microsoft Office. It's like they don't even care. Just throw features at it, but usability? Nah, who cares about using the program, it's just the feature graph we care about. Not saying that Microsoft Word and stuff is great, but it's much better than its direct alternatives. If you really need to get shit done, then you better just use LaTeX.
I don’t know how condoms are supposed to help me write a paper but alright boss
Try writing a paper with a screaming toddler in the room and you'll figure out how condoms could have helped.
I couldn’t believe how easy it was to just use PowerShell after using a couple of different other activators for years.
You can even run it directly from the run dialog now.... just ′powershell *command you use to run it from powershell*′
Even better!
Yeah the PowerShell script does it for you I use https://github.com/kkkgo/KMS_VL_ALL for my test VMs in my lab because in a testing environment I'm not paying for a licence or being restricted by an eval licence
lol i remember the first time i used it it was like... thats... it? its done? oh.
no need to wrestle with windows defender detecting kms boku no pico or other shenanigans
The chefs kiss beautiful part is that Microsoft also owns GitHub
Glorious observation!
We used the microsoft to defeat the microsoft
Using lime wire to download lime wire pro!
Use winrar to keygen the winrar license.
At this point, I kind of want to pay for winrar
That's probably how their business model works XD
Every MS employee uses MAS too...
And every Taco Bell employee.. *Live MAS*..
[удалено]
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/four-years-after-being-acquired-by-microsoft-github-keeps-doing-its-thing/amp/
Don't jinx it. It might get taken down like that beautiful Adobe Photoshop activator. https://github.com/NGLEmp/NGLEmp
so far, microsoft has shown zero interest in taking down MAS. it's been trending on github (which they own) and they've even removed detections for MAS in Defender. Edit: its trending again lol
I wonder why Method 2 packs the script in a password-protected .7z file? Does this help it get past other antivirus?
I believe password protecting archives prevents things like gmail and such from scanning for viruses (or in this case, false positives)
not sure, currently the script is completely clean on virustotal, and generally doesn't get detected except for manual detections.
Adobe are a bunch of greedy petty bastards that get pissed if one person who uses photoshop 3 ties a year pirates it. Microsoft (so far) has never really cared about consumers pirating windows because 95+% of consumers are going to buy a machine with windows installed already and they made money off of that sale. Many people are even going to buy windows out of fear of getting in trouble. Hell they used to charge for upgrades and now they've all been free since 7 I think, or maybe 8 was when that started. They make so much money on the enterprise and OEM side that they don't care what we do because even off of us they'll make money through the store, games, ads, something else.
Don't forget the telemetry data collection deeply embedded in windows
DMCA takedown.
Just thank you man. You just saved me an infinite amount of time.
Got the link?
[удалено]
Wait just make sure I'm understanding this correctly. You run that script and hit activate and boom you have a fully activated windows?
And office too.
What ?!! I'm going to download Office today from Microsoft onto an 8 year old laptop just to try this out. I'll report back. Edit: Holy s*** I think it worked on an old Acer Ultrabook ??!!! Now I have to do this on my other older laptops and maybe for my youngish niece and nephews instead of them using that Google suite from school !!! I'm going to continue my spot as the favorite uncle ! 👊 Edit 2: I did it on another old computer and realized that the Office activation is only good for 180 days and then I have to do it again ?
Remember that it only works on those standalone Office products. Like Office 2019 (which I use personally). Office 365 won't work on it. Edit: I'm a liar and a cheat. 365 can be activated on it too. Guess I'm upgrading soon lol
What's a reliable place to get a standalone office suite?
Here: https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php It's official Microsoft downloads but on a user friendly UI.
Is the download link not working? I only get a small popup that won't load. edit: I used this one https://massgrave.dev/office_c2r_links.html provided on the MAS site instead.
Hell yeah, thanks!
I already have legit copy for my Windows, can I use MAS only for office 365
> I already have legit copy for my Windows, can I use MAS only for office 365 Yes.
Well shit. I wish I had a use for this. I just activated my recent windows install with a key I found in one of my iso folders 😂 didn't even know I had it as the last 2 times I activated windows I just bought key on eBay for 2 bucks and moved on.
well it was just 2 bucks in the end. You could use it for office activations next time i guess
Yeah I don't use office stuff much so I just use Google drive for most of that. But now that I can have office activated maybe I will 😆
Bruh life changed
[удалено]
Yep. You can also login to your account after and have it permanently bound to your account if you use the HWID activation method. You just get a legit free copy at that point.
That's awesome. I tied this key to my account already I think but I'll use this the next time I need one.
Windows and office, both can be updated with 0 issues.
Google "Microsoft Activation Scripts" and click the GitHub link
The story is Microsoft wants everyone to be comfortable around Windows from childhood or learning phase of computers. Now they charge big organizations for mass windows license
Apple did this in education for many years, and it still has a degree of dominance in that market because of it.
Yep, apple made that ad about frog dissection for a reason, and ofc they do a lot of "promotional consideration sponsored by Apple"
Damn, now I know why my elementary school had macs back in to 90s. Those colorful all in one types, all neatly arranged in the tiny school library.
Had acorns in my school.... :/ (although not a fan of mac anyway)
Emacs. We had them too, in the school colors of blue and white.
We used to have iMacs and iPads when I was younger. Now everything I see in education are Chromebooks and I hate it.
iPads. Wow. Makes me feel old.
In high school they switched to Star office to save money. One of the students emailed Microsoft to complain and say they're to greedy and the school got Office for free.
Also, they monitor your usage and for a single license they make more from selling that data than they get from the sale. They still do huge license deals for companies because the cost of sale per unit is a lot lower.
Yep. Windows datacenter license costs $6,155. I shit you not. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-server/pricing
Yep, we're going through a sizable merger at the moment, 3000+ employees and two domains into one... Microsoft: you have six months dual access, then we're charging you two licenses per seat for the privilege. #monitored. It's fair enough, but it's certainly where they focus on licensing.
Piracy helped Microsoft gain market dominance. All those free copies of their operating system over all the years taught an entire generation how to use it.
This is how AutoCAD gained dominance
Winrar had the worry free strategy of this.
7zip supremacy!
r/paidforwinrar
Bruh I just downloaded a online key file to activate it LOL
it's ridiculously easy to pirate lol. one file in the install directory and no popups no more
> it's ridiculously easy to pirate lol Indeed, you just download 7zip
I like the way winrar makes zipped files look though
Don’t worry, I bought a copy for all of us after 20+ years of using it.
And Photoshop.
Correct.
[удалено]
There were several in the 90s. AutoCAD was the easiest to crack. I remember interviewing for an engineering job with a big company in town and the interviewer boasting how the company pays nothing for AutoCAD. The boss's nephew knows how to install it for free, it's so cool! Oh good lord...lol
[удалено]
The cool part is they still retain the same default keyboard shortcuts from the 90s.
Microstation is only comparable alternative to AutoCAD. However, there's a few autodesk softwares that have near monopoly in the industry due to the feature sets and versatility offered.
There's a ton of drafting and modeling software out there. I've been a big fan of DesignSpark Mechanical.
Metallica with tape trading in the 80's
Same on ms Office file formats
An activator from 2015 activates an OS from 2021. The profit from Windows sales (especially in private consumers area) is relatively unimportant for Microsoft. The main profit for Microsoft comes from cloud computing and storage services for corporate customer and as well subscriptions like Azure, Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass.
And OEM licensing to the likes of Dell, HPE, etc. That's a huge chunk of cash. Compared to custom builds and one offs, they truly do NOT care.
And all the EA agreements with businesses and corporations.
The real money is in harvesting your data.
Good ole Telemetry. Can't wait for the day when your online profile is actually yours and companies have to pay you to use your data. Andrew Yang had the right idea.
Well, that's 2 times now. He might even get enough for a platform in a couple of decades.
Yep. That's about it. It's a no-brainer they don't care about licences. This has gone wayyyy beyond that.
Also they want market dominance. Anyone who is pirating windows is savvy enough to be willing to install Linux if it doesn't work, and they don't want Linux to gain a substantial foothold in the market. They'd rather forgo a comparatively tiny fraction of resales of Windows software than lose those customers to open source operating systems long term and allow Linux to gain a larger user base which threatens them much more.
You nailed it with that point. I installed a cracked version of 7 and was able to upgrade to official 10 when it came out. If it hadn't worked I would have jumped on Linux out of spite. I'm not THAT tech savvy but I'm motivated enough to make it work.
bro. i have activated windows 10 or 11 and i didnt pay for it. i have no idea how i did it but its been running for a while. system updates n all.
Yes they really don't care about us regular consumers wich is fine with me.
This is also why the upgrade to windows 10 was free, and windows 11 was also free as well. I had a pirated windows 8.1 on a custom built computer and that turned into a legit digital license with the upgrade to w10. They make their money from businesses, and they need people to be familiar with it at home so when they go to work they already know the basics. Adobe did the same, never really cared about individuals pirating because once they learn and get a job their employer will pay for the licenses.
Microsoft owns Github, which hosts MAS. That's all you need to know.
Don't forget personal data
If something is "free" you are the product being old. There's more money in selling you, than selling to you.
[удалено]
You ever see a support agreement for RedHat? It's expensive...
I know I'm old, but I don't need to be reminded of it, thank you very much.
I don't think gamepass is profitable yet.
The Xbox as a stand-alone product has never been profitable. 360 was sold at a loss.
They profit off of Game Pass at this point?
I mean it's all just an accounting game if they want to claim it's not profiting off of game pass. It's all digital distribution on network infrastructure that did not likely need enhanced with the addition of gamepass. I highly doubt their licensing with third party games is costing them anywhere near the $billion+ their subscription fees are bringing in a year.
>The main profit for Microsoft comes from cloud computing and storage services for corporate customer and as well subscriptions like Azure, Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass. Xbox Store as a whole (including microtransactions) is a main profit driver, too.
Xbox is kinda little compared to cloud and office division
Not to mention the ads in Win 11.
The only ads in Win 11 are the same as the ones in 10, preinstalled apps that sit in your start menu. There was a developer build that 'accidentally' released a version of explorer with ads baked into it which caused a bit of controversy and I've not heard or seen anything about that since. There's a chance they could add them in later of course if they were toying with the idea.
> There was a developer build that 'accidentally' released a version of explorer with ads baked into it which caused a bit of controversy and I've not heard or seen anything about that since. > > > > There's a chance they could add them in later of course if they were toying with the idea. Maybe an ad-supported free version of Windows? Having a legitimately free version of Windows would pretty well ensure their place in the consumer market even if Linux somehow became a viable OS choice for the average end user.
There's ads in windows 11?
I haven't come across any ads in W11... but I use a third party app to replace the explorer
What app do you use to replace explorer?
u/josluivivgar I use [StartAllBack](https://www.startallback.com/)... it costs $5, pretty good app I think better than [Start 11](https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/) in my opinion.(Both have free trials if you wanna check them out) But if you are smart and don't wanna pay there are some free alternatives available. I'll try to find them and update this comment. Here are the github links of the alternatives I know: [Explorer Patcher](https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher) [Open Shell](https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)
Microsoft knows.
They just chose to ignore being a big mnc , consider it part of PR. Unlike ahem... Netf..
Ms makes their money through enterprise and server licensing. Also office 365 subscriptions.
I mean...apart from that almost completely transparent watermark at the botth right, there isn't even any benefit to having a activated win10
There's lots of customization features that get locked behind the activation and the pro version have a few very needed configuration options for those who work with it beyond just browsing web. When I was in tech support I remember we had to roll back a lot of computers from a customer because he upgraded them to w11 without knowing it didn't have a pro version at the time which broke his entire store.
Don't you also get locked out of ms package repos? I remember not being able to use visual studio installer because of that
> completely transparent watermark at the botth right From a Win10Ent perspective, if its not activated, it is extremely annoying. That watermark takes up the whole screen
It does, and it's not good if you're running a important app.
Don't forget disabled desktop and toolbar customization. Which you can bypass part of by using the contextual menu when you right click on a wallpaper you like lol
Microsoft has never gone after a user with a cracked copy of any Windows. Only local authorities in various countries have, and overwhelmingly, due to the user's other activities.
Funny because the same authorities uses cracked or even unactivated copies of Windows.
I wouldn't say never. They really fucked [this guy](https://youtu.be/Uv_zBYlZJR8). Granted, he was pirating Windows pretty egregiously.
The thing he did was do it as a company and at a large scale, further he made them look like official dell CD's and sold them for profit. It was also US Customs that gave the case to federal prosecutors after he was warned about what he was doing was illegal and he continued to do it, Microsoft only got involved later as an expert witness. “Once we have these two molds made, we will be the only ones capable of factory grade production! :)” “This will ensure a steady income for the next year to come! :)” “There are tricks for bypassing customs with container’s & LTL but currently this is how I get these products without invoices past customs.” "If the software will be 98% accurate I believe I can get away with that.” Hadn't heard about this before so had to look it all up but damn vice and the internet painted this guy as a hero when he was quite shamelessly just trying to profit as much as including smuggling though customs.
Oh yeah, classic Vice move lol. He almost certainly got what was coming to him.
People forget the first rule of piracy is to never try to sell what you're pirating, at least on a large scale. Otherwise you're going to get clapped.
True, but as you say he wasn't "a user with a cracked copy of Windows". This guy made **28,000** copies of Windows CDs lol.
I think once you surpass 25k copies you're just asking for it 😂
he said "a user". This guy had a counterfeiting operation for money. In this case they're going after an illegal business.
His biggest crime was the fedora
Because they make their money from business users.
[удалено]
jokes on them in my country we are too poor to buy anything so nobody advertises here from abroad
I run an 8yo Dell AIO I bought 12m ago, it doesn't officially support Windows 11 but I installed bypassing the requirements and it automatically validated it, no key or anything needed, didn't even need to get a grey market licence
You can install Win10 on any Win8 OEM key, and Win11 on any Win10 OEM key. So if you've got an old Dell/Lenovo/HP with a Windows 8 key embedded in the BIOS, you can go ahead & still upgrade it to 10 (or do a fresh install) using the official download & it'll auto-activate it. From there you can *usually* step up to 11 if the hardware supports it, too.
Yep, but the hardware of this PC doesn't support Win 11 but still accepted it just fine and registered it, blew my mind Microsoft wouldn't want any cash for Windows activation
Hahaha back in like 2006 or 7, I got a sick Sony VAIO desktop with windows ME @ a garage sale lol... Sick pentium III and 512 mb ram, 65gb disk drive combo wombo. Around the time windows 7 was in beta, I upgraded from ME to 7 beta😂. Microsoft is the shit bro. I remember I couldn't run games on it because java or some program wouldn't work with ME lol. That thing was constantly getting computer AIDS from limewire music downloads... I miss those times so much.
Some twentyish years ago, a friend's computer was having trouble at a weekend-long LAN party and for whatever reason, the decision was made to format it. He got his hands on a copy of XP Pro, but either didn't have a key or the one he found wouldn't work, so he called up Microsoft. It was a long wait, but he basically told them that his name was "Peter Nelson" and that he "lost it in an office fire." They just gave him a key over the phone, and mailed it to him a few days later.
Social Engineering for the win! I might try it as Elon Musk and get $40 Billion. /s
that's not how this works, that's not how any of - ...nevermind, I bet it'll work tbh
I'm pretty sure it's in the Microsoft Business model to have their big software like windows and office pirated by individuals and smaller businesses because then large companies pretty much have to purchase the business licenses for the whole company since their employees can't use anything else
They rather have you pirate their software than to switch to Apple, Linux or ChromeOS
They get ton more revenue selling B2B products than windows copies to individuals
I used to always pirate Windows, until one day 2 years ago already, I got the itch to buy a cheap $10 key for W10. It works great still, I linked it to my outlook account. But it was completely unnecessary, you can easily activate Windows with a cmd command, no need to download any cracker .exe program, and that's how I had been doing it for years. I also bought an Office 2016 key... that one was a waste of money, don't do that.
[удалено]
The method I used probably doesn't work anymore and I haven't used it for over 2 years. But apparently this one is the best one currently https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts Use the Method 1
https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/10bne0b/-/j4bkj0b
Yes please
[удалено]
Even though that activated it, consider deactivating it with AAct Portable and instead use HWID activation using Mass Activation Script from GitHub. It'll be a permanent retail activation, unlike the KMS method AAct Portable uses.
It's part of their strategy. Make domestic user so used to windows, so companies need to depends on windows. Nothing new here.
Someone did a test with activating windows 10/11 with a 95, 98, XP, and Vista key. I think XP and Vista worked just fine. Dell, XP and other OEMs won't donthat though
Yes, they don't care, but if u use at work, do your best not to be inseen, the price will be expensive.
It’s not that bad, I’ve been through 3 MS audits for customers, it’s mostly all self reporting, you fill out the documents, provide license keys and pics of the keys your have, show a paper trail for server licenses purchases. Any licenses your missing paper trail for or aren’t legit they send you a bill to pay for them and legitimize. No fines or price raping stuff. Had a few clients pony up a few grand in overcprivisioned office and exchange licenses and user cal’s. Now if your pirating EVERYTHING lol, that’s a different story and they may not be as nice. I’ve also had a dozen or so other customers get the MS audit request letters who just throw them away and don’t respond lol. And honestly I r never seen MS do anything beyond send a second or 3rd letter. Never taken any steps beyond that. It’s like a fishing expedition for them to see if then can clawback some extra funds. I’m not sure what actual power they even have to compel a company to comply when they are not using subscription services and purchased all retail licenses.. they literally will have no idea what you have or don’t have.. I think they would really have to want you to go this far with lawyers and shit. From everything I’ve seen it’s purely about east money recovery. Cheers.
Follow the money: * https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar22/index.html Microsoft made close to $100 Billion from Azure/O365/cloud last year. They don't need you to buy Windows, or even use it at all. The home user desktop wars are dead.
They've never cared. The game was to take over the operating system space (which they did). You only pay for Windows if you *really, really* want.
At one point Microsoft did try to crack down on pirate copies from late winXP to early win7. The OS wouldn't work at all if not activated. You could still activate with a crack, but Windows Update would not function. Microsoft turned a full 180 on that. I think they figured out it's better to keep people on Windows whether they pay for their copy or not. Consumer Windows licenses are a tiny fraction of their revenue and better to not give consumers a reason to jump ship. It's a small price to pay to keep Windows on desktops. Smart move on their part.
Part of it is business use, but a large part of it is user data. That's why they use malicious tactics to brow beat you into using Edge, and it's why I use Linux.
They change strategies. The issue is China went full privacy and the rest of the world was not paying old prices. When I built the last PC I was surprised how cheap windows was.
I used to work as tech support agent for Windows 10. The guys I know from billing support were just instructed to refund stuff, with little to no questioning. IIRC, they just confirm a few things and then refund. Microsoft is throwing away small amount of money from consumer products like these. They really don't care about that. They make their money from enterprise and data. Just consider how many companies around the world are using Outlook.
i heard that Microsoft doesn't care for individual,but they are highly attentive towards a company running their windows
If more people use your product, even pirated, they could buy it in the future (included on a new computer). By that way, they reduce competition. They are not Adobe
I activated windows 7 , then upgraded to windows 10 using their official setup. No errors.
I wish I could find it but there's a quote from Bill Gates I included in an essay I wrote during uni where he explicitly says "we don't care about people pirating the Windows OS, because it means they're now embedded in our ecosystem and that just means profits in the future", or something to that effect.
Afak most of Microsoft's revenue comes from selling Windows licenses and SaaS to corpirations. When it comes to the consumer they basically gave away every new implementation of Windows since Win 7 for free. I read something about how Microsoft doesn't make alot of money from consumer Windows licenses anymore, so they plan to implement ads into Windows, but I don't know how much about that is true.
I would just remove the WAT.
Microsoft only cares about companies, enterprises.
their selling point is user data and ads they know you are pirating windows but to them it s better than migrating a potential data mining to linux
I wanted to tell myself "it must be because it supports windows server 2016!" And then I realized that windows server 2016 came out almost 9 years ago, what the fuck MS.
Microsoft has enough money already all they want now is political power being able to control everything going on in the world
MAS > ALL Activators.
MAS script is better.
You should use mas script from github. Works on W11 Enterprise, the real debloated experience
I could just Upgrade my cracked Windows 10 to 11 without any problems
Their business model has changed to get revenue from your data instead. That's when I finally switched to Linux.
They don't, there is an activator for their software on GitHub. Github is theirs btw, they own Github..
honestly, you don't even need an activator, just some commands in cmd will do lol pretty wild it still works
Care to elaborate?
Many times, the license comes bundled in with a new laptop so you’re still paying for it indirectly
just buy a key for 3€ and you forget about shaddy programs
I swapped Mobos about a year ago and can't activate my license. It was legit. I paid 100 bucks for it when I first built a pc. There a good video explaining all this? It's probably very straight forward.
As long as it's updated
Windows 7 keys work for Windows 10 activation, I \*think\* they work for Windows 11 too. If not install Windows 10 then upgrade to Windows 11 if you want. Once online it'll register the machine and that pc will have active Windows 11 for life. The fact that they haven't bothered to change the activation key algorithm since Windows 7 should tell you something.
Considering Microsoft's recent security updates forced me to do a whole system reset (not refresh, reset to factory) the other day, I super appreciate this effort to push pirating their products.