Microsoft is not "okay" with Vista upgrade hack
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Just because a hack exists doesn’t mean that it’s okay to exploit. A lot of sites including Vista.Blorge.com are going to have to eat a bit of crow. Well, Microsoft, it may not be okay but if you don’t want people exploiting such an obvious exploit then it might behoove the company to patch the exploit in the first place.
An exploit that allows users to first install an “upgrade” copy of Vista without a license key and then install the upgrade over the installation will certify the upgrade as a valid “full” installation. This, apparently goes against Microsoft’s licensing terms. Confused. According to ChannelWeb, you, I and a lot of people aren’t the only ones.
Eric Ligman, Microsoft’s senior manager of community engagement for small business in the U.S. said,
“If you are one of those people, let me put it this way, ‘It is not OK to do so. It is BAD to do so.’ There, no words bigger than three letters, so that should hopefully be easy enough to follow.”
The problem with Microsoft and its users is that many feel that the company does not allow “fair use” of its software. For example, Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions On Microsoft said,
“Many corporate customers still think they can buy bare PCs and image them with volume media.”
They can’t? Yeah, I was surprised to. He continued,
“It smacks of revenue maximization rather than reasonable restriction.”
Microsoft? Interested in its bottom line rather than its customers; surely that is not the case.
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April 16th, 2008
Wait, what? Volume media can’t be imaged to bare PCs? Uh, then what IS “volume” media for? As long as you’ve purchased enough licenses, why not? I think that statement needs a little more detail.
April 16th, 2008
It mostly has to do with the license. I was pretty pissed off in 1999 when I had to stop using a Ghost image because we started using OEM.
Microsoft went to it’s software assurance modeling. That made it cheaper to get OEM Windows licensing, but it was no longer legal to use an image that didn’t use individual activation.