VOGONS


Reply 40 of 50, by Blzut3

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rmay635703 wrote on 2020-07-26, 17:59:

Do you have downgrade rights with any more modern operating systems?

Ahh, time to pull out this bit of completely useless knowledge I discovered awhile back when looking into Windows Server 2019 licensing. Apparently if you're in the volume licensing program you have downgrade rights from Windows 10 all the way back to Windows 95 and NT 3.51.

Page 4: https://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9 … rade_rights.pdf

Reply 41 of 50, by Bruninho

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I dont know about old copies of Windows, but last year, around December, the agency where I work had closed a deal with Microsoft as a partner in education (I don’t have the details) but basically, we had to be running legal copies of Windows 10 and Office apps if we were to use them, so one of us had to run through all the Dell computers to check, clean and install legal copies on them.

The computer on my office wasn’t checked out. I’ll let you guess why. Here’s a tip: It wasn’t a Dell.

Now, seriously speaking, the person who mentioned about Norton Commander is the reason why I remembered this story. I actually think that there is a good reason to believe that you can be at risk in your workplace if you were caught using illegal or pirated operating systems and/or applications.

Although I was using a Mac, my version of Coda wasn’t exactly legal; so while my friends at work had their Dell computers checked, I also received a note from my boss to check for legit apps on that Mac, be it from MS or not, so I did pay for a legit copy of Coda, after a quick (and honest) negotiation with their developers, because the price they were charging for it was five times more expensive for brazilian customers than americans due to the exchange rate (1 USD = approx. 5 BRL). They understood me and much to my surprise, kindly gave me a discount of 75% on it. I was a fan of their product before, but after that, I was thrilled to be using it. Even though they will not update Coda and instead develop Nova as their successor. I also got an invite into their beta test program for Nova.

"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 42 of 50, by hwh

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The reasonable thing for a private individual to do for non commercial use of software that isn't for sale anymore is to do whatever he wants.

Microsoft doesn't even want to sell their old software; it wouldn't be a real business at their scale anyhow. They just want to deny others the commercial benefit of their company forefathers' work.

Reply 43 of 50, by Jo22

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A few years ago, I would have agreed.
But Microsoft has changed.
It's no longer a serious businesses company.
They are after personal data, celebrate Software-as-a-service and so on..
Ms nolonger pays respect to business users as they did before.

In fact, I have concerns if the leading people are legally competent at all.
Judging by their actions over the years, these people seems to have developed a Sugarberg, Steve Jobs or Trum× type of mentally.

They nolonger do something because of rational reasoning, but because of 'visions'.
Not that this a bad thing per se, but..
Just look at what they did to Win XP or 7, for example. The forced incompatibilities that were introduced are almost sabotage, rather than technical limitations.

Or look at the forced updates and lack of quality tests.
They don't care if a several dozen airport computers or doctor's PCs hang because of a buggy update. Or if matrix-printer support accidently vanshies over night. Or if internal floppy drives are nolonger detected.
They just don't care anymore.
They totally lost contact with reality and people's needs since Windows 8.

A few years ago, they would have been required to make an official press statement because of this.
Now they are sending out an "oopsie" on Facebook or Twitter, at best.

The saying "with great power comes great responsibilty" seems to be totally unknown to these leading people at the different positions inside the company.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 44 of 50, by Jorpho

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Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-08, 09:00:

In fact, I have concerns if the leading people are legally competent at all.

Really now, people do not usually climb the ranks of a hierarchy like that without being able to demonstrate some degree of competence.

Just look at what they did to Win XP or 7, for example. The forced incompatibilities that were introduced are almost sabotage, r […]
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Just look at what they did to Win XP or 7, for example. The forced incompatibilities that were introduced are almost sabotage, rather than technical limitations.

Or look at the forced updates and lack of quality tests.
They don't care if a several dozen airport computers or doctor's PCs hang because of a buggy update. Or if matrix-printer support accidently vanshies over night. Or if internal floppy drives are nolonger detected.
They just don't care anymore.

What is that supposed to mean..? Are they supposed to keep supporting 20-year-old hardware used by practically no one until the end of time? Why shouldn't people be obliged to move on from hardware that isn't being manufactured anymore? I might go so far as to suggest that a lot of security problems cropped up because they didn't abandon older technologies as fast as they could have. And just look at what happens in Linux.
https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1288139235862540288

Reply 45 of 50, by dr_st

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Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-08, 09:00:
A few years ago, I would have agreed. But Microsoft has changed. It's no longer a serious businesses company. They are after pe […]
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A few years ago, I would have agreed.
But Microsoft has changed.
It's no longer a serious businesses company.
They are after personal data, celebrate Software-as-a-service and so on..

Microsoft is trying to stay profitable in the software business, which is really really hard. With people's incentive to upgrade their OS or Office suite lower than ever, SaaS seems to be the only path.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-08, 09:00:

Just look at what they did to Win XP or 7, for example. The forced incompatibilities that were introduced are almost sabotage, rather than technical limitations.

I don't recall any forced incompatibilities to XP or Win7. Vista is the OS that suffered the most from what you can call forced incompatibilities. XP and 7 both actually got way more support than Microsoft originally intended to give, simply due to their popularity. They ended up supporting some form of XP for 17 years(!) and they ended up porting new features to Win7 (like the new Edge) not just past its mainstream end-of-support, but even past the extended end-of-support (which was January 2020).

Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-08, 09:00:

Or look at the forced updates and lack of quality tests.

These are actually the worst things. I can understand where forced updates are coming from (support is much easier when everyone is up to the same version), but I cannot excuse it, especially for how broken it is. All my Windows 10 copies are Windows 10 Pro, with NoAutoUpdate=1 in the registry, for that very reason.

As far as lack of quality tests, I recall a Youtube video by an ex-Microsoft employee from their QA department, who explained how their restructuring several years ago basically killed that department, and caused a lot of people to leave and a lot of knowledge and methodology to be lost.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 46 of 50, by kolderman

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Microsoft used to be a company of engineers. Who cared about quality. Now it is more like Google, full of managers and product owners who only care about getting their latest cool feature into a release. Hence win10 has been a rolling disaster.

Reply 47 of 50, by Bruninho

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My 20 cents.

I agree with hwh, jo22, dr_st and kolderman. These companies today just aren’t what they used to be. Today, they don’t treat their long time customers the same way they used to. They want to push their forced updates into our throats, and grab our data. They just want us to buy their newer devices every year, because these devices can’t be upgraded or fixed by their customers...

So, legacy stuff. Why bother giving support? Their 10, 20 year old customers using legacy stuff? They don’t profit from this. They don’t give a f**k. Doesn’t matter if it’s Microsoft or Apple. Both are guilty of this. It’s actually easier for them to deal with new customers from the current generation, than with old long time customers like me and my father.

I was going to do a long write up about this and a 3-hour long debate I had with my father about this, because he’s not happy with them either (more particularly with Apple) but it would be redundant, because many of these arguments were already pointed out here.

The mess will be complete when these companies start to run operating systems in the cloud, so you will never really own, have any privacy over or control your own data. We aren’t actually far from it. It’s crazy. We’ll be forced to use whatever they want us to.

"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 48 of 50, by nzoomed

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Well I dont really know if Microsoft even cares anymore.
Its not like windows 3.11 or MS-DOS has much commercial application these days 🤣
DOS probably has more use than windows 3.1 🤣
I think as long as you are not selling bootleg copies for profit, they will turn a blind eye.
I see many websites host the files, I downloaded the floppy images for DOS 6.22and windows 3.11 from a retro computing site this week.
its not like I dont have the legit disks anyway, 🤣, its just that they are now defective after all these years!

Reply 49 of 50, by dr_st

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nzoomed wrote on 2020-08-09, 07:35:
Well I dont really know if Microsoft even cares anymore. Its not like windows 3.11 or MS-DOS has much commercial application the […]
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Well I dont really know if Microsoft even cares anymore.
Its not like windows 3.11 or MS-DOS has much commercial application these days 🤣
DOS probably has more use than windows 3.1 🤣
I think as long as you are not selling bootleg copies for profit, they will turn a blind eye

It's not just "anymore". Microsoft never cared about private people making unauthorized copies of their software for personal use. I don't think there was even a single case where such a person got persecuted, subpoenaed or sent a "cease and desist" letter.

I think it's always been part of their strategy - chasing the little guys will not make them any money, will score them lots of negative points in the public eye, and will be counterproductive to their ultimate goal of their software becoming ubiquitous. Sure, they want to get paid for their software - and they do - through OEM licensing for pre-built systems and volume licensing to businesses. However, given the choice of a private individual using an illegal copy of Windows versus said person using Linux - they'd rather the former.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 50 of 50, by nzoomed

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dr_st wrote on 2020-08-09, 09:12:
nzoomed wrote on 2020-08-09, 07:35:
Well I dont really know if Microsoft even cares anymore. Its not like windows 3.11 or MS-DOS has much commercial application the […]
Show full quote

Well I dont really know if Microsoft even cares anymore.
Its not like windows 3.11 or MS-DOS has much commercial application these days 🤣
DOS probably has more use than windows 3.1 🤣
I think as long as you are not selling bootleg copies for profit, they will turn a blind eye

It's not just "anymore". Microsoft never cared about private people making unauthorized copies of their software for personal use. I don't think there was even a single case where such a person got persecuted, subpoenaed or sent a "cease and desist" letter.

I think it's always been part of their strategy - chasing the little guys will not make them any money, will score them lots of negative points in the public eye, and will be counterproductive to their ultimate goal of their software becoming ubiquitous. Sure, they want to get paid for their software - and they do - through OEM licensing for pre-built systems and volume licensing to businesses. However, given the choice of a private individual using an illegal copy of Windows versus said person using Linux - they'd rather the former.

Yes quite true, the way its going with windows 10, it will be free anyway.
It essentially already is, they let you download from their website and they make no effort in blocking you from using the software if its not activated.