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Uh-oh Software Piracy Question
nitrouz
Member Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭
Ok let's say you got a copy of Windows XP Professional from a friend. Install it on your computer and she works like a charm. You go to update it and a message from Microsoft pops up "your version of Windows XP is a pirated version". It did allow all updates to be downloaded except Service Pack 1 which is just a program to shut down a pirated copy of windows anyways.
What can happen to you?
I've looked at their website and it looks like they only take companies to court so would a person be safe?
This is all purely hypothetical ok?
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."
- Jesus Christ in Luke 22:36
What can happen to you?
I've looked at their website and it looks like they only take companies to court so would a person be safe?
This is all purely hypothetical ok?
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."
- Jesus Christ in Luke 22:36
Comments
I just finnished building a new computer this weekend.
The old computer had XP home, so installed the XP cd from the old system on the new. And got the same message as you on the bottom of the screen "Pirtated Copy".
Well, here is the deal, XP logs either or both the hard drives make and serial numbers as well as of the CPU. Those numbers are in the Microsoft registery.
As you noticed XP ask if you want to register the software at the end of the loading. You have 3 differant choices, register via internet, by telephone, or to remind me later. Well the remind you later gives you 25 bootups, then the system locks up, the only way to unlock the system is call Microsoft for a 52 digit access code to unlock the system. Which will give you another 25 bootups or 30 days, whichever comes first.
To make a long story short, you gotta buy XP, copies dont work, due to their registery scheme.
Another problem is when you formated the drives to NTFS file system, the only way to get rid of the NTFS is to do a low level format, your going to lose everything!
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Walte
BTW, XP sucks! I like WINME for what I use my systems for, you couldn't give me a computer with XP on it[}:)]
Politicians are like diapers, every so often you need to change them, for obvious reasons.
www.cracks.am
Its a cracker site and be careful when you bring up this site when anybody is around, there is a lot of porn on it, but it does have "fixes" for most software licenses. Don't know about XP.
If anybody is listening, this ain't me.
Politicians are like diapers, every so often you need to change them, for obvious reasons.
The short answer to your question is that you could try a Windows Restore to the last good version before you downloaded those updates (it's in the Start button's Programs/Accessories/System Tools path), but it may or may not remove whatever identifier was planted in your OS. If that doesn't do the job, things get more complicated. The lesson here is that if you have a pirated anything, you want to disable its Internet access and NOT go waltzing over to the maker's website asking for updates... [:D]
The OEM version of the full XP Pro install (just the disk, without the fancy package or manual) typically costs $159 to $169 from a reputable tech source. It might be time to legitimize, if you can afford it. They try to make sure, of course, that you can't afford NOT to.
Kazaa, the peer 2 peer service, has literally become ridden with spoofed copies of black market XP stuff, probably by pond scum programmers who have lowered themselves to the level of virus writers on Microsoft's behalf -- and, one assumes, their money. At least in this case the Microsoft site was kind enough not to disable your entire computer by corrupting it from the root to the boot. Some of these kazaa people have no compunction about destroying all your files, and maybe your business, in the name of proprietary rights to a copy of SW.
Never mind that the previous system, Windows ME, was junk, of course, or that it won't install or run serious user programs like Avid. Apparently, they don't owe you fixes for that stuff. They sold you a HOME computer with a HOME grade operating system, and you're supposed to be satisfied with that. You have to PAY for fixes, stability and full functionality.
Incidentally, there is a "XP key changer" that, when run on your machine, will keep trying and get you 2 or 3 new ID keys in under a half hour. Trouble is, on kazaa it often comes packaged with another item that screws up your root directory, thanks to some noble savage. But that WILL allow you to change product keys on your copy of XP and try to clear up your problem, as well as download the sp1 "exe" file, and install it successfully. I wouldn't plan on going much beyond that, and if you ever go back to WindowsUpdate for any fixes, read carefully and don't download anything unless you know what it does and doesn't do. Of course, they will not tell you that an update is designed to zap your OS, but they at least are humane enough to provide most critical updates without MS-written viruses. This is a dead end in the long run, but it might get you by until you scrape the money to buy the OS at retail.
Another problem -- unlike ME, XP has abandoned DOS, except as a utility application. There is a ME emergency boot floppy, but no XP emergency floppy. The only way to restore Windows if you can't boot Windows in Safe Mode is to have a Norton Ghost set of back-up CDs handy to reformat Windows and load all your backed up files. Before your problems get any worse, you need to back up everything you can't afford to lose if XP expires altogether. If you simply try to boot a DOS shell on an XP machine, things like your e-mail and address book will be nowhere to be found. It is better not even to venture in with a ME emergency boot disk, because it will start asking you tantalizing questions like, do you want to correct errors in your boot sector, and if you ever say YES to one of these things you will be HOSED.
XP uses something called Automated Recovery, but that requires you to first make a clean set of 6 floppy disks to boot your machine, and THEN it asks YOU for backup disks YOU MADE with Automated Recovery, too. So you have to MAKE your pesonal set of Automated Recovery disks before you can RECOVER your XP. Fun, huh?
Supposedly, XP Pro is far more stable even than XP Home. Therefore, some version of XP Pro is the only OS that Windows computers should be sold with. It isn't.
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
shooter -- Last time I checked out cracks.am they asked me for a credit card or something. PopupPro will block most of the porn, but I didn't like the request for money at the point of download....
No, I got it wrong. They insisted I download the "Free-Sex Toolbar" before they would let me download a crack. Actually, I just found out that if you say NO several times, you can finally click "Download" and get the crack anyway -- not surprisingly, they are lying about the toolbar being a prerequisite.
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
http://mscracks.com/
http://www.keygen.us/
Shocking...
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
XP is slicker than snoot!, when it comes loading all the drivers.
Why do I say this, Well first I loaded Windows 98R2 on the new built system and nothing but hell trying to get all the drivers to work without errors.
Then I took the copy of XP, it loaded with only 1 error, Pirated Copy!.
After buying a new copy of OEM XP Home ($100)& reformatting the drives, it loaded the first time without a single error.
The new computer is a AMD 3000 Barton with 1 meg of cache, 1gig of 400mz DDR ram, 2 IDE 9gig drives, 1 removable 40gig drive, 1 IDE 200 gig drive, HP CD/RW, Radon 9600 video card w/256mb DDR, 2 10/100 network cards, HP DVD R/W-+, firewire card, 10 USB 2.0 ports, 2 eccp ports, 2 serial ports, 2 monitors, and a card to remote the video cams of my security system to the internet.
Again the XP operating system either contained all the drivers or automaticly down loaded all the drivers for installation, without any installiton errors.
I have never had a operating system that was so complete or easy to install. And I have been playing with computers since 1968 (370-198duplex MSVT/Grasp).
Iam sold on XP!, Well worth the $100!, Sure beats spending the whole weekend searching and loading & reloading drivers.
Walte
cracks works, I never got the you gotta download anything but the cracks are real.
7mmnut,
thanks, I will check it out.
funny isn't it that the cracker's sites all have porn. Must be nice to be young.
Thanks for the links, gotta check them out.
Time for UNIX [:D]
Unix sucks!, but it works!, just hate having to set up all the perimeters.
Also got a old TI DS-990 system,the size of a refrigerator.
Had an old IBM System 3 MDL#39 in the garage about 10yrs ago, man that thing sure could make the electric meter fly, booted and ran the Sys3 for about a week, got the electric bill it was about $150 higer than usual, Mama said to unplug it.
Iam just to old & lazy to waste time on chasing drivers & errors, when you can pay $100 to solve all of your problems.
Walte
check out linux at www.linux.org. Its free.
Have it running on my laptop, will put it into my desktop (I have removable hard disk trays) real soon. It has all of the drivers and everything already in it. It's not like the old UNIX days [:D]
There are no viruses that will affect it (that I know of), the mozilla internet browser is faster than anything on windoz including opera.
Did I say I hate windoz? Being a UNIX kind of guy for over 15 years.
Only when you try to download Service Pack 1 from Microsoft do they pop up the warning.
Yes XP is slicker than snot and my system is 10 times as fast as it was with Win98SE.
Ooops. In theory it is, ok?
In Win 98 I could run winipcfg.exe to change my IP address when someone got onto me, XP won't allow me to change IP address's.
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."
- Jesus Christ in Luke 22:36
In Win 98 I could run winipcfg.exe to change my IP address when someone got onto me, XP won't allow me to change IP address's.
What the heck do you meant you can't change your IP address in XP??? You can do it two ways...
First, you can just use ipconfig (drop the win) from the run menu or the command prompt.
Or, you can change it by right-clicking your my network places, choosing local area network, then internet protocol, then set your settings. Remember that if you are connected to your local LAN with your NIC you might have more or less settings. Conversely, if your computer is connected directly to the 'net then you probably can't change it and it will likely be dynamically set anyway.
My nephew was here a few weeks ago and deleted quite a few files of mine, he got 'em from both on my machines (no biggie - I told him he could), and then later on my server (he shouldn't have been on there)
I'll see if I can't find that stuff from my old CD backups...
Typos and profanity, oh my! http://www.funky-town.org
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
T. Jefferson: "[When doing Constitutional interpretation], let us [go] back to the time when [it] was adopted. [Rather than] invent a meaning [let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
I run C: bare bones, everything goes to other drives, hench my willingness to format C: when needed, I don't believe in "fixes" that are mentioned here. I can reformat this system and in 2 hours have it back to normal with all software up and running. I have grown used to WINME and it's quirks, to me they are normal and a monthly reformat to me is normal as well. I leanred how to keep WINME running just as smooth as any other OS, if it hiccups it is something I did.
I run this with 4 harddrives, 3 80s and one 10, 10 is C: only, all others are storage of everything, heck even my email and addy book is on a different drive. Two of my 80s are partitioned into 20s and one 80 is soley for video capture (BTW Offeror, I use Adobe Premeir[:D]and love it).
For me and what I do with this, gaming, audio/video editing/storage and net surfing WINME is just fine. I tried XP and in two days it was gone, hated it. I want total control over everyting this thing does, automated this and that may be fine for others but I want to know everything it does, I want it to happen when I say go.
I avoid common problems by not using utilites to fix things, I fix them manualy. Overtop OS installs make me quiver, I won't reinstall overtop to fix a problem, that is like painting a rusty car without sanding it first[:D]
Anytime my WINME CD is activated (it is stored in an executable folder on another drive as is my WIN98 boot floppy I use to boot into FDisk, I go into the BIOS and force it to boot off of a folder instead of a physical drive like a floppy), I never go to that CD to fix something, if it needs fixing I boot to FDisk then do the Format C: followed by FdiskMBR commands, to me it is way easier then installing this to fix that with 110% better results.
I guess it is all in personal preference, just as I will never buy a computer, if I need a new one I put one together the way I want it, I feel store bought computers are like going to McDonalds for lunch, sure it will hold you over but there is no comparason to a homemade lunch, you get junk when you buy a storebought in my opinion with upgrade capabilities similar to trying to hotrod a Ford 2300, it's laughable!
My stubborness is why I don't give 'puter advise anymore, I cannot deal with computers that have more garbage then TriCounty landfill does installed on C: then the owners want it to work like new, it's just the stubbornness in me, nothing against others but to me my way is so simple because I am willing to do what some call a hassle to fix this but in the long run, my "fixed" computer will work better, in my opnion that is[:D]
BTW, I do own my copy of WINME, I felt guilty running "pirated" OSs, heck I was running WIN98 and WINME way before release as well as that crap called XP[:D]. My full install (not one of those sucker bet upgrade cds) of WINME cost me $200, now you see why I will use it till the worlds end?[;)] I aint buying another OS again[:D][:D]
I did not check this for spelling errors, it has been a lonmg nioght out with the hounds and my fingers are going faster then my brain is!
Politicians are like diapers, every so often you need to change them, for obvious reasons.
As a tech, I have to work on most every Microsoft OS so I tinker with them all. I did have 2000 Advanced Server on my server but after awhile I realized that XP could do absolutely everything I wanted it to do while using less resources than 2000 Server or Adv. Server did. I have it running my web and FTP sites, file and print sharing, DHCP, DNS, anti-virus, disk utility, and mail servers - I think I'm forgetting a few but you get the picture.
This fall, my out-dated current server (AMD K6-2 500 w/384 mb ram) will be retired and my dual processor (dual AMD MP 1800+ with 1 gb of ECC ram), running redundant power supplies will take over. First I have to build myself another one, I'm thinking real serious about the new AMD server chips...
You know, you sound like you'd be a candidate for drive cloning since you want your C:\ drive to say the same every time. Most semi-recent hard drives come with a utility that will let you copy everything from one drive to the other and it'll be bootable. That way if your C:\ drive gets messed up, just copy back over your mirror image. I used to do that onto a CD with Win95 and 98 (a little less with 98 because it was almost too big with M.S. Office installed).
I agree with ya on building your own computer... That way you can have exactly what you want, nothing more, nothing less. Although, it seems to be getting increasingly more difficult to find a motherboard without built-in LAN and sound. [:(!]
One thing I want to do but not willing to spend the money is to have a central server machine for the 4 machines I have networked, that would free up alot of resources and also move some very expensive software off of this machine and sorta bank it on another where it would be safe. On that server I would like to load the games we use here (kids use them more then I do) on the server machine and then run them via LAN with these ones. It would also make file sharing faster I believe since right now everybody in this house mooches from the drives in this machine. Also I would like to have one more machine for Internet downloads, all downloads will go to it first (it would be sorta like a testing site) then be unzipped or edited to be stored on the server machine.
Question for you, would a Web Ramp be benificial on a dialup system? Even though I live in the northeast this area is waaaaay behind the times, we are lucky to have a dialup server close by and we will most likely never see cable, Dsl, ISDN or any other fast connections. I thought about getting a T1 in here but the cost is astronomical. I could buy two more houses for what a T1 would cost here!
I'm not sure about mirroring, backups scare me, I would just rather run from a bare bones fresh setup.
This ABBIT board I'm using has RAID capabilities, I did think about using that just to speed it up some but then again, the simpler this is the better. In my opinion the more "utilities" running the more chance of problems.
Right now I am thinking about upgrading this, it hasnt had a rebuild in about a year, so it's getting due. I'm runing an Athlon 1400 with only 256 megs ram, if anyting more ram is needed. The Motherboard and CPU seem to be fine but there is noticably more memory needed. Which brings me to another thing, XP requires more ram doesn't it?
As far as store bought machines, I do have on HP system here, know what I did to it? Nuked it, returned it to a FAT 32 and installed a nice clean copy of WINME, did some driver downloads, disabled the factory sound and video and used my own cards, now that machine runs twice as fast as it did in factory form. Those that feel a store bought computer is a good thing with all that garbage that comes with them is better I would like to make a bet with them. Take two identical machines, you set yours up your way with the factory CDs, I will spend some time wiping out the harddrive and starting over from scratch and reinstall MY OS and drivers, it may take me longer to get it running but once I am done, my machine will blow yours outa the water with far less headaches.
Man, did I type al that? I gotta quit rambling[:D][:D]
Politicians are like diapers, every so often you need to change them, for obvious reasons.
That said, the rest of your central file location idea will work just fine... Also, the WebRamp idea would work as well, but ME has internet connection sharing (ICS) built-in, and it also has multilink capabilities to use two phone lines simultaniosly using two modems (your ISP will likely have a charge for that service) to speed up your connection.
I haven't messed with setting up dial-up ICS for years however since most of my customers use high speed internet so they either use ICS through the LAN or they (most typically) setup their LAN behind a firewalled router for more security.
I used to use (and recommend for my clients builds) ABIT boards, especially their acclaimed KT7A-RAID. I no longer use them as I ran into some real trouble that they never addressed with the KG7 and KR7 series. I had to underclock the RAM no matter what speed, brand, and type of memory I put in them, even using memory from thier approved list.
I mostly use Asus boards now, they have excellent support (bios and driver updates) for a year or two, then it drops to acceptable after that. This seems to be better than the industry standard...
Nitriouz, sorry for hijacking your thread. I have that program I was talking about to change your serial to a valid one. Email me if you need it.