Linked by David Adams on Fri 18th Apr 2008 15:54 UTC, submitted by CIozzio
A Microsoft executive sent out a snotty email chastising anyone who has been encouraging people to purchase the Vista upgrade and install it without owning a valid Windows license. People discovered long ago that the Vista upgrade, which costs half of what full license costs, will install on new hardware without verification of a previous install. Microsoft's Eric Ligman points out, to those people who weren't aware, that this is just as much a violation of the license as "borrowing" an install disk from a friend.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
My installation is totally legit, but I was very surprised by this email.
I doubt it was intentional. It was pragmatic. Imagine EVERYTIME you needed to re-intall Windows you had to install your old version, then install the new version over the top - just so the upgrade could see the old version it was upgrading from.
I quite liked the old way which Macromedia used to do it; during installation you were simply asked for your own version's serial number, and then you entered your new serial number for the software installing.
Sure, these things don't stop piracy, the whole point is to make it as annoying as possible so that only a very small number actually do it (the same number who rill refuse to pay for software - what ever the price maybe).