Gaming got a pirated windows Copy.

[Snowmanne]

You can always get the evaluation copy of XP and remove the 30 day trail period.

 

[Joe88]

Windows XP is no longer sold OR supported anyways, nobody really cares anymore. It's been *years* since anyone cared. But no, technically it is not legal to keep it.

XP is still supported but it is about to be unsupported in a couple of months.

more like a couple more years
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/springboard/archive/2011/07/11/with-only-1000-days-left-of-extended-support-don-t-you-think-it-s-time-to-retire-windows-xp.aspx

 

[Originality]

I used to be a Windows pirate. Then I took an arrow to the knee.

There are various ways to get Windows either free or very cheaply for students. Then there are ways to get it at half price - all still perfectly legit. I paid £30 for one copy of Windows 7 from a student deal, and then another £65 for the pre-release edition. Now it's available for £72 on Amazon. You can also get a family licence (4 PCs iirc) which amounts to around £75 per PC. The reason why I stopped pirating Windows? Effort. Having a working disk, working serial key, and everything else, beats having to burn your own disk (usually with hidden bugs courtesy of cracking groups) then find a working WAP/WGA remover then keeping an eye on the updates that check for such things, etc... Too much effort.

 

[Thesolcity]

Windows XP is no longer sold OR supported anyways, nobody really cares anymore. It's been *years* since anyone cared. But no, technically it is not legal to keep it.

XP is still supported but it is about to be unsupported in a couple of months.

more like a couple more years
http://windowsteambl...windows-xp.aspx

That's weird, I could've sworn they were stopping updates and support in April.

 

[Mantis41]

You were offered a legit licence key via a PM yet you chose to remove the WGA. I don't get it.
I have loads of recovered licence keys from scrapped PCs and laptops. They come in handy.
Using this utility is the easiest way to change the product key to a legit one. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=50346&clcid=0x409

 

[MasterPenguin]

does it matter? mostly everybody uses a pirated copy of windows.

This is not true.

I do.

I thought I deserved a free copy of Windows 7 after buying a machine that came with Vista.

Vista is pretty much identical to Win7 now. But it does have a different task bar lol.

 

[Originality]

You were offered a legit licence key via a PM yet you chose to remove the WGA. I don't get it.

Pirate's gonna pirate. Don't question the ways of the internet, it follows a different logic to you and I.

 

[FAST6191]

You were offered a legit licence key via a PM yet you chose to remove the WGA. I don't get it.
I have loads of recovered licence keys from scrapped PCs and laptops. They come in handy.

I do not doubt you know what you are doing but those just wandering in do note the vast majority of bundled XP (and modern windows in general) is OEM derived and thus tied to the machine it came from (where and when that machine becomes a new machine is the subject of a fair bit of debate but an entirely different machine is way outside it) so "salvaging" for the purposes of transfer is a tricky game. Bogging down my Sunday afternoon pondering the...... nuances of MS licensing and reconciling it with law, case law, morality and otherwise is not something I care to do so I will leave it to others to read about/research/consider- a start http://www.theregist...tion_licensing/ .

As for pirating XP it is pretty easy to stay on top of things even the point of doing it for others but later versions are more annoying to do for anybody but yourself (kudos to MS I guess). As for removing WGA I tend to axe it from legit stuff if viable to do so thus sparing myself the potential headache (unlike most other areas of fixing machines I have no horror stories with regards to WGA but several annoyances).

"beats having to burn your own disk"
Would agree but I have to say nlite/vlite which tends to mean futzing around with such things anyway.

Back on topic if you already have a windows machine I would opt for a toy laptop running some form of linux or BSD- always nice to know how such systems work and you can also kick it for sensitive stuff (I have sorted several old laptops in recent years for stuff like online banking for people).

 

[Majorami]

does it matter? mostly everybody uses a pirated copy of windows.

This is not true.

I do.

I thought I deserved a free copy of Windows 7 after buying a machine that came with Vista.

Vista is pretty much identical to Win7 now. But it does have a different task bar lol.

Vista was only terrible if you had an older-made machine with drivers that didn't work. It was still a vast improvement over Xp if you had a system built for it. Still haven't gone back to it since Win 7 beta one though...

 

[C-Kronos]

Psh, Windows pirates, eh? I pirated OS/2 years ago..

 

[Deleted-236924]

does it matter? mostly everybody uses a pirated copy of windows.

This is not true.

I do.

I thought I deserved a free copy of Windows 7 after buying a machine that came with Vista.

I thought I deserved a free DSi after buying a DS Lite.

 

[Janthran]

I'm pretty sure Win8 is in open beta now, isn't it?

 

[tatripp]

I'm pretty sure Win8 is in open beta now, isn't it?

I heard it has been for a while

 

[Janthran]

I'm pretty sure Win8 is in open beta now, isn't it?

I heard it has been for a while

I don't know. I have a private beta.

 

[tatripp]

I'm pretty sure Win8 is in open beta now, isn't it?

I heard it has been for a while

I don't know. I have a private beta.

you're probably right

 

[Mantis41]

I do not doubt you know what you are doing but those just wandering in do note the vast majority of bundled XP (and modern windows in general) is OEM derived and thus tied to the machine it came from (where and when that machine becomes a new machine is the subject of a fair bit of debate but an entirely different machine is way outside it) so "salvaging" for the purposes of transfer is a tricky game.

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realise transferring an OEM licence was a breach of the licensing agreement. I bit naive really. I should have known that one.

 

[iMinotauro]

I have used non legit copies of Windows 7 but I can't stand all the modification that they have done to it. I'm building my very first PC and I considering purchasing an OEM copy of Windows 7. However I constantly switch between Linux and Windows so I do clean install and the license would be tied down to hardware once. So I'm on the fence of whether to adjust to the modifications of a non legit version or just paying for a version that is legit and be extremely careful as to not break anything (tweak settings and such, I have broken installs for doing this before) in which case would cost me $100 dollars more.

 

[Flame]

why dont you just install ubuntu.

 

[DarkStriker]

I have used non legit copies of Windows 7 but I can't stand all the modification that they have done to it. I'm building my very first PC and I considering purchasing an OEM copy of Windows 7. However I constantly switch between Linux and Windows so I do clean install and the license would be tied down to hardware once. So I'm on the fence of whether to adjust to the modifications of a non legit version or just paying for a version that is legit and be extremely careful as to not break anything (tweak settings and such, I have broken installs for doing this before) in which case would cost me $100 dollars more.

Dual-boot. Install pirated W7. Remove WGA. Done. I have no idea what ur installing on your computer, but a clean install of W7 can be easily found. Heck why do you even have a modified one? And break install? Wut? If it doesnt install correctly, either install it again or get a friggin install thats clean? Why the fuck would you tweak with your computer if you have no idea what your doing and end up killing it? Overclocking seems like a no no for you.

 

[iMinotauro]

Dual-boot. Install pirated W7. Remove WGA. Done. I have no idea what ur installing on your computer, but a clean install of W7 can be easily found. Heck why do you even have a modified one? And break install? Wut? If it doesnt install correctly, either install it again or get a friggin install thats clean? Why the fuck would you tweak with your computer if you have no idea what your doing and end up killing it? Overclocking seems like a no no for you.

I have dual-booted it just makes start up slow though, having to go through GRUB. Yeah I have found some that are "Clean" however it seems sketchy since its all version on a 3.49GB file...Just to clarify I have no problem installing on my computer, I tweak the registry to my liking and that is what breaks the install. Although I take steps to reverse the tweaks, I make backups but once the OS breaks I just get a black screen. This is why I like Linux because I can customize it how I like it. I don't overclock by the way.