A month ago I bought a new solid state drive for my computer. In order to prevent the usual fuckery of the highest order associated with installing windows and assigning drive letters, I unplugged my old hard drives and installed Windows 7 Ultimate on the new solid state drive. It went off without a hitch. Thirty days passes and it asks me to activate Windows, so I punch in my CD-Key, and it tells me that my key is for an upgrade only. Since I did a fresh install because of a new drive, it thinks there was no previous installation of Windows on it. No matter, I'll just format the drive, install an earlier version of Windows on it, and then install Windows 7 Ultimate over it. Except its now past the 30 days, and Microsoft now thinks its a counterfeit version of windows. For those who don't know, after the 30 days the operating system will proceed to fuck with you at any opportunity, closing Windows, disabling shit, the works. Well now it won't let me install USB devices, so I can't copy my Windows 7 install over to a USB drives, so I'm stuck to having to copy the files over to my netbook, and then copying those over to my USB install, or burning a DVD (if it won't turn it into a coaster out of spite). All of this is a tremendous headache for someone who holds 3 legitimate Windows 7 licenses, one for each device in his house, and has always paid for his copies of Windows. But this is seriously why people turn to piracy, if I as a legitimate user have to jump through a shit-ton of hoops just to use what I paid for when I can just download an activated ISO from TPB, why would I put up with Microsoft's bullshit? And before someone suggests "call microsoft." It ain't happening. A few years back I owned a legitimate copy of Windows XP Professional, after accidentally scratching up the disk beyond readability, I requested a copy of the disc from my university, since the key I had would only work with a student disk. They refused and said its Microsoft's problem. So I call Microsoft, and they refuse as well, and suggest I go out and spend $100 on a retail copy of XP Professional in addition to the $15 I paid for my existing copy whose code was about as useless as the demented scribblings of a mental patient. TLDR: Fuck Microsoft and their shitty licensing schemes and their virtual monopoly of computer operating systems that function with the business world.
Fuck Ubuntu. Fuck any version of Linux with a rusty razor-wire dildo. Let Skin line up for you the relative positions regarding the user of each major flavor of operating system: OS X: Does what you tell it. The only way to fuck it up is if you tell it to do something entirely fucking retarded. It will then do the entirely fucking retarded thing you told it to do, but it will try to warn you not to do that entirely fucking retarded thing first, and then try to help you recover from the entirely fucking retarded thing you told it to do. Windows (any version): Does what you tell it, unless something goes awry. It will not tell you what went awry. It will very occasionally do shit behind your back that causes shit to go awry. Linux: Does not even wait for you to tell it to do anything, but instead will go awry totally at random from the very instant you boot up with a distro DVD in the fucking tray. Requires a college degree to do what Mac and even Windows users can do with a few clicks. And not just a college degree -- not even just a college degree in computer science/information technology -- a college degree in fucking Linux. To recap: Fuck. Linux. There's a good god damned reason why that fucking farce of an OS is free. As for pirating: Depending on which brand of PC you have, there may be an OEM version of Windows 7 out there. Grab it and use it. If you have a brand-name system, you'd get the matching OEM version of W7 for free anyway.
Look on the 'bright' side: Pirate yourself Win 7. When the Thought Police knocks at your door, you have the three legit licenses you can stick up their asses.
Well, then, Linux just might be for you. This isn't a knock, but there are two kinds of computer users: Well, put it another way. There are computer users, and then there are computer hobbyists. Computer users treat a computer as an information appliance. They select the one that suits their needs, they learn enough to know how to use it to their utmost advantage in keeping with those needs, and they know how to troubleshoot/maintain it at a proficient level. Computer hobbyists, on the other hand, build their own. If they had the necessary materials and machining equipment, they'd build the fuckin' components from scratch. The first put their computers to work for them. The second may eventually get to that point, but not before working their asses off for their computers first. Again, not a knock. Everybody needs a hobby. For some people, it's shortwave radio. For others, it's... appliances. Whatever spins your propella, fella.
We had a security issue a few months ago that required everyone to have their hard drives purged. CS only reloaded the OS and the basic company productivity stuff, so it was up to me to reload all my working software. Naturally this required extensive telephone time with Adobe and a few other companies trying to convince them that I wasn't trying to load their precious product a second or third time illegally. Adobe, I expect that shit from, but I also had to do it with some cheap-ass little video file converter we use.
This is not why people pirate. People pirate because they don't want to pay. This is just part of the cost of said piracy.
While I empathize and agree with you to a certain extent, seeing as how you built your own computer, surely you realized that you bought an upgrade version of Windows. And knowing such, you should have realized that there is a workaround for your problem, but the time to do it would have been during your initial install. Why would you wait the full 30 days to activate it anyway?
In previous versions of Windows it never really cared if you just installed an upgrade version on a blank drive. And I waited for the full 30 days because I'm really bad with procrastination, not that it matters if I discovered the issue at 30 days or 15 days, it still would have been a pain in the ass to have to reformat.
I believe he might have been offering Ubuntu as an alternative to a Microsoft product. Although I may be wrong, that's what first came to mind.
Oh I get that, my point is that most software programs don't work on anything except Windows. Ubuntu doesn't help you when you need to use a business product that only works for Windows.
I'm pretty sure it was the same thing with Vista. And the workaround I'm thinking of is to "simply" install the upgrade version on the blank drive without activating, then right away install again over top of that one. It will accept the initial installation as a valid upgrade path. Not ideal by any means, but easier than what you did.
