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German police are chasing buyers of cheap Windows 10 licenses

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I would not say they are lawful - just not unlawful, maybe.

These licenses, like all software licenses, are sold to someone who agrees to use them according to the terms of the agreement they just made with developer. That makes it a binding contract.

Note these licenses are part of volume license agreement. A big company may buy a 1000 license package, but only use 700. What happens to the unused 300 is the issue.

I am not going to get dragged into another pointless argument over the legalities of a company selling to 3rd parties, those unused licenses. I will just say the agreement they made does not allow it.

Regardless, I agree that as individuals, Microsoft is NOT going to waste their time or money, or risk all the bad publicity going after individuals using those licenses for personal use. But buyers should understand that Microsoft could invalid the license at any time.
 
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all thing being right in the Universe should'nt Microsoft have to pay us every time they mess our riggs up with a update' i mean fairs fair init.
No they don't because the update shouldn't affect the key it the hardware changes that trigger the activation like you changed the motherboard for something better you get greeted with a logo on the bottom right of the screen
 
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like you changed the motherboard for something better you get greeted with a logo on the bottom right of the screen

Buy the "better" motherboard in the first place! ;)
 
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im not on about the key bud im on about compo for when they break some of our softwear we use with updates' its happend to most of use at some point ive lost many hours of work over the years while having to fix stuff after updates im just saying fairs fair if thay want to do people for buying keys then it works both ways thay should be held for when they mess up.
 
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Buy the "better" motherboard in the first place! ;)
Do what I normally do is build the system without the key until I'm happy with the overall performance then buy the genius key than rather wasting time on sketchy keys in hope that it activates

As for people complains about the updates breaking stuff that Microsoft's way of telling you that your key isn't genius and rightly so they can do that without your permission
 
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Do what I normally do is build the system without the key until I'm happy with the overall performance then buy the genius key than rather wasting time on sketchy keys in hope that it activates

As for people complains about the updates breaking stuff that Microsoft's way of telling you that your key isn't genius and rightly so they can do that without your permission
Are you joking, I paid £156 legit to have my personal folders completely wiped at least once, I had backup's but none the less far to conspiational IMHO.
 
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Are you joking, I paid £156 legit to have my personal folders completely wiped at least once, I had backup's but none the less far to conspiational IMHO.
How you managed to get it to wipe out the folders in question unless you ended up resetting the whole system with data deletion. You can't blame Microsoft for that
 
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How you managed to get it to wipe out the folders in question unless you ended up resetting the whole system with data deletion. You can't blame Microsoft for that
You know nothing of what happened clearly, I wasn't alone.
 
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None of the updates ever deleted anything on my system since day one :)
You were one of the lucky ones then, at that time I was still on win8.1.
 
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None of the updates ever deleted anything on my system since day one :)
Lack of experience isn't confirmation, I haven't had a lot of things happen, do they not exist.

As I said, an update reverted my two PC's at the time to day one wiped, and I wasn't alone there's a thread here in all likelihood.
 
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Lack of experience isn't confirmation, I haven't had a lot of things happen, do they not exist.

As I said, an update reverted my two PC's at the time to day one wiped, and I wasn't alone there's a thread here in all likelihood.
I worked on computers repairs for 11 years that isn't lack of experiences I dealt with all sort by software and hardware related
 
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I worked on computers repairs for 11 years that isn't lack of experiences I dealt with all sort by software and hardware related
So still fairly new to it then:).
 
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What that you seems to know everything known to man all hats off to you
All I'm saying is I wouldn't discount others experience so lightly either, your the one implying you Know how my PC's both messed up better than me!!
 
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All I'm saying is I wouldn't discount others experience so lightly either, your the one implying you Know how my PC's both messed up better than me!!
At least I wasn't there to see it happen so back to topic
 
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Microsoft doesn't particularly care that people are buying these keys because it increases their marketshare (Intel, take note re Arc). This is nothing more than a massive waste of time and resources by the German police service.
 

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Microsoft doesn't particularly care that people are buying these keys because it increases their marketshare (Intel, take note re Arc). This is nothing more than a massive waste of time and resources by the German police service.
Exactly. If Microsoft doesn't care about this then why should we?
 
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It is true, that Microsoft doesn't care. As they have SOLD those key at some point of time, so re-selling those keys is totally OK.

Anyhow, only home users do use those keys. I would not use those keys in company of any sort, then you might fall into problems.
But as a private citizen, would Microsoft pursue the: illegal key hacks of activation or this resold key? Of course, they would pursue those illegal keys & concentrate on those citizens.

All those resold keys have been sold & a tax has been collected. So even the state has got some extra on those keys, taxed those keys twice (though not the same amount).

So, all in all...it is better for German police to pursue the illegal key activations, then to bother people which actually purchased key on a discount.
& if somebody asks me about any of such keys, I would point them out: I just bought them, payed the tax, so go & pursue the seller. :cool:
 
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Microsoft absolutely DOES care!!!! They just accept that this rampant scourge of software theft and piracy is so widespread it is too late to do anything about it - now. At least for individuals.

What needed to happen decades ago was governments needed to honor their United Nations member agreements to protect the IP rights and copyright laws of their fellow member nations. But they failed to do that in part because many of those governments were actively using unauthorized licenses on their own government computers too! :(

Way back in the day, there were software swap parties at local rec centers and churches - essentially government and church sanctioned piracy meets where people openly stole software! Many claim it was software piracy that killed, or at least help kill Commodore and many other products. It wasn't until it was too late before the realization of the affects of software piracy became apparent - and then it took even longer for laws to be put in place. And then even to this very day, the resources needed to fund law enforcement agencies so they can enforce those laws are still woefully inadequate.

It really is akin to shoplifting at Walmart or our local grocery store - where theft by others directly results in higher costs for the products we buy.

Microsoft bashers are quick to claim it is greed that drives Microsoft and no doubts, back in the day they did want to rule the world. But it was not long before Microsoft was being blamed - relentlessly - for everything! Even things totally out of their control! And that included being blamed for malware infections on pirated copies of Windows - systems that were then used as threats to the rest of us! :(

Security is a perfect example. Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro and others at the time whined and cried to Congress and the EU that Microsoft trying to include AV code in XP was MS trying to monopolize the industry. They further claimed it was their job to rid the world of malware. Congress and the EU agreed and MS was forced to leave that code out. So what happened? Norton, McAfee, etc. rejoiced, then failed to protect us! But who got blamed? The bad guys? Nope. Norton and McAfee? Nope. Microsoft? Yep.

It should have been obvious that Norton, McAfee, etc. and zero incentive to rid the world of malware. If malware goes away, those companies go out of business. Duh!

Why do you think Congress, the EU, Norton, McAfee have kept mum when MS put Defender in W8/W10/W11?

The reality is, bad guys, the scumbags who develop and distribute malware, love illegal copies of Windows. And Microsoft cares about that because they are sick and tired of being blamed for the actions (or inactions) of others. And frankly, I don't blame them. I sure don't like being blamed for something going wrong when I have no control over it.

all thing being right in the Universe should'nt Microsoft have to pay us every time they mess our riggs up with a update' i mean fairs fair init.
Here's the problem with that. Even in the worst case of Windows Update breaking computers, the number of affected computers has been tiny - really tiny when you consider there are well over 1.0 billion Windows10/11 systems out there. Even if it affects 1,000,000 users (and AFAIK, no Update has broken that many) that is less than 0.1 percent of all users!

Plus, you have to remember that essentially each and every one of those systems became unique within the first couple minutes of its first boot - as users configured their accounts, networks, drivers, security, installed applications, and user preferences - and no doubt many of those were systems where users dinked with and changed the recommended default settings too.

If an Update broke 100s of millions of computers, it would be fair to expect some sort of compensation - assuming you are not using a free, or unauthorized license.
 
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Microsoft absolutely DOES care!!!! They just accept that this rampant scourge of software theft and piracy is so widespread it is too late to do anything about it - now. At least for individuals.

What needed to happen decades ago was governments needed to honor their United Nations member agreements to protect the IP rights and copyright laws of their fellow member nations. But they failed to do that in part because many of those governments were actively using unauthorized licenses on their own government computers too! :(

Way back in the day, there were software swap parties at local rec centers and churches - essentially government and church sanctioned piracy meets where people openly stole software! Many claim it was software piracy that killed, or at least help kill Commodore and many other products. It wasn't until it was too late before the realization of the affects of software piracy became apparent - and then it took even longer for laws to be put in place. And then even to this very day, the resources needed to fund law enforcement agencies so they can enforce those laws are still woefully inadequate.

It really is akin to shoplifting at Walmart or our local grocery store - where theft by others directly results in higher costs for the products we buy.

Microsoft bashers are quick to claim it is greed that drives Microsoft and no doubts, back in the day they did want to rule the world. But it was not long before Microsoft was being blamed - relentlessly - for everything! Even things totally out of their control! And that included being blamed for malware infections on pirated copies of Windows - systems that were then used as threats to the rest of us! :(

Security is a perfect example. Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro and others at the time whined and cried to Congress and the EU that Microsoft trying to include AV code in XP was MS trying to monopolize the industry. They further claimed it was their job to rid the world of malware. Congress and the EU agreed and MS was forced to leave that code out. So what happened? Norton, McAfee, etc. rejoiced, then failed to protect us! But who got blamed? The bad guys? Nope. Norton and McAfee? Nope. Microsoft? Yep.

It should have been obvious that Norton, McAfee, etc. and zero incentive to rid the world of malware. If malware goes away, those companies go out of business. Duh!

Why do you think Congress, the EU, Norton, McAfee have kept mum when MS put Defender in W8/W10/W11?

The reality is, bad guys, the scumbags who develop and distribute malware, love illegal copies of Windows. And Microsoft cares about that because they are sick and tired of being blamed for the actions (or inactions) of others. And frankly, I don't blame them. I sure don't like being blamed for something going wrong when I have no control over it.


Here's the problem with that. Even in the worst case of Windows Update breaking computers, the number of affected computers has been tiny - really tiny when you consider there are well over 1.0 billion Windows10/11 systems out there. Even if it affects 1,000,000 users (and AFAIK, no Update has broken that many) that is less than 0.1 percent of all users!

Plus, you have to remember that essentially each and every one of those systems became unique within the first couple minutes of its first boot - as users configured their accounts, networks, drivers, security, installed applications, and user preferences - and no doubt many of those were systems where users dinked with and changed the recommended default settings too.

If an Update broke 100s of millions of computers, it would be fair to expect some sort of compensation - assuming you are not using a free, or unauthorized license.
Microsoft has sort of solved the problem anyway. If you use one of those keys and have to change your MB, that change hardware program will work 1 time after that you will need to buy another key. If you have an "official" key you can change your MB as many times as you want. This is especially true for Windows 11.
 
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If you have an "official" key you can change your MB as many times as you want.
Kinda. If your key goes with a full "Retail" license, then you are correct and your can change your motherboard as many times as you like (as long as Windows is not installed on more than one system at a time).

But if an OEM license, it is tied to the original equipment (often in the UEFI BIOS) and to remain in compliance with the EULA, you can only change motherboards as part of a repair action if the old board died.
 
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Like the deals they post here on TPU?? Lol

I think my PCs unofficially supported by windows 11 will move to Zorin OS when win 10 support ends.
There are numerous websites where relatively inexpensive license keys can be purchased for, for example, Microsoft Windows 10.
For a fraction of the suggested retail price, you can obtain a valid license. However, the source of the keys is often dubious or illegal.

According to sources, the German police will actively approach buyers of cheap license keys in hopes of accusing them of money laundering and copyright infringement.
Although the German authorities have not provided confirmation, several users have reportedly confirmed that they received similar subpoenas from the police after purchasing cheap Windows 10 product keys online from various websites. Some say the keys were bought many years ago, so it's not clear yet what the police will do with this new campaign.

For now, however, it's important to deal with this information with a fair amount of skepticism, especially since it's all based on reporting with no official statement about it.


 
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use rufus and disable the checks and TPM needs.
 
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