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Comment by thrownawaysz | Hacker News Reader

MAS (which is also hosted on Github) is the perfect example of Microsoft not caring about end user piracy. Just use it.

In the long run, pirated copies of Windows are noise level: The vast majority of people are going to get a license via an OEM (which survives reinstallation), businesses aren't going to risk running unlicensed windows machines (especially if they're paying for it elsewhere) and have easy means to acquire OEM licensed machines that are supported by the OEM for parts & service, and people who run an up to date but pirate-licensed copy of Windows are at least running an up to date version instead of sitting on an EOL copy that is barely getting security updates.

Allowing piracy at that level is actively safer in the long run.

I suppose the other aspect is the gradual death of the white-box PC shop.

The large OEMs have contracts to pay 9 cents per license.

They'll never crack the individual enthusiast building his own PC from Newegg parts and installing a hack, but he's small potatoes.

But back in the day, there there was a fair chance your local midsize business, government, university, didn't necessarily buy from Dell or HP-- they bidded out a few hundred PCs to a local shop, which had both the motivation and technical knowledge to use the same license key on each one, and the scale where it could represent significant lost revenue.

Introducing activation was probably a significant sabotage for them. Although I'd suspect the stick on license certificate was almost as big a deal in that regard.

I have no idea how to get access to LTSC Windows without it. I have bought Windows PRO keys in case someone asks one day, but as a person, I really don't know how to get the not annoying Windows that is available for companies.

I did a little writeup[1] back in 2018 about how to acquire Windows 10 LTSC as an individual. It was only around $300, which included the required four additional CALs.

By way of comparison, Windows 11 Pro is $200[2].

[1] https://tinyapps.org/blog/201811300700_windows_10_ltsc.html

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h...

Thank you for this

The pro keys won't cover you if someone asks. You're not licensed for LTSC and you can't have it without an enterprise agreement. It's still piracy. you might as well have not even paid for the pro keys.

It could still help with a jury of his peers.

I once went down this rabbithole ("I use LTSC for years might as well buy a legit copy finally") and... it was almost impossible. You need to buy at least 5 licenses through volume licensing but you also have to be a business (can't buy it as a natural person). Then there were some other thing about standalone version, upgrade, subscription etc.

So yeah LTSC was never meant to be available for single desktop users at home yet it's best version of Windows available.

Last year, a Microsoft support representative even used it on a customer's computer.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38295819

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-sup...

more like the license process is so bad that they dont bother to go after them

>the license process is so bad that they dont bother to go after them

For a person, yes go for it they won’t bother.

For a company… we have had some annoying MS audits. So how everything has to be retail WITH the cards. I have a stack ready for our next audit if it ever happens again.

sorry with cards? what do you mean?

There is ultimately no way to get a good license process on consumer PCs. The owner and operator of the hardware is also the adversary. It’s like DRM for video and other content: you are giving the ciphertext and the keys to the attacker. It’s only a matter of time until it is broken.

Maybe it's beneficial for Microsoft that solutions like that are FOSS so they can more easily inspect the code for prevention purposes in the future?

Instead I think that they let people use it unauthorized, so that Windows is even more entrenched. Same with what Adobe did with Photoshop. These companies are lucky that their product gets home and office use as well, because they can let the noncommercial use slide, and just squeeze the office users more.

It's more of a business move, than a technical move. Microsoft has plenty of capable people, they don't need such software to be FOSS to successfully inspect it.

I think Microsoft is just purposefully lax about enforcing their own trademarks on their own properties. It could be due to organizational memory of their antitrust case. It could be to avoid bad publicity (like the recent spat where youtube took down a video teaching people how to use adblockers).

Another example of this: the leaked Windows source code is available straight from GitHub.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com