Submitted by 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.It’s understandable that Microsoft would be testy about their unintentional Vista easter egg. Whether it’s good PR to take it out on your customers like this is questionable, however. I seriously doubt that people who are taking advantage of the upgrade loophole aren’t aware that they’re cheating. But the reason that it’s Microsoft’s head of the VAR program who’s leading the scold-a-thon is that it’s probably small Value Added Resellers who are taking advantage of the loophole to install Vista licenses on machines for their clients without having to pay.
It’s easy to see the temptation. The client gets a fully valid Vista license, the VAR gets paid, but only pays half the license fee, and everyone’s happy except Microsoft. Certainly it’s easier to morally justify taking an unauthorized discount off the Vista license fee than out and out pirating it. Many people will air their grievances about Vista’s quality or Microsoft’s past licensing transgressions while they stick it to the man, and feel justified.
One big question this issue raises is this: is the accidental half-off program pushing anyone to buy a half-legit Vista license who would otherwise wait it out or pirate it? Or is each of these phony upgrades just a out-and-out revenue loss for Microsoft? Are the cheaters in any way justified? Or is paying half for an “illegal” install just as morally wrong as installing a pirated copy?
My understanding (up until now), was the trick had been indeed intentional, but Microsoft wanted it to be “slightly secret discount”. And this was done to encourage price skeptic tech savy guys to move on to Vista.
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).
I am going to go as far as to say, too bad to Microsoft. They should have checked their software, they left a flaw and will have to pay for it.
Basically what you are saying is that if it’s technically possible to ‘break’ a the licensing scheme then it is OK to do so? That seems a pretty disingenuous stance.
I have to very much disagree with that sentiment. That is sort of attitude that has led to the anti-piracy arms race we now are in. Without going into a discussion about the ‘evils’ of closed source software, I really despise companies who insist on making it has hard as possible to install the software I legally bought or licensed. I wish more companies would drop as much of their anti-piracy checks as possible and simply trust their customer base.
Of course with that comes a certain responsibility to respect the license for what you use. People shouldn’t think it’s OK use software they don’t have a license for just because they technically can. I think we should applaud Microsoft in this case for not making life more difficult for their legitimate upgrade customers. There are a lot of things Microsoft does wrong in my book when it comes to product registration and Genuine Advantage and all that crap, let’s not jump on them for the one thing they did right.
I find it sad that people think they can break contracts or the law.
How Microsoft sells their Software is completely fair, they think they should be payed a certain amount, and you can take it or leave it.
It’s not as if you have to buy Vista. There are plenty of gratis alternatives around.
I am not stealing Vista. I use Linux and Mac OS X on my home computers and Windows XP at work.
If MS feels so strongly about preventing users from (ab)using upgrade licenses, they should just unify their prices like what OS X does. The argument on OS X goes is that because all Macs come with OS X, any retail version of OS X that you buy is going to be an “upgrade”. In a similar vein, every PC you buy is going to come with some version of Windows. So why not reduce the retail price of Vista and get rid of the upgrade version?
In fact, the upgrade versions cost more than the OEM version that many places are selling. So why don’t they just streamline the product line and merge the OEM/uypgrade/retail versions?
For that matter Microsoft <em>must</em> merge the 32/64-bit distributions or face being left lagging come the next generation. 64-bit chips are common, but currently the entry bar to using 64-bit software is obscene – aided by Microsoft’s Vista versions malarky.
Binary fatness/bit-depth should be absolutely transparent to the user. If it’s not transparent it won’t be adopted, and installing a whole new OS with strict driver requirements, and then downloading 64-bit specific files from a download page is just too much right now.
Can anyone enlighten me to how it’s done on Linux? The Mac model is really delightful for the end user, they download the same app as everybody else, and the whole process is transparent to the hardware.
On Linux, basically you download and install a 64-bit version and not everything works. ;p
After installing the 32-bit libs it’s transparent for just running binaries, but you have to –force-architecture to install 32-bit packages, and some closed-source stuff won’t work if the makers can’t be arsed to make a 64-bit version (e.g., flash).
Or, use rpm, which handles installation of different architectures nicely without requiring overrides…
“For that matter Microsoft <em>must</em> merge the 32/64-bit distributions or face being left lagging come the next generation. 64-bit chips are common, but currently the entry bar to using 64-bit software is obscene – aided by Microsoft’s Vista versions malarky.”
No. The cost of changing to the 64Bit version of Vista when you own a copy of 32 Bit Vista is almost nothing. For me, it is 7 bucks cdn, They just send you a new disk that allows you to install the 64 bit version, which invalidates your 32 bit version. It also comes already ont he disk if you own Ultimate. Annoying, sure, but surely it is not obscene
Yup, that’s nice; and as a Mac user, I have to do diddly squat and it’s already working. How many home users are going to send off for a 64-Bit disc, and then install it, and then track down 64-bit only drivers for it???
“How many home users are going to send off for a 64-Bit disc, and then install it, and then track down 64-bit only drivers for it???”
That’s not the point, the point was the cost of win64, which is negligible, or the same as win32. If you buy a retail copy of Vista, you have to go and collect all the drivers for that too.
64 bit is fairly transparent on Linux as well. (Keep in mind OS-x is based on bsd unix so there’s some similarities). Software in Linux is mostly downloaded from repositories which detect whether you need 32 or 64bit software. It used to be necessary to install 32 bit libraries in your 64 bit Linux but now even multimedia software is 64 bit so that is no longer necessary.
I agree fully, but with a different price range in mind.
I wouldn’t mind purchasing Windows if the price for it was say $59.99. The Home Basic version, except just call it Windows Vista.
Then, you could buy the Aero desktop crap and other goodies ( ala MS. Plus ) for $39.99.
Then split off other rarely used features into stand-alone additions, for varying prices ( say $9.99 to $99.99 ).
Discount bundles could be created on one disc, and multi-license copies could be purchased for an additional 30% per host machine.
In fact, multi-license would simply mean that one disc would come with X number of license keys.
I think the peeps at MS would be surprised that revenues would increase.
Why? Well, few would have a problem buying at least the full base version of Windows for $60, especially considering they don’t have to hassle with cracks, they’ll know that Windows Update will always work, and they can be assured that future updates will not undo their existing cracks. I’d pay $60 for that if I used Windows ( I managed to get everything I ran on Windows to work under WINE in Ubuntu, and I wrote my own version for the rest in BeOS ).
Heck, I can promise you that many small-time techs have probably installed 50-60 copies of pirated Windows versions because their customers can’t afford to pay the tech AND then pay $180 or so to Microsoft ( or even $135 ). $60 is much better. And this brings me to my best advice to Microsoft:
Create an affordable 100 PC licensed version, providing the stickers et al, provide 2 discs and permit making up to 100 copies total ( law says you can make all you want anyway here (U.S. of Texas :-)) ). Then, require the purchaser to carry a certification. A+ should even be enough.
Meet those requirements, each license costs $25, and the fee isn’t due until the key is used. Once the key is used, the account on file will be charged, and a credit card billing or a paper bill could be sent out.
I promise you, that will bring in more money in one year than it would cost to setup the entire operation twice.
My $3.50 to the Loch-Ness Monster.
–The loon
I was reading along nodding my head slightly when I came across these words and found myself suddenly wrapped around a telephone pole….
These small-time techs are nothing more than thieves if they’re installing cracked copies of Windows on a customer PC.
These thieves are picking their own pockets, because their customers will stop supporting them when the next update rolls around and the updated WGA *.DLLs rat them out and that’s bad enough in itself.
But every time one of these fools poop in their own nest it makes it harder and harder for honest techs to earn a living making small repairs and doing OS installations.
In the last month alone I’ve had at least ten people suggest I find ways to “fix” their install without having proper install media or licenses.
The reason they think this is okay is because of foolish thieves like the ones you mention!
Maybe if these so called small-time techs would stop enabling these people and tell them what the real cost of Windows ownership, there’d be some changes. Maybe there would be more people using alternative OSes. Maybe BeOS would still be around…
I hope anyone thinking they can get away with selling customers infringing copies of Windows gets caught and the book thrown at them, because they’re the ones who’ve helped get us in this fix we’re all in today!
–bornagainpenguin
“I am not stealing Vista. I use Linux and Mac OS X on my home computers and Windows XP at work.”
Both OS X and Linux at home and work on this side of the internet wire.
I also have a Vista box at work, hidden away behind a cubicle wall, just to passify the managers who have anxiety over a user `NOT` being on the bleeding edge of Microsilly’s latest and greatest marketing product.
If Bill and Steve as-well-as his team of billionaires want to grab the last dollar in your wallet or bank account for features which, should by all the reasoning of a normal mind, be in a single version of Wind Vista – who should blame them?
Edited 2008-04-19 16:28 UTC
excellent point evangs! Every other business person (except RIAA and MPAA) out there would see this as a sign that they have priced their product farther than the market will bear. But since they are a monopoly they ignore what the market decides completely and thus whine and use leverage in congress instead to get their way.
Microsoft isn’t losing cash on this one. Upgrades cost basicaly the same things as OEM versions, which I would say, is the Vista base price. Microsoft profit on Vista is coming in a large part from OEM version sales, so it’s not a drop in retail version that will hit them. The Upgrades versions are there just to make the Windows wheel turn. Microsoft sold XP to people saying it would be upgradeable to the next version of Windows. Now they’re selling Vista saying it will be upgradeable to the next version. Upgrade versions are buying incentive.
For the way upgrades are use, then it’s another story. When you install Vista using an upgrade key without having a legal previous version of Windows, you’re breaking the EULA, not the law. People are buying upgrades because it cost less than having to buy the full version, and you won’t have as much trouble than with a pirated version. The best thing is that it even come with support from Microsoft (which the OEM version doesn’t have).
So is it legal to use an upgrade disk to do a fresh install, yes. Is it moral? Well, is it moral to sell an OS $400? Anyway, even if you’re buying an upgrade, Microsoft is still happy, because they’re still making profits. Heck, it’s not the packaging or the DVD that cost a lot. And I’m sure even if an army of developer has worked on this, that they managed to ensure profitability. Even if you get it for free, MS is still happy, it keeps you away from the competition.
Somewhat pregnant…
the reduced price and “broken” EULA also mean MS doesn’t have to SUPPORT the Upgrades. The justification for the High Retail full price is that you can actually call MS several times for “free” if you have install problems. With the OEM, the place you purchased it from is supposed to answer your OS install questions (I really doubt newegg does this in practice) and with Upgrade, again your PC maker is supposed to support you… that’s why companies like Dell put out silly notice that upgrades are “not supported” even though they sell the machines new. Even though under OEM contract they’re supposed to support the upgrades to the OS.
Microsoft charges for support calls. The practical justification in price differential is that the retail product gives users the “right” to re-install the software on different machines, OEM software can theoretically only be installed on a single machine and never transferred. Technically, OEM licenses are supposed to be sold only with hardware, but that restriction has weakened over time due to the plain fact that it is unenforceable. The only leverage MS has is via WGA and actively preventing OEM software from being activated on a different platform, The EULA restrictions particular to the OEM version, at least in many jurisdictions, would be deemed invalid.
And on a completely unrelated note, there are some interesting parallels to the other popular argument about Apple tying OSX to an Apple-branded system. Any argument about whether MS can use EULA’s to restrict licenses, whether upgrade or OEM versus retail, translates directly to whether Apple can use an EULA to restrict where the software can be installed. Comes to mind since there was a previous discussion here about that. Food for thought.
Maybe if MS wasn’t price gouging customers for a retail copy of Vista more people would be inclined to buy the full version instead of finding creative ways to give themselves a discount.
The people posting this stuff online know full well what they are advertising. They aren’t as clueless as this guy seems to think.
Considering that less than 1% of Windows sales are non-OEM — and nobody with any sense pays retail — this only seems to be an issue for those dumb enough to walk into Office Depot or Frye’s or Best Buy or Circuit City and buy a copy off the shelf.
This “loop-hole” was probably intended to make the life of upgraders easier, as well as making support easier. After all, who really wants to install and activate XP then install and activate Vista only to end up with a mish-mash system that may never be stable (particularly if you’re stuck with an OEM XP CD from someone like Dell). It is unlikely that it was ever intended as a secret discount. Same goes for the secret OEM version.
So people are suggesting that there should be technical hurdles to prevent this. Well, guess what. Technical hurdles to prevent software piracy are what brought activation and WGA to you. Introducing technical hurdles is why DRM is crippling how we can use our computers, and is ultimately going to destroy the concept of fair use.
If you think that cheating the system is a great idea so that you can benefit from unlimited consumption while creators go uncompensated, just remember: you are making life harder for everyone.
Edited 2008-04-18 16:52 UTC
“while creators go uncompensated”
What’s wrong with you?
Vista developers get paid big time money. Bill is one of the richest men on the planet. Steve is a billionaire. How much more money do you think they should make?
Stealing from Bill and Steve is a positive thing. Get a life, man!
I was about to go: “Wohoo! satan666 for president!”
Until the “Stealing from [whomever] is a positive thing”
I can’t agree with that.
I agree that Microsoft is price gouging, but I don’t think that makes stealing from them right.
Personally, I don’t like Microsoft’s stripped down versions of their OSs, and I don’t like the high prices they charge for the full versions, so I simply don’t use their stuff.
If you don’t like the prices a company is charging, or the products they are putting out, hit them in the wallet by buying and using competitors’ products. That is a good thing. Hitting them in the wallet by stealing their products is not a good thing.
well.. that is not how upgrades worked in the past, innit..? Installing from scratch (using an upgrade disc) required to have an install media at hand, not an installation.
Reading the title of the article, I could not help but be reminded of these entertaining passages from “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”:
Props for the reference
It has long depressed me that I’ll never have the chance to read a new Douglas Adams novel again, but makes me happy that I can still read the old ones over and over and they still make me laugh.
Many of the OEM’s no longer ship windows media with their PC’s. It’s just a partition on the hard drive. If microsoft required the installation media, then these people would never be able to do a fresh install of the OS.
This just made me wonder is it legal to do this in the countries where EULAs aren’t considered binding contracts? If it is indeed legal then IT shops would most likely try to sell those upgrades to people instead of the full package, it is easier to sell something which doesn’t cost so much as the “full” thing if they are functionally equivalent.
Anyway, even if it was legal and all I still won’t buy it. I just have no reason to “upgrade” since Vista doesn’t bring me any features XP (or Linux for the matter) doesn’t already offer, it only consumes more resources doing the same thing.
Imagine what a single . would do. Then the story would be
“A Microsoft executive sent out a snotty email chastising anyone who has been encouraging people to purchase the Vista upgrade.”
Which would be must more approiate :]
… because the behavior he describes was the default on install. I used an upgrade disc to get from XP to Vista, there wasn’t enough space on the XP drive to install Vista, so it installed a full installation of Vista onto the new drive and left a full, still-functional installation of XP on the original drive.
I didn’t change anything or do anything special; I just did what their software prompted me to do on install. And that’s a violation?
In this day and age (unfortunately), clicking the wrong button on a poorly designed interface is considered “OMG Hacking – you’re going to jail”. And I only see it getting much, much worse.
This article is just another glimpse into the world of corporations who think they own you.
Most EULA are written to absolve the licensor of any responsibility whatsoever due to defects, even if they cause the end-users machine to spontaneously combust upon installation or irreparably harm his/her product, company, etc. in any way.
In an odd twist of fate, a flaw in the Vista software enables a customer to improperly install it. And as a result, instead of taking ownership for the flaw, MS brands customers as theives. There’s your “Genuine Advantage” folks. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
You poor deluded soul! You think this is a flaw? A mistake??
No, I’ll tell you what’s going to probably happen–in a few months from now when the last “legitimate” copy of Windows XP is sold and Microsoft no longer allows new keys to be made there will be an update to Vista requiring all those people who snuck in using this “flaw” to verify their license by submitting their original media, the media they were supposed to upgrade from…
Now that is your Genuine Advantage, and I hope everyone who falls for this scheme enjoys their non-functional OS while trying to explain to a CSR why you didn’t “steal” your copy of Vista…
–bornagainpenguin
Except it’s not a flaw. It’s a feature to make life easier for their customers who are following the licensing agreement. It’s just that some people are abusing this feature.
Vist is still not permitted at my workplace, and at home I’m happily using a mix of Windows and non-Windows OSes.
Vista simply doesn’t provide me with anything that I need. It may in time, but not yet…
Who in their right minds would want Vista, even if it were free?
It’s a technically inferior operating system on every account, doesn’t matter what the price is.
I upgraded from a singlecore cpu, 1gb ram, intel onboard laptop with XP SP2 to a dualcore cpu, 2gb ram, nvidia dedicated videocard laptop with Vista SP1, and my performance actually WENT DOWN, even in normal end user operations such as web browsing, or copying a simple file from A to B.
Vista is the biggest microsoft joke since Windows ME.
I would. Send your copies to me.
Edited 2008-04-19 01:13 UTC
Really? Seriously?
I have two machines here running it. Each was bought new. One is a Core 2 Duo with 2 gigs of RAM, and the other is an AMD quadcore with 4, and it drags ass on both. I had to go through like 4 versions of VNC to make that work properly, I can’t find any GPG front ends which work correctly.
Vista is a flaming pile of misery. It doesn’t seem to provide any features or usability over XP. All of this has been said before, yadda yadda yadda. But seriously, my experience here confirms for me that the anti-Vista brigade is not fueled on hype alone.
Vista is, if nothing else, a sign that Microsoft has gotten horribly lazy.
With war, bee populations disappearing, and the various crises du jour, one thing I do not care about is OMG PEOPLE ARE STEALING VISTA BY USING UPGRADE VERSIONS.
Really, if this bothers anyone, being stuck with Vista is its own punishment.
My first free copy was the one they gave away along with office 2007, then I went to the vista and office 2007 launch event in Atlanta, GA with a co-worker as an excuse to get out of work and they gave out Pre-rtm copies of vista ultimate along with the full copy of office 2007. Just for grins and giggles when I installed Vista on one of my home systems I tried the serial number from the prerelease version with the disk they shipped me for vista business which was a full regular vista disk and amazingly enough the code was accepted and I wound up with a full licensed copy of windows vista ultimate.
I’m not a fanboy of vista, as I still prefer XP but I do have to admit some of the features from vista are nice. I just hope that they will see the error of their ways and come out with a “Windows 2008 Workstation” version that’s based on the Server 2008 code set. I purchased a Technet Plus subscription and downloaded server 2008 and installed it on another of my home systems and I have been impressed with how well it works. I tried one of the server 2008 to workstation guides and the resulting changes to server 2008 make for a very fast running desktop system. I’m looking forward to putting server 2008 through it’s paces in a corporate networking environment.
Edited 2008-04-18 23:15 UTC
Stealing implies you’re depriving the owner of a property of the rightful use thereof. So no, it’d never be stealing as far as I’m concerned. That said, depending on how you want to look at EULAs and their connection to copyright laws, it may very well be infringement and MS would probably be well within their rights to revoke licenses over it
I consider the price differences between the boxed versions, OEM versions and upgrade versions a shame.
It is difficult to control and generate several “semi-legal” copies. In my country (Brazil) it is very common to see Windows OEM copies sold with cheap hardware components like cooler, mouse, keyboard, etc or upgrade versions sold for new installations. They do this because the full price of windows is absurd and illegal copies are cheap like U$ 3 in streets.
Why not sell only one version and sell separately support like many commercial linux distributions ?
against Windows. If you legitimately install the upgrade over xp but need to re-install Vista at some point in the future but dont want to install xp first are you going against the license? When people pay the money Microsoft asks for a product, they should have a reasonable expectation that they bought an operating system, not a license. It’s one of the main reasons I switched to linux.
Edited 2008-04-19 18:45 UTC
If you legitimately install the upgrade over xp but need to re-install Vista at some point in the future but dont want to install xp first are you going against the license?
No, you’re not. The whole point of discussion here is that people buy Vista Upgrade without owning a valid Windows license worthy of an upgrade.
Sure, Microsoft has the right to gouge their customers all they want.
Consider OS X: No serial numbers, no actviation, no “Genuine Advantage”. Apple even trusts you to pay more for the 5 license pack just because you want to, it still contains the exact same software as the regular one license pack.
How anyone can put up with serial numbers, activation and “Genuine Validation” on something as basic as an operating system is beyond me. If Microsoft really cocked up and broke the WGA, or say intentionally did it, you’d all be hosed.
Isn’t it about time software makers such as Microsoft stopped looking at their customers as “thieves”?
I submitted a post to Eric Ligman’s blog site last week. I did not use harsh language, I just pointed out that I thought that I felt his article perfectly summarized Microsoft’s attitude toward their customers, and that his inclusion of the intelligence-denigrating graphics was a nice touch along this line. I mentioned that those who were too *dense* to pay Microsoft *properly* could always just use open source. I also mentioned that the open source community actually helps each other out just because they care about each other, unlike certain other money-based arrangements.
Eric Ligman must have deleted my post, as other posts dated later that say things like “Plez Eric, make vista a little bit better” can be found proudly displayed on his site.
THANK YOU ERIC LIGMAN FOR SHOWING ME WHAT OPEN-MINDED QUALITIES YOU AND YOUR PROPRIETARY, THOUGHT-STIFLING COMPANY HAVE.
Thankfully the rest of the non-microsoft world has open minds and open source, and a community based on mutual respect, not on fear, intimidation, and corruption. I do not trust you or your company, at all, and would recommend that no one use your *black-box* software solutions due to your track record of anti-competitive business practices, and the way you treat your users like idiotic criminals (as made very clear by your post).
“Help! Oppression! Help! Come see the violence inherent to the system, come see the violence inherent to the system!”
Certainly there is a scandal somewhere. A boxed full version of Vista Business costs c. £220 inc. VAT – a brand name PC with Vista Business installed can be had for about c. £240 inc. VAT. To think that Microsoft have the cheek to call their customers thieves.
Pfft, who needs upgrades? There is a working keygen floating out there that generates valid keys that activate. You just have to know where to look
Really. Who would want to infect the computer with a bloted MS Vista upgrade anyways?