Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
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The fact that this is available on a Microsoft-owned source code repository is bonkers to me.
Because they get your data as long as you install Windows and your data over time is worth more than you would pay for the OS.
Not really as that brings pennies. The logic is the same as WinRar. Basically they don't care about users pirating since it helps them retain the market share since middle aged or older people aren't that tech savvy.
The biggest moneymaker in retail sector is laptop manufacturers bundling windows with their laptops and companies/corporations using legit windows copies.
They get ridiculous amounts of money just to provide security updates to windows XP because there are loads of equipment that can't be run without the specific software that is incompatible with later versions.
And they will get ridiculous amounts of money 20 years down the line for doing the same with windows 10 too as long as they retain the massive market share and middle aged people will be accustomed to win 10.
I've heard that that's similar to why Adobe creative cloud was so easy to pirate for years (maybe it still is, idk, I switched to affinity forever ago). Adobe is the industry standard because everyone uses it -> person wants to learn photo/video editing, digital illustration, etc, but can't afford it -> pirate Adobe instead of trying cheaper/free alternatives, because it's the industry standard -> person with Adobe skills gets hired by business that pays for Adobe legitimately because that's what most people know -> Adobe is the industry because everyone uses it, and the cycle goes on...
I heard from someone that MS support just tells people to use this if something goes wrong with their key.
They use it internally as well.
These days the best way is to download the official ISO, install without key, open powershell with admin rights and run the massgrave one-liner script with a quick copy/paste.
Just download it from MS directly and use it unactivated (select "I don't have a key" when prompted). Why anyone would f- around with their OS, of all things....
If you care to activate, it's trivial to get a grey key or to find an activation script (though I think they patched out the script – even though MS Support themselves used it)
Or just use ohook
https://massgrave.dev/ohook.html
Used this about 4 times in the past month alone lol
That looks like for Office? Not Windows?
It’s both
This is the way
There's also Tiny10/Tiny11 on Archive.org.
I use it in VM's for testing.
microsoft.com
Why would you download a "pirated" copy? Just download the dumbass Windows official installer from Microsoft and use the link Ardi60 posted. There's no reason to needlessly get yourself root-kitted because you were downloading an OS that doesn't even need to be cracked in order to install.
Are you one of those fabled pure Linux virgins the prophecies speak of? Untainted by Microsofts corruption? Or are you a decadent MacOS slut looking to debase yourself even further?
Could you say that last line one more time? Me and my MacBook Air are almost there…
Lmao this is a banger of a comment.
IM JUST TRYING TO GET TO THE FACEPALS. JIMMY PUPT UP PICTURES OF THE KIDS AND I WNATED TO SEE THEM BUT THE DAM COMPUTER KEEPS PEEPING AT ME
You download the iso from microsoft.com then if the watermark really bothers you, get massgrave from GitHub (also Microsoft)
Nowadays getting a pre cracked copy of windows is a security issue, also don't work really good as many times is the enterprise version tied to some online KMS that would 100% go offline someday
Windows is free now! No license required. They're a data company now.
You can actually just use Rufus to create the bootable USB, and it gives you option to disable telemetry and other tracking shit.
I'm not sure if there is a utility for windows as there is for Nvidia drivers (Nvinstall), which automatically downloads the files, removes all the unnecessary shit as per your preferences and creates a new installer.
For the actual Windows image you can legitmately download ISOs for most every version of Windows from Microsoft directly, you just need your browser's user agent to say you're using a non-Windows OS. Since you say you're looking to "test Windows" it sounds like you're on another OS, so you should be able to just download an ISO normally.
You don't have to download pirated Windows. Microsoft offers free versions of Windows (at least 10, not sure about other versions) on their website for making a bootable usb.
Hardly ever use Windows myself, but I'm pretty sure you can just download it from Microsoft and refuse all the nags to register it when you are installing it.
You can indeed. You end up with a permanent small water mark on bottom right hand side of the screen as a reminder to activate. Currently you can keep it like this indefinitely.
You cannot personalise the desktop but I think that is all.
You only need a key to activate Windows. Windows 10 and later will install and run just fine without activation.
Download the official iso from Microsoft, install it, then run MAS on it if you really want to activate it.
I used to just buy a key from Kinguin or similar. It's usually around 2-3 usd for an OEM key (only usable on 1 computer) and you can pay with PayPal. Never had issues yet.
Next time around I might try this activation script that was mentioned here though.
Haitch tea tea pea colon slash slash double you double you double you dot microsoft dot com
What if someone wants to download ltsc?
Windows long term service (not sure what the c means)
Channel?
Code?
Yes channel, that's the one
You can get an iso for that from Microsoft or internet archive and follow the same steps.
Does wine have problems with some of your games?
wine has problems with a lot of games unfortunately, especially ones with any sort of anticheat.
The games with client side anticheat install a rootkit. I wouldn't install any if they paid me to, let alone pirate them.
Most games without anticheat work fine. Sometimes there are issues with DRM, but the pirated version with the DRM bypassed will often work.
I was using TechBench to download ISO's from MS without having to change my useragent.
Sadly it looks like the project has been retired in favour of their Files project, but trawling through that to find entries that actually have download links is a royal pain in the ass.
If anyone has a tip on easily finding the latest download for each Windows version then I'd love to hear it.
Edit: Massgrave seems to be current best option: https://massgrave.dev/genuine-installation-media.html
~~The easy way to get a clean copy is to download it directly from Microsoft. You can generate a valid download link using the follwing website (just make sure the domain of the generated link points to Microsoft and nothing bad can happen)~~
~~\https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php~~
As for the activation, I have found that the My Digital Life Forums have good activators available usually:
https://forums.mydigitallife.net/forums/kms-and-other-tools.51/
Edit: Sorry it looks like TechBench is dead, but this site seems to work the same way:
Just use quickemu, it will download the ISO and setup the VM for you in less than 10 minutes. If it doesn't download the ISO you can get it from M$'s website.
Also if you don't wanna pay and don't absolutely need windows just use any one of the many free Linux distros honestly.
https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php /s, but you can use the offical version for playing games and stuff without paying, and there are easy ways to get around the limitations (remove watermark, change desktop background, etc).
Even if I hate to pay for it, the best safe solution get a cheap windows 7 or 10 key and if you want upgrade it. It's free. Pirating something like an os is high risk I won't do it.