Great input, thanks! I'm as much as economist as a lawyer, (ie. not, too angry), but love exploring these weird corner cases. Most cases my customers are already paying for windoze licenses for me, even office, visio, other things I might request, but I tend to need them locally on systems, and keep windows+visio/project accordingly as vm's myself. If I ask a company, it's like $1000 service catalog fee for office+visio+project+windoze itself. Or I just buy it myself for all out the door $40 and ignore the PHB problems. If I were a mega corp, I'd exploit these just to do so and see what Microsoft does. I skirt the line of business and personal use, and feel no remorse for any wrongs against The Beast Microsoft. I have to imagine some do, I'd love to hear the war stories. My Microsoft use is mostly educational, running domain software stacks that are windoze-only, as I need to interact with products around it in literally any enterprise today. I was pondering buying some server keys to build out modern AD (fsmo, gc, ldap, kb5) to test some software integration like NAC features (packetfence) and some vendor integrations around a "typical" enterprise setting. I'm not making money on microsoft, just mostly need to understand how broken it is when my customer admins ask me what to do with their domain crap. It's not bad to have a small test domain around ala contoso.com with accounts to test against for security features, as every poor bastard needs windoze around... -mb On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 2:20 PM trent shipley via PLUG-discuss < plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation > > From a producer perspective, segmentation is GOOD. > From a producer perspective producing the Nth copy of a good almost for > free is fantastic. > > But if consumers can ALSO copy and distribute your product at very, very > low cost, that is Very Bad. > > On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 11:33 AM AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss < > plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > >> Just to chime in here as a long time Windows user (SQL Server DBA), you >> technically don't even need a key to run Windows. I run several Windows VMs >> in "unactivated" mode and have never run into any issues (I don't really >> like "wasting" keys on VMs). Granted that there a few restrictions, such as >> being unable to change desktop wallpaper, customize taskbar, etc. >> Generally, "look and feel" features. But, you will get all the security >> updates and retain full functionality of the O/S and it won't "expire". >> Note that this applies to Windows desktop, Windows Server will "expire" >> after about four months after which you must reinstall the O/S (total BS >> since SQL Server Developer edition is free & never expires, but the license >> is for dev purposes only not production use). I have bought keys from >> Kinguin.net over the years, but haven't done so it a while. They are legit >> keys, but technically they are OEM keys. A bit of a "grey" area, but use >> you're own judgement. >> >> Hope this helps, >> Peter >> >> >> On 6/16/2023 7:31 AM, Anthony Radzykewycz via PLUG-discuss wrote: >> >> I’m curious to know if the keys bought off this site would match any keys >> found in places like this: >> https://gist.github.com/jhermsmeier/5959110. Also, what would be the >> liability if you paid for the license and that key was pirated like this? >> To be clear, I agree with the advocation of getting these keys as >> inexpensively as possible. Just thought I’d throw this out there and maybe >> you could do a quick compare just in case. >> >> On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 7:24 AM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss < >> plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: >> >>> Thanks for sharing this Michael!! If I can get a legit copy of Win10 >>> and Win11 for cheep I will eventually install on a VM. >>> >>> >>> On 2023-06-16 04:21, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote: >>> >> Are the installation discs sufficient to install Win10 on a no-OS >>> > computer (or a Linux computer with some extra space on the root >>> > drive)? >>> > >>> > Yep, you install the iso from microsoft.com [1] so it's legit, vm or >>> > hardware, give it a key during/after install, and off to the races. >>> > >>> > -mb >>> > >>> > On Thu, Jun 15, 2023 at 11:15 PM Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss >>> > wrote: >>> > >>> >> Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss said on Thu, 15 Jun 2023 18:22:08 >>> >> -0700 >>> >> >>> >>> So interestingly enough, if/when I need windoze, I often buy from a >>> >>> place like THIS, as a method of getting Windoze officially >>> >> licensed, >>> >>> flat cheap. >>> >>> >>> > < >>> http://mail.sendmailco.com/index.php/campaigns/tb637ap0sybfa/track-url/gv224svhyh867/11430a51e55c5971d23f31e2e7ede8b0f9331165 >>> > >>> >>> It updates itself, never had a problem, and simply just works. >>> >> >>> >> Are these legitimate licenses, or Far-East knockoffs? >>> >> >>> >> Are the installation discs sufficient to install Win10 on a no-OS >>> >> computer (or a Linux computer with some extra space on the root >>> >> drive)? >>> >> >>> >> Can you install these as Qemu guests on my Linux computer? >>> >> >>> >> Thanks, >>> >> >>> >> SteveT >>> >> >>> >> Steve Litt >>> >> Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times >>> >> http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm >>> >> --------------------------------------------------- >>> >> PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >>> >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:why you >>> >> need a mentor >>> >> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >>> > >>> > >>> > Links: >>> > ------ >>> > [1] http://microsoft.com >>> > --------------------------------------------------- >>> > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >>> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >>> > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >>> --------------------------------------------------- >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >>> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >>> >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >