By being smart enough to get their OS packaged with new retail PCs in the 90's while the market for them was just warming up. They kept their stranglehold going by not caring too hard about piracy. Just enough to keep from losing any trademark considerations.
ISO download from Microsoft directly. Use Rufus to make an installer USB. Click the “I do not have a license key” option. Who cares about the watermark.
HWID is permanent, even after Microsoft fixed the method that massgravel was using. It only affected new installs because people couldn’t run the script to activate Windows permanently.
Hm, I could have sworn I had read an article around here (roughly the last two months maybe, likely more recently) saying that the MAS had been patched by Microsoft, but now I can't find anything about it at all. Odd.
They patched new HWID requests being sent, but any existing licenses made with those methods are fine. That was only one of several ways to spoof yourself legitimate, though. The rest still work.
I’d start there and see if it can be used for 11 or upgraded through the versions. Then I’d take a “clean” backup and use that to re-install in the future, instead of a new ISO.
Mmmm you’re talking about key resellers. A full retail version costs $150. Keys from key resellers are notoriously unreliable. It might work forever, or it might stop working a week after you authenticated. It’s more or less a gamble.
Great if it works for you, sucks if someone just wasted money (however little) on something that’ll stop working - especially if it’s grandma’s machine.
Also, hedge your bets a little better, buy the ones that cost $10 or even $15. Historically speaking those are a safer bet.
Well, it is technically “piracy” but it’s amateur piracy. No need to get fancy with torrents and VPNs or whatnot. Just download the software and… not pay.
Well given op said download it from microsoft then yes it will be riddled with spyware but that’s the genuine windows experience® for you…
The downvoted guy you replied to is right. You can download the (genuine) iso off microsoft and install it without paying M$ anything, it will work fine other than not being able to change wallpaper etc.
If that small restriction annoys you the MAS (linked elsewhere in thread) is the answer
Except if the malware has already infected the recovery partition or completely removed it. Personally I'd take no chances and just nuke the HDD and perform a fresh install.
Safest image download would be from Microsoft website. You need activation? Look up Microsoft Activation Script (MAS) on Github. Read the readme on how to use it.
Considering it’s a laptop with a working Windows, it probably already has a licence for the hardware. Just download from Microsoft, wipe disk and install it and see if it works.
NGL I’m so tired right now I thought you were serious about there being a “Windows Debian Edition”
I even googled it lol
I do agree though that if your mum only uses the PC for like day to day browsing she’ll never notice a difference if you put a Windows style skin on your preferred Linux distro. Hell she might notice it being faster all around to be honest.
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