6 ms·

I recently reinstalled a colleague's laptop, with Windows 10, done quick and dirty, he was concerned he didn't have a key/license, said doesn't matter, we can i

I recently reinstalled a colleague's laptop, with Windows 10, done quick and dirty, he was concerned he didn't have a key/license, said doesn't matter, we can install first and activate later. After installation, the thing was self-activated. Legit ISO downloaded from Microsoft, though via that ISO downloader software, starts with something with "H" and runs ads when you use it. Kinda makes me wonder why MS is even bothering gatekeeping their ISOs. Why not make them freely available? ...nobody makes cash of OSes anymore... It's market share they're after.

corobo 7y ago
You mean like this? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...
- gruez 7y ago
  That page seems to have some user agent sniffing. If you're on windows it doesn't offer direct iso download.
  - corobo 7y ago
    Of course Windows gets the worse version of it.. Come on over to Linux everyone! We’re bound to have the year of Linux on the desktop, any decade now.
    - vetinari 7y ago
      > Of course Windows gets the worse version of it.. Not really. Linux/Macs get iso, which has install.wim larger than 4GB. That means, you cannot copy it to FAT-32 formatted USB and boot it; you have to burn it (or mount as virtual cd in vm). Alternative would be using dism to split it, but for that, you need working windows machine, leading to chicken-egg problem. The windows version, although it gets media creator, has install.esd instead of install.wim (with different compression), so it fits into FAT32-formatted filesystem.
      - withinrafael 7y ago
        Mainstream motherboard OEMs ship UEFI firmware that contains drivers to handle NTFS at boot.
        vetinari 7y ago
        Some of them, it is not mandatory. The quality of implementations varies, some are so terrible, that they have problem with remembering what the user configured (hi, Gigabyte).
      - earenndil 7y ago
        You can use exfat and it will fit.
        gruez 7y ago
        that's technically not supported by the UEFI standard.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
gruez 7y ago
>Kinda makes me wonder why MS is even bothering gatekeeping their ISOs. Why not make them freely available? They are freely available... kind of. There's a site[1] that generates direct download links from microsoft's CDN. [1] https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php
- klingonopera 7y ago
  Yeah, they are, but why the hoops? I think they kinda have to justify that somewhere, someone bought the software for a non-neglible amount of money...
vel0city 7y ago
Modern hardware can store license keys on the motherboard's firmware. When you go to reinstall it checks the device to see if it has any valid Windows keys. FWIW, this isn't exactly a new feature, just a feature which has been expanded on and is far more common with modern UEFI firmware on devices shipped by OEMs. If you notice, most modern laptops don't ship with a product key sticker anywhere. Instead they have a genuine holographic Windows sticker on it and have the license loaded on the device. This became standard for large OEMs with Windows 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC

corobo 7y ago

You mean like this? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

gruez 7y ago
That page seems to have some user agent sniffing. If you're on windows it doesn't offer direct iso download.
- corobo 7y ago
  Of course Windows gets the worse version of it.. Come on over to Linux everyone! We’re bound to have the year of Linux on the desktop, any decade now.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    > Of course Windows gets the worse version of it.. Not really. Linux/Macs get iso, which has install.wim larger than 4GB. That means, you cannot copy it to FAT-32 formatted USB and boot it; you have to burn it (or mount as virtual cd in vm). Alternative would be using dism to split it, but for that, you need working windows machine, leading to chicken-egg problem. The windows version, although it gets media creator, has install.esd instead of install.wim (with different compression), so it fits into FAT32-formatted filesystem.
    - withinrafael 7y ago
      Mainstream motherboard OEMs ship UEFI firmware that contains drivers to handle NTFS at boot.
      - vetinari 7y ago
        Some of them, it is not mandatory. The quality of implementations varies, some are so terrible, that they have problem with remembering what the user configured (hi, Gigabyte).
    - earenndil 7y ago
      You can use exfat and it will fit.
      - gruez 7y ago
        that's technically not supported by the UEFI standard.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

gruez 7y ago

>Kinda makes me wonder why MS is even bothering gatekeeping their ISOs. Why not make them freely available? They are freely available... kind of. There's a site[1] that generates direct download links from microsoft's CDN. [1] https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php

klingonopera 7y ago
Yeah, they are, but why the hoops? I think they kinda have to justify that somewhere, someone bought the software for a non-neglible amount of money...

vel0city 7y ago

Modern hardware can store license keys on the motherboard's firmware. When you go to reinstall it checks the device to see if it has any valid Windows keys. FWIW, this isn't exactly a new feature, just a feature which has been expanded on and is far more common with modern UEFI firmware on devices shipped by OEMs. If you notice, most modern laptops don't ship with a product key sticker anywhere. Instead they have a genuine holographic Windows sticker on it and have the license loaded on the device. This became standard for large OEMs with Windows 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC