4 ms·

Maybe I’m wrong but Windows is “free” (as in beer) unless you want to change your desktop, and then you have to fork over 100 dollars (if you don’t just buy a l

Maybe I’m wrong but Windows is “free” (as in beer) unless you want to change your desktop, and then you have to fork over 100 dollars (if you don’t just buy a license from one of these grey market sellers who advertise on youtube). It seems pretty clear to me that Microsoft serves ads and collects people’s data to subsidize, at least to some degree the losses of not selling license codes for 150-200 dollars. This is because Google has its Chromebook platform that sells a laptop with ad subsidized (its their business model afterall) word processing, other cloud apps and “operating system.” I don’t know if I’m missing something but if I’m not I don’t understand why people think Microsoft is just randomly serving ads on Windows (to keep up earnings wise with google from quarter to quarter as it gives one of its former cash-cows away for free).

yellowapple 3y ago
> unless you want to change your desktop, and then you have to fork over 100 dollars (if you don’t just buy a license from one of these grey market sellers who advertise on youtube). That, or you install vlmcsd somewhere and activate against that.
- Animux 3y ago
  Or py-kms.
Kwpolska 3y ago
Microsoft doesn't really care about pirate home users, their primary source of income is business users, and these tend to buy many more Microsoft products than just client Windows. Moreover, the vast majority of home users just buys a laptop with a fully licensed copy of Windows preinstalled.
- 7speter 3y ago
  Even then, google proved most people are okay with having their data collected and if they can get away with it, might as well profit off of it too. Also, maybe this is an old thing, but doesn’t ms get some money for having windows installed on prebuilds. And yes, I know microsoft makes most of its profit off of enterprise and government contracts, but thats not gonna stop them from collecting data for immediate (and potentially long term, if they find some new thing to do with said data) profit.
- 369548684892826 3y ago
  It’s not ‘pirating’ to not pay for Windows for quite a while now. The license is optional and I don’t bother with it on VMs.
  - 369548684892826 3y ago
    For anyone wondering some details here [0]. You can now easily download the installation ISO directly from Microsoft, and choose to run it either 'activated' or 'unactivated', but there's no piracy involved. 0: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-...
    - Kwpolska 3y ago
      You can download the ISO from Microsoft, and an unactivated OS is usable, but this is still not a properly licensed copy of Windows, which constitutes piracy.
      - 369548684892826 3y ago
        Thanks, I've had a closer look at the Windows EULA and you're right. Guess I should apply some of my product keys to those VMs!
lozenge 3y ago
There are no losses. Firstly they charge the manufacturer to bundle a license, secondly their Office revenue depends entirely on users being able to run the software. And their Windows Server and Azure AD revenue depends on connectivity with Windows clients. And they need people to be familiar with Windows UI more than could be achieved just using it in an office.
pas 3y ago
I'd gladly pay 100 bucks for Win 11 as it came out. But since then it's just getting worse, it's buggy (frequent BSODs/freezes/not-waking-up-from-sleeps on my AMD desktop), Windows Update is still shit (it reboots automatically without even once asking, yes I know there's a setting; sometimes the update takes ages on one of my laptops), it's an uphill battle, very reminiscent of ~2010 Linux desktop era. Oh that reminds me, "i know unix", why am I using this? And then I installed Ubuntu on the desktop box, and it works. And Steam and wine works, and it goes to sleep and wakes up, and amdgpu driver works, and HiDPI works, and so on.
- TheKarateKid 3y ago
  It works! Until you install a bad update that bricks critical functionality of your OS. Just rollback the update! Ok, found a copy of an older package from some repo. Oh no!! This older version requires 5 older dependencies which were updated with 32 others during the update. 5 hours later: Ugh. I'll just have to do a fresh OS install again.
- 7speter 3y ago
  >…Oh that reminds me, "i know unix", why am I using this? And then I installed Ubuntu on the desktop box, and it works. And Steam and wine works, and it goes to sleep and wakes up, and amdgpu driver works, and HiDPI works, and so on. Funny, friend, thats been my experience too. I’m even living dangerously with a nvidia gpu in my system atm.
  - pas 3y ago
    I even bought a geforce 2060 super, to eliminate one possible cause of the Windows BSODs. Both work well. (I've even installed some unstable unreleased something from https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.2-rc4/ https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.2-rc4/ , and via DKMS nvidia drivers worked pretty well. If I remember correctly. But I wanted to try test Wayland, so switched back to the 5700XT.)
brokenmachine 3y ago
What annoys me is there is no price I could just pay to get an ad-free, perpetual licence for Windows with no "telemetry". It's all rent seeking and I will drop Windows like a bad smell as soon as Linux works well for a couple of things I use that are Windows-only. Still on Win 10 for my desktop but the laptop came with Win 11 which is an abomination.

yellowapple 3y ago

> unless you want to change your desktop, and then you have to fork over 100 dollars (if you don’t just buy a license from one of these grey market sellers who advertise on youtube). That, or you install vlmcsd somewhere and activate against that.

Animux 3y ago
Or py-kms.

Kwpolska 3y ago

Microsoft doesn't really care about pirate home users, their primary source of income is business users, and these tend to buy many more Microsoft products than just client Windows. Moreover, the vast majority of home users just buys a laptop with a fully licensed copy of Windows preinstalled.

7speter 3y ago
Even then, google proved most people are okay with having their data collected and if they can get away with it, might as well profit off of it too. Also, maybe this is an old thing, but doesn’t ms get some money for having windows installed on prebuilds. And yes, I know microsoft makes most of its profit off of enterprise and government contracts, but thats not gonna stop them from collecting data for immediate (and potentially long term, if they find some new thing to do with said data) profit.
369548684892826 3y ago
It’s not ‘pirating’ to not pay for Windows for quite a while now. The license is optional and I don’t bother with it on VMs.
- 369548684892826 3y ago
  For anyone wondering some details here [0]. You can now easily download the installation ISO directly from Microsoft, and choose to run it either 'activated' or 'unactivated', but there's no piracy involved. 0: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-cheap,5717.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-windows-10-free-or-...
  - Kwpolska 3y ago
    You can download the ISO from Microsoft, and an unactivated OS is usable, but this is still not a properly licensed copy of Windows, which constitutes piracy.
    - 369548684892826 3y ago
      Thanks, I've had a closer look at the Windows EULA and you're right. Guess I should apply some of my product keys to those VMs!

lozenge 3y ago

There are no losses. Firstly they charge the manufacturer to bundle a license, secondly their Office revenue depends entirely on users being able to run the software. And their Windows Server and Azure AD revenue depends on connectivity with Windows clients. And they need people to be familiar with Windows UI more than could be achieved just using it in an office.

pas 3y ago

I'd gladly pay 100 bucks for Win 11 as it came out. But since then it's just getting worse, it's buggy (frequent BSODs/freezes/not-waking-up-from-sleeps on my AMD desktop), Windows Update is still shit (it reboots automatically without even once asking, yes I know there's a setting; sometimes the update takes ages on one of my laptops), it's an uphill battle, very reminiscent of ~2010 Linux desktop era. Oh that reminds me, "i know unix", why am I using this? And then I installed Ubuntu on the desktop box, and it works. And Steam and wine works, and it goes to sleep and wakes up, and amdgpu driver works, and HiDPI works, and so on.

TheKarateKid 3y ago
It works! Until you install a bad update that bricks critical functionality of your OS. Just rollback the update! Ok, found a copy of an older package from some repo. Oh no!! This older version requires 5 older dependencies which were updated with 32 others during the update. 5 hours later: Ugh. I'll just have to do a fresh OS install again.
7speter 3y ago
>…Oh that reminds me, "i know unix", why am I using this? And then I installed Ubuntu on the desktop box, and it works. And Steam and wine works, and it goes to sleep and wakes up, and amdgpu driver works, and HiDPI works, and so on. Funny, friend, thats been my experience too. I’m even living dangerously with a nvidia gpu in my system atm.
- pas 3y ago
  I even bought a geforce 2060 super, to eliminate one possible cause of the Windows BSODs. Both work well. (I've even installed some unstable unreleased something from https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.2-rc4/ https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.2-rc4/ , and via DKMS nvidia drivers worked pretty well. If I remember correctly. But I wanted to try test Wayland, so switched back to the 5700XT.)

brokenmachine 3y ago

What annoys me is there is no price I could just pay to get an ad-free, perpetual licence for Windows with no "telemetry". It's all rent seeking and I will drop Windows like a bad smell as soon as Linux works well for a couple of things I use that are Windows-only. Still on Win 10 for my desktop but the laptop came with Win 11 which is an abomination.