Pirated Software?

[OffRoad]

while that was true, in the past it doesn't seem to be any more. Single key corporate licenses are apparently no longer sold according to the MS Oem channel.

They are if you are a licenced MS tech. A friend of mine does all the network stuff for our county and he still gets corporate licences for Windows, Office as well as other third party software companies.

Your friend may be purchasing more than 5 copies at a time which seems to be the minimum number for volume license purchases.

If you act within 90 days you can buy Software Assurance on your OEM license purchases which effectively gives you a volume license (even for a single computer). Unless you also order volume license media you will still need to use the single OEM license and key that came with your computer.

[dandynick5]

Yes, he gets a 300 copy corporate licence. I'm too good a friend to ask, but sometimes I've thought about it.

[___]

Simply put, re: OP, if the Vernon shop did not provide any method of recovery of the Operating System then I would suspect it is pirated. Try going to http://www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com and see if it will process updates, one of which should be to verify the OS install. Even if it works it could just be a matter of time before the update might fail....though is a good first step.

I would definitely insist the tech provide some form of recovery set, even if it was only to image the drive before it got cluttered with user files and programs.

Good luck

[dsldriver]

In conversation with a friend who works for Microsoft, I have been told that as long as you have the COA (Certificate of Authenticity) on your machine, it doesn't matter if you have 50 disks with the OS on it. It is the number on the COA that is the almighty.

I have XP Pro on my desktop with a legit COA and disk. I also have XP Home with a legit COA, but a burned disk with the OS on it. The original XP Home disk was destroyed by carpet crawling rug rats. Ummmm. My kids.

Microsoft will replace the disk, but at a huge cost. Get a computer shop to make a copy of the disk for you, but have your machine with the COA with you.

If the shop that you had XP installed at didn't put a sticker on it, demand your money back, or turn them into Microsoft. A computer store in Penticton was shut down for installing pirated copies of Windows on machines for their customers.

[BriTer]

Thank you for the info on pirated software.

In the New Year, I will be purchasing a desktop and a laptop for my husband's work as well as a desktop for home use. His workplace wants everyone using XP not Vista and I will have to switch back to XP as well as my husband does a lot of work from home and wants the same OS on all computers he works on.

Question: What is the best way to uninstall Vista and replace it with XP. One suggestion I read on a tech forum is to use "killdisk"...any thoughts on that? Lots of others suggest partitioning the hard drive - beyond my capabilites. Is it best to get a tech to do it and, if so, what do you think that should cost if I provide the license and disk?

Thank you.

Does this help???
http://classifieds.castanet.net/showpro ... 07&cat=110

[smcnaughts]

H
I have been going through this topic and like to clarify some things with you. First of all if you take a computer in with vista on it and you want xp put on it, Xp Pro is going to cost you alone $250 (Xp Home is $150) Plus then installation which could cost you another $200, so if they only paid $200 then there is pirated software on that laptop especially if they didnt give you a disc, you will always get a disc if you purcahse a legitmate version of Xp. Number 2, if you go to future shop or any other computer resleer that sell home computers they are alll gonna come with vista, the problem there is that all the machines where designed for vsta and find the correct drivers is going to be very difficult, so you dont want to do it that way because it will be pricey, and it might just not work the right way. What you going to want to do is talk to computer companys that deal with buisnesses because we build machines that are built for Windows Xp for around the same price cause we dont implement Vista into buisnesses, TO MANY PROBLEMS!!! =