Does Microsoft encourage the piracy of its products?

**St. Augustine** · June 02, 2007, 01:52 PM

I've been pondering this alot lately particularly in the case of Windows Vista. Here Microsoft have managed to encourage piracy for several reasons.

Firstly the pricing of this product is well beyond the means of many users & this is particularly the case in countries such as Britain where Microsoft have simply changed the dollar sign at the beginning of the price for a pount sign ignoring the fact that the pound's value is currently twice that of the dollar. This of course becomes more of an issue as (to repeat an argument I have heard from Vista pirates) Microsoft have added enough in the way of new features to make users curious but not enoughj to actually encourage them to pay the hefty price. Instead many people find themselves pirating the software out of curiousity so as to "experiment" with the new OS.

Secondly due to Microsofts frankly daft anti-piracy measures there are now pirated copies of Vista available which are more useful to consumers than legally brought copies. The limit upon the number of times a user can reinstall Vista directly limits the use consumers can gain from the product before having to repurchase Vista or make a request to Microsoft allowing them another reinstall. In comparasion there are now pirate copies of Vista which not only allow limitless reinstallations but also can be placed upon many PCs at once & still validate.

Finally it appears that Microsoft never act to make examples of pirates. News of Microsoft engaging in legal action against domestic pirates has never reached my ears & thus I am left assuming that Microsoft simply do not prosecute individuals who pirate their software for home use.

I should of course point out that this is by no means a thread which desires to encourage or justify piracy. I purely believe that Microsoft act in a manner which encourages theft & wished to see if others shared this belief.

**Rhinosaur** · June 02, 2007, 01:54 PM

Didn't Microsoft remove the limit to reinstalls after public outcry?

**St. Augustine** · June 02, 2007, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by Rhinosaur

Didn't Microsoft remove the limit to reinstalls after public outcry?

I hadn't heard about that. I'll have a check.......

Yes you're right! That's taught me something. All the same it can only be installed on one PC at a time in compared to the infinite installs of some pirates.

**Niccolo Machiavelli** · June 02, 2007, 02:43 PM

To some extent I was wondering about that as well - I have Vista installed on my Laptop and didn't pay that much for it ($5.95 for the upgrade from XP tablet PC edition to Vista Business), but benchmarks show that an upgraded windows is the slowest MS OS one can get - I don't mind it that much as the laptop is pretty fast, I use it for work only and the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks on that particular machine.

Having that said, I think I would be better off with a pirated copy due to the fact that I could have Vista ultimate, it would be faster than my odd upgrade version and I could install it on another partition of my desktop, once first DX 10 games I care for are out.

But what about upgrades of these pirated versions? I think Windows update may not work and MS will have included enough flaws to make them a necessity some day...

**mrmouth** · June 02, 2007, 05:52 PM

I think its a disaster how they have handled it and most of the gaming world is not laughing. The sales figures are not that bad but mostly because of the Dells of the world selling only Vista PCs now. You can still get a Dell or Gateway with XP but you have to threaten not to buy from them, then they will sell you a XP PC.

Im not upgrading until I have to, hopefully prices will be down by then and I can get a OEM ultimate for fairly cheap.

**drak10687** · June 03, 2007, 05:29 AM

I don't have a link atm, but my dad reads lots of Russian news, and he told me a couple stories about Vista... this was a while back, so I might mess some facts up, but they went something like this:

Some school administrator/teacher in Russia bough several new computers which apparently turned out to all have a pirated version of MS office. The school/school board threatened to sew/fire the guy for this once this was discovered, and contacted MS; however MS/Bill Gates said they had no intention of any legal action, and so I believe none was ever taken.

The other story I heard is that MS planned to sell Vista in places where many pirated version are sold for "competitive" prices (i.e. dirt cheap), since otherwise they would get no sales at all.

Anyways, hopefully my memory didn't make too much of that up...

**wipeout140** · June 03, 2007, 06:06 AM

Originally Posted by drak10687

The other story I heard is that MS planned to sell Vista in places where many pirated version are sold for "competitive" prices (i.e. dirt cheap), since otherwise they would get no sales at all.

Yes but they are Windows Vista Stater Kit and And Office 07 Starter for $3 in Africa and china so very basic and reduced

**mrmouth** · June 03, 2007, 11:58 AM

Well office is what, $500-600 here, I almost had a seizure when I saw the price in a store.

**Elrond** · June 03, 2007, 01:02 PM

All my computers I have had (4 since I was 8 years old) have had legal operating systems and illegal copies of office - its just not worth paying £200-300 for it - if I couldnt get hold of ilegal copies I would use open office (which I use when I am on Ubuntu anyway).

If it were a similar price to vista I would consider it out of honesty but at the current price tag its just not worth it - I mean vista ultimate (which I payed for) is less than half the price of the full version of office 2007.

**mrmouth** · June 03, 2007, 01:53 PM

I swear I was looking around trying to spot the cameras as if I was on a hidden camera show when I saw the price of office pro.

Then this salesman comes up and applies pressure.

Salesman: So your looking at office, which version?

Me: No, I'm just shocked at the prices, I don't even run Vista.

Salesman: Well yeah its pricey but it has a ton of features, I bought one for my daughters and they have great fun with it.

Me: Hmm, yeah I'm sure they love it, how couldnt they, I gotta go now....

**drak10687** · June 04, 2007, 12:46 PM

I bought a legal version of office for xp (2002?) for 60$ CAD, because I bought it at the university store, while online, the same version was going for 150-200$. If you look for software at university/college stores or co-ops, you usually get really great deals. Sometimes you might actually have to go to that university, but most of the time, you just have to pay 5-10 bucks to become a member.

**Zuwxiv** · June 05, 2007, 03:53 PM

Over the weekend I did buy
and build a fancy rig.
Oh how the hours did fly
when formatting that pig.

This beast, you see, is fairly nice
and runs most everything well.
Even Lost Planet with all the ice
and effects you could hardly tell

that it wasn't real; it was great
to see that game be played,
but even with the DX 10 bait,
my Vista upgrade is delayed.

For you see, it simply is too new
And XP I'm not yet willing to forgo
Because it oddly ends up true
that 1.4 is better than two-point-O!

So I give it time, and Microsoft
Can fix their swiss cheese stuff,
But until 2.3 is held aloft
XP is sure enough!

**wipeout140** · June 05, 2007, 03:56 PM

+Rep for you for the effort in the poem

**sunsmountain** · June 06, 2007, 04:11 AM

Indeed.

If the price point for a full unlimited install (with most features) does not come near the $150 GBP75 EUR120 mark, I would be tempted to explore the pirate possibilities only when I would actually want to play a DX 10 game. If it does come near the mark, I am willing to pay Microsoft for:

Direct X (driver support)
Windows media player (codecs)
a functional not-too-buggy OS (updates sometimes necessary, worm attacks come to mind, but then again i use firefox and watertight firewalls)

I'll never buy Office.

And I would pay $10 more if they could implement the multi-3d-window spanning the superior Apple way.