As someone who has actually never bough a Windows key even though I started with Win 98, and I before this Win 10 installation have never genuinely activated any them, I quite easily understand why they don’t do it that way any more. I also do remember back when Windows 7 was going through this exact same thing how trivially easy it was to get those updates without paying - so easy in fact that most people assumed MS did it on purpose just so that people would rather pirate them than run an unpatched installation for three years.
Back in the days of Dinosaurs and AOL CDs, you could just go to Best Buy and buy a CD with the Windows software and a key was printed on a scratch-off panel.
You could even just buy a key electronically from some grey market websites.
Why yes, our bodies, and our brains, are designed to be as dense as possible to be more efficient! This is why our brains’ gray matter has a lot of crevices so it can fold onto itself.
You can prevent piracy using a stronger keygen algorithm and online activation.
Valve sells product keys all the time, you don’t hear about them having a keygen problem. People just bypass the authentication altogether and simply torrent the software, which is something people still do with Windows 11.
Yeah I mean how are they going to verify you paid without an associated account
A key, exactly like they did it for decades? Same way they verified you paid for that copy of Windows?
I mean… I have valid keys for various Windows versions I never paid for 🤷♂️
As someone who has actually never bough a Windows key even though I started with Win 98, and I before this Win 10 installation have never genuinely activated any them, I quite easily understand why they don’t do it that way any more. I also do remember back when Windows 7 was going through this exact same thing how trivially easy it was to get those updates without paying - so easy in fact that most people assumed MS did it on purpose just so that people would rather pirate them than run an unpatched installation for three years.
It’s not an assumption, it’s the reality. They made it easy so they could obtain marketshare, same shit every company does before they bend you over.
Don’t you need a Windows account to buy a key?
Back in the days of Dinosaurs and AOL CDs, you could just go to Best Buy and buy a CD with the Windows software and a key was printed on a scratch-off panel.
You could even just buy a key electronically from some grey market websites.
It was still like that up until Windows 8, at least.
Right, well, its not 2003 anymore
What’s your point? Is it now somehow no longer physically possible to sell product keys in store due to some higher decree?
Because it doesn’t prevent piracy. Are you dense ?
Why yes, our bodies, and our brains, are designed to be as dense as possible to be more efficient! This is why our brains’ gray matter has a lot of crevices so it can fold onto itself.
You can prevent piracy using a stronger keygen algorithm and online activation.
Valve sells product keys all the time, you don’t hear about them having a keygen problem. People just bypass the authentication altogether and simply torrent the software, which is something people still do with Windows 11.