• AllOutOfBubbleGum@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    You don’t even need to “pirate” Windows anymore. You can download an ISO from Microsoft’s website, install it, and when it asks for your license key, you click “I don’t have one”, and that’s the end of it. If you look in the activation settings, it’ll say “not activated”, but nothing will ever become of it. This even works if you install it as Pro. It’s not like the Windows XP/7 days where you’d get a 60 day scare timer. They just don’t seem to care anymore, or maybe all that telemetry they siphon up from you is just that much more valuable.

    • cannedtuna@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      PSA

      If you see Windows 11 online DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT!!!

      It will install a virus called Windows 11 and it will run Windows 11 on your PC!!!

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      Even Windows 7 actually didn’t care if you had no key.

      You could leave it unactivated forever and the worst thing that would happen is it would have a “Activate windows” watermark message bottom right over the desktop, and it wouldn’t let you change the personalization settings eg theming (oh no).

        • Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I miss all those super weird XP editions seemingly made by colourblind and hyper 8 year olds (at least in taste). Like rockets, gold or muscle car themed distros.

          Nowadays all themes seems so… adult and boring. Tried to find some weird stuff in Plasma but alas

          • Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.orgEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            That’s not related only to windows themes. It’s an overall design shift. Cars, phones, businesses, PC parts, everything has been shifting towards this adult, boring, sleek, corporate, uniform, grey look.

          • Techno-rat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            1·
            3 months ago

            Hannah Montana Linux OS keeping this proud tradition going singlehandedly. ✊

            Edit: not singlehandedly, just learned of the two other parts of the holy Linux trifecta, RebeccaBlackOS & Justin Bieber Linux Distro

    • tiramichu@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      3 months ago

      You’re right, they don’t care.

      The very fact they no longer care about enforcing licensing anymore is itself the strongest evidence that selling Windows as a product is not where the money is.

      They want you on their operating system for any price - including zero -because once you are there that’s when the advertising, cloud service upsell and data monetisisation can begin.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      I do regret paying for windows once years ago. I always hated Microsoft a lot, but truly never thought they could sink as low as they have.

  • StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    This is perfect, this is what a steam deck is built for! Doing whatever the fuck you want with the hardware even if people don’t like it