AFAIK most Windows users did in fact pay for their license, because most computers are pre built. I bought a few laptops and paid for the Windows license each time, even if I don’t use Windows.
It’s the evil genius of Microsoft’s scheme. They’re getting money from every computer sold from big manufacturers. Everyone is paying Microsoft whether they want it or not. It’s been a problem for more than 25 years.
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If you bought a PC in the 90s you still paid Microsoft even if it was shipped with no OS at all.
Microsoft illegally leveraged their near-monopoly to force vendors to either pay them per processor shipped regardless of operating system, or they wouldn’t be allowed to OEM any MS products. This forced anyone who wanted to offer an alternative such as OS/2 or DR DOS to charge more for it since they’d be paying both MS and Digital Research or IBM for the same machine. Eventually the DoJ gave them a tiny slap on the wrist and told them to stop, but not until they’d finished off all potential commercial threats to Windows.
https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html
Most Windows users paid for multiple licenses in their lifetime. For most prebuilt PCs or laptops you buy a windows licence with the device.
When you buy a new device you can get it without windows and just use the old license. But who bothers to do that? The people who do are probably a minority and most of them use Linux anyways.
Yep. Every pre-built I have ever bought had Windows installed. And my new mini desktop came with Windows 11 on in it. It booted Win11 just long enough to prove it could push watts and then immediately got wiped in favor of Kinonite. It will never see a Windows install again.
In some countries (eg: Italy), businesses are legally required to pay licences of any software they need; ofc many little shops or single person business aren’t going to pay them but bigger ones will for sure
The self check-outs at a grocery store near me doesn’t pay for Windows either
Based.
I bought an used mainboard once. After some time i remembered i need to activate windows, to realize the person i bought it from did this with massgrave and this board now automatically activates itself with this.
You pay with your data. Some are also paying with money.
everyone pays with money, even if they use linux, because license fee is included in every computer sold with windows preinstalled.
Not everyone, pc’s sold without license and which are used with pirated windows or free OS’s.
yes, 99.998% is much much less than 100%
yes, “everyone” means “all except those guys. and those. and part of these guys too. but everyone, totally, fr fr”
If you buy a pre-built computer, sure.
You probably paid a Windows license for your Linux machine, if you didn’t buy it second-hand. Everyone buying a computer with Windows preinstalled buys a Windows license.
I bought a Framework with no preinstalled OS 😋
Edit: Desktop was built from parts, no pre-installed OS 😋😋
Mine was a Tuxedo with Linux preinstalled. But we are a rare breed, even among users of Linux.
No matter what distro it came with, I’m sure it was the wrong one 😆
My PC all come as parts or second hand. Sometimes both.
Some mini PCs are possibly interesting new, but I wouldn’t be getting one with windows if I do ever get one.
I buy all my shit second hand. All 3 of my laptops and my desktop were bought used. I love e-waste and I know that it loves me too.
That said, I did forget prebuilt shit already has a license cooked into it lol. So yeah, my bad.
My laptop came without an OS
The thinkpad I bought (Not a used one btw) didnt had any os installed
Where do people buy computers with linux from normal shops?
Thinkpads frequently were sold with no Windows at the time
The average PC user definitely paid for Windows, especially if they bought a pre-built.
It’s amazing how some people insist on that.
I told a buddy I can set him up for his new laptop, nope, had to buy a license. Except it was the weekend and his license had to be activated over the phone, on a business day. And he just HAD TO have it licensed right that minute for some reason. Guess what we ended up using. 🤷
Every business and government in the world? Once when I started a new job, the IT guy asked if I needed to use things like Word or Excel, because it’s $500 per year per employee for an Office365 subscription and they’re trying to keep the costs down. That’s on top of the Windows subscription.
Yeah, this definitely.
I work for a big soulless Fortune 250 company. Every desk-based employee gets a Dell laptop. Every laptop comes with a licensed, fully equipped latest version of Windows, Office365, 1TB cloud storage, Adobe Acrobat, and even a secure in-house branded version of ChatGPT.
…and that’s just the standard-issue stuff. All of the engineers get their CAD needs met, all the IT people get ServiceNow ITIL licenses, etc. and then there’s all the Windows Server stuff, SAP, Oracle, SalesForce, etc. etc. We pay legit fees for all of it.
Every laptop is “refreshed” (replaced) every 2 years. The retired laptops are security-wiped and donated to public schools.
I’ve been told that our average per-person endpoint IT budget is insaney high. Our company is not unique. Most big mega-corporations do this. They have to.
LOL, definitely not every government.
Most developing counties very laughably don’t, and really try hard to make it seem like they’re doing everything so super secure. But then do things like send emails from Yahoo or Gmail with “Classified” at the top. As that magically makes it so.
I’ve been given a presentation about the quality of government economic data, and asked not to take pictures for security reasons, while all the “please pay for a windows license” messages are on screen, qbtorrent on the desktop, and chrome with a quarter of the screen scammy browser add-ons.
I wouldn’t say every business, I’ve definitely worked somewhere where all our machines were cracked. but that’s going to be the exception not the rule obviously.
Back when I was in the Army… we definitely had some means to tactically acquire Windows licenses.
I worked IT in the Army and whenever they asked me how I did it, I told them to not worry about it.
We also never paid for winrar. So if you wonder where that huge budget goes to, it is not to Windows Licenses or Winrar.
We had a bunch of unlicensed windows installs in the military too. They don’t care
I’m working at a university, and hoo boy, did we use a lot of cracked shit. And funniest thing is that half of that shit can be acquired legally for free as part of education licensing.
I’m happy to be the part of reason why in recent years my department has been shifting towards FOSS alternatives. Like yeah, it’s not morally wrong to pirate from the likes of Adobe or Microsoft, but I’m not a fan of people even simply making a habit of using software from aforementioned companies.
I was at school over a decade ago and we all had GIMP on our PCs
Most folks are on a license that includes m365/office, windows enterprise, exchange online, sharepoint online, some entra/intune/defender things and more for about $380/user per year.
I have worked in a place where 100% of the workforce used linux, which was logical seeing as the product was also linux
clearly you have never been to LATAM, India, Indochina, middle east, Russia, China or Africa
I’ve been on Windows since XP… I haven’t seen a single person.
I paid for it when I built my pc. Could I have avoided that (without piracy)?
I think the old Win 7 keys still work and you can find plenty of them in many scrap yards on the stickers. I even heard of people taking them from photos of old ebay listings.
i haven’t had need to do that in a number of years, but apparently that no longer works.
Can I steal things without stealing things.
No you cant get windows for free without some form of piracy, whether thats using mass grave to trick it into being licensed or installing the trial version and editing the registry to remove the trial notice (if that even still works).
You wanna stay legit, you pay for it.
I didn’t ask if I could steal it. I was asking if there was a legitimate free way to get it because the posted pic implied that I’m in the very few minority of people who actually paid.
Most people steal this because its so easy and consequence free is the message.
You won’t find them on lemmy
Microsoft benefits from you “stealing” a license because it instills a false sense of control. Companies love it when you think you’re getting one up on them when they’re actually the ones brutally fucking you
