Discussion on:

Poll: Is stealing from Microsoft okay because they have lots of money?

Even if you do burn the disc yourself, and keep it in a safe place, it may or may not be any good in the future when you want to use it.

Burnt discs just don't have the quality and longevity of "pressed" media.

..

That is the weakest complaint yet.

The automatic system that creates the disk does a recovery test after it burns the disk.

The owner only needs to to how to insert a DVD into the drive and click a desktop icon.

In contrast, when I had my Thinkpad, I spent $20 US on three occasions because they wouldn't include a recovery partition and you had to order disks that would be useless when you went to use them. One set took three days to receive and they didn't even work, they replaced them for free, after another three day wait.

Making your own disks you can run off three of four right off the bat to be safe, AND it will still have a secured recovery partition that doesn't even need a disk to recover from - unless you 'choose' delete the partition yourself.

The problem then was that people bought machines with recovery partitions an complained that 15GB was unavailable to the primary partition, saying they were ripped off.

Now they give you the option to remove that partition, after it creates the recovery DVD but you can still leave it there and never have to worry about your DVD not working.

Recovery from the HD is FAR faster than using disks anyway, and what's the problem losing 15GB to a protected partition with todays hard drive sizes anyway?

Making a disk is just something to whine about for people who need to complain. They complained when they came with disks because power users didn't get the option to install what they wanted. Now those same people ciomplain they DON'T come with recovery disks because it makes life harder.


Waaa f'in Waaa. It never stops.

"we don't want to and shouldn't have install teh manufacturer's proprietary crap from recovery disks."

"They don't include recovery disks"

______

"Windows comes email software that you are forced to install, MS sucks!"

"Windows doesn't come with email and you have to download it separately, MS sucks."

_______

"I won't rollout this version of Windows because it's not significantly different than the last, what a rip off, MS sucks"

"I won't rollout this version of Windows because it is too different and creates a learning curve, MS sucks."

'kin bunch of whiners just don't give up.

Optical media burnt at home goes bad. It isn't like manufactured disks.

I suppose Jack consumer should re-burn his recovery partition yearly?

Or is it just that by the time he needs it, he should just be buying a new system anyway?

I'm not whining, and I'm not talking about any of the other **** you bring up. I can't understand why you are so f'k'n opposed to recovery disks, or recovery media working if you've changed a sound card or something.

That's all plain stupid **** that lowers the value of OEM systems.

I'm sorry if I've said anything bad about MS or HP or Dell or whomever in the past, but my distastes aren't irrational or religious in nature. Didn't mean to set you off, mate.

Cause the FIRST thing to go wacky on my laptop was the CD drive.

Now mid burn, it will frequently just eject half way through the burn process. Any sort of jitter to vibration to the system causes it to eject.

It can't burn discs anymore. Can't reliably read em either. I have to get around to getting a ghost image of the drive b4 the HDD dies. (Cant run Nix live CD's either, it ejects it half way thru bootup and Nix not robust enough to wait for the CD to be reinserted)

There were no asterisks added to my post.

I don't have a problem with recobery media, as you suggest. I simply understand WHY it is't provided. As I understand product margins from the distribution level, it would increase costs of the original PC.
Your complaint about lower value is crap. A PC with built-in recovery has a higher value to Joe consumer than one that requires disks to reformat, especially multiple disks.

With Windows 7, the likelyhood of someone needing a full recovery after installing a GPU is so rare it wouldn't merit such a need either. It would mean that a new GPU would have ot be incompatible, crash the entire system, the built in recovery partition fails and then the DVD that it instructes you to make has also failed. In such a case, 'sucks to be you then'.

I think you'd have a better chance of being hit by a car while crossing the street and landing on a loaded gun that happens to go off, shoot you and kill you on the spot.

People want things and complain when they have ot pay for them. As for the falibility of printed media, I have had literally several hundred thousand CD's professionally created and they DO fail, often brand new or a short whil after. To have an immense amount of data encoded increases that risk further.

Your argument simply stands in a puddle on paper thin legs.

IS it possible? Yes.
Is it likely that all recovery methods fail? No.

Should all recovery methods fail can you then obtain original recovey media? Yes and they charge you when they resend preencoded CD's too.

IN fact a new pC has a greater ability of recovery than one with CD only restore system.

As I said, I've had to order three sets of media and one twice before it worked.

A HD recovery partition with DVD backup in case of partition failure is far more reliable.

No, I didn't see any asterisks.

Look, I don't have a problem with recovery partitions, except that they take up space, which I can recover by burning the recovery disk(s).

The "lower value" comes from the fact that consumers do complain about this, and obviously don't understand the disk creation process enough to bother with it. When PCs are essentially advertises as appliances , but don't behave like appliances, there is a problem.

The answer could be:
1) Provide the stupid recovery media in optical format. (Why not?)
2) Make it painfully clear to new purchasers that these disks must be made. Like not letting them use the system at all until they are created, with this knowledge imparted up front.

2b) Make it clear that these disks need to be re-examined occasionally, and/or that the media used to make the disks in the first place must be of high quality (which is not always an easy thing to check).

That's all. I'm hardly railing against the industry here. And if you find this a completely non-valid point, I can understand that.

What I don't understand is that you seem to find any criticism of certain products to be ridiculous on its face. I will agree that a lot of criticism comes from the clueless, so I can understand why you, or anyone else, gets tired of it.

As for drive space, lets assume it takes up a whopping 20GB, about 3 DVD's worth of downloads or a BlueRay Disks.

With today's HD's averaging 320GB with a cheap PC and 500GB with the average PC, how much of a horrific waste of space is a hidden partition for faster recovery of an entire system, including all drivers and proprietary software?

As far as people not makign recovery disks, they are the geniuses who don't read the single page of instructions that Ernest was complaining about, good thing they don't include a full book then.

When I boot a new PC, it becomes a NAG when every time you boot it up it reminds you to insert a DVD and click the desktop ICON called Create REcovery Disk. Dumb users are dumb users, giving them three of disks isn't going to help.

I don't know how many older PC's I've been asked to rebuild and when I ask for a recovery CD the customer looks at me like an alien. They come up with Printer install disks ("nope not that one"), their camera software ("nope not that one, it will say recovery disk on it")This one? ("no that software for Win98 that came from a cereal box")hmmmm, I guess I don't have one.

Partitions make it easy and the space used is irrelevant these days. I would concur with the older 30GB HD's losin ghalf would be a pain. But even my latest cheapo notebook, which incidentally still has teh Create Recovery Disk icon on the dektop (I'll get to it one day) has a 500GB HD and I just leave the partition there, I will even if and when I make that disk.

Either way, I have an option that wasn't there before when disks were easily misplaced, especially ones taht aren't used for a year or so.

Again, I am not against recovery media. But then again, I don't have a problem with a partition and disk creation software that a monkey could figure out how to use.

If your clients have issues making disks under the new system, look for clients without white coats and padded rooms.

My HP, has 100gig drive, minus that 100 gigs is never 100 gigs, minus the recovery partition which is 10 gigs, but only 3 gigs used!

That's a big percentage of space lost!

Though it's been a complaint since the first hardware upgrade likely; having more hardware resources should not justify software expanding to fill them. Having larger hard drives, more ram and faster cpu should not justify bloated coding with the excuse "but machines are so much faster now."

In the case of burn on delivery machines. I understand why they do it. With a factory kicking out a few thousand machines a day, it makes sense to put the "originals" disk images directly into the hard drive image being stamped out based on product models. Less physical disks to deal with and easier automation.

Now, from the consumer side, this sucks. I may have a bazillion gigs available on my drive but what if that drive arrives baked? What if the consumer decides "I'll do it later" until a drive curruption finalizes that choice to procrastinate. Heck, for "withit" consumers, it still sucks to go find a blank disk to burn what should have arrived on a physical disk in the first place. It's not like the disk images is going to suddenly change on the drive and result in a different restore disks is it? (seriously, is it? Cause, that would be kind of cool.)

It may make production lines easier to design but it's far from in the customer's best interest.

If I had my choice, I'd get the original Windows/osX/Ubuntu install on a disk as applicable. I'd get a second disk for the vendor's hardware drivers across all major platforms as you never know what a consumer may use your hardware for later. I'd include a third disk for crapware or as an optional component of the vendor's driver disk. Now, OS disks can be managed as a single stock across product models. Driver disks can be managed per product model or as a "drivers for all our hardware" factory wide disk like the Windows installs. The company still gets it's crapware budget injection and can always ask to create ghost images after the user's final setup reboot.

Offhand, our old Dells have image disks and the new Lenovos seem to include them also. "please insert disk to create recovery disk" seems to be a clear indication of a consumer grade machine but my experience in the area is not that broad.

1. Drive space was not an argument. I merely mention it. If that is what you got from the post, then whatever.

2. http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-7343-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=326794&messageID=3254275&tag=content;leftCol

So what happens if the hard drive is replaced?.. well.. as the comment you link to indicates, the customer is hosed. That'd kill my buying any future similarly designed products.

Most new, retail PC's stopped shipping with CDROMS quite a few years ago, as it requires them to build too many different disks when a particular build may only be made for a month or a limited run for a big box store.

They INCLUDE a shortcut to a disk recovery creation software that is on the desktop.

You just buy any blank DVD, which teh sales rep at the store is trained to sell you with the PC anyway. You stick it in the drive, click the desktop icon and it does the rest.

You don't need ANY experience at all, a first time PC user would have no problems making a full revovery disk and then using it to reformat.

I just found a new PC for my mother a few months ago, I set it up and was ina hurry so I couldn't stick around and help her really get going. She called me that same night and said it told her to buy a DVD and create a recovery disk, so she did, at age 71 and without ever even owning or using a PC before, besides an old Win98 box I gave her early last year to send email.

Had never burned a disk, had no idea what the different types of disk were and probably still doesn't. It told her what to do and as you say, it only came with a single foldout page for initial set up.

The proprietary software included with new PC's now is pretty good at teaching new users and getting them set up properly.

Deadly, would you blame Toyota or GM when someone who drives one of their cars crashes and hurts someone else? Or if they ran the car for 20K/5 years without changing the oil and the manufacterer didn't replace the engine free of charge when it seized?

There has to be some sort of obligation on the part of computer users to understand what they are using and how to use it.

You can't expect OEMs and OS suppliers to make a completely fool proof system.

"Every fool proof system will be met with a fool they didn't plan on."

Every desktop/laptop system I have purchased for my organization in the last 5-7 years has either had recover disks or gave the end user 3 to 5 oportunities to build one.

You can't blame the OEMs if someone is silly enough to ignore all those warnings and then pays the consiquences.

And this has nothing to do with pirating software...

Yes when the techs get shut down for too many installs.

I have used pirated copies of various programs over the years. Everything from Photoshop to Windows XP and I can tell you now that its just not worth the hassle. I just can't trust a program downloaded from a untrusted site anymore. The days of losing my hard drive to a virus and having to reinstall everything is not worth the risk anymore. I could easily find a copy of any program for free online but with a tiny bit more searching I can find a legal and free program that does just the same.

In a world with free downloadable copies of Linux, Open Office and Gimp who needs the hassle of worrying if that new copy of Photoshop CS-99 is going have some nasty spyware in it? Is it ?okay?, I am not sure how to answer. I have done it plenty of times and I may do it again in the future and do I lose sleep over it, no. Do I say its okay, as a person who has had things stolen many times, no. But who am I to be anyone else's moral compass.

Support open source, and give credit where its due. If you like a movie or a software then pay the 10 bucks and enjoy. But if you need that bit of code in this dog eat dog recession world then you will not get any grief from me.

There are more and more trustworthy sites these days than ever before. I have found downloads flawless for a couple of years now, only ever saw viruses and such when using early progs like limeWire and Kazaa, and even that was only when not paying attention to teh tracker source. I have several apps that I have downloaded, in fact I think everything but my studio software and base operating system is a pirate copy of some form, no problems with it either.

But either way, I agree it IS theft. But so is taping the football game if you really want to get into it. By living ni Canada, my ISP won't hand out my personal details to the MPAA or CRIA though, they have much easier fish to catch and make examples of in the US than here, where our personal privacy is actualy protected by our bill of rights.

I just draw the line when it comes to profiting from it. In the case of music, I support artists and have no porblem buying a copy, even if I also download or make a copy myself for other needs, I just don't profit from other people's work.

No problem with that.

TECHNICALLY I do seek profit from other people's work, but only because of the work I put into it too, producing, promoting or engineering etc. However it has seemed many times that I don't actually profit from it, such is the nature of the industry.

But I suppose I should be more specific in saying I just don't profit from PIRATED materials.

concerned, as down here it's legal to time shift and to media shift. I can legally record a sports event or movie on television and watch it later, as long as I erase it when I'm finished with it - tomorrow or next year, when I'm finished with it, and don't sell or hand on copies. As long as I pay the licence fee for a legal copy I can copy my 45 rpm record to MP3 and play it on my MP3 player, or make a tape for the tape player - but I must not pass on copies or sell any and I must keep the legal licence copy.

TV or CDs or whatever for your own purposes.
You just can't rebroadcast or resell...

I don't agree that pirating software is ok, but one scenario i can see is having a legitimate copy of windows on a computer, but misplacing the discs. Once you get a nasty virus on the computer, what then? My choice is to go to Linux and bypass the whole issue of paying for an operating system multiple times, even though it does the same lousy job. I don't think its ok to pirate, but at the same time think that it has led to the progression of open-source being implemented on a larger scale and thus giving Microsoft something to think about, or forcing them to end their dictatorship.

Two wrongs dont make it right

It's about a logical as people who use Linux becasue its not MS.

Its all just silly

As the last Poll isn't an Option in my books.

I have never knowingly used Pirated Software though I have had several occasions when what I thought was properly Licensed Software was reported a Pirate.

Funnily enough those Reports I knew where wrong as I had purchased that software directly from M$ so unless they are selling to both sides of the street and had sent me the product from the wrong batch it had to be Legit.

I do however use a lot of Trial Software to Assess how good any piece of Software will be and I have been given fully working copies of various Programs by their Makers for my use in the Business that I'm in. Which is to have access to their product so I can fix the problems that these different companies clients run into.

Though years ago I was installing copies of Word Perfect Products onto computers for trial purposes before there where Trial Versions of this suite available. In every case where I did this it resulted in large Volume License Sales of the product and it was latter that Corel eventually bought out Trial Versions of their Software. Way too late if you ask me but it certainly did make selling it a lot easier.

Though I still get a laugh when I remember the look on the Corel's Rep Face after he went ballistic about me installing a copy of WP for 30 days onto one companies Trial System. After he finished ranting and raving I just looked at him and said So I guess this means that you don';t want to sell me that 2,000 site license that I'm here for?

For some strange reason they wanted the money from the sale that I was in negotiating, and I was told to continue my actions as they liked the results.

I've sold lots of Software that way from many different suppliers and now all of the main ones provide Trial Software which is just so much easier.

Col

I believe that MS is entitled to payment for a copy of WIN / Office. They had to pay programmers, marketers, printers, etc. to bring each product to market. However, expecially for home users, I think MS should meet us halfway and by default allow 3 licenses for every product purchased. I resent having to buy 3 copies of their software to upgrade every system at my house when I feel the product is worthy enough to upgrade.

and make a profit and then insist they have to sell the retail version at US$200 in order to make a minimum profit. I also fail to see why they need so many versions, except to make people have to buy more copies when they find out the crap installed on the new system won't do what their old system did.

It's their software, they can do what they like with it. There is no moral problem with that. So many excuses for stealing. Makes me think of the story I've heard ad nauseam about how Australia was populated by people transported here because they stole a loaf of bread to feed their hungry families. Yeah, right.

that doesn't mean I have to approve of a company acting like a thief and dramatically overcharging people for buggy software.

If they can sell a copy for $40.00 and make a profit, then charging $400.00 to sell a copy to another person is thieving in a grand scale. It doesn't justify stealing from them, but they can't complain when people complain about their improper behaviour as crooks on a grand scale.

well deadly i have a letter from microsoft going back about 4 years ago where they state that it is illegal to sell a new computer with windows installed on it and not supplying the original system disc with it,how things have changed.hail the almighty dollar, there is more in it for them by selling licences to dell and bad luck for the consumer.

years back, I upset a few retailers like Hardly Normal by accompanying friends to collect new retail computer purchases and insisting we get the discs with the full software before they fork over any money for the computer - full copies of Windows, Office, and Nortons that were all preloaded on the Dell computer - refused to pay a cent unless legal copies of the discs were handed over with the system. About the fourth time around the HN people bitched because they had a bitch from HQ that they weren't supposed to do that. So we loudly cancelled the sale, stating their refusal to supply the legally required hard copies of the software to provide rebuild and repair as the reason for the cancellation - six other clients negotiating purchases also stopped what they were doing and left as well. Word of mouth in the area saw that HN computer sales dropped so much that section of the store was remodelled six months later and stock cut to 10% of what they'd been. The local HN IT manager was NOT happy about it.

At the time the consumer laws required them to supply the discs, I don't know if that's still the case and the retailers are just BS clients or the law has been changed.

yeah deadly like you i am not sure that laws have changed but you must agree that the way things are done now everybody wins except the consumer, i myself if i was buying a new computer from a retail outlet i would demand a hard copy ( disks )of all software on the computer including the os, if everybody did this perhaps it would force a change.

or no purchase, the retail companies would be forced to either push the prices up to cover providing extra copies or pushing the supplier to provide the disc or not carry them as not a good enough profit margin. Either would place pressure back on Dell and co. and lead to some changes.

Loaded with Windows without a Windows Install Disc, for anyone but the likes of Dell, HP, and so on.

If you are a white box Builder and supply a system with Windows installed without a Windows OEM Disc you are potentially in deep trouble.

Of course the places who buy an M$ Action Pack and then proceed to use that Licensed Copy on every computer that they sell and do not supply any Install Media don't really care what M$ says as they will not be in business when M$ Legal Comes Knocking on their door. They'll be down the road with a different name and same Action Pack doing it all over again.

The way that IBM who where the first not to supply Recovery Media got away with it was to provide a Recovery Partition which as far as M$ is concerned is the same as supplying Disc's that can not get lost by the End User.

Col

because it has lots of money, then stealing from anyone who has lots of money is ok.

I didn't vote in the last question. There wasn't an appropriate answer for 'it's not justified'.

No. As a support person, be it my own part time business or working for someone, I flat out tell people, "If you have an illegal copy of Windows (or Office), I will not help you."

As for the argument, "... windows sucks, why should I pay for it? ...", I say there is always Apple and Linux.

I cannot even begin to say how tired I am of people who want something for nothing.

There have certainly been times during a transition to new hardware that I've had one copy of Windows on multiple computers. And for MS's own sake I think this practice as used by Acer of preloading Windows and providing NO OEM disks needs to stop. Even with 6 variations of XP and 4 of Vista in my 'handbag' I'm yet to have a set of disks that will except those original install serial numbers. Fortunately I only have one client in that position and plenty of spare licences. But if you can't afford MS Windows use Linux. If you don't like MS that is the fastest way to hurt them.

HP, and just about every other major retail supplier. They do it as it's recommended to them by Microsoft and they pay a lot less for the Microsoft licence if they do it that way - and, thus, make a bigger profit off it.

I think it is OK for disks not to be provided as long as you can access the software that will use those serial numbers. Maybe Technet members get those sort of OS versions but the box versions I've tried certainly won't take those serials.

Must make a big difference to profits not including a disk that even at retail prices is only $15 (base on the cost on W7 as an extra to software downloaded).

A PITA practice that should stop.

I live in India. Over here if you term the MS Products, they are rarely bought legally and it is not possible for the government to monitor piracy. Currently i am using ubuntu after a long stint with windows.

I feel, it is necessary for MS to decrease the prices by almost 70% in countries like india where people cannot afford to buy the product.

Moreover if only 10-20% of the worlds computer are running on legally purchased licenses, Bill gates is still sought to be a very rich man. Hence we can conclude that MS earns huge margins. Hence if it reduces prices, people in India would not mind buying a original copy and still MS would be making profits.

Refer to a company called as Moser Baer which is a Video DVD company, which started releasing movies for Rs.30(Less than 1$). Hence it was selling at same price as pirated DVD movies. Its become a huge hit in India where now people are buying original copies of movies too....MS should also go the same way

Another reason i feel for reduction of prices is, advancement of Linux Distro Ubuntu and MAC acting as pure competitors.

If you can't pay for it, you shouldn't use it.

I remember there was a discussion about this a while ago...

wait, more of a screaming discussion.

Bout of screaming and name-calling, more like.

PEOPLE TYPED IN BOLD PRINT AND CALLED PEOPLE NAMES?

OH NO, HEAVEN FORBID ! MY POOR VIRGIN EYES!