#2 and #3 make sense for me. I'll have to look into it once I get around to upgrading this machine beyond what may trigger this detection. Thanks.

Let me put it this way - I would find it unethical to sell a key anywhere if I'm still using the software. I would find it ethical to crack the said software if it improved my experience with it however.

Reading comprehension helps. Like finishing reading sentences you quote before replying.

ClassicShell still exists. So no. Not even close.

You should also assume that every time you walk out of the door, every person out there is out to kill you.

I was serious. What advantages are there to circumventing the DRM? Quite ofter there are some, but I just don't see any at the moment.

It could be I'm ignorant, which is why I'm asking, and while I get your joke, I'm actually interested in a more practical answer.

Different issue. He's talking about giving these to cracked windows where windows is cracked in a way that is detected. It's a part of their WGA program where they give you the updates, but they also try to send you messages and such urging you to buy a license.

This particular hack is largely undetectable for microsoft. As far as W7 is concerned, it's a legit OEM copy.

Out of interest, more reliable in what way? I'm using geniune 7 OEM home premium right now, what kind of improvement can I expect if I move to a cracked version?

It's of no charge if I remember correctly, but pro license is significantly more expensive than home one.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if win8 actually made MS a significant chunk of extra profit by making people bump the license to pro just to get 7 upgrade rights.

To add to my other statement. Apparently they trick the bootloader by loading a separate loader before W7 bootloader loads which in turn adds ACPI tables to memory making W7 bootloader think it's running off a genuine OEM machine.

As far as W7 is concerned, its bootloader itself is not compromised in any way, and it has no way to check if it's booting off a secure machine as it has no secure boot. It's a pretty elegant hack that is very much future proof.

You can find all this stuff out by simply searching for "windows 7" on TPB, then locating the torrent with most seeds and checking the description and comments. It makes for pretty interesting read actually.

It's not a rootkit. It appears to be a mechanism to strip the protection entirely if I'm understanding the thread on TPB correctly. So far there has apparently been only one update for 7 that has not been addale through WAU directly.

And if something breaks, apparently all you need to do is deinstall the crack, run installation and reinstall the crack.

Strange how all those people pirating win 7 get their updates just fine according to the comment section of TPB on the most popular windows 7 torrent I just searched for to fact check this statement.

Could be they're all lying and it's a grand conspiracy. I'm going to go with more likely scenario - that pirate crowd have long cracked the protection and are enjoying their DRM free stuff as usual while the rest of us have to live with it.

It was successful as windows 7. Not "as successful as..." Literally. People bought to 8's pro license and used it to install 7.

The word play is hilarious because it's true.

I'd argue the opposite. Classic microsoft was "just pay us and we don't care what you do with it".

Contrasted with Google's "we'll data mine everything you ever do until we know that you're gay before you do" and apple's manic desire to control how their OS looks and interacts with the user, I'd argue that in this particular aspect, microsoft is (was?) definitely the best of those three consumer OS giants.

Oh, there are more then enough pirates today, simply because there was a period for last couple of years when it was so hard to get win7. It got pirated to heaven and back during this period. Take a look at TPB, you'll find 7 in all possible flavors you could ever desire.

Win8 on the other hand, I'd pay not to get with my new computer, which is what many today are doing by paying up to win8 pro license so they can upgrade the machine to windows 7.

So it makes sense to give basic 8 away for free. No one who can help it is buying it anyway.