this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
202 points (96.3% liked)

Technology

59588 readers
2900 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Fair enough. Just always seemed like a weird repeated sticking point.

For anyone looking to buy it cheaper, look for OEM key resellers. It's the discounted price for companies preinstalling Windows. You can only install it on one device though, instead of whatever "multiple install grace window" they allow normally.

For anyone wanting it for free, MASgrave utilizes some sort of loophole with an official licensing method meant for corporations to get Microsoft to grant you a valid official license key for free. Microsoft can't go back and somehow differentiate these keys from paid legit ones, so there's no risk. Just make sure you're getting MASgrave from their official source on github so there isn't any malware snuck in. It also has some functionality for Office licenses as well.


Also worth noting that with effort, you can excise the overwhelming majority of the anti-consumer bullshit from Windows. Not really accessible to the average joe though, real easy to break shit or not disable things properly so they get re-enabled through updates.