Poorly-Planned Piracy and Pronunciation Problems

[HawaiianShirts]

Enter guy with no teeth (well, maybe two teeth if you add together the four or five broken and worn down nubs) and a thick redneck drawl. I've learned not to make snap judgments as one of our vendor reps looks and sounds very similar to this guy but is very helpful and intelligent, but the stereotypes fit this time.

So, Fraction Teeth was looking at laptops. He told me he had a Gateway that was about a year old and running Windows XP. He'd just upgraded it to 1gig of RAM, and it was running fine. But he was interested in a new one. He didn't tell me why.

We had a short conversation about how his computer cost about $1200 when he got it and now he could get the same thing for half the price. Then I pointed out Windows Vista on the new computers. He was interested in that, too, because, according to him, it was nice to "get such expensive software free with the computer." That's when he let me in on his master plan.

Fraction Teeth: Yeah, I was thinkin' that I maight get me one o' these hyear Veesta computers and a exetrenal (pronounced "exit-ren-ll") hard driver. I could back up Veesta to it from this'n, 'n' then I can format mah old Gate-a-way an' copy Veesta ontuh it from the hard driver.
Me: I don't think that'll work.
FT: Why not?
Me: Well, several reasons, but the most important is that Microsoft does a lot to prevent customers from using multiple copies of the same operating system.
FT: Whaddya mean?
Me: There are codes on each computer, and the programs that come with the computers are keyed specifically to those codes (I know there's much more to it than that, but I don't think this guy was even understanding this much). It helps Microsoft prevent piracy.
FT: Oh. Well, ya' think I could use one o' them Veesta migitation (that's "midge-it-ation" instead of "migration") cables I heered about to do it instead?
Me: Probably not, especially if you format the drive in your old computer first.
FT: Huh. (I doubt he believed me.) Well, I'm gon' jus' look around a bit, then.

He eventually disappeared. I don't think he seriously would have purchased anything anyway. He kept looking at the $699 sale tag suspiciously.

Now, I'm much more familiar with hardware than I am with software, but I think it would be pretty difficult to use an external hard drive to copy an OS from one computer and install it onto another when the receiving computer's drive has been completely formatted. And that's saying nothing of the legalities of the idea. Am I wrong on that one?

[BravoOrig]

Guess I haven't used an external drive yet but most use USB or Firewire. Assuming the motherboard would allow it or have some sort of built-in driver it could work. That is copying onto a formatted drive on the second pc. And it would be possible to copy the first harddrive bit by bit, but I'm sure he'd never get to that level to do such. Still, the hardware on his Gateway would be different, and Vista probably would flag for activation or whatever.

I have a feeling this guy would be defeated by the old, "Enter such and such word from such line and page of the manual" copy protection scheme.

[lordlundar]

considering that the hardware configuration between the machines is (completely) different, the OS will usually have a conniption on start up and he would have to reinstall it anyway. Doubly so with OEM versions.

[Shabo]

And that's even assuming that his one year old machine could RUN vista. It might not be capable of running that OS.

[sld72382]

You can run Vista on 1GB of RAM, but the moment it's transfered to the other PC not only will it flag for activation, but drivers will be referencing the wrong hardware and it will go nuts.

[cpux]

You can run Vista on 1GB of RAM, but the moment it's transfered to the other PC not only will it flag for activation, but drivers will be referencing the wrong hardware and it will go nuts.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Operating systems have to be configured to work with the hardware they're installed on. Programs on install CDs can detect and configure the OS automatically. Linux distributions that boot from a CD or USB drive will do this as well as part of the booting process. But if you were to just supplant an OS from one computer to another, assuming you could get around the copy protection somehow, the OS and associated drivers wouldn't know what is what on the new computer.

And also, I wonder if toofless Joe there understood that a good large chunk of that "free" software is trial software.

[Shabo]

I haven't installed Vista yet, but I have done a lot of work with XP and 2k. I believe that people have found a way to put the OS installer on a usb drive, but not to transplant the OS from one machine to the other. If it's like XP in that sense, then you should be able to simply reinstall all the drivers. However, you would still run into the problem of license verification (same as on any machine) and you would have a slight problem. However, if he used Norton's Ghost utility, he may be able to get something there, but he would still have the issue with the drivers.

But from what this guy sounds like, I think you should have slapped his wrist and taken away his computer.

[digilight]

Wouldn't work, due to the activation requirements and the fact that theres a good chance that some of his hardware components on the gateway are not Vista ready (Do not have drivers available).

I've done this with windows 95 and windows 98 though and its a pain in the ass even then. I had the OS on a hard drive crash, while the drive was still accessible, it just wasn't bootable anymore. I pulled a functioning drive out of another system (Had same MB, Processor, but different video card, SCSI, and other things) and even that one was a fight to get working enough to transfer the files I needed so I could install a new drive with a good OS.

Canabilising computers is fun.

[BravoOrig]

I mentioned newly installing Vista, though I was smart enough to put it on another partition and keep XP safe. I'll say it was fast to install, and I'm only impressed with the driver search feature. Either Device Manager will search its database for compatible drivers and install them, or you're lucky and the manufacturer has a Vista driver. For my wifi card though the Vista driver was worthless, and I had to use the XP driver. I do like that Vista just automatically connects to my wifi network, instead of on XP where it asks me which I want to use, the XP utility or the one from the manufacturer. There are some drivers for my older hardware that simply won't get an update, but that has all been minor onboard stuff I don't use anymore.
I'll leave you with a little tip, if you have a driver for XP, and the setup program unpacks but won't run, try right clicking the exe file if its compressed and extracting it to a folder. You might need Winzip for it, but you can then tell Vista to look in the folder for the driver and chances are it will find it. This is a way to get your hardware working, without the install program complaining about a non-supported OS, even if you run it under compatibility for XP.