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No, you don't. You can just be unverified forever
You can use a Microsoft-approved crack
Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2007/jul/18/winningthrough
Also, if everyone is used to the Windows environment, there is little reason for most businesses to get something but Windows and that's where Microsoft makes the money. Almost everyone who has done anything with computers has used Windows and doesn't need to be specifically taught.
Pretty sure that was recently patched, as in last week, though it was open for years. Im sure something will take its place
It has started working again. https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts#note-hwid-activation-is-working-again-with-a-new-method
lmaoooo let's goooooo
Or they'll just make it work again
Windows -at this point- is free to use at least for personal reasons and there are zero consequences if you don't activate your copy. They used to give you deadline in the XP/Vista era to activate your copy but not anymore. All you get is a watermark in the corner that either bothers you or not. They are as well very sloppy with closing activation methods, they could just close a new gate every patch Tuesday but they don't do it. It is far far more important to them that everyone is using windows and there is a high chance based on last week's news that there will be a subscription "premium" version like in any app that removes ads and enables AI features.
All you get is a watermark in the corner
Well, that is a consequence. Just not a very big one. You also cannot change the background in the settings, though that is also a very small consequence. Yeah, they are only small and you can likely live with them, but small and tolerable are not zero.
there will be a subscription “premium” version like in any app that removes ads and enables AI features.
This makes me glad I no longer use it. An OS should not have ads baked into its core and there should not be a subscription for it.
Maybe for now it’s just the background and the watermark.
Like every other subscription service, they will start to fuck with you.
Specifically background changes from the settings*
You can just right click an image in File Explorer and set it as desktop background :p