“It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not… You can get the real thing, and you get the same price.”
They got serious about license activation in the Windows Vista - Windows 7 era, but now they're back to where anyone can install a Windows license of their choice with just a few commands, using a pirate KMS server.
The cynical take on this is that Microsoft has pivoted hard into being a services and advertising company, so it is more important to them that you run Windows with all of its data gathering and advertising and cloud BS then it is that you paid for Windows at all.
They could easily break the fake KMS but choose not to. It speaks a lot to their priorities.
That's what I figured as well. To Microsoft right now, more devices running windows = more data gathered, regardless of whether the device was activated by a pirated KMS server or not.
LTSB/LTSC doesn't have the anything like the levels of telemetry in the Home SKUs, but even so, as a (former) MSFT SE I can give you my personal assurances that the telemtry is about seeing how the product is used and not for marketing/money-making reasons (beyond, ostensibly, making the product better to entice people to pay for upgrades or subscription services).
It's like that whole thing about putting heat sensors under everyone's desk "to optimize HVAC usage". That may be the stated and initial reason, but once the heat sensors are there you'd be a damn fool not to use them for absentee disciplinary purposes.
Microsoft can tell us all they want that the telemetry is just for product usage. When the first slow quarter comes around they're going to gaze longingly at that huge treasure trove of data they have and start asking themselves if selling it won't help them meet their quarterly projections.
Thanks for the info, that squashes that theory then. I guess its more of a case of just not being work it for Microsoft to go after the very small fraction of non-business users who pirate windows.
The server / client access license side, other than Remote Desktop / Terminal Services (which I assume is because of licensing with third-party developed code) has trended “softer” over the years.
- Bill Gates