I never said that people that never had 7 or 8 could get it for free. Its always been people who had 7 or 8 could get it for free whilst anyone else had to pay.

Why would you want Windows 10? This is roughly equivalent to the free crabs you get with purchase of sex. But, unlike the crabs, this infestation is much harder to get rid of.

I said you can install for free, because I remember to have installed it just downloading the SW from Microsoft website.

In all honesty it happened a few years ago, so I don't remember if I used a license from my previous Windows.

Anyway.... https://www.windowscentral.com/you-do-not-need-activate-windows-10

Instead of mental mansturbation, try downloading and install the thing. You will have your answer. Gosh. How many retarded answers...

Just deinstalled the MS garbage!

Full story:
I have a phone with Lineageos, where I had to install some version of Skype, because the dentist uses it for control. So ok, I went to Yalp Store and got Skype Lite installed (because normal Skype is full of bloat).

Upon installation it sent all my contacts to Microsoft (thank you very much!) and asked to register by verifying the phone number with SMS. As WhatsApp uses the same thing - and is also required because other people use it, I agreed and confirmed the SMS code.

Rewind two weeks later, my fully charged phone went to 10% battery in 3 hours. As I was wondering wny, I noticed that it had very high WLAN usage and also a notification that I exited the Skype and need to restart it. I actually allowed it to run in background, as with WhatsApp, so I didnt care at first.
But now, I reopened the Skype Lite and it requested re-activation by SMS, and then suddenly wants me to open Microsoft account?! For what damn reason?

I know that W10 pwnes its users stealing every keystroke, every visited url, every typed password, but I consider myself not being aligned with such idiocy and keep NOTHING that begins with "Windows" in my proximity (successfully) for almost 10 years. But now it wants me to join the fun, just because I want to call and get called over network that I pay anyway.

So to hell it goes and I am migrating to Tox-based applications now.


So, TL;DR of the case and my response to this topic is:
1. If you want to endure this garbage, this is your very own choice.
2. Its not that they are evil, its you who allows them to act like this. Nobody is forcing you to use it! If everyone around you does it, so what - you are not "everyone around you".
3. Just quit that garbage already and seek different shores. There are better options around, just waiting for you to explore them - with MS-free head ofc.
4. And if you are okay with what they do to you, you deserve it. Sorry, for the honesty.

I'm glad to have discovered Discord when I did. But considering it presents itself as "for gamers", I can understand why one might be hesitant to give it a go. IRC is a crackly old wizard and while it works, many people find it too barren. I recently looked into something called

(Pardon the odd formatting, GOG likes to kludge URLs together.)

rocket chat, by which I mean I gave it a glance. Maybe it'll be useful for you, as I doubt your dentist would want to coordinate around Discord. :p

What I read on these forums is not much different to the hunt for witches and warlocks from 1500 until the last execution in 1782.

Thank you! Rocket.chat looks very interesting! But while looking at it, I discovered this list. Maybe its helpful for you in return. As far as where I am going, tox protocol has been in development for many years, so its not to go away anytime soon and clients are plenty.
It looks like the videocall doesnt record audio clean on antox (added antox fdoid repo and installed it), but it looks fairly easy to use.

Thanks. I'll keep in mind for others. I don't have any deep communication needs, but others certainly do.

But you never said otherwise either…
Quote: "Windows 10 is now free to use, no need to pay money (ok, you can't change a few things) so, to play, why not using it."
No additional conditions.

And why shouldn't I? I mean, I'm trying to not be blinded by pure hatred towards a company. If a company delivers a product that has some usefulness then why not? I could install "Free Windows" on a standalone old PC of mine and try to run old games or something, I guess… Or, collect it just in case I come across some obscure Windows-only hardware/software (like printers or Android smartphone flash tools).

But I agree, Windows 10 is PoS right now, ideally, Microsoft should pay me instead for it. :)

A good copy of "Windows XP" (with drivers for modern MB/CPU/GPU) on the other hand could sure come in handy: there are a lot of peripherals unsupported on recent versions but in perfectly working order otherwise…

Gosh guys. What the hell... you don't need a damn license to install WIndows 10.
Not from previously own Windows 7, 8, 8.1
Just gon on the MS website, create and USB key and install the OS.

Once installed you will have a damn "Activate Windows" logo on the right, and you can't personalise the OS in some aspects.

Other than that, you can do everything you want with it.
Just do it, instead for branwashing yourself.

Hi,
Point 1: Yes, I download Windows programs in the Linux VM. No, I don't run them until I've checked with VirusTotal. No, I don't open MS Word documents in Windows. No, I don't allow PDFs to link. Even it I did any of these things, I've set the Windows Firewall to not allow anything through in either direction.
Point 2: I'm not running WINE.
Point 3: I run all my games in Windows because the NVIDIA GPU runs in Windows.

Thanks for asking.

deleted

It seems you did not understand my point. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUN OR OPEN THEM. As soon as the Windows system reaches that file, even when you enter the folder, the virus can get active and spread like wildfire in your system. so checking a file after you run it on stupid sites like VirusTotal has no effect at all. Use a proper Anti-Virus program.

Please trust me on this. I have worked as IT manager for 15 years before I became a professor in Mechanical Engineering. How many times I met people like you, thinking they are safe and then after a decent check up, found more than 2 thousand "different" viruses.

What I am saying is, as long as you share a directory between Linux and Windows, there is no benefit of using Linux at all other than online security. Use a proper Anti Virus and even a malware program.

I've personally got Win XP, Vista and 7 running in their own virtual machines that for the most part work.

The only thing about 10 that's better than 7 is the library support, but even that's just because MS is using the new libraries to try and force people to upgrade.

Between the spyware, terrible interface, forced updates and lack of viable upgrade path beyond; I see no reason why anybody should upgrade to 10 given that the next version of Windows is software as a service making this upgrade a bit of kicking the can down the road.

This isn't true, they have to exploit windows autorun or other vulnerability to be executed, which limits it to specific virus group.

Linux can run windows viruses, but most of the times they will fail. If they don't fail, they can stay resident in wineserver, receive/send traffic, mine crypto, encode or corrupt files - until they crash at some point or system reboots.

"stupid sites like Virus Total"... "Use a proper Anti-Virus":
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/4696039606b37488d96518744f4c2ec5c7aa1cd7043128b416f337a3d9ce8c8e/detection

Comodo, DrWeb, SuperAntispyware, Claim failed. They are decent, but their heuristic failed. ...

(...the rest of this post lost context and failed victim to the garbage collector and binary winds....)