Locking thread prematurely

[cliffordcooley]

I believe this thread was locked unfairly.

Partitioning software ruined my Windows 7 !

I don't agree with his claim that the partitioning software is what caused the problem but thats a different subject. No where in the thread do they suggest they are pirating windows. Pirating windows was a conclusion that was derived from downloading a torrent. There is nothing wrong with using torrents if activation is not being circumvented. No where in the thread do they suggest this is what they are trying to do.

The user ran into a problem and TechSpot failed to help. TechSpot slammed the door in this users face calling them a pirate before asking if this is what they were trying to do. The user was asking for advice and now that the thread has been locked no one could even try. TechSpot even lost the chance to explain that what they may have been doing was considered pirating if they didn't use their own activation key. The thread could have been steered in the right direction but instead it was prematurely locked.

Please explain to me how this thread could be 100% tied to pirating.

 

[captaincranky]

I looked at this and thought we might have jumped the gun as well.

However, there is another possibility that should be addressed. The vibe I got was that the laptop in question might not be with its rightful owner.

But in either case, you have to read something into the post that wassn't actually there.

Windows 7 Ultimate seems a bit unlikely though, except in a very costly machine....

But, the thing that probably got the thread locked was a plea for help in circumventing a Dell password, and that's definitely a no-no.

 

[Zen]

I will jump in here for the simple reason that after reading this "locked down" post, I am kind of leaning towards what the good Captain had said here, mainly about getting a vibe that this laptop may indeed be in the wrong hands.

I find it odd that an Acer laptop computer didn't come with any supporting software, an O.E.M. disk, certified Acer Recovery disk or disks, I'm hearing nothing in regards to this. Also back in 2008 I purchased a 15 inch Acer laptop for my kid, it came stock with all the supporting software one would need to either recover the system, start from scratch or to make adjustments.

Where were such disks? Why the need to jump onto the Internet, go to a torrent site and download a system recovery disk? Also something that bugged me here is "where was the certified Windows 7 Operating System disk"? All the so called repairs in question, could have been done off of the operating system disk.

And the final thing that got to me! Now mind you, I've "fired" some of my clients that I've done computer work for, for doing just this sort of thing! The original poster had to turn to the Internet again and go back to a torrent site and then proceed to go through the motions of downloading a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition! Again when 2-3 of my former clients have taken it upon themselves to go to torrent sites and download copy's of someone else's Operating Systems, and then proceed to install the thing and run into problems and trouble and give me a phone call, all the while being sneaky about what info they give to me prior to my arrival, the moment I detect the torrented Operating System, all bets are off, if they didn't install off of a "store bought copy" or one of my "certified universal licensed copy's".................. "their fired"!

The person filing this complaint should feel fortunate that we are only dealing with a "locked down" topic area here! After all, even with the most hypothetical scenario here, the original poster could be dealing with the cops knocking oh his or her door!

cliffordcooley: If you are able to slow things down for a moment, and really clearly read this persons post, and word for word use true common sense to those words meanings and all that the words imply, you might see things as I do! *just a thought*!

 

[mailpup]

The issue was not about the degree of pirating, whether it was 100% or something less than that. I never called the OP a pirate but said that we don't support the use of pirated software. Perhaps that is a fine distinction but, nonetheless, there is a difference. It seemed clear to me that Windows 7 software was being illegally downloaded and, regardless of the intent of its use, was something that we couldn't support. It was pretty much as simple as that.

While opinions can differ, that is how I saw it.

 

[Leeky]

I agree with Mailpup completely on this and I'd have done the same thing. Its pretty obvious that downloading via torrent any Windows 7 version is going to be pirated.

It is a fine line, but ultimately TechSpot is very clear on not providing or supporting pirated software in any respects. That said, it is possible that the original installation is perfectly legitimate, but using torrented Windows discs to repair the original instance of the OS calls it into question.

Besides which, you have no idea what "might" have been added to a Windows disc image you download online. Its certainly not wise to be using one as it could potentially open your system to damage.

But, the thing that probably got the thread locked was a plea for help in circumventing a Dell password, and that's definitely a no-no.

You referring to another thread Sir?

I see no reference of a Dell password? But aye, should a thread contain something along them lines, with similar lines of "help me circumvent it," it would almost certainly be locked.

 

[captaincranky]

I agree with Mailpup completely on this and I'd have done the same thing. Its pretty obvious that downloading via torrent any Windows 7 version is going to be pirated.

It is a fine line, but ultimately TechSpot is very clear on not providing or supporting pirated software in any respects. That said, it is possible that the original installation is perfectly legitimate, but using torrented Windows discs to repair the original instance of the OS calls it into question.

Besides which, you have no idea what "might" have been added to a Windows disc image you download online. Its certainly not wise to be using one as it could potentially open your system to damage.

All of that notwithstanding, I have no idea why you need to torrent a copy of Windows for a 3 month computer. I figure if you have enough savvy to download from torrent, you know enough to burn recovery discs when you get it. So for me, "bought it" might mean, "from somebody on the corner", or, "found it where it wasn't lost".

You referring to another thread Sir?

I see no reference of a Dell password? But aye, should a thread contain something along them lines, with similar lines of "help me circumvent it," it would almost certainly be locked.

It seems I must be.... I'll forthwith seek out that thread, and the real killer of OJ Simpson's wife while I"m at it....

 

[Rick]

I really don't understand what the fuss is here. A couple of points though...

In a matter of opinion, I agree with cliffordcooley that locking the thread is a knee-jerk response. However, TS does have that right and the consensus seem to be we trust the judgement of our mods completely and fully. For that reason, "unfair" is a difficult word to use for this situation.

Summary: The *original* thread is a guy with a laptop who tried to add a partition, the software screwed up and he didn't create recovery discs prior to his meddling. The person downloaded a recovery disc, fixed his OS and was going to try partitioning again with different software.

Also back in 2008 I purchased a 15 inch Acer laptop for my kid, it came stock with all the supporting software one would need to either recover the system, start from scratch or to make adjustments.

That was 2008. I can assure everyone that 3-4 years later, things have changed. Laptop manufacturers have been doing this for years and even Acer has caught up, now requiring the user to create their own instead of providing them by default.

Nowhere do I see anything that would question the ownership of this laptop. For this reason, I think some of you are wrong to point this out as a reason. The fact it is 3 months old and he doesn't have recovery discs means nothing (to me). I might be a minority, but I always toss my discs and re-partition my new laptops immediately.

I do believe the fact that I just throw caution to the wind and screw up along the way shouldn't exclude me from help on TS. Granted it's my fault and hey, life isn't fair, but should we require people asking for help to qualify the legitimacy of their dilemmas? I don't know if that is beneficial to anyone.

Secondly, in terms of piracy, this seems kind of gray. Contrary to what appears to be consensus, I feel this was the primary reason it was locked.

A laptop comes with a Windows license and that's what you pay for. Even Microsoft doesn't really care about the discs, which is why things like Microsoft's Technet exists for professionals. I argue it is the product key and activation that count -- and as long as he's using the key from his laptop, that's what Microsoft cares about.

Anecdotally, even with a Technet subscription, I prefer to torrent ISOs (unaltered ones) because Technet gives me 150-200KB/sec usually where a torrent will give me 1.5MB/sec. I can't afford to wait around for 4 hours to download an ISO of Windows Home Premium 7 SP1 x64 when I have clients waiting. A simple MD5 checksum let's me know what I downloaded is virus free. I can tell you that in the computer service industry, this seems to be the norm.

Now, that doesn't make downloading an ISO from piratebay or whatever legal or even a good idea *but* I believe one can make a convincing moral argument.

So the question is, when we get just a faint whiff of "this doesn't seem right", does that justify a harsh response? Tempered response? Any response? Do we care more about what's moral, legal... helpful? Are they mutually exclusive, partially inclusive.. do ones carry more weight than others? *Should* we be judge, jury and executioner in these cases? Can we accurately judge intent from a single thread? Should we? Does intent even matter? Is there harm if we don't? What harm is there if we do so incorrectly? Just some thoughts there.

 

[bgandy]

I really don't understand what the fuss is here. A couple of points though...

In a matter of opinion, I agree with cliffordcooley that locking the thread is a knee-jerk response. However, TS does have that right and the consensus seem to be we trust the judgement of our mods completely and fully. For that reason, "unfair" is a difficult word to use for this situation.

Summary: The *original* thread is a guy with a laptop who tried to add a partition, the software screwed up and he didn't create recovery discs prior to his meddling. The person downloaded a recovery disc, fixed his OS and was going to try partitioning again with different software.

That was 2008. I can assure everyone that 3-4 years later, things have changed. Laptop manufacturers have been doing this for years and even Acer has caught up, now requiring the user to create their own instead of providing them by default.

Nowhere do I see anything that would question the ownership of this laptop. For this reason, I think some of you are wrong to point this out as a reason. The fact it is 3 months old and he doesn't have recovery discs means nothing (to me). I might be a minority, but I always toss my discs and re-partition my new laptops immediately.

I do believe the fact that I just throw caution to the wind and screw up along the way shouldn't exclude me from help on TS. Granted it's my fault and hey, life isn't fair, but should we require people asking for help to qualify the legitimacy of their dilemmas? I don't know if that is beneficial to anyone.

Secondly, in terms of piracy, this seems kind of gray. Contrary to what appears to be consensus, I feel this was the primary reason it was locked.

A laptop comes with a Windows license and that's what you pay for. Even Microsoft doesn't really care about the discs, which is why things like Microsoft's Technet exists for professionals. I argue it is the product key and activation that count -- and as long as he's using the key from his laptop, that's what Microsoft cares about.

Anecdotally, even with a Technet subscription, I prefer to torrent ISOs (unaltered ones) because Technet gives me 150-200KB/sec usually where a torrent will give me 1.5MB/sec. I can't afford to wait around for 4 hours to download an ISO of Windows Home Premium 7 SP1 x64 when I have clients waiting. A simple MD5 checksum let's me know what I downloaded is virus free. I can tell you that in the computer service industry, this seems to be the norm.

Now, that doesn't make downloading an ISO from piratebay or whatever legal or even a good idea *but* I believe one can make a convincing moral argument.

So the question is, when we get just a faint whiff of "this doesn't seem right", does that justify a harsh response? Tempered response? Any response? Do we care more about what's moral, legal... helpful? Are they mutually exclusive, partially inclusive.. do ones carry more weight than others? *Should* we be judge, jury and executioner in these cases? Can we accurately judge intent from a single thread? Should we? Does intent even matter? Is there harm if we don't? What harm is there if we do so incorrectly? Just some thoughts there.

+1.
I could not agree more. I recently had to download a new copy of windows 7 because I failed to make a recovery disc. I do not know if any computer that comes with.an actual disc anymore.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

 

[captaincranky]

+1.
I could not agree more. I recently had to download a new copy of windows 7 because I failed to make a recovery disc.

But surely have to admit, that was your own negligence. So, in hip talk internet parlance, that a big....(wait for it)....-1 on you.

I do not know if any computer that comes with.an actual disc anymore.

No, recovery disc images are loaded into the machine, and that's why you have to burn them as your first official act with a new computer.

On a more personal note, I've been here pushing 6 years. So, you can imagine exactly how sick of, "why I don't have my Windows Disc" stories, I actually am. Well those, and the ever more creative stories about how someone needs a password removed.

Imagine an elementary school teacher having listened to hundreds of, "the dog ate my homework stories", that's how sick I am of people joining TS, begging for reinstall help with their first post, "because they don't have their Windows disc".

In this case, the OP, seems to know all about torrenting, yet doesn't have a clue, the recovery discs are the most important piece of software you can have for your PC.

A laptop comes with a Windows license and that's what you pay for. Even Microsoft doesn't really care about the discs, which is why things like Microsoft's Technet exists for professionals. I argue it is the product key and activation that count -- and as long as he's using the key from his laptop, that's what Microsoft cares about.

Speaking as someone who accidentally read the OEM Windows EULA, I think you'll find it specifies the drive is to be imaged after the installation is complete. I've hallucinated in the distant past so this could have been a flashback, who knows.

In any event, it would seem some manufacturers take this to heart, and that's why they supply, "recovery discs", and not an actual, "Windows disc". Well, that and the recovery discs have all the system drivers slipstreamed into them.

You can't even put a standard Windows disc in my eMachines T-5026, it will ask you for an administrative password for the BIOS.

One thing to consider, it makes no difference to a recovery disc how many partitions are on a drive, or how many drives are in the machine, they always install to SATA 0, or "C/:" If a "C/:" is not present, they install to SATA 0.

So the question is, when we get just a faint whiff of "this doesn't seem right", does that justify a harsh response? Tempered response? Any response? Do we care more about what's moral, legal... helpful? Are they mutually exclusive, partially inclusive.. do ones carry more weight than others? *Should* we be judge, jury and executioner in these cases? Can we accurately judge intent from a single thread? Should we? Does intent even matter? Is there harm if we don't? What harm is there if we do so incorrectly? Just some thoughts there.

If you're not a defense attorney for a drug cartel, you should certainly consider it as an avocation

 

[mailpup]

After considering all comments, opinions and input, I've decided to reverse myself and reopen the thread in question. As has been pointed out, in this instance the subject is in a bit of a gray area and perhaps a case could be made for going in either direction. So it comes to a question of what best serves the interests of TechSpot and the members we are trying to help. With that in mind I've decided that I will choose a looser rather than a tighter interpretation of the issue and give the benefit of the doubt to the OP. Hopefully the OP hasn't been chased away but even if so, this may serve to set the tone of the general moderation direction I hope to follow.

Thanks to cliffordcooley for raising the issue and everyone else for contributing to the discussion.

 

[Per Hansson]

Here is my 0.02€ of opinion on this matter.
Most computers you buy retail come with a shitload of crapware making the system pretty much unusable from the start.
There is a COA sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the Windows key.
I generally wipe the install and make a clean installation of Windows, I don't need 48 different 30 day trials of antivirus software and whatnot...

So in my world downloading a Windows ISO is not illegal, heck I even used one at work because the "Dell Win7 Professional" disc was damaged and gave me a blurscreen while the installer was loading...

What I do make 110% sure though is that the ISO is untouched.
And we actually have run a news story in the past helping users with this...
https://www.techspot.com/news/35450-techspots-tip-of-the-week-verify-your-windows-7-iso.html

 

[Leeky]

Its an interesting point, Per.

I must admit I never even considered the option of doing a checksum on the file to verify it, despite using using similar functions in Linux on a near daily basis.

I guess some of that ignorance on my part was the assumption that Microsoft wouldn't be providing the MD5 checksums for discs they have released, having never seen them on their website before.

IF they are provided, it certainly makes verifying the same media downloaded from any source online entirely possible, and safe as well.

Its nice that this discussion has been constructive. From my personal perspective, in hindsight I jumped the gun, and the thread could easily have been continued whilst getting the valid points across to help the OP. So its a mistake on my part, but for every mistake you tend to learn something, and in this case, this excellent discussion has certainly opened my eyes to differing opinions and the options available. Which in turn will help with moderation in the future I'm certain.

 

[captaincranky]

Here is my 0.02€ of opinion on this matter.
Most computers you buy retail come with a shitload of crapware making the system pretty much unusable from the start.
There is a COA sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the Windows key.
I generally wipe the install and make a clean installation of Windows, I don't need 48 different 30 day trials of antivirus software and whatnot...

First of all, the hyperbole of "48 different free trials", is going to have a bit of a negative impact on credibility. I have any number of non issues with my one prebuilt computer. It's an eMachines, and according to raybay, (or "WE" as he likes to refer to himself), it should have self destructed years ago. "WE'RE" in year 8 together. Plus, it actually came with some decent value added software, IE: a non free trial of M$ "Works, a full manual for the board, a minimalist Nero burning suite, and a couple of DVD players.

As far as bloatware goes, although I've never used the restore discs to my Toshiba laptop, the software reinstalls are on a different disc from the OS, to the best of my recollection. But yeah, the Tosh has a lot of software nonsense going on, I could live without.

Given that the expiration has long since passed for any free trial software, it , (eMachines), doesn't even put it back in from the restore disc. Which BTW, contains all the system drivers, including SATA, slip streamed into it. It won't let you use a Windows disc, anyway. It installs to SATA 0. It even has a repair option as well as a wipe my drive clean, would ya, setting..

I guess I'm spoiled since I don't experience all these trials and tribulations with Windows installs. I never need to torrent Windows discs, simply by virtue of the fact I keep mine in a safe place, and burn the restore discs first thing, when I buy a computer.

A premiere solution for avoiding crapware, is to not buy a Sony computer. Apple is the cleanest, Sony the dirtiest. And so it goes.

As far as checksums for Windows discs goes, I've never given it any thought they existed either, in spite of having dealt with them many times with Linux downloads.

Anyway, as I recall, my first posts here weren't asking for a Windows reinstall, any malware assistance, or a free course on building my own computer. I simply wasn't that needy when I joined.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

There is nothing wrong with using torrents if activation is not being circumvented.

Though by nature torrenting means that you may be distributing that software to someone who will circumvent the activation.

 

[fimbles]

I have downloaded an iso version of windows myself and used my authentic product key to activate, Due to the fact most recovery cds come with added bloatware.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

To those whose posts have been deleted: take your bickering to PM. Stay on topic or your posts will be removed.