Operating systems

I agree, a pro should be looking at £30/hour minimum for his time, Installing Windows is at least a 2 hour job.
 
entwisi said:
I agree, a pro should be looking at £30/hour minimum for his time, Installing Windows is at least a 2 hour job.

The old PC has Windows Millenium on it so i would agree with your 2 hours. XP might run slow on the PC as well. What sort of spec is the PC Jason?
 
I've run XP on as low as a P2 266 with 128M ram. It was OK when it was running but some stuff took a while in starting up.
 
It took him about an hour and a half or so to install windows xp professional edition,Norton antivirus/firewall and the broadband,and all my dads hp office etc.
My parents are now happy with everything!!
I also have a boot up disc now as well!!

So it has all worked out ok.
......But thanks for your input!!

Jason
 
I can go to windows update and update no problems,what does it matter as long as the bloody thing is working!!
It's just like having a dodgy copy of an album downloded off the net.

Anyway i'm done with this one!!
 
jason said:
I can go to windows update and update no problems,what does it matter as long as the bloody thing is working!!
It's just like having a dodgy copy of an album downloded off the net.

Anyway i'm done with this one!!

At the moment you can get updates but it doesn't take long for Microsoft to notice multiple PCs with the same serial number connecting for the same updates from multiple IP address's. Then they block that serial number and you are stufffed.

Also I find it strange that people are prepared to pirate so much software . How would you like your employer dropping your wages to 1/10th of what they are? Software has been written by someone who does it (on the whole) as a method of employment. It has normally taken years of training and a lot of time to produce software of commercial quality. By pirating it you are taking money out of that persons/companies pocket.
 
With profits like those below Microsoft could sell its software for a tenth of its current prices and still make good profits.

Microsoft Profit Up 11%; Forecast Is Mixed

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page E05

Microsoft Corp.'s quarterly earnings rose 11 percent over the comparable quarter last year, but projections for the current quarter were mixed.

For its fiscal first quarter, which ended Sept. 30, the company announced a profit of $2.9 billion, up from $2.6 billion. Revenue was $9.2 billion, up from $8.2 billion.
 
Irrelevant.

BT could give everyone free local calls and still make a profit, as same exchange calls do not cost them anything.

Pirate software/music is theft, and it doesn't matter how many statistics you can churn out
 
I'm actually surprised they are so low. I used to work for a bank. This year they put in profits of nearly twice what Microsoft have done. For a company whose software is sold worldwide and is commonly accepted as the most popular OS in a market of how many billion people £2.9 billion is peanuts.

Vorlon is quite right though, it is theft. I always said, someone who is prepared to steal software has done the same as someone who breaks in and steals your TV. Yet one is deemed 'acceptable' teh other we scream at our politicians that they aren't being punished enough.
 
entwisi said:
Vorlon is quite right though, it is theft. I always said, someone who is prepared to steal software has done the same as someone who breaks in and steals your TV. Yet one is deemed 'acceptable' teh other we scream at our politicians that they aren't being punished enough.

To be fair, it's not the same.. You're breaking copyright laws etc, but you're not actualy STEALING the product.. They still have the original, and can still sell this to somebody else. If you steal a TV, then the person who owns the TV can't use it anymore, it's not there, they havnt produced a copy for them.

Now i'm not saying by any means that copying software is right, just in my opinion, it dosnt harm anyone if you never intended to buy the product in the first place. if I didn't have any legit Win Xp serials due to various pre-built products i've bought in the past I'd use a cracked copy because I certainly won't be paying £80 or whatever for the OS.
If cracked copies were unavailable, I'd use a free version of Linux (Infact i'd even pay for Linux disks because they actualy charge what I deem reasonable prices).
 
Cyfr said:
To be fair, it's not the same.. You're breaking copyright laws etc, but you're not actualy STEALING the product.. They still have the original, and can still sell this to somebody else. If you steal a TV, then the person who owns the TV can't use it anymore, it's not there, they havnt produced a copy for them.

You may not see yourself as stealing the product itself, but you are stealing money from the owner of said product.

As Entwisi says, people train for years and work hard to get these products to the general public.

I can't help but feeling that the reason why software is so expensive is due (in part) to piracy.

They have to recover their costs somehow.

And as a postscript, you are actually stealing the product. You didn't have it before, and you obtained it illegally.

What would you call that?
 
vorlon24 said:
As Entwisi says, people train for years and work hard to get these products to the general public.

You would think they could make it work properly then wouldn't you.

There is no come back to the software companies for selling half working software.

If you bought a new car and the brakes failed just because you were steering and indicating at the same time you would not be too happy. :D
 
There is a slight difference between a piece of software and a serious safety issue.

That is why I can't see software running our lives in the near future, and here I am referring to things like Skynet in the Terminator films
 
vorlon24 said:
There is a slight difference between a piece of software and a serious safety issue.

That is why I can't see software running our lives in the near future, and here I am referring to things like Skynet in the Terminator films

If you have modern ABS brakes you rely on software every time you press the brake pedal. :eek:
 
I agree that Microsoft do get away with selling a product that is sub standard. However there is an option available to you. Don't use that software.

Cars are often released with problems and have to be recalled. In fact in one instance despite a serious safety issue Ford did not recall the cars because 'it is cheaper to deal with any ensuing law suits than to fix the problem'
 
vorlon24 said:
You may not see yourself as stealing the product itself, but you are stealing money from the owner of said product.

Again, i'm not saying it's right to break copyright laws, because it's not.

Now, how am are people stealing money from the owners if they never intended to buy it in the first place?
 
Because you are using a product that costs money, but you have not paid for it.

The money that you would have spent, if you were using the product legally, would have found its way up the supply chain back to the owner of the product.

If you never intended to buy it in the first place, you shouldn't really be using it, especially as there are other similar products that don't cost anything (see Entwisi's post)
 
If people never intend to buy the product then the owner wouldn't get any money regardless of if it could be downloaded or not.
It's the same with Music, when the music industry claims that all the songs downloaded would have been bought if people didn't download them..

and like I said, I own several Win xp cdkeys, and use Linux, just saying I don't agree with a lot of stuff.
 
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