Yeah I know. This is why I tested the free upgrade thing in a spare pc and hdd to see if Win10 really was activated. My main own PC is still not owned
All of this would be possible of course....but there would be blowback (I'm a SOA fan). For all the illegitimate activations there are many more legitimate activations using the same technology or technique. It would be logistically difficult for MS to blanket ban large groups suspected of certain types of exploits without banning legitimate users or at least people who sincerely believe they are legitimate users. In the past when they tried this it usually backfired (remember Windows XP and Windows Genuine Advantage or whatever they called it) by inconveniencing legitimate users. It's a lot like video games that use overly aggressive anti piracy measures that end up punishing legitimate users. And as others have pointed out, even pirates can be potential customers. This may be something MS has come to terms with...or it may be just a matter of convenience. Their biggest problem with piracy isn't the occasional PC enthusiast who gets a kick out of skirting the system...it's the very large number of installed users in developing countries that are using obsolete versions of the Windows OS using hacked activations and infested with all kinds of viruses and exploits. This is bad for Microsoft but even worse for Microsoft's competitors (basically a Mac or Unix based OS)...so Microsoft figures it's better to keep all those users on their OS and bring them up to date rather than systematically ban them and drive them to alternative operating systems. It's all just speculation but the fact is MS is currently giving away permanent activations of Windows 10 for free even for KMS activated copies of 8.1 so it should be pretty clear that punishing software pirates is not their main objective at this point. A few years ago when MS mistakenly allowed a loophole that let users to activate Windows 8 by adding the WMC module they never went back and cancelled those activations nor did they exclude those activations from a free upgrade to Windows 10. I think that...as others have speculated...that their new business model is to spread the OS far and wide and then upsell it as a service down the road. One thing to remember is that you are agreeing to give up your activated copy of Win 7 or 8.1 in exchange for a new license...where that leads is anybody's guess but chances are your hardware will be obsolete by then anyway. I personally believe MS will have more success defeating piracy by making the OS more affordable or convenient to purchase and allowing users to keep their licence as they upgrade hardware. This is how Apple was successful with iTunes in the face of blatant music piracy. In the meantime...there is little need to try to get a free copy of Windows 10 using KMS. If you want to learn more about KMS I recommend reading the super long thread on 8.1 in these forums.
There are a lot of privacy tweak threads going around the forums, I am attempting to centralize them all in the second post of this thread, please help me create a detailed list of registry settings for privacy!
Is a starting point, since i face the same problem like the Spider, the threads are mostly messy . And since i like to know what i do i dislike any 'Black-Box' tools here.
Just added the main info i already gathered or just found to my last post. Will add a proper way to write that list to hosts via powershell/cmd soon.