To be fair, I haven’t paid Microsoft for my OS…ever. And it’s not even piracy.
I got a licence for free through my university when I was in uni. And Microsoft seemed happy to let me keep using it and even upgrading it. I started on Windows 8, upgraded for free to Windows 10. If my PC didn’t have a processor that seemingly arbitrarily they decided can’t run Windows 11, I could be on that today.
Same. Got XP and Vista from the university, license for Vista allowed to update to 7, 10 (never used 8)…
Now I use LTSC + massgrave activation, but technically I have a 10 license.
To be fair, I haven’t paid Microsoft for my OS…ever. And it’s not even piracy.
I got a licence for free through my university when I was in uni. And Microsoft seemed happy to let me keep using it and even upgrading it. I started on Windows 8, upgraded for free to Windows 10. If my PC didn’t have a processor that seemingly arbitrarily they decided can’t run Windows 11, I could be on that today.
you did pay with your usage data.
Same. Got XP and Vista from the university, license for Vista allowed to update to 7, 10 (never used 8)… Now I use LTSC + massgrave activation, but technically I have a 10 license.
Often OEMs pay for windows if you buy aprebuilt or a laptop. So you might pay Microsoft indirectly.