Please don't do that, I did not encourage anything (you are insinuating I am
doing so when I am looking at it from theoretical point of view), I did not
say it was ok. All I am saying, its possible, not that I condone it, its
just a reality. Microsoft knows you can do that, but they do nothing about
it to ensure users are upgrading from a legitimate version of Windows or
copy of Windows from the right channel. Why, because it would hurt genuine
consumers in the process and hackers would find a way around it anyway.
The real cause of piracy is mis-use of Volume Licenses by some Corporate
customers. The majority of illegal copies of XP out there on systems are
Professional Edition and they are Volume License. Which means, it came from
a Volume License Agreement, which Microsoft licenses to Company's in good
faith, unfortunately, that trust is sometimes abused. For example, the
infamous FCKG license supposedly came from one of Microsoft's biggest
partners, Dell.
All I want to say is, I do not condone piracy and I never said anything to
come to such a conclusion.
I am glad that we are now (more or less) on the same page.