New
#250
Hi tews -- for people who KNOW Photoshop your solution is fine but the typical casual user won't know that which is why I'd suggest in removing all PERSONAL / Sensitive data from an image BEFORE posting it.
Hi Myhken You'll probably be OK as it requires a bit of expertise to cull this info from an image but people CAN do it so it's just a hint for next time.
Cheers
jimbo
Hi Jimbo..
You're probably correct ... I've been using GIMP for years and I always merge the layers... its just automatic for me..
It's much money in MS products (and Adobe) and people is temped to sell a key or two (or 100) when they get a Technet account. They only need a key or two for them self, maybe some to their friend. And then they think..what to do with rest of my 90 keys for Windows 7? Hey, what if I sell them for $30 a piece? Thats $2.700, and I have only paid $199.
BizSpark was the first program that was misused in so large scale that MS almost stopped accepting new accounts, and they cut the number of keys down to 2 per products (and there they have cut down to two for EVERY products, almost).
And if anybody is generating a "large" number of Windows and/or Office keys, they close down their account, without sending a mail, or anything. It just happened with me..but after some mails, and help from my Norwegian BizSpark Champ and Mike Kinsman from MSDN, my account was online again. But I have a real company... but had followed an advice from Mike to use the .xml function, and create all keys, and save the file. The BizSpark team was not impressed with my actions, and closed it down.
Since BizSpark is "free" (no upfront payment) you can easly fool them, and lots of people (or maybe the same people, but the have created lots of accounts) created a large numbers of "business" right after the Win7 release. And before MS reduced the number of keys, you got 10 keys for every products (SKUs).
After BizSpark was reduced, the pirates moved on to Technet, that's cost money, but still, the profit is VERY high if you can sell every key for $30 or more. And you can sell the same key 10 times, so the earnings is great. And since MS is a so large company it takes some time before people start complaning about one key, that they can't get activated, and of course is 100% genuine (paid $30 on ebay), to MS actually close down the Technet/MSDN/BizSpark account. And blacklist the rest of the keys. But at this point, the seller have most likely sold all his/her keys, and can have a great party for all the money they have earned.
myhken,
I think you are pretty spot on here. It's sad that some will screw something up for everybody...but no doubt that is what was going on. It's part of the reason that I always maintained that something was odd in that a retail copy of Windows and Office together is about $500-$600...yet people could just buy Technet for $199 and get it all. Technet should have always cost a whole lot more. I'm really unsure how Microsoft thought that this program would not be abused. So, at the end of the day, if a $199 or $349 subscription to Technet is a reasonable price for 2 licenses with 10 activations.....then a single retail copy of Windows should probably cost $50 or less.
Mike Kinsman from Microsoft is now writing that the reduction IS for EVERY products as stated in the FAQ, I just checked and still have 10 keys for all the products I had 10 keys for before, but most likely the will change this very soon. So if you don't have generated all your keys, I think this is the time for it.
Here is my almost complete list of available keys and products on a Technet Pro account taken yesterday:
Technet Pro Product and key list
Se the info from Mike here:I think everyone's made their point here so far in the thread. The number of keys per subscription is now spelled out in our FAQ and, as has been mentioned above, the policy now affects all products.
Its been made clear that the number of keys per subscription wasn't listed in the Subscriptions EULA, which is true. The difficulty that some customers have experienced with this change is real, however, and we always encourage open and honest feedback and discussions directly through our support teams and openly here on the forums.
This comes after much discussion and concern and frustration from many people I work with and work for on the team over the past few months. As it states in the FAQ, the goal here is to allow us to continue supporting our IT Pro audience with the TechNet Subscription as a software evaluation program while mitigating illegitimate counterfeiting and piracy activities. We continue to regret any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused to our legitimate subscribers.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,
Mike
Technet Standard Keys