Introduction

Traditional volume-licensed media ship with a product key designed to activate an unlimited number of computers. This approach is effective for organizations that maintain large numbers of systems, enabling them to build deployment images using volume-licensed product keys and to deploy them to hundreds or thousands of computers. Unfortunately, this distribution method also creates media that can be copied and shared with an unlimited number of users, with few repercussions for the party making the copies.

Microsoft does not support users of copied operating systems; when those users have a support issue, they are often surprised to discover that the application they purchased was, in fact, stolen. In addition to the obvious embarrassment ...

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