friend bought fake software off ebay

nanamoo

i am posting this on behalf of a friend

i didnt know her at that time or i would of told her to stay clear, my friend bought windows 7 from ebay about a year ago (already told her she was silly for buying it) which until yesterday she believed it was a legit disc. her original pc it was installed on unfortunately has gone to the pc shop in the sky and she was having a new 1 built, the guy went to install her windows 7 on it for her when he noticed it was fake

she knows she needs to now buy a legit disc

what i wanted to know is, is there anything that can be done about the seller on ebay after all this time has passed?

also, does anybody know if microsoft would help her?

thanks in advance

hermum

You have 45 days to open a case through ebay or paypal so she's way out of time.
I'm not sure what help she would like from microsoft.

rfowler

No nothing it has been a year.

Also Microsoft would not help either, I have been down that line

nanamoo

ok thanks anyway, didn't think there was much that could be done but thought it was worth asking

Kingsd316

Surely the disc doesnt matter and its the license thats important, if she had a PC that already had it installed use the license key off of that to install it, when my PC went boom I used copied version of vista and my key from my old laptop to install it on a new laptop.

melliott1963

Kingsd316 wrote: »

Surely the disc doesnt matter and its the license thats important, if she had a PC that already had it installed use the license key off of that to install it, when my PC went boom I used copied version of vista and my key from my old laptop to install it on a new laptop.

I'm guessing that the Laptop came with a different operating system (Vista?) and this person bought the Windows 7 from ebay to upgrade her laptop.

I am surprised, however, that in the year she's been using it, she hasn't had any warnings from her PC alerting her the license key is not legal, which is what would normally happen. I think the only way that this wouldn't happen is if she never installed any updates and didn't attach to the internet.

In what way did the guy 'notice it was fake'?

shaun_from_Africa

Even if the OP still had the licence key, I doubt if they would be able to to use it legitimately on their new computer.

If the operating system on their now deceased computer was an OEM version, then when the computer is scrapped, the licence is also scrapped and it shouldn't be installed on another machine.
The only way to transfer a Windows operating system is if it was a retail version that was purchased.

Pembroke

Just to play devils advocate: Are you sure that the person in the shop didn't tell her it was fake because he wanted to sell her all the software on the PC, there's more money in software than in components for PC's.

Enterprise_1701C

I was going to say exactly the same - it's been going for a year and not been spotted as fake? I assume she has been using the internet and been getting updates etc.

What I would do, never been in the position so don't know if she would get a reply, is to contact Microsoft with the licence number, explaining that her old computer is kaput and she wants to use it on a new one, explaining that she has been told by an undependable source that it is fake, and ask them if it is genuine, there would surely be nothing to lose if she is already considering buying a new one.

If she has to buy a new one, I would not use the guy building the computer if he is expensive, I would get hold of a copy through the net. Does she know anyone in education? If so then she might be able to get a cheap one stating it is for a student.

poppy_f1

i'll be honest and admit i ran a fake serial no for win 7 and it flagged up as soon as i done windows update
went back to vista after that

pendulum

A cracked version would only show up if she manually installed Windows Updates or certain new versions of Windows software. You can bet automatic updates would have been disabled if the version was cracked. I know loads of people who don't install updates because they don't even know they should so it's quite plausible to me she could have run a cracked version for a year.