“Microsoft is abusing the power of the government to put people into jail for the sole reason that they made products easier to service,” YouTuber Louis Rossman complained yesterday. “And that is bullshit.”
In his typical and slightly vulgar style, the New York City Mac repair expert, best known for his viral attacks on Apple’s business practices (warning: language) took a few minutes to tear into one of its rivals for persecuting Eric Lundgren, a computer waste recycler.
That’s where I learned about this story, and after reading more about it, I can only say it’s a real head-scratcher. Because as it happens, Lundgren is being punished for providing a service I needed only recently, and only now do I understand why no one was there to provide it.
Lundgren, prosecuted at Microsoft’s behest as a software pirate, has just lost his appeal and will serve 15 months in prison for the crime of making Windows recovery disks — that is, disks containing freely downloadable software that helps consumers reinstall their legal copy of Windows on a machine after (for example) its hard drive dies. Lundgren’s aim was to sell disks containing the free software to computer refurbishers, saving those refurbishers the trouble of making the disks for free as they can already do legally so that they can easily restore legal copies of windows on the hardware they are refurbishing.
As The Verge notes, “Microsoft argued that this free-to-download software was worth $25 per disk.” How the court accepted this assertion about software that is lawfully available online for free, and which doesn’t do you any good unless you have a licensed copy of Windows anyway, is completely beyond me.
(Lundgren explains his so-called crime here — forgive me for the fact that this clip comes from RT, it’s just that the other videos I’ve found aren’t nearly as good at explaining this.)
Let me also explain from my own very recent experience what a tremendous service Lundgren was providing — a service Microsoft doesn’t offer for the lawful, paying, licensed users of its flagship consumer product.
A few weeks ago, I needed a Windows recovery disk. And because I couldn’t create or find one, I was forced to sever my last personal connection to the Windows operating system after more than 20 years. I must say, I’m feeling better about that decision as I write this, but it didn’t have to be this way. And it’s wrong to punish someone who was only trying to help people like me by putting him away with murderers and rapists.
I stepped away from Windows as my daily driver and started using ChromeOS in late 2015. My Windows laptop’s hardware issue didn’t seem worth paying to fix, given the 14-inch Chromebook’s $200 price tag.
I’m completely satisfied with Chrome now, but that old Windows machine had not been cheap, and it just sat there in a desk drawer for months, burning a hole in the back of my brain. So, with nothing to lose, I looked up some YouTube videos, took it apart, and fixed it. Incredibly, the thing worked when I put it back together. It went more than another year as a second computer (for watching C-SPAN and baseball games while working), but then, the hard drive died. That seemed like a silly reason to throw the whole thing out, so I bought and connected a new drive.
But then, I found I had no easy way of reinstalling Windows. Computers used to come with Windows recovery CDs, but no one does that anymore. Fortunately, you can download a piece of free software from your laptop manufacturer and burn yourself a free Windows recovery disk while your computer is still working. Don’t ask me exactly how it works (Linus Sebastian can explain), but you can’t do it unless your motherboard has a valid Windows product key.
Of course, you did download the software and create the recovery disk before your computer stopped working, right?
Oops! Yeah, I didn’t do that either. And it turns out that it is basically impossible to create the ISO and bootable flash drive you need without a working Windows computer (or at least I couldn’t figure out how), and I didn’t have casual access to a computer running Windows. When I found someone I was comfortable asking to tinker with their computer potentially for hours (my parents), it turned out I didn’t quite understand what I was supposed to do. I failed.
Then, a few weeks ago, it hit me: Maybe there’s someone out there who will sell me a pre-burned Windows recovery disk that will work on my laptop. They might advertise it on Amazon: “No hassle, no complicated process that requires a working computer. Just plug it in, boot up, and bring your licensed copy of Windows 8.1 back to life.”
When I looked online, I was actually surprised that nothing like that was available. So, I purchased a bootable thumb drive containing Linux and made my home officially Windows-free.
But only now, looking at this story of Lundgren, do I understand why no one would dare sell me a Windows recovery drive even if it might otherwise occur to them — because Windows will go to court and claim that that’s piracy, even though they’re just trying to help a technological semi-illiterate like myself reinstall my own lawfully owned copy of Windows.
Microsoft has now created a martyr out of someone who only tried to make Windows computers last longer. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier that Bill Gates is out of my house for good.
