Eric Ligman, Microsoft US Senior Manager Small Business Community Engagement, has come out guns blazing with sarcasm following reports of a Windows Vista Service Pack 1 loophole which permits end users to perform clean installations of the operating system instead of upgrades. The workaround is nothing new and represents an item of novelty just because of Service Pack 1. In fact as early as the delivery of Vista RTM, a hack which enabled a full and clean deployment of Vista from upgrade editions of the operating system (with reduced prices) became general knowledge. According to Microsoft, using the hack is the same as using pirated software, namely illegal.

"It seems that there are some people out there who don't quite get the concept of an upgrade," Ligman stated. "Because of this, I am going to explain it again. You can buy a software full license that gets you the rights to install and run the software. You can buy a software upgrade license that allows you to upgrade from the full license you have to the upgraded product you purchased the upgrade for. To qualify for an upgrade license, you MUST have a full license to upgrade from first. Without the full license, you have nothing to upgrade from and an upgrade from nothing gets you nothing."

Ligman has taken sarcasm as far as drawing the explanation of how users should install upgrade software in relation to the full license. Ligman went on to say that installing Vista upgrade editions without owning a full license for a previous version of the operating system is 100% illegal. At the same time, the Senior Manager Small Business Community Engagement indicated his discontent for the authors of materials which incite end users to perform illegal actions.

"While I really can't believe I have to put that ridiculous note on my [words], just the fact that there are people writing articles advising people to illegally install software that they are not licensed for 'because they can get it to physically install' just shows how clueless some people are and how willing they are to share that with others. And just in case one of them happens to read this, I want to make sure they are not confused by the paragraph above. If you are one of those people, let me put it this way, 'It is not ok to do so. It is BAD to do so.' There, no words bigger than three letters, so that should hopefully be easy enough to follow," Ligman concluded.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system is available for download HERE.