What is the ruling on an engineer using pirated Windows copies when maintaining other people's devices and in his government work, knowing that he bought his own licensed copy and finds it difficult to purchase expensive licensed copies for his work or to charge clients for them?

You are not obligated to purchase an original copy for each device. It is sufficient to use your original copy for two reasons:

First: Because by owning the original copy, you possess the right to dispose of it through sale, rental, gifting, and personal use. Any condition stipulated by the company that restricts its use to a single device, or prohibits its sale or gifting, is a void condition because it contravenes the essence of the sales contract, which grants full ownership and freedom of disposal.

Second: These companies monopolize these copies and sell them at exorbitant profits, exploiting people's needs, which causes harm and hardship to buyers. This hardship is alleviated by the fact that the copy being used is original, for which the company has been paid and has achieved a reasonable profit.

However, downloading a non-original copy is not permissible, as it constitutes cooperation in sin and aggression, and an infringement on the rights of the manufacturing company.