Absolute pish! I have reinstalled my copy of Vista on no less than four occassions since getting it earlier this year (mostly caused by hardware issues I might add). On each occassion beyond the first, I will agree that I have had to call MS directly, and speak to a rep in order to reactivate it. To that end they are correct. However, the "third degree" the author complains about it not representative of the process.

On each occassion, my conversation went something like this:

Tech: Whats the code from the first x groups
Me: xxx xxx xxx
Tech: Did you buy this copy separately, or did it come with the PC?
ME: I bought the OEM separately to install onto a homebuilt machine.
Tech: How many machines, besides this one, do you have this copy of Windows installed on?
Me: None
Tech: Whats the reason for the reactivation
Me: Reinstallation due to hardware failure.
Tech: Thank you, your activation code is xxx xxx xxx...

Job done! Thats it. Perhaps the author (obviously anti-MS), should take the time to research the typical calls to MS activation, before shooting his mouth off.

In addition - the same thing often happens with XP.

While I am not a great fan of Microsoft I don't think this article is anything other than a misplaced rant!

(This is not a criticism of you Trip - always good to know what is being written in various places.)

Harry.

Thanks, Harry. Just to confirm, I post news articles because I think they'll be of general interest but not always because I'm advocating the point of view of the article's author.

What Fergal and Harry said... this is no different than XP's mechanisms. The reviewer doesn't have much of a clue.

Agreed. Wasn't implying you were the culprit, just the author of the original article.

Actually I think it is a big deal, how many wasted man hours will there be with techs on the end of AVR systems for hours on end ?

Meanwhile Linux, Mac, etc users will be getting the job done...

No-one said it wasnt a big deal. We are saying its standard/ no different to XP. Additionally, we are saying that the Author is misrepresenting the process, based on a single call to the line.

Ok so they are fairly helpful in general, but seriously since when should an OS install mandate several support calls ? So the XP process was horrible too, is that a valid excuse ?

Dude... it's *really* not as difficult as you're making it out to be.

I guess the point is, why in the world should anyone have to phone in when installing a legit copy of Vista or XP? It's just another aggravation brought on by MS's arrogance and lack of respect for its own customers.

It hasn't stopped piracy. It's just like DRM in music and movies. It's a hoop legit people have to jump through that the real pirates laugh at and does little to no good in stopping piracy. Anyone can argue all they want for it, but the fact remains, it simply doesn't work, and the only people "punished" are the good guys.

It's just plain stupid. It's like a stupid government regulation that doesn't work, never will, but everyone has to do because an idiotic bureaucrat somewhere decided everyone should have to follow the regulation.

It reminds me of one of the safety regulations we had when I was working in the sawmills back in the early 70's. There was a regulation that anyone working the chipper had to be tied off with a rope to keep them from falling into the chipper if they got knocked out. Well, the tie point for rope had to be 10 feet away from the chipper, and the rope had to be 20 feet long. IOW's you would have passed through the chipper along with 10 feet of rope before the rope would have ever become taut. It was stupid, senseless, could never work, yet it was a $20,000 fine if you got caught without being tied off with the rope when working near the mouth of the chipper.

I pointed out exactly how stupid and senseless it all was to the government safety inspector. All he did was get mad enough that his face turned red and threaten to fine us if he caught me without it. That it did absolutely no good, that it couldn't possibly make me safer was of no consequence. It was written, therefore it had to be. Just like WGA.

And I know of companies still pirating XP so your post is meaningless. WGA hasn't stopped anything. All it has done is make sure people who want to pirate XP don't patch their PC's. WGA isn't going to stop piracy. Go ahead and keep on making your inferential claims that it will, but we both know it won't. It might slow down the technically challenged, but it won't stop anyone who has real computer skills.

Like I said. It only punishes the legit person. They're the ones who have to call MS when they upgrade the mobo's, change their hard drives, graphics cards, etc.... It's like the Vista kill switch. The only reason MS finally backed off on it was because so many innocent people were having their machines shut down. The real pirates just laugh at all this crap and you know it.

Remove the system key requirement and see how quickly it's pirated by your everyday average user.

Most people don't have "real computer skills". Take away any sort of protection, and the average computer user won't bother to pay for a legit copy.

Not sure why I'm bothering to explain... it's like talking to a wall as far as this topic is concerned.

There is nothing wrong with having to enter a system key when you install software. That's reasonable. WGA is not. If it checked once and then that was it that would be fine. It doesn't. It's a stupid hack and everyone knows it. Like anyone is going to pay for Windows, then take it off and put a pirated copy on their machine. It's just a greedy money grab by MS wanting to define "new PC" by their own terms so they can keep on bleeding people's pockets dry. WGA is rude and arrogant.

Just keep on defending them Michael.

Not defending them in particular... same would be true for Boson if we didn't have system key protection.

In my experience this is very rare, the legal penalties are just too high for most businesses to risk, thats why they pay for the audits to be carried out. There may be a few minor infringements and they are addressed by the audit, thats the whole point. Companies that generally don't care wouldn't have an audit in the first place.

I'm afriad freddy is right, Its complete overkill designed to generate an extra few percent revenue while inconveniencing the user. Volume licensing is for business and still seems to require activation for most products, agreed the private users get hit hardest by this though and they ironically normally pay the highest per license fees due to not having negotiation power.