G
Guest
Bought Vista Ultimate Retail at top wack UK ripoff price (350 UK pounds).
Installed and activated fine. But with all the driver & software
improvements, I decided last week to wipe and fresh/clean install. Came to
reactivate (for the 2nd time). Obviously the Internet activation didn't work
so I rang Microsoft. This is the daft rigmarole I had to go through.
1. Automatic phone registration: I had to type in on the phone keyboard a
series of numbers (about 6 groups of 6 digits). Then while the "system"
generated a code back for me; I had to answer a series of "trick" questions:
How many PC's have I installed this s/w on? Press 1 for "Two" or Press 2 for
"One" etc etc. Some of these questions were asked more than once. Clearly,
I entered something wrongly because instead of getting a code back, I got
transferred to talk directly to an Indian Call Centre.
2. He then proceeded to ask me a lot of the same questions all over again. I
had to repeat the numbers previously entered. Got the second degree as to
why I wanted to re-activate. And finally, 12 minutes later got the code I
needed to reactivate.
Now, is this procedure designed to beat piracy? Or just make honest
customers like me REALLY pissed off. And remember, I paid full price for a
retail copy that I am supposed to be able to re-install and reactivate on the
same PC or even transfer the license easily to a new PC without hassle.
Since this was a second activation to the same hardware, why is the software
not intelligent enough to realise this, and reactivate automatically via the
Internet?
Nigel
Installed and activated fine. But with all the driver & software
improvements, I decided last week to wipe and fresh/clean install. Came to
reactivate (for the 2nd time). Obviously the Internet activation didn't work
so I rang Microsoft. This is the daft rigmarole I had to go through.
1. Automatic phone registration: I had to type in on the phone keyboard a
series of numbers (about 6 groups of 6 digits). Then while the "system"
generated a code back for me; I had to answer a series of "trick" questions:
How many PC's have I installed this s/w on? Press 1 for "Two" or Press 2 for
"One" etc etc. Some of these questions were asked more than once. Clearly,
I entered something wrongly because instead of getting a code back, I got
transferred to talk directly to an Indian Call Centre.
2. He then proceeded to ask me a lot of the same questions all over again. I
had to repeat the numbers previously entered. Got the second degree as to
why I wanted to re-activate. And finally, 12 minutes later got the code I
needed to reactivate.
Now, is this procedure designed to beat piracy? Or just make honest
customers like me REALLY pissed off. And remember, I paid full price for a
retail copy that I am supposed to be able to re-install and reactivate on the
same PC or even transfer the license easily to a new PC without hassle.
Since this was a second activation to the same hardware, why is the software
not intelligent enough to realise this, and reactivate automatically via the
Internet?
Nigel