XP Home Activation

[D.R.]

Man oh man. I just upgraded a friends pc. All I did was stick a bigger CPU and a
little more RAM. Upon boot it asks me to re-activate online. What a steaming
pile of XP this is. It wouldn't let me login to setup up LAN or Modem, but just
as well LAN set to DHCP. I connect to the internet by plugging into my ADSL
connection. MS server not available! So I let it dial up a local number via the
modem. Their modem answers ok, but the server still not available. What a crock!
So I have to phone an automated number, feed it a slew of numbers, write down
their numbers and enter by hand.

All this takes valuable time.... and for what? Upgrade 2 parts and MS consider
it a new pc? What right have they got to dictate whether or not we can upgrade
part on our own machines? I mean, you cannot activate more than x times, right?

I resent that Microsoft make us, the consumer, pay for their own protection. I
mean, it's the equivalent to some firm installing a burglar alarm on their
premises and making us, the consumer, pay for it.

What makes it much worse is that MS use us, the consumer, as guinea pigs to test
their products. I mean, we buy their product, find it is faulty, and then have
to download a patch every so often to fix their mistakes. When I installed 2003
Server last year, I looked up the help files included on the CD only to find
that parts I needed info on had not been written yet even though they appeared
on the index/contents of the help. Many parts were incomplete/to be continued.

This seals it... I refuse to buy another MS product ever again. While I install
XP on peoples machines as part of my daily job, my home pc will stay as a 98SE +
Linux box until 98 doesn't suit me and then it'll be a dedicated Linux box.

Anyone else feel the same?

D.R.

 

[Guest]

No

 

[Richard Urban]

"Anyone else feel the same?"


NOT HERE!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Al Smith]

This seals it... I refuse to buy another MS product ever again. While I install

XP on peoples machines as part of my daily job, my home pc will stay as a 98SE +
Linux box until 98 doesn't suit me and then it'll be a dedicated Linux box.

Anyone else feel the same?

D.R.

Ha! I feel exactly the same ... more or less. I've made a sacred
vow that Microsoft shall never get another dollar from me, as long
as I live. It's not that I think their products are bad. They are
pretty good, most of the time. They just acted like Nazis once too
often for me, and pissed me off permanently. Product activation
was the thing that finally did it.

In a week or so I'm going to buy the parts for a new PC and
assemble it myself, to avoid the "Microsoft tax" -- that's the
cost of buying Windows pre-installed on a computer. Almost
everyone who buys a new computer pays the Microsoft tax. But I
won't, ever again.

You may say that I'm using Windows XP right now. True. But I
haven't broken my vow. I've got nothing against using Microsoft
products. I just don't intend to buy any. Ever.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
I resent that Microsoft make us, the consumer, pay for
their own protection. I
mean, it's the equivalent to some firm installing a
burglar alarm on their
premises and making us, the consumer, pay for it.

So how many firms do you know that DON'T make their
consumers pay their expenses?? ;-)

If the firm has chosen wisely, the cost of the security
is less than the cost of theft prevented and the overall
cost the consumer is reduced. If not, the consumer pays
more.

Are you sure you didn't change something else like a NIC
or the motherboard? I've never heard of a new CPU and
memory alone causing reactivation. A new CPU and memory
also wouldn't have caused all the networking issues you
had. There must be a little more to this story.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Man oh man. I just upgraded a friends pc. All I did was
stick a bigger CPU and a little more RAM. Upon boot it
asks me to re-activate online. What a steaming pile of XP
this is. It wouldn't let me login to setup up LAN or
Modem, but just as well LAN set to DHCP. I connect to
the internet by plugging into my ADSL connection. MS
server not available! So I let it dial up a local number
via the modem. Their modem answers ok, but the server
still not available. What a crock! So I have to phone an
automated number, feed it a slew of numbers, write down
their numbers and enter by hand.

All this takes valuable time.... and for what? Upgrade 2
parts and MS consider it a new pc? What right have they
got to dictate whether or not we can upgrade part on our
own machines? I mean, you cannot activate more than x
times, right?

I resent that Microsoft make us, the consumer, pay for
their own protection. I mean, it's the equivalent to some
firm installing a burglar alarm on their premises and
making us, the consumer, pay for it.

What makes it much worse is that MS use us, the consumer,
as guinea pigs to test their products. I mean, we buy
their product, find it is faulty, and then have to
download a patch every so often to fix their mistakes.
When I installed 2003 Server last year, I looked up the
help files included on the CD only to find that parts I
needed info on had not been written yet even though they
appeared on the index/contents of the help. Many parts
were incomplete/to be continued.

This seals it... I refuse to buy another MS product ever
again. While I install XP on peoples machines as part of
my daily job, my home pc will stay as a 98SE + Linux box
until 98 doesn't suit me and then it'll be a dedicated
Linux box.

Anyone else feel the same?

D.R.

No, I don't feel the same.

I don't understand your not having anticipated this. Anyone with
a lick of sense would know that changing a CPU is likely to require
new BIOS settings (whether the motherboard does them automatically or
not) which will likely appear to the OS as a different motherboard.
Add in the changed RAM, the new CPU, and whatever other changes may
have happened earlier, and I'd certainly have expected to re-activate.
Activation is, except in very rare cases, almost entirely automatic
and painless.

Anyway, your problems getting re-activated seem to stem largely
from your own inability to configure a computer's networking. Perhaps
you'd better stick to something you know. (I'd almost be willing to
buy tickets to watch you try to install and configure Linux.)


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever
count on having both at once. - RAH

 

[kurttrail]

So how many firms do you know that DON'T make their
consumers pay their expenses?? ;-)

If the firm has chosen wisely, the cost of the security
is less than the cost of theft prevented and the overall
cost the consumer is reduced. If not, the consumer pays
more.

Are you sure you didn't change something else like a NIC
or the motherboard? I've never heard of a new CPU and
memory alone causing reactivation. A new CPU and memory
also wouldn't have caused all the networking issues you
had. There must be a little more to this story.

Yeah, like PA is flaky, just like the rest of MS's code. That it is
ABSOLUTELY of no use to the end user makes it even worse than the rest of
MS's flaky code.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Don Burnette]

Man oh man. I just upgraded a friends pc. All I did was stick a
bigger CPU and a little more RAM. Upon boot it asks me to re-activate
online. What a steaming pile of XP this is. It wouldn't let me login
to setup up LAN or Modem, but just as well LAN set to DHCP. I
connect to the internet by plugging into my ADSL connection. MS
server not available! So I let it dial up a local number via the
modem. Their modem answers ok, but the server still not available.
What a crock! So I have to phone an automated number, feed it a slew
of numbers, write down their numbers and enter by hand.

All this takes valuable time.... and for what? Upgrade 2 parts and MS
consider it a new pc? What right have they got to dictate whether or
not we can upgrade part on our own machines? I mean, you cannot
activate more than x times, right?

I resent that Microsoft make us, the consumer, pay for their own
protection. I mean, it's the equivalent to some firm installing a
burglar alarm on their premises and making us, the consumer, pay for
it.

What makes it much worse is that MS use us, the consumer, as guinea
pigs to test their products. I mean, we buy their product, find it is
faulty, and then have to download a patch every so often to fix their
mistakes. When I installed 2003 Server last year, I looked up the
help files included on the CD only to find that parts I needed info
on had not been written yet even though they appeared on the
index/contents of the help. Many parts were incomplete/to be
continued.

This seals it... I refuse to buy another MS product ever again. While
I install XP on peoples machines as part of my daily job, my home pc
will stay as a 98SE + Linux box until 98 doesn't suit me and then
it'll be a dedicated Linux box.

Anyone else feel the same?

D.R.

Not really. I have had XP installed since Dec of 01, first Home, then Pro. I
have upgraded motherboards, processors, video cards, sound cars, ram a few
times. Acitvation was painless via the internet - one time, I had to phone
in for activation, took maybe 5 minutes, and was not a hassle at all.

 

[kurttrail]

Not really. I have had XP installed since Dec of 01, first Home, then
Pro. I have upgraded motherboards, processors, video cards, sound
cars, ram a few times. Acitvation was painless via the internet - one
time, I had to phone in for activation, took maybe 5 minutes, and was
not a hassle at all.

It is a hassle when it doesn't work right.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Guest]

It is a hassle when it doesn't work right.

Well that's hard to argue with. Regardless of what "it"
happens to be.

 

[D.R.]

So how many firms do you know that DON'T make their
consumers pay their expenses?? ;-)

If the firm has chosen wisely, the cost of the security
is less than the cost of theft prevented and the overall
cost the consumer is reduced. If not, the consumer pays
more.

Are you sure you didn't change something else like a NIC
or the motherboard? I've never heard of a new CPU and
memory alone causing reactivation. A new CPU and memory
also wouldn't have caused all the networking issues you
had. There must be a little more to this story.

It was Microsofts site which was down, via the www and direct dial-up to MS's
phone number.

 

[D.R.]

No, I don't feel the same.

I don't understand your not having anticipated this. Anyone with
a lick of sense would know that changing a CPU is likely to require
new BIOS settings (whether the motherboard does them automatically or
not) which will likely appear to the OS as a different motherboard.
Add in the changed RAM, the new CPU, and whatever other changes may
have happened earlier, and I'd certainly have expected to re-activate.
Activation is, except in very rare cases, almost entirely automatic
and painless.

A cpu and RAM requires re-activation? C'mon, get real.

Anyway, your problems getting re-activated seem to stem largely
from your own inability to configure a computer's networking. Perhaps
you'd better stick to something you know. (I'd almost be willing to
buy tickets to watch you try to install and configure Linux.)

If you read my post, you'd know that a) I couldn't log in as the activation
screen is all I could get to, and b) even dialing up, MS would answer, but their
PA server was down.

 

[D.R.]

It is a hassle when it doesn't work right.

My point exactly.

 

[D.R.]

"What right have they got to dictate whether or not we can
upgrade
part on our own machines?"


This is how. You do remember clicking on "I accept" right?

Section 1 of EULA states
"* Mandatory Activation. The license rights granted under
blah blah blah.....<SNIP>

The EULA doesn't stand up under New Zealand law. We have various Acts that
defend the consumer against crap like this. Whether it has got as far as court,
I don't know. For example, re-selling OEM Licenses is allowed under our consumer
law even if it is in breach of the EULA.

 

[Frank]

Get real.....You are in over your head......Pointing fingers at
someone
or something else for ones own inadequacies does not solve
problems.....
http://www.compusa.com/sales/sale82904/ms_sp2.asp?pfp=fod#

 

[kurttrail]

Well that's hard to argue with. Regardless of what "it"
happens to be.

Activation, schmuck. Having a problem following conversations?

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[kurttrail]

My point exactly.

Yeah, but you are making your point to the brain dead, and the biggest group
of Microsoft suckasses on the planet. These morons think that Microsoft was
created by God, and his first name is Bill.

There are many people lurking here that agree with you, but are afraid to
speak out because they believe they won't be helped when they have a problem
if they do speak up.

Don't let the MicroSycophants get you down! They are almost as delusional
as people supporting Cheney/Bush.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Activation, schmuck. Having a problem following

conversations?

Not at all. Like anyone who has read this newsgroup for
more than a few days, I understand that you are fixated
on activation. People who aren't so fixated will realize
that your statement is so broadly true as to be pointless
to this conversation. I thought you might be able to see
past your fixation for a moment. I apologize for
overestimating.

 

[kurttrail]

Not at all. Like anyone who has read this newsgroup for
more than a few days, I understand that you are fixated
on activation. People who aren't so fixated will realize
that your statement is so broadly true as to be pointless
to this conversation. I thought you might be able to see
past your fixation for a moment. I apologize for
overestimating.

LOL! This is my first Activation post in a while. And besides that, in the
context that my post replied to one that said how easy activation was, the
average person would have absolutely no problem understanding what I was
referring to.

What you should apologize for is under-estimating the intelligence of the
people reading this group.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
LOL! This is my first Activation post in a while.

I know. Hurricanes do have certain benefits ;-)

What you should apologize for is under-estimating the
intelligence of the people reading this group.

The response was to you. I believe most readers
understand how posts are threaded and I believe most
readers understood that your statement would apply to
nearly anything.