Unfortunately, your "absolute" may be "absolute" to you, but it stops at the
end of your nose. Whether there was ANY wrong is questionable; he grabbed
the wrong CD, so shoot him.
Take it to a judge:
"next case, let's see, this says you were using a copy of Windows that was
still in use on another machine".
"Yes sir, I accidentally used the wrong CD from my other computer, but I
have them both here to show you that both machines had their own copies."
"Well why didn't you reinstall with the right one?
"I dunno, it was a lot of work to begin with, just seemed like a big waste
of time; they were the same, I was busy at the time, was afraid something
would go wrong and I'd have to redo the whole thing, after a while I just
forgot about it. Tried to change it to the right serial number like I would
have done with Windows 98 and it wouldn't let me."
"This is an outrage, Guilty! Ten thousand dollar fine and six months, you
low-life! I hope you learn your lesson, Mother Theresa; next case."
Somewhere along the line, hopefully you will learn what "wrong" really is,
and that a nitpicky, "minor detail only" honest mistake that harms or
endangers or inconveniences absolutely no one hardly qualifies as "Wrong".
There are enough things that are genuinely wrong without having to invent
new ones so you can add up two wrongs (incidentally, what was the second
"wrong?"). This person now knows how to fix it, comparatively complicated
as it may be. Should he choose to spend the time and effort, great, should
he choose not to, or if he never gets around to it, or does it in two years
when he reformats again, it will make absolutely no difference to you or
anyone else. MS has their money that they're entitled to; he has his
computers and OS's that he's entitled to, all is well, regardless. If it
bothers you, that's your issue, go organize your sock drawer alphabetically
and by purchase date. If the imaginary judge above was real, he'd have no
doubt dismissed it in the interest of justice.
Gary
