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Thread: Vista product activation sucks.

  1. #1
    Lovely chap dangel's Avatar
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    Vista product activation sucks.

    Being the person saddled with sorting out our MSDN licence is not much fun. This morning a pc suddenly decided it needed reactivation - we have 3 licences in use for ultimate and a max of 10 as per our agreement.

    But.. we've reached our limit because even though it's not actively installed 10 times, MS thinks it still is - and we have no way of decrementing the count for defunct installs. Or am I wrong?

    The chap at MS didn't know of a way and simply will give us another key but.. he can't because their activation servers are knackered. So it'll be two days before I can get back into the machine legally. Brilliant.

    Meanwhile a colleague wanting to get onto the machine rings the indian reactivation hotline, answers a few questions and they reactivate it. Of course this - to the letter of the law - isn't legal. But at least we can use the machine in the interim.

    Makes you want to turn to piracy really - it appears to be a lot easier than being a legit customer. Plus you get to wear an eye patch.
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Personally, I have total sympathy with what MS are trying to achieve - i.e. reduce/eliminate piracy.

    BUT .... and this is a classic case .... when they do it at the inconvenience of genuine customers with legit products, all they do is fuel resentment and encourage piracy ..... or the use of Linux, etc.

    And, at the end of the day, does product activation actually stop or reduce piracy? Does it hell. It isn't exactly hard to find ways round it.

    So MS, when are you going to wake up and realise how much it annoys paying customers?

  3. #3
    Lovely chap dangel's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Yup - that's the killer - we all know how easy it is to download a copy that's pre-hacked etc. Of course, as a business that's a big no-no
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Of course, a cynic might question whether product activation is actually about anti-piracy measures (at which it's a hopeless failure)..... or whether it's actually about data-mining customers and what hardware they use (at which it's pretty effective)? Is it a technological motive or a marketing one?

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    Herr Doktor Oetker, ja!!! pollaxe's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    It's a joke when legit customers get penalised and the pirates actually have it easier. This is also a factor in games with the various copy protections implemented on them where the genuine copies can cause more problems on a system than the pirated/non-protected ones. An arse about face situation!
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    Is it a technological motive or a marketing one?
    That's pretty much it, I think. [/cynical]

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    Lovely chap dangel's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Oh I'm pretty sure it's a management-led directive (sounds good at a boardroom meeting) rather than a technological one. Part of the problem is tha it's very difficult to quantify piracy decrease/increase and it's relation to revenue. Certainly i've always believed it can have both a negative and positive effect (I would argue MS are so dominant partly due to piracy).
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Quote Originally Posted by pollaxe View Post
    It's a joke when legit customers get penalised and the pirates actually have it easier. This is also a factor in games with the various copy protections implemented on them where the genuine copies can cause more problems on a system than the pirated/non-protected ones. An arse about face situation!
    QFT. I have to admit to buying more than a few games where i've had to resort to a crack for either covenience (no dvd) or just to get it to run on a particular set of hardware (starforce springs to mind).
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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Its one of those moronic notions that it will deter piracy, the only piracy it might prevent is incredibly casual piracy, where by there is already one computer with windows CD in the house.

    Its kind of like the copyright notices on DVDs in 12 different regional languages. I don't want to sit and watch them again and again thanks. People prevented users from fast forwarding them. So some horrible studios put this on their trailers.

    ERGH!
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Its the same with games, and i almost everytime download a NO-CD/DVD patch for the game to save my disk and drive, as for pirated windows, are users of pirated copies able to download updates and windows extras etc??
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    I think it does help to deter casual pirates, in the same way that a CCTV camera deters the casual shoplifter. If there's a threat that someone might, on the off chance, be caught, many people won't do it.

    I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't enjoy paying all that money to Indian outsourcing to deal with the hundreds of calls each day and would scrap it if they could.

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    Ex-MSFT Paul Adams's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Windows Vista can be installed without any product key initially and used for up to 30 days before a key needs to be entered the the installation activated.

    Windows XP onwards can be installed with a product key but does not need to be activated for the grace period.

    So those who are installing Windows to test, or expect to be reinstalling it shortly would be better off not going through activation immediately.


    The WGA programme is not there for marketing purposes, it is intended to be a method for people who have been unwittingly sold a pirated copy of the product to become aware of the fact.

    There have been companies whose suppliers have provided them with dodgy copies of software, even down to what looks at first glance to be genuine hologrammed media, and not been aware of the fact for months.

    Someone pirating software is one thing.
    Someone paying for pirated software, believing it to be genuine, is something else entirely.

    I doubt that WGA turns people towards piracy in many cases.
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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    no but it does find false posatives.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

  16. #13
    Lovely chap dangel's Avatar
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    Re: Vista product activation sucks.

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Adams View Post
    Windows Vista can be installed without any product key initially and used for up to 30 days before a key needs to be entered the the installation activated.
    60 for me - well at least that's what the licence agreement says.. MSDN subs differ in that respect.

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Adams View Post
    So those who are installing Windows to test, or expect to be reinstalling it shortly would be better off not going through activation immediately.
    Which we do.. but you're stuffed if the pc dies or you swap the hardware (we always are whether it be fpga cards or grabbers etc). The point was there's no way to release the licences - unlike say alteris (spit/yuck) which you can uninstall and free up the licence.

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Adams View Post
    The WGA programme is not there for marketing purposes, it is intended to be a method for people who have been unwittingly sold a pirated copy of the product to become aware of the fact.
    That's a very good point - but I wouldn't say WGA is there for the benefit of the end user so much as MS who are interested in their profits primarily (we be living' in a capatalist society last time I checked).

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Adams View Post
    I doubt that WGA turns people towards piracy in many cases.
    Well I'm getting tempted to patch things frankly - which no doubt breaks the EULA but since I've paid for the product.. It's hard to feel bad about that. I won't do that of course because I rather like being employed (and therefore still married).

    Good points, but in the end copy protection annoys the balls off of me as a paying punter.
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