Puck’s Blog

Read this article on ArsTechnica about the upcoming Windows Vista’s hardware tolerance and reactivation scheme.  Basically, you install Vista on your computer and if your computer hardware changes “significantly” enough times it will require a reactivation.  Windows XP already does this.  However, Vista will require you to purchase a new software key if this happens too often!

Yes, that’s right, if you’re an upgrade maniac like myself, or simply use the software for a long enough time that you’ve upgraded your system fully a few times, and Microsoft will demand that you buy Windows Vista again.

Faced with this ridiculous demand, what will users do?  Some will head to Linux-based OSes, probably, though I believe many more will simply install cracks, auto-activation programs, and “corporate editions” that won’t require such nonsense.

I’ve already done this for Windows XP.  Yes, I run a pirated copy of Windows XP Pro Corp, and I do it because I was sick of my computer constantly bugging me to reactivate because I’d changed a few pieces of hardware.  Sometimes when troubleshooting a hardware problem I can yank out nearly everything in there and replace them one at a time to find the error.  This threw my legally purchased copy of Windows XP Pro into “you must reactivate” fits.  The first few times it did it online.  But then it told me that I’d activated online too often and had to phone in to activate.

So I did.  And the tech on the other end of the phone gave me the third degree over why this had happened.  I told them I had changed out some hardware, and they reminded me that the Windows license was only good for one computer.  I remember wondering if I had stuttered, and I said “No, this is the same computer, I had my motherboard die on the old one and have had to get a new one and now Windows wants to be activated again!”

“So the old motherboard is no longer in use?”

“No.  It’s dead.  This is the same hard drive.  I haven’t made a copy.”

“Ok,” and they gave me the activation code.

The next time my computer wanted to be activated, I simply downloaded a “Corporate” version of XP that didn’t require activation.  Unfortunately my legal XP Key wouldn’t work for that, so I had to also get a keygen.  I went from legitimate Windows user to OS pirate because of Microsoft’s policies, and many of you will too.

Hell, I doubt I’ll even bother buying Vista with all the big brother software that comes along with it.  I suggest everyone else avoids it for as long as possible.

The quote that keeps coming to mind is paraphrased from Star Wars Episode IV (oh man, I know I’m nerding out here):  “The tighter your grip on the OS market, the more users will slip between your fingers.”