Windows activation is shockingly easy. Enter your key and when you go online it verifies it. If you're not connected to the internet make a 5 minute phone call. If you don't want to do that, no problem - there is no need to activate for up to 180 days. Really don't want to activate? No problem - it'll just turn your screen black and announce it's unlicensed software.
It seems the author's only significant complaint is that they don't provide him with updated slipstreams to download. It's true - he'd have to make them himself with the free tools they provide. Maybe they should provide public updated slipstreams, but this hardly seems like a valid reason to refuse to pay for the software.
No it is not, at least not for every version. I didn't have to use windows for a very long time, and about a month ago I installed a windows XP SP3 in a virtual machine. The grace period ended a few days ago:
- the automatic activation failed
- my product key is said to have been pirated
- the phone support for registration is now fully automated, and just rejects my phone activation.
- the machine won't load whole subsystems of windows until is activated (you can monkey your way around from the IE instance you can launch from the activation dialog, but your system is not fully functionnal)
- I am searching for how to get a human to deal with the situation
I might be failing somewhere and this situation is all due to my lack of experience, but I am with a CD of windows in one hand and a hosed install on the other, and nowhere to go from there.
This is just one of the worse software experience I ever have in a few years.
Windows XP launched more than 10 years ago. What I said was true for Vista (5 years old) and 7 (2 years old) and is true for Windows 8 afaik. I'm not sure what your point would be - that you'd pirate Windows 8 because you didn't approve of the ease of use of an activation system they deprecated 5 years ago?
Why should he/she approve of the system that makes his legally licensed software not work just because it's 5 years old? If it didn't have the license activation anti-feature, it would work just as well now as it did 5 years ago.
Because the blog was titled "I'm pirating the Next Version of Windows" (because I feel it will be too difficult to activate) and not "I'm pirating Windows XP"
It sounds like the problem stems from the 2 things:
1.) the media you installed from was not legit
2.) Windows gives you notices that it needs to be activated, which you ignored.
You won't be able to fix that without reinstalling or using a crack. The phone activation will work but you need to change product key. There is an article of Microsoft support site on how to do that actaully.
However, it's a problem with your XP Media... are you 100% sure that is a legit copy of windows? Where did you get it from?
I currently have this problem with a Windows 7 machine I bought from eBay. I can't activate it and I have a black desktop (sorta annoying) and two or three different things that pop up periodically to yell at me (incredibly annoyingly, especially the one that makes an obnoxious error noise). This situation is definitely my fault - there are a few possibilities for where I went wrong:
1) maybe the guy I bought it from was not legit - I asked him lots of questions before going through with the purchase but that's about as much as I could (or would be willing to) do,
2) Using what I believed to be the correct, legal process, I created an install disk and looked up the key for my existing OEM install, which I used to reinstall a fresh instance without any of the HP nonsense the machine came with,
3) For a couple days I had an install using the same key on a VM to test something with IE9.
Any one of those things could be the problem and they were decisions I made, Microsoft didn't force or manipulate me. But here's the thing, at the end of the day what I have is a really obnoxious machine and if I had just bought a Mac (off of eBay even!) or installed Linux instead, I wouldn't have to deal with any of this. You're right that the Microsoft experience isn't so bad, if you follow the rules you're probably going to have a bare minimum of hassle, but it is still so much worse than the competition on this front.
> You won't be able to fix that without reinstalling or using a crack.
This is the point that gets under my skin. You can't ask a commpany to actively maintain staff to support a 10 years old OS. But then, it shouldn't put DRM or activation processes that have fail cases needing active help for products that have long life spans (I know, planned obsolescence and etc.., but still).
This is a problem I don't have with other OSes, and it just looks bad in comparison.
To answer your points,
1) the license I am trying to use was acquired a long long time ago in a previous iteration of my company. It seems it would be a big hassle to retrieve who/how it was bought... That's bad resource management.
But now I can't imagine it was stolen or frauded in any way.
2) Windows XP on a virtual machine was a choice among others (say win 7 with a separate physical machine for e.g.), and I needed time to try the install, knowing that activating an install that would be trashed afterwards would not be good. Now, this situation might be an answer, but otherwise it was a quite usable environment.
Online activation works only a certain number of times, and then you'll have to make a call. In my experience, this call took more than 5 minutes, and they asked a few none-of-their-business questions that made me think that I'm asking for their permission to please let me reinstall Windows once again. This was a few years ago with Windows XP, in Russia.
Many other Microsoft products will not install on a copy of Windows that hasn't been activated. This includes all the Live apps and I think Office. I think it also restricts access to Software Update to only critical patches (been a while since I tried without activation).
Yes, and also Windows Security Essentials. A family member has a legit retail copy which failed to activate, and just lives with the degraded experience. Quite a contrast with other OS's.
It seems the author's only significant complaint is that they don't provide him with updated slipstreams to download. It's true - he'd have to make them himself with the free tools they provide. Maybe they should provide public updated slipstreams, but this hardly seems like a valid reason to refuse to pay for the software.