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Repair Computer, Repurchase OS?
An anonymous reader asks: "Recently, I have been bit by a computer repair on an e-Machines computer that involved a system board replacement. Though this was strictly a repair, not an upgrade, neither MS or e-Machines will provide for activation of the system. Why should a user have to purchase another copy of XP after repairing a computer? The system board is listed on the e-Machines website, but costs 4x what an off-the-shelf board with the same chip-set/capabilities costs, and furthermore is not actually available. The e-Machines rep even said repurchasing XP was my only option. This seems to me patently unfair and of questionable legality. Is it possible that there are enough disgruntled consumers bit by this problem to generate a class-action lawsuit?"
You should do whatever your license agreement says you should do.
If you can't understand your license agreement, get a lawyer to help you read it.
If you don't like what it says, get a different OS vendor.
And please don't mod me down for trolling - it really is important for people to understand the licenses for the stuff they buy - otherwise groups like the RIAA can walk all over everyone. If people started taking EULAs seriously and tried to understand them, more companies would start using reasonable EULAs.
I deal with this frequently.
Try to activate online
When it rejects and gives you the phone number, call it
Enter the confirmation ID
When you finally get someone from Bangladesh on the phone, they will ask if this is the first time it's been activated, and how many computers it's been installed on.
REGARDLESS of what work you've done, tell them "It's a reinstall after a virus infection.. This is the only machine it's installed on"
They'll give you a long ass number to punch in, and you're done.
When you say it's "easy", are you aware that previous versions of Windows didn't even need a special key that depended on hardware, and that you didn't need to call Microsoft to ask "can I please install the copy of Windows I purchased from you a couple of years ago?" only to be interrogated about why you need a new key.
I'm sure it's easy relative to what they could put you through, but can we please be absolute when using the word "easy"? Especially when Microsoft have gone out of their way to make it more complicated than it needs to be.