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It's 2013, and Windows Activation Is Still Frustrating
Deathspawner writes "There's little that's more frustrating than being a legal customer and getting screwed over by the company you're supporting. If there's a perfect example of this, it's with Microsoft's OS and its millions of customers that have had to ring its tech support lines for activation help. Recently, a Techgage writer got bit by an issue with Windows 8 — caused by Microsoft itself — and wasn't even able to call to fix it. Microsoft has two problems to solve here: it needs online chat support (like most large companies in 2013) and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis."
This is probably finally the year for it.
Now, let me go off and spend the next two hours installing the java plugin for Firefox on my Ubuntu box.
As a university student, my uni grants access to MS products like Windows, Visual Studio etc. It really was a matter of entering a serial and that was all that had to be done. I take it off the shelf windows activates more obtusely?
There's no benefit WHATSOEVER for the customer, and it's not even made the product cheaper. All it's managed to do is piss of just about everyone, probably including the poor bastards in tech support in Microsoft.
I mean, surely megaupload was closed, but there are hundreds of different file hosting services where you can download RemoveWAT from.
The most complex solution that most paying users will be happy with will be something like what we haven't had since Windows 2000 (and all versions before that). Which was a simple key that you enter to install the software. The same key could be used on every system, and it didn't really do anything for protecting against piracy. Pirates are going to pirate, regardless of what kind of system gets put in place to stop them. Any system that is good enough to stop even a few people from pirating is inevitably going to annoy quite a few paying users. The only thing that's really going to stop people from pirating is lowering prices for home users. It's the exact reason I got Windows 8. At only $40 I finally felt they were asking a fair price. Asking home users to spend 50%-100% of the cost of the hardware on the operating system for their computer seems to be more than most people are willing to pay. People who buy computers from large manufacturers already pay a license. Most of the individuals who are pirating are those who have built their own systems. Give them the operating system for a price comparable to what they large computer builders would pay, and you'll see piracy drop a lot.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It doesn't do a thing to stop pirates anyway, so what's the point of it?
Where's Google's chat support? I'm still looking for it.
And no a message board of users is not "chat support"
I do pretty much all my HP warranty/service calls via online chat. Much easier than trying to deal with accents and delays. Ditto for a lot of other providers.
I don't know about google... i've never needed their support on anything
Personally I am still waiting for the day when Windows Update will be able to recognize drivers and install & update them. Its 2013 and as a IT Support am still googling for hardware ID's! Most of the times driveridentifier.com gets me a hint of what that unknown HW is, and drivermagician is NOT up to par any longer!
Ok, explain to my grandmother how to get her beloved accept-no-substitutes ten year old greeting card software to work on OS X.
...and Windows Activation Is Still Relevant?
seriously, its your own damn fault. If you're too lazy to use over 50 different flavours of BSD or Linux then i dont know how else to make personal computing work for you other than pay the mac store to make the bad time go away, or put up with steve as he pedals microsoft into the ground.
im sorry that sounded angry but its just frustrating to see these posts on slashdot when we all know about the alternatives. BSD, Linux, this is shit that has a core of dedicated developers who actually give a damn about your security and user experience. BSD has some of the best documentation around, and Linux has entire festivals and conferences that seriously want to help you do this. the game argument is practically irrelevant too; we have portal halflife and minecraft to name a few.
just, please, help us help you.
Good people go to bed earlier.
As bad as phone menu systems are, you know exactly when you're being delayed and blown off, and it's far easier to read the competence level of both the support technician and the caller. I have never had a positive experience with chat-based support.
Where's your receipt or invoice for what you purchased from Google? That's the difference. If you pay for one of their products, you get pretty decent support.
It's 2013, and Windows Activation Is Still Frustrating
It's 2013, why are you still using Windows ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Last time I tried validate a Windows install, I think it was Win7, the WGA check was not working under IE. I opened it using Firefox, and it worked. Seriously.
Install the icedtea-7-plugin package using any installation method. more detailed instructions here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java.
To be fair installing the the whole of Ubuntu is now a few basic dialog boxes and leave for 20 minutes
I know your trolling but Linux Desktop market share has been steadily rising for sometime, and that is without the onslaught of Chrome (and soon Android Boxies).
My company uses MS KMS and we never have a problem. And the few that are not on our network have never been a problem as far as activation. The real PITA are the crap engineering software companies we deal with. Try licensing products from Trimble, AutoDESK, ESRI, ETAP, or Helios3D to name a few. None of these companies know what an enterprise network is much less anything else that has occurred in IT in the past ten years. If they were all as “bad” as MS or ESX it could save days of man hours.
No good deed goes unpunished.
They don't need any other antipiracy measures. With Windows 8, they have created the best anti-piracy every; they created software nobody wants.
Open Source is more like a house full of IKEA furniture. You need some basic skills and sometimes a bit of improvising to get what you want, but the end result is pretty useable and very versatile, even if some of the edges are still a little rough.
Windows is a furnished apartment. It looks better and the stuff that you need is all there and works great. You need absolutely no skills because the landlord will take care of it, but you can't do a lot of renovations. Fortunately, your landlord has gone around to all the furniture stores in town and made sure that most furniture you can buy will fit in your apartment.
That is the similarity.
There, fixed that for you. Or do you get a receipt from Microsoft when you buy a PC from the shop around the corner?. No home user does any business with Microsoft, but Microsoft likes to say so whenever that is convenient for them. And deny it when it is not convenient (like, if you refuse the license and want your money back).
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I have a lot of success using online forums, even Microsoft's. When I tired to use the forums for an activation issue with Vista a few years back, the vendor I bought Vista from and Microsoft wanted me to call for help. Wait on a telephone line for ..... The response in the forums was I had an illegal version of Vista. The response on the phone was that it was legal. I returned it to Microsoft and got my money back
Try upgrading from Server 2012 Evaluation Edition to Server 2012 Fully licensed. It's not just jumping through hoops its a whole damn Gimcana.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Windows 7 downloads drivers for all of my hardware, excepting only the really old stuff, the really new stuff and the really oddball stuff I order on eBay from Hong Kong. The only real issue I've had is with Dell and HP boxes, but I have a feeling that's more about Dell/HP not releasing the drivers to MS.
Everything abut Microsoft is frustrating. Constant popupups, talking nagging paper-clips, can only log in one user account at a time unless you pay out the nose, a window8 GUI trying to shove apps down out throats even if we're a desktop, all versions of word are more incomparable with each other than open office is, how they try to force me into bing, how they try to obsolete older versions like XP - even though it works perfectly fine on older PC's, even worse, how they try to obsolete older versions of office. Don't even get me started with VB VBscript, and their basterdized versions of html and javascript.
However, all of these annoyances are not problems, they are symptoms of a company who can't compete on service, so instead they try to compete by shoving proprietary crap down our throats. Then they wonder why companies that 'get it' like google, waltz in and rip them a new asshole, while linux effectively kicked their ass in the dataceter market. I know being able to gouge the fuck out of people with proprietary licensing is like a security blanket to them, but really, in order to compete they just need to give it up. It's dulling them.
Whats sad is that this really isn't that hard to do! PCI and USB vendor IDs are issued by their respective SIG and are readily available. Even if there is no central database of device specific IDs (aside from the wiki/user contributed ones), having the vendor's name is a good start.
Not to mention that for the majority of people, if their PC and/or internet aren't working correctly, chat support would be completely useless.
Wrong. They need *community support* like so many Linux distros have. I have never had better help from the community than I ever, ever got through paid support.
This will never happen though! These people bought, along with their licensed "rentals" of Windows, a sense of indignation that stops them from entering and contributing to a community support structure. It requires a certain level of humbleness.
Bought a brandnew HP laptop for my gf. Windows 8 is a pain to use without touch screen. I don't dare to move the mouse near any corner of the screen again ...
You forgot 'don't install media centre add on as it invalidates your key without warning you this will happen' which, if you'd read the article, you'd know.
If this activation has reduced that piracy then either one of two things has happened:
1) The price of Windows has come down.
It hasn't.
2) The profits for Windows has gone up.
I can't say it has or hasn't, but the revenues didn't show a sharp rise, so I suggest not either.
So we now have either piracy hasn't been reduced, or it was never a revenue-reducing problem in the first place.
Which rather suggests that this hasn't done Microsoft any good either.
Ditto. It will save your sanity too!
Personally I am still waiting for the day when Windows Update will be able to recognize drivers and install & update them.
Huh? It is able to do that just fine. Another thing is whether they have the most cutting-edge driver available. As part of their quality assurance I think they tend to be a bit on the conservative side.
I've never had a problem with the activation. I just run this DAZ script and viola! Activated! Who's having trouble? MS support should just mail people the 5kb file and be done with it.
I've never had a problem with activating any version of windows since windows 95
There are very few reasons why a key won't work the first time and they all tie back to the user (this author) being a moron. First, use the correct disc. Second, use the correct CD key for the disc. Third, don't activate until all the devices are installed instead of marked as "unknown device." Fourth, actually activate Windows in the stated time period instead of ignoring it. Fifth, don't activate it more than once per year. And if all else fails just activate it via the Microsoft robot on the phone. It takes approx 4 mins 32 seconds to do. I have never, ever had to talk to a rep in India ever in 10 years in business building and refurbishing computers. So who was he even talking to on the phone and why? Probably a license vs disc-used discrepancy. Definitely, without a doubt, USER ERROR!
Phrased another way, "We've provided you with a wide variety of possible ways to screw up installation and activation, many of which we could even catch for you and prevent, but choose not to. It's just so much more fun to be able to smile smugly at moron users, who even cares if we make any money?"
I am not a crackpot.
What planet are you using Windows Update on? A huge amount of drivers are held in the optional section under hardware in Windows Update. The older a system is and the more common the parts, the more likely it is to be carried in Windows Update's driver database. I think basically all Realtek sound drivers are there. I know virtually everything Intel ever made is there. A lot of Nvidia drivers are there. Even chipset and a TON of monitor drivers are there.
My wife ran into an issue with a key for another company years ago for an expansion for a game. Fresh from the store it said it was invalid because it had already been used. Returned it for another copy, same thing, returned for refund and bought it online from the company instead. Definitely not reasonable to consider cracked key gen systems to be user error. I have no idea if that's what is going on here, but at least half of the conditions you listed aren't reasonable user error either. Unless you mean using a Microsoft product in 2013; in that case you've been proven right apparently.
When I stick a dvd in my computer and hit "play with vlc" I never seem to have this problem
Ironically Activation on Microsoft platform pushed me to Linux
Windows 8 is not available to me from Microsoft only an upgrade I cannot use. From Microsoft http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_WOL_Hero_ShopHP_FPP_Null the prices are $155 for a Windows 8 Upgrade or $295 for Windows 8 Pro. I could not find a version of retail Windows 8 anywhere. What is true for you is not true for me.
The infrastructure is there both through Windows Update and the Hardware Installation wizard for vendors to make their drivers available - you can also update the built in Hardware Wizard drivers. It's 100% the vendors fault if it is not there and you should be contacting them and voicing your anger at their shortcomings.
Microsoft even provide instructions through their built in troubleshooting for devices on how to acquire drivers for some devices where an installer is required (with links and step by step instructions). This is through the Devices and Printers control panel.
since that was a limited-time offer... does that key still work? or is it now gone forever since his 'windows 8 with media center' took a dump?
Who gives a shit about Word? How about everything else he spoke about. Do you not understand the bigger picture here? People run businesses, not Half Life festivals
My mom, also a grandmother, still uses an OS9 machine next to but not networked into her OS X laptop.
I've been stockpiling parts so I should be able to keep it running for at least 20 more years. (B.t.w. I have 33 year old arcade machines that are still running fine)
Sometimes there's no reason to upgrade.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis.
There's no such thing. You're not going to come up with a system that inhibits piracy but also doesn't create more work and effort for legitimate customers. Computers are not smart enough to judge whether what you're doing is "fair".
Yep, here too. And every time I've tried using Windows Update for my hardware drivers it breaks my PC.
At least stick with Windows 7 if you really, really need Windows.
Enable Boot Camp. Freaking newbies.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
We've had plenty of issues with their Office 2013 activation system at our office and when you call in, "oh, I'm sorry, you need to talk to technical support because this is an issue with your PC" What?!?
These PC's are fine, I just bought this program, activate it!!! So they pass you to another department that has you on hold for a minimum of one hour (not an exaggeration) which also gives you the ability to leave a message if you get tired of waiting. If you leave a message, they'll call you back in a week (also not an exaggeration). When you finally speak to these people they admit they're busy because of issues with Microsoft's activation system (not a fabrication, during two calls this was admitted).
In comparison to updating android on your carrier's cell phone, windows updates are a snap! Moreover windows updates even exist whereas once you buy a low-brand tablet or get a carrier locked phone no update may ever even get made for your device.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Then you're back to square one with regards to activation, except now you've spent hundreds of dollars on new hardware too.
Get back to me when all the MS specific software is ported to linux.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Chrome, the browser, is going to help increase linux on the desktop?
Interesting.
Chrome is also the name of an OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_OS you can see the machines here http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/ on googles site. The range from incredible cheap machines to the incredibly beautiful Pixel. Lin
I've activated over 150 PCs I built, XP through 7, so if this guy has had nonstop issues activating all the OSes there were, he doesn't know what he's doing. Don't activate THEN install 10 device drivers. That will cause a hardware lock morph that unactivates it. Everyone knows that. Don't download a fucking crack for any OS. They all fall apart eventually. What a complete idiot. Buy a real copy of Windows 7, put it on, activate it, the end. I have never, ever, ever had a problem with a non-big company OEM license ever and I rarely have problems with them either.
Yeah... how dare he buy new hardware for his computer.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I've never had a problem with activating any version of windows since windows 95
Microsoft Product Activation DRM began with XP, you should practice your spin a little better.
When I downloaded and installed the free media center add on, which is what he did, it says you need to keep and use the new key that they gave for use in the future. So the question is why didn't he. I think this really is just a case of someone for forgot that message.
The real question is what caused the activation screen to come up.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
So the root of the issue is he isn't capable of completing a phone call, and that's Microsoft's fault? Perhaps he should find a landline or another cell phone?
Not really a huge fan of Microsoft, but I haven't had any issues when on the phone with them. The thought of reformatting your PC because your cell phone is bunk at completing calls is kind of silly. It's also worth noting that online chat isn't as prevalent as he seems to think it is. I would love to have online chat for most of my services, but I don't.
What kind of writer doesn't know the difference between the words "riddle" and "rattle"? I honesty couldn't understand the sentence and had to read it three times. And it wasn't just once he did this. Unless Batman was on the other end, I don't think he meant to "riddle" Microsoft.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Wineskin makes running Windows apps pretty easy on OS X. I've accidentally double-clicked EXE files on my Mac and was shocked when I remembered that I had that installed, because the EXE just worked.
Requires a certain level of humbleness? I thought community support was cost-saving scheme that's started to be implemented by a number of companies. Sure, it also makes perfect sense for open source, but that's not going to be the only place you see community support in the future.
My 33 MHz Quadra 650 is still running. I keep it around as it runs an Agfa tabloid printer. And some cool Bungie games.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Arggggh! Agfa Tabloid Scanner. Coffee, brew faster!
I drank what? -- Socrates
So this idiot doesn't authenticate his Windows installation, complains when it prompts him to do so, tries to install two illegal cracks and complains when they don't work, tries to call MSFT and complains that his phone doesn't work, then decides the next reasonable option is to reformat the machine and then bitches about that. Wow, just be glad you don't live next door to this guy.
needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers Ever.
FTFY
MacOS makes you register before you can use it.
It's not as buggy as Microsoft's activation but it's the same kind of nonsense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Welcome to 2013, 1999 wants its generalizations back. Open Source has been nicely polished overall for the average user (OS and apps) since about Ubuntu Dapper or Android Gingerbread, depending on whether you mean the desktop or a handheld device. You can customize windows, but the result tends to leak around the seams and often you have to pay for the privilege.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis
No they really just need to scrap the activation system entirely...
Such systems only ever harm legitimate customers, pirates will simply use a crack and not have to worry about activation ever again.
Meanwhile all the resources being spent on creating and maintaining the activation system are resources which are not being spent on improving the product or providing any services which are actually beneficial to customers.
Personally i detest any software which intentionally contains denial of service code.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The same goes for if you use vmware or virtualbox instead of duel booting. You still have to maintain the copy of Windows.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Windows activation is frustrating? I've never had a problem with the various version I've installed over the years.
If you think Windows is frustrating I suggest dealing with Adobe products. Once a computer is associated with a license it's permanently stuck even on old installs. I ran into such a scenario several years ago. We had a purchased copy originally installed on a machine that had long since been tossed for a replacement. We couldn't get the license to be accepted. I called Adobe and was hit with a refusal to transfer the license.
Just a few months ago my company purchased a Creative Suite upgrade which wouldn't install. The IT guy ends up on the phone with Adobe for almost an hour before he's told that they no longer handle licenses internally, that he had to call a reseller. We then had to wait a day to receive that license. The best part was being on the phone with support in India and being told we were being transferred to someone who could help only to end up back at the same guy. This happened three times and each time the guy over there tried to pass himself off as someone else.
I really think these articles crop up on Slashdot merely so that people can engage in yet another Microsoft bash fest. It gets to a point where people are grasping at straws. I don't understand if it's a consequence of dealing with Microsoft more often. But I've got friends in IT who deal with much worse from other companies, so I don't really get the ire. In most of these cases I can identify other companies that have done the same or worse, but they're rarely brought up for criticism like Microsoft so frequently is.
Except you can install it on the system unlimited times, and on any system you own. Yeah. Just like activation.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Sure I can. Disk space is cheap. Network bandwidth is cheap. The hardware is trivial to identify,
Plus Microsoft is supposed to have this stable device driver ABI that's somehow better than what is done in the Linux kernel.
Being able to "use anything" is actually the whole damn point of using the monopoly product to begin with.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> It's 100% the vendors fault
I am feeling a strange sense of deja vu here...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
ill take Windows activation over RHEL activation any day.
But you're still buying from Microsoft through a third party vendor. If I buy a TV from Best Buy and it has issues, I call Samsung, not Best Buy. With Google, you're not buying a product, period.
My system gives me something like
none1@pci0:6:7:0: class=0x0c0010 card=0x81fe1043 chip=0x30441106 rev=0xc0 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'VIA Technologies, Inc.'
device = 'VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller'
class = serial bus
subclass = FireWire
and I just look for the specific drivers by name. And it mostly knows the vendor and hardware ID even if it does not have drivers for this specific hardware. If something pretending to be named Operating System does not do this simple task, should it be still named Operating System?
Not just any fish. It absolutely must be herring.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
As soon as you aren't doing basic wordprocessing and email, you're out of "alternative" platforms. Know what it costs to retrain someone from Pro/Engineer or AutoCAD, or Bentley Analysis (and those are just my narrow field of engineering)? Try $10,000-$40,000 a person, plus a license for the new software under a different OS. Retraining to a technical program in any engineering field is significant. Even retraining administrative workers on a new data entry system can be several thousand dollars a head.
Android/iOS? Wow, I guess if you're an unemployed hipster it seems like there's so much you can do. Just don't try to do anything significant on that kind of an OS, because it will fail miserably. Good for pet projects, hobbies, and throwaway stuff; lousy for critical billable work except in a pinch.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Don't activate THEN install 10 device drivers.
You blame the user for that and not Microsoft? The hardware has the same PCI/USB vendor and device ID's as before the drivers were installed. Those are detected just fine without drivers. If this really does cause problems, then the real problem is Microsoft basing their hardware configuration hash on anything relating to software and not hardware.
Third, don't activate until all the devices are installed instead of marked as "unknown device
And why should this be the user's fault? The hardware doesn't change it's PCI/USB vendor or device ID's after drivers are installed. You can't seriously be telling me that Microsoft's fingerprint of your hardware is based on the drivers and not the hardware. And if you are telling me that, then it's not the author being a moron - it's Microsoft being stupid.
Google does not require mandatory activation.
Apple does not require mandatory activation.
Chat support is mandatory when a company has you over a barrel... such as when the stuff you bought from them won't work without their special permission, jumping through hoops, pressing the right keys and sending money.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Well, the ISO installs Windows. What more citation do you need?
Of course, this means that both pirates and paying users get the rootkit. But hey, bonus!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Any DRM that isn't user friendly is the problem. This aptly demonstrates which companies are more concerned about their bottom line than they are about the quality of their wares, and any software where quality comes second, is software to avoid.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
No it doesn't. Just hit Command-Q at the registration screen. You get a Skip button.
my ISP/phone company cannot install my utilities until the 14th
flimflammer wrote:
Perhaps he should find a landline
What do you recommend that the author of the Techgage article do between now and the 14th?
With Google, you're not buying a product, period.
Google stays in business; therefore, it has to be selling a product to someone. I'm guessing it might be the millions of users of Google Play Store, AdWords, or Nexus products.
I've ran into this several times now.
1) Computer craps out because of viruses/malware or dying hard drive.
2) reinstalled with original recovery disc, usually that's the end of it.
BUT sometimes
3) had to enter product key from the outside of the machine, activation fails
4) calls MSFT, ends up on the phone for about 45 trying to prove that I didn't pirate Windows and they finally gave me a working activation key.
Have had it happen on emachines, Lenovo and Asus. Never on Dell or HP.
Lucky for you all, I have a link:
http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8083537/Windows_7_Crack_Loader_v.2.2.1_Activation_by_DAZ_February_2013
That will activate Windows 7
Windows 8? http://www.rlslog.net/microsoft-toolkit-v2-4-3-stable-p2p/
Be seeing you...
Duel booting? I guess that's one way of looking at it.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means" actually fits here....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The problem is if Windows doesn't know the type of device it can't include its ID's in the machine hash. When the drivers are installed then it does know the device type and its ID's being added to the hash, change the hash. This probably only affects things like the chipset and NICs. However, I agree this is a programmer's error, the hash should not be computed and activation not be allowed if there is still unknown hardware detected, unless the user agrees to a very specific warning about what will happen if they don't install the drivers first.
Disk space is cheap.
Not on a tablet with a 32 GB SSD, as Surface Pro owners have discovered.
I thought Microsoft made drivers available through Windows Update if the device's manufacturer participated in the Windows Logo Program.
What happens when you call paid support?
Is it someone just googling your problem for you, or...?
On top of having to overpay to buy a Mac (for whatever reason, I guess the screens are nice?) you then want to turn around and pay more money for a windows license to put on a Mac?
Do you honestly advocate this? Do people let you near their computers??
If by "fit" you mean, "works worse than any other option" for some of these fixtures. Just look at -any- of the built-in Windows 8 apps and tell me you cannot find a better resource somewhere else, for FREE. Oh an the furniture Windows gives you has ads for... other pieces of furniture in your home.
This is a dumb metaphor.
You can also just enter crap information.
I have "registered" many a Mac as:
Joe Blow
123 4St
Somewhere, BC
(604) 234 5678
It has bee awhile, but by telling it the correct province, it got the timezone right, and it did at least some sanity checking on the phone number. I think the area code was checked as well.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Apple's 'activation' is a hardware check.
Good-bye
My aunt had the same issue with Win7. So, I just "Upgraded" my Aunt's laptop to Windows8: Kubuntu. I installed Linux, replaced the splash screen and desktop image with a Windows8 logo, and every thing is fine. She even gets along great in conversations between other clueless users like her about how different her Windows8 is from Windows7... Her opinion on adopting "Win8" is: "Oh, sure, it's a bit different, but it's not THAT different, and you get used to it; I don't see what the big deal is, some programs just have to run in Compatibility Mode now" (I installed WINE). Of course her friends think she's nuts, to them Win8 is atrocious.
Interestingly, one of my more tech-savvy relatives called me up after they bought a brand new Toshiba laptop. It came with win8, he hated it. He has a legit boxed copy of Windows7, and the sales rep (at Toshiba, from toshiba.com) assured him the system would work fine with Win7. It doesn't. The WIFI drivers didn't work out of the box, so we downloaded the WIFI and other drivers for win7 on a another system, and tried to transfer them over and install....... Except the USB drivers didn't work either, so the new laptop couldn't read the USB under the Win7 install. The funny thing is? We just plugged in Ubuntu12.04 live CD on a USB flash drive, booted up just fine (after disabling Secure Boot in BIOS), and the USB works, so do the WIFI drivers. We used Ubuntu to copy the drivers onto the windows partition, then rebooted into Windows7. The WIFI worked, but no matter what we did we couldn't get the USB ports working. We let a Toshiba tech support goon fiddle fart around cluelessy on the system via remote desktop for about an hour (I swear she was just itching to play RDP with someone); They couldn't fix it either.
The dumb thing is that as soon as Windows7 got on the Internet the product key was said to be invalid. The installer liked it just fine, but the online activation was gorked. End result: We removed Win7's partition, installed Ubuntu12.04 from the USB, and replaced Unity with Gnome3 (because Unity is the Windows8 of Linux DEs). All the drivers work out of the box, even the AMD 3D drivers for the new APU; Runs WoW, and some other games just fine, hooked him up with the Emulated Firefox + Silverlight Netflix "app" to get that running on Linux, and installed Steam too. He called me a few days ago just to talk, and didn't have to uncomfortably as me for free support to diagnose any computer issues either. He said, "Runs like a dream, probably won't be going back to windows after that ordeal."
I can't decide if it's Toshiba's fault or MS's fault for the driver issue... I mean, Toshiba pays to have the open source drivers developed by a 3rd party, and so Linux just works... They pay just as much to get MS drivers working too, but for some reason solving the driver issue on Linux is easier than on Windows.
P.S. At one point We did try to D/L a crack for the windows activation issue... Unfortunately none of the ones we initially found were free of malware... Stay thirsty my friend.
Here's a quick, entirely true story of a windows 8 activation:
(Preface: I'm a software developer, and regularly develop under, run, and test with: XP, Win7, OSX, Mint, Ubuntu, etc. I like and use each of these for entirely different reasons.)
A friend of mine, non-programmer but average to above-average PC and Mac user for more than a decade, bought a new, name-brand, laptop that came with Windows 8 "pre-installed." I was over when she began booting it up for the first time.
The first boot / install began by asking for wif access, and asking for (unusually personal) mandatory information, phone number, email address, etc. which it then (presumably) validated. I did not see a way to bypass customer information capture, which is possible with every other OS I've had experience with.
Then it began an install routine, and crashed. We tried twice more, with some sort of connection failure to Microsoft crashing the install each time. On the fourth try, it finally succeeded, and then began an install that required (I believe) at least 3 in-process system reboots.
Almost an hour later, my friend was "rewarded" with the baffling windows 8 UI. Her reaction was exactly: "Well, it looks like you can go anywhere Microsoft wants you to."
After nearly an hour of raw frustration, intrusive marketing practices, you get hit with the UI from bizarro-world. And there's no obvious, intuitive way to use it like you would, say, every other computer that you've used in the last twenty years.
By the time we'd bothered to google for ways to defeat her new laptop's UI and use it like a general purpose computer, my friend had made up her mind.
She *hated* Windows 8. We returned the computer, stopped by the Apple store on the way home, and picked up a Macbook.
(She set it up in under 10 minutes, began using it right away, and has been happy with it since.)
I don't think my friend will ever buy an Windows machine again. And I can't say that I blame her.
I *still* can't believe Microsoft got something like the first hour of ownership/UX with their OS so completely wrong.
I remember reading something about Ballmer unilaterally kicking everyone who raised objections to the win8 UI off the team. I guess this is what happens when you fill a bench with yes-men, maybe?
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
But you're still buying from Microsoft through a third party vendor. If I buy a TV from Best Buy and it has issues, I call Samsung, not Best Buy. With Google, you're not buying a product, period.
I bought a Nexus One from Google.
They offered no support.
I've paid for additional storage from Google.
They offered no support.
Etc.
Google is a useless piece of shit when it comes to support. It's a forum of users complaining about known bugs and Google either completely ignores it or has an intern shit out a "You should be able to fix this by doing this." post (and of course that doesn't fix the problem).
Hell, I still have deleted entries from my Calendar show up in my phone as if they've been raised from the dead despite Google "fixing" the problem years ago.
So a bunch of retail box copies from the same store all have pre-used keys and the copy they bought online was completely fine? sounds like someone went through their boxes and stole the keys. No keygen required.
Clarify: Do you really mean "MS specific software," or are you really talking about "Windows specific software?" I can understand the second case (third party software for Windows), but why the hell would I want to run Microsoft software? That's kind of what I left Windows for in the first place; more secure, more sanely-designed software than what Microsoft puts out. Specifically, non-Microsoft software.
Two issues regarding activation I have noticed:
At least for the WPA edition, Windows 7 requires a BIOS with the "please let Windows 7 work" field present. I have had to update the BIOS on several computers before Windows 7 will activate. Some older computers simply do not have an update that supports this. I have no idea if this is required for editions that use a MAK.
Windows XP still requires re-activation after a "significant" hardware change such as motherboard or HDD. This is usually done painlessly by the activation client connecting to the Windows activation server. Will this procedure still remain after XP SP3 extended support expires on April 2014? What about new activations? (Arguments about the wisdom of actually running Windows XP beyond this point are not relevant here.)
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I am not denying that at all, I just stated that Wi-Fi has been a royal bitch on Linux in my experience to the point where I just avoided it instead of bothering to get it working for the most part, and asked if that has changed over the years with the latest hardware. You added nothing. Windows XP wouldn't even recognize the onboard Ethernet adapter on this machine, and I've had countless other devices give me problems in Windows, but again, that's beside the point.
easy to make all in one windows 7 disks
Google ei.cfg
If he had a laptop or iPhone or android phone or iPad or even Windows phones etc, he could have been a Skype call away from completing his activation for a modest fee.
How much does a Skype call cost per minute when one may have to wait on hold for sixty?
Could be, but that's not the point. That still be the fault of the activation scheme, not the user being a moron as the OP said in his first sentence.
Yes, in fact, it really is your fucking fault. Because you're a bitch, that's why. You simply accept whatever is put around you and don't start complaining until you have to start taking it up the ass, when you should have known very well beforehand that it would happen.
In short, stop being a coward, take a stand for yourself, and make a bloody effort to fix the damn situation. Sometimes, I have to put in additional upfront work (and sometimes I don't, even), but I never find myself complaining in retrospect.
You on the other hand, seem to support taking the easy path, even though you know very well that you're putting your fate in your vendors' hands. In other words, you're compromising on yourself, and making the situation worse, not just for you, but for everyone else as a result. Yes, you are entirely at fault for that.
My mistake. I thought we were having a technical discussion. I didn't realize this was a religious discussion.
Both Microsoft and Apple look like they are seeking lock in. Apple looks to be far worse to me, but that's beside the point. The tools I need don't exist in Linux or Free BSD. While OS X does have MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite and AutoCAD, it lacks Solidworks and many other tools I need. I can run all those tools on my Win 7 workstation, so that makes it the best choice for my personal workstation. You can argue that some similar tools exist on Linux, but I need those exact applications. That's the reality of the work I do. Arguing otherwise simply demonstrates that you don't understand my industry.
I run Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, Win server 2008R2 and Windows 7. Once upon a time, all the best CAD and publishing programs ran on Unix workstations. I really like Unix and wish the Unix wars didn't allow Microsoft the opening it needed to get a foothold in the server/workstation OS market. You can blame that on AT&T, Sun, HP, IBM, Digital, and SGI. But you don't, do you?
But the bottom line is the OS is simply a platform to run my tools and any of them is acceptable as long as I get the job done and meet the demands of my clients. In my world, when my customer requires a Solidworks file, I will be using whatever OS that product run on. If you get that - great. If not, then I hope you get a job with my competitors. Go ahead and hate me. I'm one of the guys that gets things done so you can sit in your mom's basement spewing insults.
In your religion, you appear to think that you are fighting evil. Good luck with that.
Place nail here >+
Why didn't he try the "silly" steps of calling in before attempting cracks?
Can't call in on a land line or Skype because it isn't the 14th yet: "my ISP/phone company cannot install my utilities until the 14th". Can't call in on a cell phone because using sixty minutes of airtime to wait on hold for sixty minutes (sources: 1 2) can get expensive.