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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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I think the price for Win 8 was more an acknowledgement from MS that Win 8 was a critical release for them and that they knew it was going to be a tough OS to sell.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Then you're back to square one with regards to activation, except now you've spent hundreds of dollars on new hardware too.
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
No. The OEM version is $100. It just happens to be roughly the same price as the retail upgrade version. This is why I never buy the upgrade version.
Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550
ill take Windows activation over RHEL activation any day.
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.
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!
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.