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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.
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.
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?
If memory serves, Windows phones home some data about the platform it finds itself on when it is activated(I don't know if it is particularly identifiable, or just a hash of whatever seems likely to be system specific, or somewhere in between), and some versions can be very unhappy if they come to the conclusion that they've previously been activated on different hardware. Enough time on the phone will get you a nice guy in India who will probably be able to fix it for you; but it definitely can happen.
Its obtuse only if you have paid for it. For the pirates, the activation is included in the ISO
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?
I've never had to talk to a guy in India, I've always gotten an automated phone system. You read the key, it processes for a second then gives you a long-ass number to put in. It's a nuisance but less horrible than issues we've had with Adobe software activation.
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).
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.
Let's not even talk about Adobe. Everything about their customer interaction process, whether it be downloads, activations, even getting them to take your damn money, appears to be cobbled together from a mixture of coldfusion from the mid 90's and a bitter, gnawing, hatred of all that exists, older than the primordial Void itself. All wrapped up in a ghastly AIR UI, naturally.
seriously, its your own damn fault.
Yeah - I guess it's my fault for needing Photoshop, Solidworks, AutoCAD, Excel, Word, etc. to share files with my customers.
Place nail here >+
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 ...
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
Dude, serves you right for installing a new video card.
What business does someone have opening the case? It should violate DMCA to use a non OEM hard drive.
THL phish sticks
Retail Windows OS can be re-installed up to three times before you need to manually activate the product.
As I understand it, the activation process creates a system profile "hash", and ties it to the product key. When your system changes in a significant way (MB, CPU or NIC) it can trigger a re-activation.
People that rebuiild their systems frequently are familiar with this problem.
Ken
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.