The best comment ive seen so far is the comparison of product activation to sony tv's, however that's not a fair comparison. For one tv you only have one viewer, you cannot use 1 tv in many different places at once. A better comparision is cable/directv. My parents have directv, and i know you have to pay extra for each tv that you want directv on. Usually this is the same for cable tv, for each tv hooked up to cable, you gotta pay extra. Another good example is the new anti-copying technology that music companies are using to prevent people from copying the cd. There not doing this to piss off the consumer, there just trying to stay in business. Some people (including me) haven't bought an audio cd in years, and this is really hurting there bottom line. The same can be said about the PC industry, so if your gonna pick on microsoft, your a hypocrite if you dont pick on everyone using similiar technology.
But WPA is nothing to fear, the only thing to fear is ignorance. Someone posted WPA includes personal information such as name, address, this is totally incorrect. WHen you register you provide your personal info, you need to register to get support from microsoft. WPA is just binding a number based on your hardware to your copy of windows - there is NO personal data there! Registering and activatating are 2 totally diffrent things! You dont have to register, but you do have to activate. Activation is just a number based on the amount of ram you have, hard drive serial, NIC, bios, and a couple other things. So from this number microsoft only knows how much ram you have, things like that. WPA is not gonna hurt anyone. What's gonna hurt people, is people spreading lies about wpa. If you dont know something is a fact about wpa - DONT post it. Your hurting the people not microsoft. But as far as activation goes, it's very painless.
I think the reason people bitch so much about activation and microsoft in general is because microsoft is so successful. If microsoft was some shit-poor linux company, do you think people would complain sooo much? People complain because microsoft is so successful, that they expect everything to be free for some reason. It's the same logic behing shop lifting. Recently i read an article that says people that shoplift see themselves as stealing from a big faceless corporation that is so rich stealing won't matter, and won't hurt anyone. But in the end, shop lifting hurts the little people, the people that makes the clothes, stock the shelves, etc. Education usually helps people to stop shop lifting. It's the same thing with piracy, it doesn't effect the people high up, it affects the little people, the people that make the cd's, market the product, etc. So just stop bitching. If you dont want windows xp, then just dont buy it. No one cares if you dont upgrade. THere are many people still using windows 3.1 because they didnt want change, so join them. They'll listen to your bitching and whining, but i won't;)
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The best comment ive seen so far is the comparison of product activation to sony tv's, however that's not a fair comparison. For one tv you only have one viewer, you cannot use 1 tv in many different places at once. A better comparision is cable/directv. My parents have directv, and i know you have to pay extra for each tv that you want directv on. Usually this is the same for cable tv, for each tv hooked up to cable, you gotta pay extra. Another good example is the new anti-copying technology that music companies are using to prevent people from copying the cd. There not doing this to piss off the consumer, there just trying to stay in business. Some people (including me) haven't bought an audio cd in years, and this is really hurting there bottom line. The same can be said about the PC industry, so if your gonna pick on microsoft, your a hypocrite if you dont pick on everyone using similiar technology.
;)
But WPA is nothing to fear, the only thing to fear is ignorance. Someone posted WPA includes personal information such as name, address, this is totally incorrect. WHen you register you provide your personal info, you need to register to get support from microsoft. WPA is just binding a number based on your hardware to your copy of windows - there is NO personal data there! Registering and activatating are 2 totally diffrent things! You dont have to register, but you do have to activate. Activation is just a number based on the amount of ram you have, hard drive serial, NIC, bios, and a couple other things. So from this number microsoft only knows how much ram you have, things like that. WPA is not gonna hurt anyone. What's gonna hurt people, is people spreading lies about wpa. If you dont know something is a fact about wpa - DONT post it. Your hurting the people not microsoft. But as far as activation goes, it's very painless.
I think the reason people bitch so much about activation and microsoft in general is because microsoft is so successful. If microsoft was some shit-poor linux company, do you think people would complain sooo much? People complain because microsoft is so successful, that they expect everything to be free for some reason. It's the same logic behing shop lifting. Recently i read an article that says people that shoplift see themselves as stealing from a big faceless corporation that is so rich stealing won't matter, and won't hurt anyone. But in the end, shop lifting hurts the little people, the people that makes the clothes, stock the shelves, etc. Education usually helps people to stop shop lifting. It's the same thing with piracy, it doesn't effect the people high up, it affects the little people, the people that make the cd's, market the product, etc. So just stop bitching. If you dont want windows xp, then just dont buy it. No one cares if you dont upgrade. THere are many people still using windows 3.1 because they didnt want change, so join them. They'll listen to your bitching and whining, but i won't
Go Microsoft!
-gosh