Originally Posted by bluemonq

Significant hardware change? I bought a ThinkPad back in 2002. A few weeks ago I thought it'd be a good idea to get rid of all the cruft on it by reinstalling Windows. Well, the activation key that was embossed on the bottom was not accepted during the activation process. So I called up tech support. Five minutes later, after innumerable repeats of various codes and keys that the computer generated, I had a working copy of Windows.

Though I am irritated at Microsoft for creating such a twisted path in the name of anti-piracy, I am even more incensed at the people at the root of the problem: the people who pirate copies of Windows. "Information wants to be free," "It's copyright infringement, not stealing," "$300 is too much for a copy of Windows" - I don't care. Why do people feel such a sense of entitlement? Use Linux if you can't afford Windows or don't want to pay for it or don't feel it's worth the money; it works just as well. The only reason I use Windows on any of my boxen is because most of my clients do and sometimes I need to be able to duplicate their problems.

If nobody downloaded copies of Windows or used burned copies of Windows, they wouldn't have to do stuff like activation and WGA, plain and simple. Oh, not out of the goodness of *their* hearts, but so they wouldn't have to spend extra money to hire coders to implement validation technologies.

BTW, what is this "special code" needed to start a "hidden" Activation Wizard? Never heard of such a thing in all the time I've been building and fixing PCs.