Wow, MS does far more than put in a software activation key...

They wrote it so if you have to re-activate the product, it won't let you and it will tell you to BUY ANOTHER COPY.

Well, now I'm siding with software "thieves" on this one. There's nothing wrong with a product activation key, but to limit the number of times you can reinstall the product - especially when it's Microsoft, whose registry design is so full of shit that you HAVE to do full reinstalls periodically to maintain performance...

:grr: :mad: :puke:

I use SuSE Linux 9.1 and Win4Lin running the few WIndows apps I can't be without, so MS users can complain all they want.

(I'd done a search for vmware under SuSE Linux 9.1 and stumbled on a few posts of users who encountered this little treat... x( )

I had never activated the software that I bought with the laptop so it told me that since i had not done that within the required period, I no longer owned it. I bought and paid for this (even if it is a piece of *) and I am demanding that the vendor provide me with another copy. Can you imagine buying a lawn mower and if you didn't run it in the first 3 wks, it became permanently disabled and they told you to go buy another?

That is utterly outrageous.

I hope more than ever Linux succeeds. Because it's far more likely that the world's going to switch to Linux than it would switch to a new platform that costs a great deal more money (for business class machines). And even then, I see M$ pulling a repuke tactic to entrench itself evenmoreso... they do not deserve the power. Nobody does.

I'm no fan of M$, though I never had this problem when re-installing and re-activating various Windows packages. I believe XP does requires you to phone M$ support if you are moving you copy to a machine.

is restoring from a hard drive crash. They happen, so it's recommeded to keep all your files backed up. But when it's time to replace a hard drive, one cannot copy all the files from the backup to the new drive, one must also re-install Windows, and then re-install all programs that run under Windows.

That takes me more than a couple of days, and it's all due to Microsoft's copy protection. This was not true with DOS or the 16-bit versions of Windows, the copy protection first appeared with Win95.

My biggest problem with converting over to Linux, is that I have so much software and data created by sometimes arcane programs (such as astrology programs), that converting to Linux causes me to lose a great deal of software "investment."

I do have Debian running on one machine in a triple boot environment using LILO, but the inability to run a Windows program in Linux requires me to reboot, and that kills multitasking between operating systems. I haven't yet been able to get WINE to run well. I haven't tried Win4Lin. Is it seamless?

after that, you have to call Microsoft. :mad:

I know it's too late for you now, but if you do call Microsoft and get XP reactivated, you can backup the activation files so you don't have to call them ever again. :)

You only have to backup two files

Go to your C:\WINDOWS\System32\
Find "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak"
Back those two files up to a floppy, zip disk, CD or whatever you have.

Assuming you didn't make any significant hardware changes...
Reinstall XP and restore these files by booting into safe mode and putting them into your C:\WINDOWS\System32\ directory. When you reboot you should be activated.

:)


On edit: just remembered ... "Call for Help" on TechTV recently mentioned a program that will backup the activation files for you. It's called RockXp and it's free.
http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/freefile/story/0,24330,3676249,00.html

I have to wear my boots in here. :hi: