Vista Activation woes.

[Mr Anderson]

Semantics.

Not really. It's a problem with Microsoft, not with Vista. A person in an office is interpreting the license in such a way that they are denying Matt's ability to transfer it - even though there's a one-time right to transfer it to another system written into the licensing terms (that person is likely interpreting that one-time right as being applicable only to retail copies of Vista and not OEM copies, even though there's no distinction in the licensing terms available from the MS site).

[rutty]

Semantics.

Not really. It's a problem with Microsoft, not with Vista. A person in an office is interpreting the license in such a way that they are denying Matt's ability to transfer it - even though there's a one-time right to transfer it to another system written into the licensing terms.

Microsoft have written their licensing restrictions into Vista so that users have to attempt to reactivate their legally purchased software after some minor software/hardware changes. That's the core of the problem - written into the software. If Vista wasn't written to cripple itself then the problem wouldn't even exist.

It's even ineffective against piracy. If you want to get a cracked copy of Vista you can, whereas those that do pay for have to bend over backwards to get it to work, as Matt has found out.

The monkeys on the end of the line are just making it worse. Microsoft should have never implemented this the way they have.

[Mr Anderson]

Microsoft have written their licensing restrictions into Vista so that users have to attempt to reactivate their legally purchased software after some minor software/hardware changes. That's the core of the problem - written into the software. If Vista wasn't written to cripple itself then the problem wouldn't even exist.

Changing the motherboard and processor aren't minor changes, and XP had to be reactivated when changes of that type were made too - so there's no difference between 2 operating systems there, the difference is in the response you get to making a phone call for a reactivation code.

It's even ineffective against piracy. If you want to get a cracked copy of Vista you can, whereas those that do pay for have to bend over backwards to get it to work, as Matt has found out.

The monkeys on the end of the line are just making it worse. Microsoft should have never implemented this the way they have.

I don't disagree with any of that