Well, I was sorta thinking about buying Office XP and giving it a shot. However I had heard about this like "Change your system, need a new serial number" "feature" dealie from MS that will somehow prevent pirating. It happened to a guy from ZDnet a few days ago.. And he was on the road. Well, in a plane actually.... Oh, and he hadn't done anything to the machine. Woops. Bad press for MS. :)

"Why did they do that? Here's what the help screen said: "Due to a significant change in your computer configuration from when Microsoft Office was installed and activated, some important information about your computer needs to be restored, and the product needs to be reactivated to continue to function properly."

That sort of message would cause me to head down to Microsoft headquarters with my vendor appreciation bat. Why would it matter to Microsoft what I do with MY machine. It's supposed to prevent pirating, but I'd REALLY like to know how. You have to reinstall the software on other computers if you're pirating it, you can't just copy the folder over... So it's a fresh install anyhow. I suspect that MS will monitor how many times a serial number is used, and the kinda of hardware it's being used on. Can they do anything about it? Well, if they have something built into the program to allow them to remotely kill keys (Much like Satellite companies do right now with pirate cards) sure.... Of course the sucker who actually OWNS the damned program will be some pissed if someone generates his key and uses it... and the legal owner is the one who gets deactivated. (This happens quite a bit currently in games like Half Life.)

Hell, a few months ago I had some major hard drive issues that killed my boot drive every time I moved it. (I drag my desktop machine around with me, ALOT.) I ended up reinstalling Windows 2000 7 times in 9 days, and again a few weeks ago I did 5 reinstalls in 3 days. Shortly after that last episode I changed my hard drive, then soon after I changed my CPU. A week later I installed a new motherboard and DDR RAM. A week later I overclocked my CPU by 200mhz. All what I'd consider to be fairly major changes. I have no idea if these things would red flag my machine over at World Domination Headquarters.

Do you think that Microsoft's jackbooted thugs would be kicking my door in if I was using Windows XP or Office XP? I think someone would likely be having a little chat with me, especially considering that I run a retail outlet. That's.. Lemme see.... Wow. Over 20 installs if I have to reinstall. And just what is a major system change anyhow? RAM? Hard drive? Installing a piece of non-MS software? Shutting down improperly? Who the hell knows.

You know what? It shouldn't be any of their business what I do on my machine regardless. Microsoft has to realise that this will NOT prevent pirating, as you just crack the software and their little security stuff doesn't work regardless... But it will inconvience the legit owners to no end, as always. I already have to type in a 30 digital code when I install anything. Twice, 'cause I always mistype. (Hey, the stupid things are hard to read! Is that an 8 or a B?) It makes me nervous that somewhere, someone at Microsoft KNOWS what I'm doing with my computer. What hardware and software I have. It's not that I have "anything to hide" (Well, actually, I'm sure we ALL have things on our machines we don't want going anywhere.) which one very stupid thing that someone pointed out to me when I brought the subject up. "Well, if you don't have anything to hide, why do you care?" he said in a snide voice. I HATE that line of reasoning. If you follow that line, we could easily reduce crime by planting a monitored camera in every room, in every house. And implanting every person in the country with a tracking beacon and camera as well. There you go, as long as you have nothing to hide that sort of thing shouldn't bother you apparently.

Getting a little off track here, sorry. Back to the subject at hand.

Personally I'm a paranoid sort. I don't like my computer sending out information on what I'm doing, who I am, or hardware and software I have installed. It's no one's business but my own. And the fact that it's Microsoft just makes me nervous. I don't even register their products because...Welll..... We know how secure their servers are and all. Liek I said, I'm paranoid. According to Microsoft no personal or identifying information is collected.... But then how does that really prevent pirating, or allow you to do anything about it if pirating is detected?

Microsoft's licensing agreement on their OS pisses me off regardless. According to them the licence goes with the machine, not the person. Now, I may be wrong here, but to me this means that when you sell the machine you must sell the OS as well. (Now you usually have your serial number on a stick attached to your case regardless, so it's going one way or another.)

What if I decide to sell my machine as a barebones, no OS? Well, my stupid proof of ownership is cemented to the back of that machine. I can remove it, but it destroys the sticker in doing so.... and that sticker is your proof that you legally own a copy of the OS. I just contacted Microsoft regarding this, just to see what they say.

Anyhows, that's my rant for the day. :) Njoy. Anytime Microsoft starts talking about this sort of thing I just get twitchy and nervous.... Too nervous? Yeah, likely.... But this is Microborg we're discussing here......