It's 2013, and Windows Activation Is Still Frustrating

Deathspawner writes "There's little that's more frustrating than being a legal customer and getting screwed over by the company you're supporting. If there's a perfect example of this, it's with Microsoft's OS and its millions of customers that have had to ring its tech support lines for activation help. Recently, a Techgage writer got bit by an issue with Windows 8 — caused by Microsoft itself — and wasn't even able to call to fix it. Microsoft has two problems to solve here: it needs online chat support (like most large companies in 2013) and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis."

Re:Dreamspark etc.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As a university student, my uni grants access to MS products like Windows, Visual Studio etc. It really was a matter of entering a serial and that was all that had to be done. I take it off the shelf windows activates more obtusely?

If memory serves, Windows phones home some data about the platform it finds itself on when it is activated(I don't know if it is particularly identifiable, or just a hash of whatever seems likely to be system specific, or somewhere in between), and some versions can be very unhappy if they come to the conclusion that they've previously been activated on different hardware. Enough time on the phone will get you a nice guy in India who will probably be able to fix it for you; but it definitely can happen.

Thank me later.

[tuppe666]

Install the icedtea-7-plugin package using any installation method. more detailed instructions here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java [ubuntu.com].

To be fair installing the the whole of Ubuntu is now a few basic dialog boxes and leave for 20 minutes

I know your trolling but Linux Desktop market share has been steadily rising for sometime, and that is without the onslaught of Chrome (and soon Android Boxies).

Windows Upgrade costs $295

[tuppe666]

Ironically Activation on Microsoft platform pushed me to Linux

Windows 8 is not available to me from Microsoft only an upgrade I cannot use. From Microsoft http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_WOL_Hero_ShopHP_FPP_Null [microsoft.com] the prices are $155 for a Windows 8 Upgrade or $295 for Windows 8 Pro. I could not find a version of retail Windows 8 anywhere. What is true for you is not true for me.

Re:Linux on the Desktop

[h4rr4r]

You could has just set a password for the root user.

Your ignorance is not someone else's fault.

Re:Thank me later.

[RicktheBrick]

I have now installed Ubuntu 13.04 4 times and for every installation, I had to wait between 20 to 30 minutes for the files to download. After which I had to respond to a dialog box which had only one response. The response was forward. Only after clicking on it did it finish with the installation. I have a mixture of windows and Ubuntu computers. My windows computers do not recognize any of my Ubuntu computers. I do have a program called Network Magic that will tell me if my Ubuntu computers are on line so it can be done. My Ubuntu computers just give me an error message when I try to access my network. I do have a goflex network drive that is recognized by all of my windows computers but not any of my Ubuntu computers so it is hard to back up any of those to that network drive. Backing up one's computer should be done automatically after one shuts down the computer. Restoration should be part of the installation dvd as it should be able to recognize a network drive and a backup copy and ask if it should restore that copy. I recently got a laptop since it was not working. I found that the problem was the hard drive. Since the hard drive did not work it would not recover from the second partition. There was a sticker on it with the code for windows but it had long been worn off. I did not have a windows 7 installation disk and did not have a code so it would be difficult for me to reinstall windows. I installed Ubuntu on it. I did spend around a hour on the hp site but did not find a solution. I do not think anyone cares a lot after the sale.

Re:Dreamspark etc.

[kenh]

Retail Windows OS can be re-installed up to three times before you need to manually activate the product.

As I understand it, the activation process creates a system profile "hash", and ties it to the product key. When your system changes in a significant way (MB, CPU or NIC) it can trigger a re-activation.

People that rebuiild their systems frequently are familiar with this problem.

Re:Windows Upgrade costs $295

[rsmith-mac]

I could not find a version of retail Windows 8 anywhere

You're looking for something that doesn't exist because it's no longer needed.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-WN7-00403-English-Version/dp/B009HI2W66/ref=sr_1_2?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1367939128&sr=1-2&keywords=windows+8 [amazon.co.uk]

OEM is the new retail. MS unified the TOS; Win8 OEM's terms are essentially identical to Win7 retail's terms, including the ability to resell it.

Re:I have an idea

[omnichad]

Don't activate THEN install 10 device drivers.

You blame the user for that and not Microsoft? The hardware has the same PCI/USB vendor and device ID's as before the drivers were installed. Those are detected just fine without drivers. If this really does cause problems, then the real problem is Microsoft basing their hardware configuration hash on anything relating to software and not hardware.

Re:who was he even talking to?

[omnichad]

Third, don't activate until all the devices are installed instead of marked as "unknown device

And why should this be the user's fault? The hardware doesn't change it's PCI/USB vendor or device ID's after drivers are installed. You can't seriously be telling me that Microsoft's fingerprint of your hardware is based on the drivers and not the hardware. And if you are telling me that, then it's not the author being a moron - it's Microsoft being stupid.