Windows XP Activation (and how it ruined my evening)
Kenneth Heffington
http://www.4cite.org/
"John Kowalke" <jkow...@home.com> wrote in message
news:#1lFS0P4AHA.1948@tkmsftngp07...
> I want to share tonight's experience with you so that you can perhaps be
> saved some trouble and a lot of frustration.
>
> I am an IT manager for an Certified Partner, and have been testing Windows
> XP Home Edition on my home computer for about 2 weeks. Everything was
going
> fine, and I was singing the praises of this new version of Windows, until
> tonight. Yesterday, I uninstalled Roxio EZ CD Creator 5.0, (which doesn't
> work under Windows XP anyway, I found). I thought everything was fine,
but
> then today noticed that both of my CD ROM drives were missing. After the
> normal troubleshooting steps met with failure, I decided to do a repair
> install of Windows XP. This is where things went bad.
>
> First of all, Windows XP prompted me for the CD-KEY again on the repair,
> which should have been my first warning. After the installation
completed,
> I was informed that I would need to Activate Windows before I could log
on.
> (keep in mind that this installation was already activated prior to the
> REPAIR installation). I went through the Activation Wizard and was told
> that "Activation Failed" and to call an 888 number. Now, here is where I
> began to get angry. When I called the 888 number, I was greeted with the
> following message:
>
> "Welcome to Microsoft. Our business hours are Monday through Friday, 6 AM
> to 10 PM Eastern time except holidays. To repeat, press star."
>
> First of all, despite the fact that I have a serious problem with having
> hours of operation on a line that is the ONLY way to get a computer to
boot,
> do they really NEED TO GIVE ME THE OPTION TO REPEAT? WOULD I NOT CATCH
THE
> HOURS THE FIRST TIME?
>
> Okay, back to my story. Since the phone option failed, I clicked the nice
> "Remind Me Later" button on the Activation Wizard, and Windows XP promptly
> logged me off. I was unable to logon without going through the same
process
> again. Unable to Activate, I installed Windows on another partition so I
> could check this newsgroup.
>
> So how did I get my installation back up and running? I found a crack on
> the Internet. Yes, I found a nice, illegal crack and used it. There is
no
> way in hell I was going to wait until Monday at 6 AM Eastern time to use
my
> own computer.
>
> Apparently, Microsoft feels that users only need access to their computers
> Monday through Friday. Well, Microsoft is mistaken, and as someone who
has
> the opportunity to influence the purchase of hundreds of servers and
> workstations per year, I am going to recommend to all my customers and
> colleagues to stay away from Windows XP at all costs. Microsoft's
apparent
> zeal to get a little more revenue (must be those legal fees) has driven it
> to be a company which is no longer concerned with serving the customer.
>
> I have been a Microsoft proponent for many years, but I will not recommend
> software that has the potential to be unavailable because of a company's
> greed.
>
> John Kowalke
>
>
>
Dave
Thanks
Dave
John Kowalke
.
Pierre-Philippe Le Bel
frustration a week ago. My problem was a corrupted network card driver (but
that's another topic), so when I "repair" my XP, it put me in the same
situation, because obviously my network card as some problem, so XP was
unable to connect on the internet.
The phone number is the one in the message window (which you can only see
when you can not register).
Trust me, those are not unique situation. MS will have to re-think some part
of the registration process support...
P.S. I didn't used the illegal solution, so I formated my HD and install
again. Understand that THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION!
My 2 cents
Philippe LeBel
ppl...@hotmail.com
"Dave" <1...@1.com> wrote in message
news:6a7201c0ef63$0266dbb0$19ef2ecf@tkmsftngxa01...