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"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> says:
> Software that repeatedly demands to phone home and download secret
encrypted
> codes steals my time and my peace of mind. It is not "okay" for a company
to
> steal this from me just because I am a small company instead of a big
> company.
If your Microsoft software repeatedly and regularly demands activation,
there is something wrong with your system. We would've heard a lot more
about this in the news if Word or Office or Windows did this daily. As it
is, I've only heard about it here--haven't seen it in the news anywhere.
> Note that if you spend enough you can usually get a corporate version that
> is activation-free.
Those versions are there for corporate roll-outs where the end user doesn't
have access to the installation media and can't (easily) copy and distribute
the software. Someone on this thread had mentioned a problem with Quark,
where the same key disk was used to install the software throughout a
department. The corporate, activation free versions of MSFT software avoid
this problem.
> Software makers that provide this differential are
> making a clear statement about how they perceive and value you. They are
> telling you they do not really want to sell or support consumer products.
Uh, no. That statement makes no sense. They are just meeting the
wants/needs of large corporate customers. If enough consumers had problems
with activation and complained loudly enough, it'd be removed.
> Fortunately, simple consumer action (or inaction) will eventually put a
stop
> to product activation (Hello, Intuit!).Product activation will eventually
be
> seen as a disastrous money-losing fad.
Don't confuse different types of product activation. The Intuit/Turbotax
type installed software that sort of sat to the side and was active even
when you weren't running Turbotax. That's different from software that
connects to a remote server one-time to verify that it is a legal copy.
> If you want to use Windows or Office without activation, just use the old
> versions, before product activation was invented - they still work.
I don't know where you work, but lots of us have no control over what
software we use and what we can install on our computers. Even some
contractors are mandated to use specific software and versions of the
software.
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