Sigh… Why Must Microsoft Keep Disappointing Me
Posted by Davy Brion on November 15th, 2008
As some of you may already know, i only use a Mac at home. I have Parallels installed with a virtual Windows XP that i only use to run Visual Studio 2008 in. This week, Parallels introduced the 4.0 version of their Parallels Desktop product, so i gladly payed for the upgrade. I installed it, and after booting the virtual Windows XP i was informed that the hardware in my ‘computer’ had changed too often and that i needed to activate the product again.
Now, there were a few ‘hardware changes’. I changed the configured amount of memory for the virtual system twice, and the other one must’ve been the Parallels upgrade. I wouldn’t really consider these changes to be very substantial but apparently Microsoft disagrees with me. The product needed to be activated again. So i clicked the activation link, but Microsoft was kind enough to inform me that this license has been activated too many times.
This license of Windows XP Professional originally came with a Dell laptop that i purchased a few years ago. When i got rid of the Dell laptop, i installed that Windows XP in a virtual machine through Parallels and i remember needing to provide the product key during installation. I guess that counted as the second activation. A while later i had to reinstall because my XP system was completely hosed. That was another activation. And now with the ‘hardware changes’ in my virtual system, i guess i went over the limit. Very nice of you Microsoft. So i call them to do the activation through the phone… So i type in the ridiculously long activation ID on my phone, and then they asked me some questions. Me being the idiot that i am, i answered them truthfully. One of the questions was “did you have the software installed on the same system it came with?”. I answered “no”. Big mistake. They told me they couldn’t activate it anymore because the license did not allow the software to be run on another system than the one it came with.
So i’m pretty much fucked now… i have no valid Windows XP license, and i sure as hell won’t pay for a new one. I’m definitely not paying for a Vista license either. I think Vista sucks horribly so it’s not worth the money. And buying a new operating system just to be able to run Visual Studio because i use a consumer-friendly operating system for everything else already? Nah, didn’t think so. And how the hell could anyone expect me to pay for a Windows license after Microsoft essentially took away my right to use the software that i had previously purchased? I don’t care if the software came with a laptop that i no longer use. I should still be able to run the software on another machine!
It’s ironic though… Microsoft wants everyone to trust them. As long as stuff like this is possible, they don’t deserve any trust at all. Trust is a two-way street… If they want to be trusted, perhaps they should start trusting their customers for a change.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hi Davy,
Sucks indeed… i guess The Pirate Bay will be your friend ;p. I guess it is not possible to run VS.NET with Wine on Mac OS X or something like that?
Btw, believe it or not, but i’m at home now, running Linux (Ubuntu). I just installed a dual boot a few days ago. In the coming days/weeks i still need to figure a few things out, mostly if all the software that i need/use works (that does not include vs.net
) and all my hardware is recognized (still a few probs with my cellphone).
(who could have believed that?! :p)
After having tried it for just a few days i’m actually already 99% sure that i’m going to completely drop windows at home
November 16th, 2008 at 8:08 am
The reason why you cannot install on another system is because you have an OEM version of XP (it came with the dell).
If you had a retail version, there was no problem.
Since you’re a developer you (or your company) most likely has a MSDN subscription, which allows you to use the software for development purposes. Maybe using the windows XP from your MSDN subscription is a valid solution?
PS This is my understanding of what happend, I’m not a licensing specialist so I might be wrong…
November 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Peter is right about the OEM part. OEM licenses are cheaper than retail ones (and for windows about 1/3rd of the retail) but they restrict the usage of the software to the machine with which the license came. And, you can’t legally buy an OEM license without buying any hardware to run on it :/ (although you could argue that you bought Parallels which is ‘virtual hardware’) If you manage to buy an OEM license somewhere it will work fine.
About the MSDN, I don’t think it works that way. MSDN licenses are very restrictive, and I don’t believe an employee using such licenses at home on his private hardware is allowed.
If you want, I have an unused evaluation copy of Vista… that should keep you going for another 180 days
November 16th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Did you take a backup of the VM? If you reinstall the previous parallels version and use the backup you can probably continue as if nothing happened.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I am a licensing specialist. I don’t know what to tell you. Microsoft’s pretty unclear about their licensing practices, but it only takes a trivial read of their licensing docs to know that OEM licenses can’t be transferred from machine to machine. To move your license you need either a Retail or an Open license (there’s Select as well, but I don’t claim knowledge about big-corporate). OEM licenses are SUPERCHEAP because they have use restrictions.
Using the XP from your MSDN edition as a desktop os (not for development/testing, but for application use and email) is also a licensing violation.
I used to be really willing to blame MS and push their licenses to the very edge of morality. But now, there’s folks who’s love you to use their FREE Operating System. If you don’t want to pay, don’t. Go free. If you think there’s a value to Microsoft’s product…well, figure out what you want to buy and buy it from them. They’re very willing to sell it to you. If you’re confused, call the licensing hotline or a MS Partner, and they’ll help you figure it out.
I’ve used linux as a desktop and it’s AWESOME. I have Macs in the house, and they are great. I run Vista 64bit on my dev machines, and I’ve paid ~$500 a seat to make them so. It’s worth it. Computer software has value and nobody’s forcing you to select one that isn’t right.
P.S. I really feel your pain about the O.S. migration thing. At the very least, they could have programmed the damn thing to let you pay for an in-place license key upgrade and not force you to reinstall. But I can only expect so much from a 5-year old operating system. Vista does it better.
November 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
@Josh
It’s not that i don’t want to pay… i always pay for software that i like using, unless the company which is producing it treats me like shit.
In this case, we’re talking about an expensive Operating System which i pretty much only use as a shell to run Visual Studio in. There’s no way in hell i’m paying for a new license, even if i wasn’t allowed to use the old license on a virtual machine in the first place.
@Ben
Yeah i have backups, but i already payed for this new version of Parallels, which is great so far, so i don’t want to go back to the previous version. And thanks for the offer, but you can keep your evaluation copy of Vista
November 16th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
So you use an OEM version of an OS you got for a specific laptop (you do know what OEM is, right?), Apple apparently hosed Parallel’s hardware config during the upgrade, and somehow you figure this is Microsoft’s fault?
November 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I do know what OEM is, i just think it’s total BS… hell, if i could install it _and activate it_ on a virtual machine instead of on the original laptop then the whole “you’re not allowed to do that” argument is just pointless. They allowed me to activate it in the first place you know…
Since Parallels doesn’t have anything to do with Apple, i fail to see what Apple has to do with this situation… But Parallels’ hardware config indeed changed quite a lot apparantly, which triggered the “oh no, you can’t use this operating system anymore” response that XP gave me. Is it Microsoft’s ‘fault’? Is it Parallels’ ‘fault’? I don’t really think of it that way… i just think the whole Windows licensing approach is terrible. If they don’t want you to install Windows on a machine you’re not allowed to run it on, then they should just figure out a way to make it impossible to install on that machine. But allowing you to install it and activate it, and then later on taking away your right to use it is just ridiculous.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“hell, if i could install it _and activate it_ on a virtual machine instead of on the original laptop then the whole “you’re not allowed to do that” argument is just pointless. They allowed me to activate it in the first place you know”
So if you kill someone and get away with it for the first year afterwards, and are then caught, you’d complain that because you got away with it for a year before it should be ok?
That’s pretty much your logic. That just because you could circumvent the license in the first instance, that you should be able to carry on doing so…
It should have been blindlgly obvious that given you had an OEM license that once you transferred the OS to a VM you effectively voided that license. I can’t believe you’re even complaining about it.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
you’re comparing getting away with murder to installing a windows version with an OEM license on a different machine… and i’m the one with the twisted logic? right…
November 17th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Ever considering calling back and telling them you’re installing it back on the original hardware?
I too worry about running into this problem, as I have an OEM version of Vista on a custom build computer. Because I swap out hardware frequently, I worry one day they will tell me my computer doesn’t match the original computer. What is the defination of a computer really when all the pieces inside are swapable? At what point would an old computer become a new one?
November 17th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
i dunno… i might get away with calling them back and just telling them i’m reinstalling it on the original pc. Honestly, i no longer care about it… i think their whole system is completely fucked up. I’ve got a working system right now, and i can run Visual Studio… which is all i need so i’m not wasting any more time on this.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
If you switched to Java for development and Linux for OS then you wouldn’t have to worry about Jobs and Ballmer trying to buttsecks you everytime you need to do some work.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Its a blessing in disguise for you to move away from Visual Studio…
November 18th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Wow, just take your Mac OS to another machine, like your old Dell laptop… Yea.. even more restrictive eh?
Wow, you mac fans are such sheep!
November 18th, 2008 at 7:26 am
the restrictions on OS X installation CD’s that come with Macs are pretty different… they only install on the same kind of apple model they came with, but other than that, there is no activation or any other check or whatever and you can install it as much as you like
November 18th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I agree with Bryce Fischer, Apple license policies are restricted, too. Maybe there is no activation but they can always sue you if you install Apple software on an operating system other than Mac OS. Safari EULA, Mac OS X EULA, iPhone NDA, Psystar, anyone? So much for the consumer-friendly OS…
November 18th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Ok then, replace Murder with *ANY OTHER* crime or even just a simple breaking of *ANY* contract. Surely, the analogy was not too much brain strain for you?
The simple fact is you broke a licensing agreement. Not pushed it to its limits of understanding. You broke the agreement. Whether you agree with license or no is entirely irrelevant. The license was legal and enforceable. When you purchased the laptop and started using Windows, you *agreed* to the license terms. So then you go and break the agreement (as many of us do on the quiet, i don’t have problem with that) got away with it and then then you were caught out and had the license revoked. And you then have the gall to complain about it.
The fact that you managed to activate Windows on the VM is entirely irrelevant. Infact the whole point of VM is so that it is transparent to the OS. And what would you expect MS to do. Should they go and detect every.single.VM architecture out there?
Your argument is not just stupid. It shows how entirely unprepared you are to meet the consequences of your actions. Your license got busted because *you* broke it. Get the hell over it and stop whingeing like a 4 year old.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
“as many of us do on the quiet, i don’t have problem with that”
pretty hypocritical if you ask me. You’re comparing what i did with committing crimes which is really a stretch (although i’m sure it makes you quite popular on Slashdot). Yet you also say that you have no problem with it if you do it on the quiet. How does that even make sense if you keep your own analogy in mind?
November 18th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
How is that hypocritical? I wasn’t being critical about you circumventing the license. I was critical of you whingeing over the fact that once you had the license revoked you thought it was somehow your right to still have a valid license.
“How does that even make sense if you keep your own analogy in mind?”
Because i wouldn’t be whingeing like a menstruating woman if i got caught. If you broke the rules and got busted, tough.
To draw another analogy: if you had a bus pass for one route and decided to use it on another for which it was not valid and you got away with it for a month because you got on in the middle of the bus rather than having to show the pass to the driver, you’d then complain on 1 month + 1 day when a ticket inspector comes along and busts you. Your argument would be “but hey i’ve been ok doing this for a month you should just let me carry on”. Does that make even the remotest bit of sense? Because that is pretty much equivalent to your VM/Windows argument.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Ah so it’s merely the fact that i’m complaining about this that pisses you off… well yeah i complain about it because i really think it’s a stupid system. The fact that you don’t have problems with people doing the same thing (minus the bitching after getting caught) kinda backs that up. I think a lot of people think it’s a stupid system. But let’s all just break the rules _silently_ and then there’s no problem…
If you really have so much problems with the fact that i’m complaining about it, then why on earth don’t you spend your valuable time somewhere else? I already mentioned Slashdot before… you really should give it some thought: you’ve got the petty insults, the irrelevant analogies, you easily get worked up over other people’s opinions… you’d have a great time over there
November 19th, 2008 at 12:59 am
“i complain about it because i really think it’s a stupid system”
Fine, I don’t have a problem with that. It is a stupid system. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that you agreed to the license and are now complaining that MS enforced the very license you agreed to.
If you can’t comprehend or get that through your skull then good luck with all the other contracts you have to deal with in life. You’re going to need all the luck you can get.
“you easily get worked up over other people’s opinions”
No, i get worked up about people’s *retarded* opinions and complete inability to work out how they got themselves into the hole that they’re in.
“So i’m pretty much fucked now”
Yes, you are. Now.
I’ve got better things to be doing. I’m off to Slashdot.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
I bought a laptop with a OEM Vista on it. I wanted XP but the drivers were only for Vista (not Microsoft’s fault I know). I installed it with the key on the sticker at the bottom of the laptop, then I used it for about a month (together with all the crapware).
Then it asked for activating, or making it genuine or something. I was like “it’s legal so go for it” and proceeded with the activation. Vista locked up. I couldn’t do anything anymore. I couldn’t even use the internet to search the phone number of the laptop manufacturer. I couldn’t even backup my files. I couldn’t do _anything_ ! Guess what I did next…
It’s sad that a Vista from TPB is easier to use than the one you actually buy.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Call the activation line again, give different answers…get activated.
Easy as.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
It wont install because you had it on a dell. You could go back to Windows 2000, which doenst have all that crap, but then Windows 2000 wont work in a VM on a Mac.
That’s the price we all pay for everyone abandoning Win 2000. I’ll have to buy a XP license myself soon, because more and more apps are dropping Win2000 support, until then I keep it for all my VMs since I dont have to screw around with activation and all that other bullcrap.