Please take the children out of the room and cover the ears of your granny.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Bastard bloody Windows!
Thank you, I feel better now.
I take back any passingly pleasant comments I made about Windows 7 this morning. It’s a cloak of charm covering the usual Microsoft wank.
Started up Win7 this afternoon and after coughing into life it announced that it was not happy about my copy of Windows; maybe it wasn’t genuine. Oh yes it is pal, and I have the original box to prove it. Shouting at it made no difference, so I looked at what it wanted me to do. Download a shitty little exe file was what it wanted me to do; all very 1990s. So I did, and I ran it and it shouted VALIDATION CHECK, before confirming that my copy of Windows was not genuine and would I like to buy a new copy online provided I was in the USA; otherwise tough luck.
There was help of sorts which said maybe you have changed your computer hardware (which I have), but offered no advice on what to do in such circumstances. It then asked me to restart the computer which would no doubt invoke the slow painful death routine.
To be honest, I had rather feared this moment. When I went to buy my original Windows disk, they only had the OEM version; which means it can only be installed on a single computer. By moving the disk to a new computer a few days ago I had sinned and was therefore being shut down for my transgressions. Which means I would have to go out and buy another bloody disk for an eye-watering amount of money. Of course, had I been running a pirated copy then I would have been fine…
Really Microsoft, do you have to make it this bloody difficult? Please compare with Apple.
Apple Lion was downloadable for less than the third of the price of Windows. Having downloaded it I could legally install it on up to five of my Macs. No DRM, no registration, no hassles, no restrictions. And they sold a million copies on the first day. Make it cheap and easy and people will happily pay for it. Make it expensive, complicated and restrictive; and people will give up and install pirated versions. Like I am about to do. Bastards.
Comments 🔗
2011-07-28| Antz saysHa, welcome to the frustration… and I thought you had learnt your lessons from previous experience. I had the same problem when a motherboard failed in a server in my office. I had the motherboard replaced, and the bastards insisted I buy a new Windows license. Welcome to the fun…. maybe now you’ll learn.
2011-07-28| Barry saysActually, you can call Micro$oft and explain what you’ve done and they say no problem. Once, I guess. Or so I’m told. I’ve had my laptop tell me my copy of Win 7 isn’t genuine once or twice, but I just ignore it and it’s fine next time I boot up.
2011-07-28| Antz saysTried the call to MS, ended up at a Filipina call centre that refused to accept my explanation and when you ask for the manager you just get passed from one wanker to another. Never again….
2011-07-28| Spike saysJust use Windows for gaming. If I could cure myself of that addiction, I wouldn’t have to deal with the inevitable frustrations.
2011-07-28| TheSon saysI’ve had to call MS about licencing issues before - had it sorted in about 15 minutes. Might be easier than you think. Do agree about them learning from Apple though, I certainly think a £30 OS upgrade is about right and the ability to spread it across all your machines is pretty generous.
2011-07-28| TheSon saysmight work with Shogun :D
2011-07-28| Spike saysI can see Steam embracing that…