M.S. not intrested in support.

They will be sailing very close to the wind on that one. There are Academic Versions available and that is what the college should be selling to both students and staff.

Col

The license remains the property of M$ and is only usable on the Original Hardware.

So you are completely within your rights to sell the computer and you MUST SUPPLY any M$ OEM Software. However if you decide to only attempt to sell the Software that is a totally different story and anyone who is silly enough to buy the CD and product Key will be unable to activate it and most likely it will result in a visit from the Police Agency responsible for copyright in your area.

Col

I've ever had always comes from the Debian Community. I post a problem and always within a few hours I have at the very least a temporary fix if it is a code problem. If it is a straight hardware problem the fix is permanent.

The same almost applies to Mandrake & SUSE as well so in all fairness Linux has a lot better support than M$ has ever supplied.

What you also have to bear in mind is that with these distributions they are not just OS but a complete software installation so they are really a lot more complex than Windows ever will be unless M$ decides to package all of their products in a single package and you only load what you require.

Perhaps when M$ embraces Linux as the standard OS and starts providing their software to run on Linux we will see far fewer problems with the OS and just be confined to software applications. Remember that Microsoft bought the right to make Linux from SCO earlier this year and while it may have been an attempt to help SCO in their legal case with IBM and Linux in general with a Linux Distro they could rightfully claim to produce OS that are capable of covering the entire computer market instead of just the small Server and desktop applications that they currently cover.

Maybe I've led a sheltered life but I've yet to see anyone silly enough to actually install Windows on a mainframe setup.

Col

Microsoft does not have its market position because it works well enough for most users but because they have made it their business to get third party software vendors to write Windows only code.

So if you have an application that you just must have to run your business or play your game 99% where written to run on Windows and you have to go with that OS to use your Software. If there where both Unix and Windows versions of these programs I know which most of my customers would go with and that is not even considering the Legal Battle that is currently going on between SCO and IBM over Linux. Free BSD is also a viable option but until there is the necessary specialized software written for these OS's we will be stuck with M$ and Windows PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

Col

There are a few problems with your answer. Firstly I'm allowed to preinstall Windows but no other M$ Software because the reasoning goes that if I install lets say Office the end user doesn't get to see the EULA so they have not accepted the agreement.

What we are actually supposed to do is install Windows and then leave it up to the End User to install any other M$ software that they buy from us.

But keeping to basics lets have a look at both the Retail and OEM versions of XP Pro. The Retail version comes in a colorful box that is a lot bigger than what is needed and no doubt costs far more to freight around. The OEM comes in a shrink wrapped plastic cover with the COA stuck on the outside and when you buy 3 copies you get a preinstall disk that allows you to customize the installation with your company name and other details as well.

Most of the difference in the costs of these products would be swallowed in freight alone long before M$ even takes into account support. Also when M$ talks about TOC they always compare OEM M$ products to Linux Open Source to make their figures look better than what they actually are and there is no talk in the TOC papers about support of any kind.

Yes I sell OEM products and I support them to the best of my ability and when I do have a problem on the rare occasion I can get help from M$ but in every case where I've rung with a problem that I just can not come to grips with they have been unable to find a solution and I'm left to my own devices to cure the problem. Now granted I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've called M$ for support but on every occasion I've had to find a solution for myself and always I've passed my fix onto M$ Support for their reference.

Now I do not have access to the source code of the product but I'm supposed to fix it when it breaks or produces an undocumented feature that the owner doesn't like.

Would you like to tell me EXACTLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

I accept that I'm supposed to be the first line of help but I also expect M$ to be able to help me when I can not fix a problem after all they write the code and go to great lengths to prevent me from looking at the code so while I'm willing to accept M$ License I do expect them to also honor their responsibility's as well.

If they are unwilling or incapable of fixing their products why am I prevented from knowing the source code so I can fix any problems that I may encounter?

Col

Can you get a refund?

Col

The shop that sold you the OEM copy should offer the support but because they mostly are large chain stores with no Technical support they are breaking the Agreement between themselves and M$ not the end user.

Col

ENRON?

When you talk about large stable companies?

Lets face it in todays market there is no certainty that a company here today will be here tomorrow. We are all taking a gamble when we buy anything it was not so long ago that Daewoo went broke as well and they where a very large company that made a lot more than just monitors.

If the company ceases trading for any reason there should be laws in place to force the original maker of the software to Honor their products. Here in AU it is illegal to sell unsalable merchandise and any company who knowingly imports a faulty product has to recall that product and repair or offer a refund in the event that it is unrepairable or unsalable.

Now as an OEM system builder I have to offer the support for any OEM M$ products that I sell but at the same time I have my hands tied as I am not allowed to look at the source code to find any problems that may be written into that product.

Now exactly how can I for fill my obligations when I'm prevented from doing my job?

Col

Provided the choice by the seller.

In many cases these people are only too willing to tell you that they will sell you something and if they do not deliberately misrepresent themselves they at best are vague.

You can not blame a normal end user when they get sucked in by scams like this and in all fairness if M$ was to consider them official OEM's they should make the source code available to the OEM so they can find any problems.

Right?

After all you can not fix what you are unable to look at can you? M$ wants it all their own way nothing more nothing less.

Col

The box that the Retail version comes in and the CD face there is very little difference between the two.

What M$ pays in freight for the retail version must nearly make up the difference in price between the OEM and Retail versions.

Col

Is also quite good I'm surprised that the Tech didn't point you in that direction as well.

You should also join this at

http://www.wugnet.com

The worst that will happen is that you will gain knowledge, they also have some very good regular publications that you can subscribe to that are e-mailed to you.

Col

They did not even supply install disks with their preloaded hardware. If you wanted these they cost you more.

Now if I did something like that with any computer that I sold I would quite rightly face the wrath of M$ and their legal department, why do you think that these companies can get away with this type of action?

Col

I had a Colardo Tape Drive fail many years ago. I rang my local HP supplier and explained what I needed was someone who was authorized to repair their products. Well I did think it was a simple question anyway but I got from the girl on the switch "Where the F**K did you get this phone number from?"

At first I thought I had got a wrong number and did not believe the answer so I apologized and hung up, I then rang the number again making sure that this time I dialed the correct phone number and got exactly the same response, this time however I was prepared and just quoted my customer ID and asked to speak to the manager.

Eventually the Sales Managed informed me that the repair info was in the book which I assured him it wasn't so eventually he gave in and gave me a phone number to ring which was interstate and a non toll free number.

When I rang them I was informed that they did not repair anything but just replaced it while UG and binned the broken product, they did not have any authorized repairers and my only recourse was to buy another tape drive which incidentally could not read the existing tapes which was the main problem in the first place anyway.

Since then I've seen numerous HP devices break while UG and the owners think it is great when they deliver a new unit and remove the old one they rave about the service, my only response is "What will you do when it is no longer UG?" That brings them right down!

By the way I did eventually find a listing in the phone book under "Service Center" but nothing to do with HP just service center so I suppose you need to be physic to know exactly how to contact them if you can not lay your hands on the books quickly.

When it comes to complete computers they just replace the defective part and on one unit it was the HDD that had failed so the tech came out and replaced the drive with a preloaded drive with XP Pro and Office Pro already on it. Now exactly how that get away with things like that is way beyond me!

Col

For at least 1 year now M$ has told all of its resellers that they can sell any M$ OEM product provided that you sell a piece of hardware with the OEM Software.

In fact you can buy a complete range of all M$ OEM product with a generic mouse if you want to.

However what you can not do is buy OEM M$ hardware like joysticks and keyboards separately unless you buy the computer.

Col

But it is a pile of S**T that has no business being in a home to play games let alone a workplace where you are attempting to make money.

Col

Exact opposite. They are encouraging retailers to sell OEM product. I have walked into major chain stores and not seen a single Retail copy of any M$ product. They are all shrink wrapped with a generic mouse and if you like you could buy a complete range of M$ products as OEM's for nothing more than the cost of the OEM and a $2.00 mouse.

I think M$ has finally succumbed to the fact that they can not support their own product so they are doing everything possible to stop any support questions arising.

Col

Now if only M$ would give us all access to their source code so we could fix the problems that we run across it would be so much easier wouldn't it?

While I've had a few problems with users doing the wrong thing they are very few and even then currently the worst has been end users installing SP2 after being told not to because of compatibility problems with third party software.

While I do not work in this area I have seen numerous units where the OS has been trashed when a game was installed even now I refuse to reinstall my sons computer as he destroys Windows XP so many times it's no longer funny I just make him reinstall Windows and ever since I started doing that he has not trashed a OS.

The main problems that I run across are silly ones like not being able to print from MYOB but the printer works perfectly when in Windows and that has a "Designed for XP sticker on the box!" There are many problems like this that a half way decent programmer could fix in short order but of course we can not look at the code let alone alter it can we?

Since M$ released the final version of SP2 I've been testing it with all my clients apps and at this point in time am still unwilling to even suggest installing that critical patch. I can not help but wonder just how much DOS code is actually in Windows XP that is no longer used but as M$ proceeds further down the development road the programs get bigger and hog more of the processing power of the computers that we have.

I can not help but wonder why a 486 running DRDOS still opens and executes Word faster than a 3 GIG P4 with 1 GIG of RAM running XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro, sure the new stuff does a lot more but just how much of it is actually necessary?

Back in the DOS & Word Perfect 5 days it was accepted that only 10% of any one program was used how much do you think that figure is now?

Col

Winner who sure as hell worked in what is now know as IT long before MS was even thought of and computers took up at least an entire floor of a building if not the entire building. Back then we used Unix and with the horrible old command lines of incomprehensible syntax I very quickly lost my ability to spell English any more, but those systems worked and continued to work for a very long time without yearly updates of the main programs.

Sure communication between different mainframes was a problem but HTML cured that and M$ sure as hell had nothing to do with that development.

Perhaps it is because I worked on Unix systems that I see so many flaws in the M$ software and OS's but I can honestly say that I have yet to see one single M$ application do as it was claimed to do when it was released. It gets almost usable after about the 4 th Service Pack or whatever they wish to call a major rewrite.

But as far as the rest of your posting goes you are perfectly correct I just love M$ as they provide me with so much income with all the call outs that I have to perform to get the networks working acceptably well. However I have yet to see a M$ network work as well as the old Unix system of so long ago. Sure they do a lot more now days but they also have far more powerful machines the current crop of Intel workstations would have a greater number crunching capacity that several floors of mainframe capacity and it can be held on a hand in the case of a Lap Top.

But and here is the big one do you think things are any better now than what they where way back when you actually needed to know machine languages and had units that where measured in Kilohertz than what they are today?

Col

A LT came in for repairs and needed a new HDD. So I requested the original software, drivers and the original copy of Windows. Well this was an old LT that lacked a CD ROM and had Floppies for WIN 98 along with a retail version of 98 and a product key that worked with the CD that was supplied. The floppies where original M$ and would not accept the product key that was on the sticker or book or whatever I can not remember now. So I rang M$ support line and asked for a product key that would work with the Floppies all 40 of them from memory. Well M$ at first insisted that they never supplied 98 on floppies but finally said that they no longer supported the Floppy installation and offered to post me a 98 CD although where I was supposed to put it I'm not overly sure it would have made a nice drink coaster but was fairly useless as an install disk. All the drivers where on floppies and the only problem was to find a way of loading the floppies that had been supplied with the LT which I couldn't get a key for.

Eventually I ended up buying an external CD ROM Drive loading DOS and installing the required drivers then after the CD ROM was running I installed 98 from that even though the copy of 98 that was provided insisted that it was an Original Copy and I needed an Upgrade copy eventually I got it reloaded and off it went along with a nice new CD ROM drive that was totally unnecessary if I could only have got the Key for the Floppy install.

I've since been to that persons home and the CD ROM is sitting in its box in a draw as it is unnecessary for their applications talk about a waste of time and hardware. But it did work out far cheaper than sending the dead HDD away to have the data and Windows Key recovered which was unnecessary as all their important data had been backed up and I was only required to fit and load a new HDD.

Col

Try dealing with IBM for the server side of things. It is far less painful stabbing yourself with a 12 inch screwdriver and at least then you know if it doesn't kill you eventually you will get better, the same can not be said about IBM as you just know that you'll be ringing them again about something else.

Col

So different rules apply! Over here in AU M$ must support their OEM product as that is our LAW but in other parts of the world this just is not the case.

We have the Trade Practices Act here which hamstrings M$ quite a lot. Also the ACCC has a lot of power and is capable of inflicting massive harm on M$ if they step too far out of line. But the main thing is that under AU Law a product must be of "Marketable Quality and have Adequate Support" before it can be sold here.

That is the reason why M$ does offer support for OEM products here in AU but not in other parts of the world. Although in anything but the simple questions I've found the support line to be next to useless but to be fair I am asking questions that are not in the script so the support guys who are only reading a computer screen and have no technical skills are unable to answer most of my questions.

Col

The last time I got a survey from M$ was the day prior to a Partners Meeting I'll probably never get another invitation!

Col

They just might become aware of a code problem and be in a position to fix it faster.

If you do any Beta Testing M$ wants all the feedback that they can get and are only too willing to offer possible solutions but once it reaches production status they no longer seem to care. Most likely it is because it is now being dealt with by a different section but I still feel like a Beta Tester when I''m installing paid for product on my customers computers.

Col

There has to be a line drawn in the sand somewhere. As an OEM builder for small business I often see the eyes of my clients glaze over when I attempt to find out exactly what they require in a new computer/network.

They expect me to build them what they need and then be able to sit at it and do their work nothing more and nothing less. A while ago I attempted to put together a list of Jargon so my clients could understand me a bit better and I kept all the descriptions very brief and to the point.

Sounds simple and like a good idea right?

Well when it got to 165 pages in word I stopped and just gave up I'm now back to the physic and supplying what I think they will need rather than what they think they want it just works better that way and so far I have yet to remove a unit from work because it no longer works properly. But I have removed plenty of my units because they no longer have any Tax benefit to the company but are performing perfectly.

Expecting a customer to know almost anything technical is a nice idea but the reality is they just go in tell a salesperson what they want and get supplied it and it doesn't matter if it will work or not they got exactly what they asked for. I've seen cases where a company has only got Windows XP Home on a computer that they have bought with no software at all because the salesperson didn't tell them that they would require it they just asked for their budget and supplied hardware with an OS to come in at the price. In one particularly bad case I saw a computer that needed two monitors one on each side of a desk for a salesperson to show pictures of machines and there was no way of connecting the second monitor but the company involved was more than happy to sell them the second monitor. They even went so far as to tell me that they where unaware that this company wanted a second monitor on the computer when they sold it to them and at the time I was holding a copy of the original order in my hand which was very specific on the issue. But they did provide all the CD's with the computer but there was no CD ROM in it as it was a basic workstation.

Col

Windows Users Group on Microsoft's web page?

They are helpful and from experience far better informed than any M$ worker.

Col

Provided you buy at least one piece of hardware you can buy any OEM Microsoft Product you like.

In fact if you bought a generic mouse it is possible to buy a complete set of OEM M$ software at considerably reduced prices.

This is something that M$ has been pushing for at least the past 12 - 18 months as I can not remember exactly when they announced it at a partners meeting but it was a long time after XP was introduced and it was the meeting just after the announcement had come out the OEM software was only to be used on "Original Hardware" that discussion which was not in the program lasted almost half the day.

Col

F**** Microsoft Use Linux. You will never need a product key!

I work in a retail office supply chain. The ranting in this thread is the usual large company bashing. Stabilty in a large or small company is the measure of the company's overall support policy. I personally walk customers through what they're purchasing hardware or software. As far as Linux is concerned "once again you get what you pay for. In 2003 we had a linux PDA came into our store. We solad everyone of them and got them all back because the comapny that bulit the PDA wouldn't support the users.

*************
Yeah this is a pain point for us here [at
Microsoft] as there is nothing that we can do
to support OEM versions of Windows.

OEM means original equipment manufacturer,
basically this means that
DELL or COMPAQ or whatever company (in
this case, the store that went
out of business) purchases thousands of
licenses at a largely reduced
price from Microsoft with the understanding
that they will provide all support for these
licenses and that they will not need any boxes
or manuals as they will provide those as well.

Next, the OEM can change the installation CD
in any way that they want, for example put
Netscape on the desktop instead of IE, or add
a bunch of startup items like antivirus etc etc.

They can also change the way that the CD
works so that instead of providing the regular
recovery tools that are included on the retail
Windows XP CD they put on a batch file that
formats and reinstalls the OS and all the third
party applications that the OEM had originally
installed.

This is why Microsoft cannot support these
types of installations, because we don't know
what has been changed on the CD, for
example we could insert the CD and boot from
it assuming that we will get to the recovery
console or run a repair installation, and for all
we know it could automatically launch into a
Format / Reinstall batch file that the OEM has
configured on the CD.

It's totally understandable that this customer
was less than satisfied, but if you were to ask
him what he paid for his copy of Windows XP
that he bought from that store I can guarantee
that it was quite a bit cheaper than the retail
version you can get in stores. This is because
the retailer bought a bunch of OEM cd's so that
they could sell them for cheaper (or for the
same price, effectively ripping off the customer
and keeping the profits).

Buyer beware in those scenarios, when the
CD says "for installation with a New PC Only"
it means that this version should come with
the purchase of a computer from DELL or
Compaq or Sony or whatever, and not to be
bought standalone.

********************
The following was added by TechRepublic
subscriber:

I am not trying to defend Microsoft nor its policy
regarding OEM-installed software. It is
understandable why Microsoft cannot and will
not provide support to such software.

However, I believe it should be a legal
requirement that such facts should be clearly
indicated in advertisements -- in a type size
that matches the rest of the typesizes in the ad
and NOT in barely-legible 4-point type running
across the bottom of the ad.

Ad agencies are, in my opinion, are in the
same category as lawyers/politicians when it
comes to the area of trustworthiness and
integrity. More focus is spent on manipulating
the wording of lies until they resemble the
truth, to achieve a situation where 'plausible
deniability' can be claimed, and then spit out
some catch-phrase like "let the buyer beware"
as a justification for misleading (at best)
advertising.

Hi All,
I need more info about living and working in Hawaii-Honolulu. I have a job offer. The job is a mixture of scientific, engineering and IT field.
I don't know anything about Hawaii. I lived in Sydney (currently and for the last 13 yrs) and I lived in Europe, so I do not have any idea about the life in Hawaii.
Please, send any comments or impressions for the life and work there. These can be any hints for working habits; work-dress code; working relationships; expenditure; car prices; renting - real estate; groceries...anything!

But if I buy a retail version than I can put it on any machine I want to.

Does that mean if I replaced a hard drive,CD, DVD, DVD/CD burner, I would have to buy a new copy of Windows XP Pro?

Then it should state that. Cause in my way of understanding, I would take that to mean any hardware, whether it is the MB, CPU, drives or whatever was in the case originally.

worked for MS in complience div for short time. they were offering a one time transfer of all software to a new system for corporate owners, not sure if offer is good for non corporate owners

perhaps you should try the Quick fix pro that is offer by pivx seems that they are still fixing the leaks in IE that M$ chooses not to.

My main point was the box, not the vendor. You back that up with your own statement.

"I?ve seen OEM copies of original M$ software sold off the shelf by a reputable vendor.... and no they were not in a fancy box. "

My point is, if it's NOT a "fancy" box (full color packaging, Windows logo, Microsoft branding, etc., all over it), it's not retail. I was responding to the original post of the person saying they did not realise originally that it was an OEM version.

I apologize about the vendors, but that doesn't really matter. My main point was about the box packaging. You say yours came "sealed", but do you mean just the CD and some documentation and perhaps a "certificate" shrink-wrapped in plastic, or was it actually in a fancy box with full color printing, Windows and Microsoft logos all over it, etc.? My main point was that if it was a full blown fancy box, it's not retail.

(The mention of the vendors was places you might go to find what I mean by "fancy" box for a true retail version. So wherever you might go outside the US where you know for sure they sell full retail packages.)

I think we are all dancing around the root of the problem. M$ has created a beast they can't control ( or support) because they have made every OS since Windows 3.1 more complex than its predecessor.

How can anyone know these monsters well. And since they are a huge, complex monster, they cost 5 to 10 times as much as Windows cost 15 years ago.

Remember going down to a software retail store and paying $39.95 for your "upgrade" Windows? and if it was full retail, it was $49.95.

The code is too large, too expensive, too complex and impossible to support. No one completely understands it -- it's too much. We've had 30 posts in this thread just trying to understand the price!!

The latest news I heard on Longhorn is that the date is slipping because it's taking them longer to get all the app's included to work properly together.

This is a company that truly doesn't get it. And since they have bought out or crushed all their competitors, they don't have market forces to guide them towards what people really need. They believe their own BS instead.

Pretty sad.

Mike

I'm a Microsoft Partner; I go to Microsoft live events and webcasts every week; I talk to Microsoft support people on the phone and in person all the time. I've never found anyone who wasn't genuinely interested in helping. Personally, I'm tired of all the Microsoft bashing. The company isn't perfect and perhaps you did get one jerk on the phone but, in my opinion, this incident doesn't reflect the norm. I spout off more here:

http://www.jonathanwesley.net/opeds/10132004.html

OEM versions of Windows are supposed to be sold with a system or to system builders to be offered in the same way. So its not Microsoft's fault that the company you got it from didn't let you know or sold you an illegal copy of the OS.

Volume License stuff.

I just got sick and tired of having to reactivate all the M$ products every time that I changed a few things to test out something new. At one time it got so bad that I was ringing up once a week reactivating 17 M$ programs on one PC just because I was testing out new hardware.

But the best one was after fitting 12 X 146 GIG SCSI HDD the guy at the other end insisted that I was in fact using a pirate copy of Windows XP Pro my response was I've just fitted well in excess of $37,000.00 AU in hardware did he think seriously I would be concerned with another couple of hundred $ AU in a bit of software? Eventually I was passed onto a more senior person who insisted that my workstation which is a dual processor P3 with built in dual SCSI controller was not actually a workstation but a server and he was happy to reactivate all 17 pieces of my M$ software. I just let that one slide by as I actually use something far more powerful for server platforms.

Col

Microsoft doesn't need to provide support. It only costs money. What happens if they don't support their software? People will go elsewhere? The hardy few may replace .001% of desktops with Linux and OpenOffice or something, but MS knows they have a virtual monopoly on the PC and as much as people may rant and rave about "poor support", most of them aren't going anywhere.

I work for Microsoft as a temp and am not pro-Microsoft, what is not correct about your that you brought an OEM version, so Microsoft does not support you as you have not paid for support, the person that sold you the product for a fraction of the price should support you that is the deal with OEM versions.

Just a few days ago I finished working with MS on a problem with XP Pro. I had each Email reply within less than 24 hours.

Contact: Jack Xing
v-30jaxi@mssupport.microsoft.com
Microsoft Windows Support Professional

Very satisfied customers are my top priority.

Please let my manager or me know what you think of the level of service provided. You can send feedback to Microsoft Management at
or directly to my manager,
Rick Lu at v-30rilu@mssupport.microsoft.com

I would imagine that any negative feedback could go to this address, on any subject.

There are three ways to acquire a full operating system license:
? Acquire the Full-Packaged Product version from a retail store. (Academic Edition not available)

? Acquire a new computer with a full Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) version of the OS pre-installed. All new machines should come with a bootable operating system pre-installed.

? Acquire a full OEM license with additional hardware from a system builder.

Legal ways System Builders can sell the product:

Either a fully assembled computer system or a nonperipheral computer hardware
component (that will be an integral part of the computer system on which the desktop
operating system software will be installed). The system builder who installs the desktop
operating system software on the PC must also affix the Certificate of Authenticity label
to the exterior of the computer case.

The installer of the software must provide end-user support.

The copy of the OS doesn't matter but it MAY have been sold to you illegally. As I mentioned, these copies are ONLY to be sold with hardware. If your not a reseller persay and got the disk by itself it was sold to you illegally. Either way you now know there's no direct support from MS so when are you going to retract you original statement?

As of today at 5.10 pm I am totally convinced that M$ wants nothing at all to do with supporting any of their products at all.

A computer that I built 2 months ago had to be reloaded after they person in question removed the AV program and ran it on the net without any virus protection. Well naturally it got several infections and to fix it up the owner wiped all the HDD's and reloaded Windows, Office etc. Well that was now 2 days ago and now Windows is not opening because it claims that it needs to be activated as it has been running for over 30 days so he can not even open Windows but only gets the product activation screen.

Well that in itself is OK as well but when he attempts to ring M$ for an activation key he is told that all of his software has been installed too many times and that he has to buy new software.

Just a tad expensive for a foolish mistake but I suppose it is a great money earner for M$ isn't it?

As an OEM builder I'm supposed to support these products but here this is clearly a M$ issue that I really can not come into at all.

Now just how is this guy supposed to get activation keys for all of his M$ products that are his to use?

M$ doesn't even want any money to fix this problem just to sell new software.

Col

But the reality of the situation is that retail stores are selling shrink wrapped copies of OEM product with something like a mouse and there is no way that they can affix the COA to the case the way that they are selling these products.

Also if there is a copy of anything but an OS involved we as OEM system builders are not supposed to install this software but provide the install disks with the computer.

The reason for this is that if we install the software the end user doesn't accept the EULA. Funnily enough every time that I've sold OEM software without installing it has made far more work for me than what it is worth.

And I would just love to walk into a business somewhere and say well here are your new computers and here is the software that needs installing.

Sorry but it just doesn't work that way as any business is not willing to buy equipment and then have to go through the install process after it is delivered. They expect it quite rightly to work right out of the box with only minimal fine tuning and setting up things like e-mail accounts and the like.

Any way I've just got off the phone with a recent customer who has just reloaded his system and now M$ wants him to buy all new software as they will not provide an activation key for his existing product which is under 2 months old.

Now I accept that I'm supposed to offer all the support for these products but exactly how can I come between M$ and the end user for an activation key? Would you think it acceptable if I applied a "Crack Code" to activate these products?

I should have added that I've been offered these shrink wrapped products direct from M$ as a way to increase my profits and while I don't personally believe in them there are a lot of the big retail shops & chain stores that do and they have no way to offer any after sales service what so ever.

While M$ is quite happy to sell these products that they bundle this way they should at least be made accountable for their own products. But maybe it's just my jaded way of thinking and I'm totally incorrect.

I'm always open to comment on the wrongs of my way of thinking.

Col

M$ is forced to offer support for any of their products no matter what they may be.

As this person also didn't say that he had not bought any hardware with the OEM disk the whole point about if it is legal or not is academic and the real problem remains that any OEM can sell OEM product and while they are supposed to offer support what happens when the OEM builder ceases trading?

Do you think it fair that a genuine M$ customer be left out in the cold? So to speak without any help what so ever when something goes wrong. Lets face it with Windows things are far more likely to go wrong than any other OS that has ever been built and that is because of the complexity and poor programming that M$ uses to create their products. Not to mention the cutting corners to get the stuff on the shelves in the first place.

Can you even give me one case where any M$ product has been released on its original projected release date? They always have been put back and even then rushed into commercial production with known faults.

Even 2003 M$ Flagship Server had known problems in it when it was released but I was at the release and there was no mention made of any flaws only the "Trusted Computing" that M$ was committed to and a couple of week latter the patch was available. You can not really believe that they didn't know about the problem at the release and took under 2 weeks to produce the patch can you?

Also would you care to hazard a guess as to how I fix a problem with several M$ OEM products as I've listed on the bottom of the page here?

Col

Oh Boy. By the number of post on this subject, and the length tht it's being going on, it appears that I'm not the only one in this postion.

In my area, there are many examples of a person renovating their home rather than building new to avoid zoning issues. As long as X percent of the original home is intact, you can go crazy with the rest of the "addition" - even if in essence you are rebuilding the home. I have seem 4 room shacks become huge homes in this way.

Maybe the way to think of "original hardware" is the case you received with the old system. Gut it and replace all internal parts (mobo/cpu/power supply etc) but as long as you use the original PC case you are legal. (Would make a good stealth system for LAN parties too)

Currently I'm building a new Notebook for a customer and supplying all OEM software which is normal procedure but here is the hitch.

The makers of the Notebook Chassis specifically state not to install SP2 for XP until they have notified me of a BIOS update. Well the parts arrived today and along with the hardware the OEM version of XP Pro has SP2 included on the CD which I can not use on this chip set.

Now I know how I'm going to get around this little problem but anyone have any suggestions as to what would be acceptable to MS in this particular case?

Col

If you look a that Certificate of Authenticity it has Microsoft on it in several location & they also ask you if it genuine on the certificate.
Because if it not genuie then they want you to email them. They should be held responsable since it also has their labels on the Certificate of Authenticity. Maybe people should file a class action against Microsoft since they also do not back up the OEM version with their labels on the books, CD & Certificate.

I have about 34% free space left on my computer what do I do to clear up so space.

I love the way M$ makes you call in to receive hotfixes for their software. Its like paying for a software patch

Ain't she sweet...I wholly concur, MS is wonderful--wonderfully greedy. My story, which won't be tellable soon because I shall sure drown in ridiculousness unless...Well I paid $199.99 for a real live genuine copy of MS Windows xp home edition about two years ago at CompuData (something like that). The means I have a contract with them. As the party with deeper pockets, they ought to take me at my word and throw me a bone. Sometimes do you get the feeling they're basically saying, "Look. We f-cked up. There hundreds of thousands of user just like you and we're overwhelmed. But wait, don't you call suspiciously all the time? (Sure I call two or three times a year. Every programmer has to do a clean install now and again, it's like a haircut. That's why all this agita is nuts. Tonight is the last night I'll spend trying to activate xp--my own copy, same pc, same me, as when I bought it--Wintel, give us a break. The BBB has been called, by me, 10 trillion times, and by 50 friends. Do the math. I hate to call names, but you're jerks (that's the tame version).