Why oh why oh why
are MS doing this? Surely if you make your software too hard to crack you'll end up losing market share, isn't piracy what made Windows and Office the number 1 selling thing around. More and more youngsters are finding Linux and Open Office, they play their games on console, and older people, who have little interest in Fallout3 just wanna surf the web, check out their kids on Facebook and knock out a few emails / letters - all perfectly doable on Linux or Mac.
Mind you, WGA on XP was a joke, a couple of registry edits and two file deletions, set updates to inform only and you were away... er, so I was told.
A friend bought a PC from a huge shop in Manchester, legal XP and everything. Two years later the shop went into receivership (is that the right term?) and a little while later her Windows complained it wasn't a legit copy. She phoned MS and explained how it had been fine for two years and she'd bought it preinstalled and they couldn't give a crap (can't recall the reason they gave her), but they wanted £90 off her for a valid activation code. Change your MB on a fried system with OEM Windows and you're also screwed.
Disclaimer: Desktop running Win7RC and new HP laptop with Win7 premium (and dualboot Ubunto for online security and learning). Come March probably gonna put an old XP back on desktop (basically games and ... well nothing), and dualboot Ubuntu for everything else.
Six months ago I'd forgotten Linux even existed. (can't believe I used 'that' icon;)