One reader's recent experience reactivating Windows XP takes on added meaning in light of Microsoft's decision to begin eliminating Internet activation. What seemed like a strange system to him then is about to get even stranger.
"Ed, I avoided it for a long time but I finally had to deal with the Microsoft reactivation process for Win XP," the reader wrote in January. "I switched out a faulty motherboard/power supply with no problem. Upon reboot, Windows thought it needed to be reactivated. So first I try to do the reactivation over the web. No luck. Then I try the phone reactivation. It tells me my installation number is invalid and hangs up on me. Is this the way you treat customers? So in desperation I call Microsoft's main number and finally get redirected to the reactivation people. So we play read and enter numbers for a while and then I have to get transferred to yet another person to finally do the activation. Am I nuts or is this an insane way to run a business?
"Now, here's the part that really left me scratching my head," the reader continued. "At no time during any part of this process did anyone ask me any question to verify that I actually had a legal copy of Windows or that I actually owned the copy in question. It was just give me the numbers and input these numbers. So how is this stopping piracy if I can just call up and get reactivated without anyone even asking for the original disk key or something to verify that I am a legit licensee?"
Well, of course, the answer to that last question is that activation was never intended to stop the real pirates. When it was first introduced, Microsoft liked to say it was designed to "keep the honest customers honest." This latest move, along with the Windows' Genuinely Disadvantaged program, seems more to be about keeping the honest OEMs honest. Whether the end user legitimately paid for a copy of XP with his PC, and whether the Certificate of Authenticity you received with it was real or not, just doesn't matter now. It's whether you can convince the Microsoft reactivation staff that you are truly deserving by whatever mystery criteria they will use to sit in judgment on you.
Of course, perhaps this makes all too much sense from Microsoft's point of view. From the time it first introduced activation with XP, the big question has always been how long Microsoft will support it once it has a new OS. The elimination of Internet activation would appear to provide us an answer. Once Microsoft has a new OS it wants to migrate XP users to, how likely is that reactivation person will listen to your pleas? Write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com or post your comments here.
12:28:06 PM 
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