Vista activation debacle

It's always good to see an Aussie website at the top of Techmeme however of the topic of today's Australian Personal Computer article on changing drivers triggering Windows locking him out of his own computer is not something to celebrate.

While James Brennan's story of updating drivers prompting Windows to lock him out of his system is disturbing, the comments are even more worrying.

Readers have stories of changing USB drives, disabling services and using the encryption functions all triggering the Windows activation process.

For a computer tech, this causes serious problems. If the tech does something innocent and sets off this process, it's the tech who is going to be held accountable.

It also boggles my mind how much this costs Microsoft in support calls. On top of the damage to their reputation, the cost of answer the calls and fixing the problems must be horrendous.

The whole idea of Windows activation is flawed. The fact it's been registered once should be enough. If the customer adds external drives, updates software or even swaps out motherboards, it should be of no business to Microsoft.

Part of the problem MS have with Vista is they allowed DRM and anti piracy measures to take too much of a front seat. They need to stop obsessing about their customers being thieves.

Once they focus on what is the core reason why we buy software, then perhaps we'll avoid future debacles like what we see with Windows Vista.