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Grrrr! Microsloth strikes again
May. 8th, 2007 08:01 pmSo after a pleasant morning looking at the results of other folks weaving projects, I went on to work. Colleague's PC is refusing to let her log on. It insists that her user profile is not available, then goes on to insist that Windows is not properly activated.
This is XP Professional, a perfectly legitimate copy that has been running on that machine for over a year. No hardware changes have been made, other than plugging and unplugging USB devices. No software changes other than Windows Update. But suddenly it insists that she is a suspected pirate and her copy of Windows is suspect. Tried reactivating, but of course it won't accept its own 25 character key. (Microsoft, in its hubris, has deactivated all the "license plate sticker" keys used by the big three manufacturers: Dell, HP, Compaq.) Own a Dell? You must be a pirate.
So, in order to get reactivated, you're supposed to click another button, get a code and a phone number to call. Then you get to convince them you aren't really a pirate and if you succeed, they give you some magic return code to reactivate the system. Only that button doesn't work. The system freezes up with "Please wait" on the screen.
I tried running a "repair" installation from the original CD, but it made no difference other than taking a good hour to complete. The system still behaves the same way.
I can wipe the hard disk completely and reinstall, but she'll lose all her data files. So now I'm looking at using a Linux LiveCD or something to get her files off there and onto another machine first. My boss is finally convinced that depending on Microsoft is a really, really bad idea. They will walk all over you again and again.
There is just no way that anything illegitimate has happened to that machine. Microsoft's own "protection" algorithms are trash. Looking at the web, I see this is a not uncommon complaint.
In other news, the shirt was well-received at the weaver's group. We decided to have a fashion show (there are 11 of us) at the opening of our annual gallery showing in October. And I just made a room reservation for MFF 2007.
This is XP Professional, a perfectly legitimate copy that has been running on that machine for over a year. No hardware changes have been made, other than plugging and unplugging USB devices. No software changes other than Windows Update. But suddenly it insists that she is a suspected pirate and her copy of Windows is suspect. Tried reactivating, but of course it won't accept its own 25 character key. (Microsoft, in its hubris, has deactivated all the "license plate sticker" keys used by the big three manufacturers: Dell, HP, Compaq.) Own a Dell? You must be a pirate.
So, in order to get reactivated, you're supposed to click another button, get a code and a phone number to call. Then you get to convince them you aren't really a pirate and if you succeed, they give you some magic return code to reactivate the system. Only that button doesn't work. The system freezes up with "Please wait" on the screen.
I tried running a "repair" installation from the original CD, but it made no difference other than taking a good hour to complete. The system still behaves the same way.
I can wipe the hard disk completely and reinstall, but she'll lose all her data files. So now I'm looking at using a Linux LiveCD or something to get her files off there and onto another machine first. My boss is finally convinced that depending on Microsoft is a really, really bad idea. They will walk all over you again and again.
There is just no way that anything illegitimate has happened to that machine. Microsoft's own "protection" algorithms are trash. Looking at the web, I see this is a not uncommon complaint.
In other news, the shirt was well-received at the weaver's group. We decided to have a fashion show (there are 11 of us) at the opening of our annual gallery showing in October. And I just made a room reservation for MFF 2007.
