Re: registration procedure sucks

Bruce McGee wrote:

I'm more concerned that the activation will gradually get more
restrictive. Look at Microsoft. First there's mandatory activation in
XP and then WGA (oh joy!), which is getting worse with each version,
and even MS Office needs to be activated now. What's next? Will the
next version of Visual Studio need to be activated?


As I've mentioned, the level of restriction that it's getting to with Vista is finally pushing me to actually look at Linux. The problem is, I still make my living writing stuff to run on Windows machines. But I've easily got a dozen Windows licenses -- and while it might take 10 years to see a 'shift' away from Windows, there will come a 'tipping point' away from Windows for both businesses and home users where it's too restrictive, and the availability of Linux distros and programs is sufficient to keep the market alive.

I've been going through a lot of my old CDs lately, weaning out the garbage I'll no longer ever use. I surprise even myself sometimes with the 'c**p' software I've bought, thinking what a great addition it will be, and how much easier it will make my work. It really boils down to just a few programs that get used on a regular basis, and for most of them, I end up using older versions. There are a few reasons for that -- sometimes there really isn't anything worthwhile in the newer versions (sometimes they're worse, look at D8). Sometimes I'd like the newer version but the incremental benefit is tiny (I have a program that I use a LOT -- but it used to be updated several times a year, the last update is now four years old -- my 1 year updates ran out just before they stopped updating it, so I'd be paying full price to get the teeny-tiny changes they made in the very last version before they stopped supporting it). Sometimes I've bought a program with big 'promises', and it performed so badly I'd never use the program (or anything like it!) again. And often I'll find that software I already have will perform the functionality that I need without having to get something new.

The PC market has changed from the halcyon days when everyone kept buying the latest and greatest hardware, and also the latest and greatest software. There was a period of time where new features REALLY WERE new features, and actually added benefit. These days, many programs are simply bloatware (Norton is a perfect example). I'm still using Office 2000 (a bought, legal copy) because I've not found anything that I need to do that I CAN'T do with it -- so why pay Microsoft a few hundred for something that will not only have TOO MANY 'features', and on top of that will add the software activation misery to me?

I don't really see VS as ever going the activation route, because it's not a revenue generator for MS -- it's a method of locking more folks in to Windows, thus it's actually to their benefit for people to have it (even at no cost).

David Erbas-White
.

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