>MS is under no obligation to give away the Intellipoint drivers to people who didn't buy them, any more than they should give away Visual Studio to non-owners. There are a couple of ways to ensure that the updates only go to legitimate owners. One is to register your purchase, and based on a registration number or other identifier, gain access to an owner download page. I don't see you bitching that people who didn't buy Hacker's Guide To VFP 6 can't download the on-line copy of the book; you need a userid and password to access the download. Sounds like you need to be a registered owner. I don't see a difference.
>
>You can live without the Intellipoint driver. AFAIC, no serious developer doing VFP6 can live without a copy of the Hacker's Guide. Are you going to get annoyed and disgusted with Hentzenwerkes because they won't give away the files, too?

I also expect to get paid, so I don't object to this. Regular customers should be distinguished from guests on a degustation.

I was just wandering to what extent this may go - and I guess there may be a limit where the need of registering the product may be just a nuissance which would be a reason not to buy the thing. I've received some e-mail yesterday, from a friend, originated as http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Netsavers/, where it says that

> >David Methvin, Windows
> >
> >A Windows Magazine investigation has shown the recently reported privacy
> >concern with Microsoft's Windows 98 Registration Wizard goes much deeper
> >than previously reported.
> >
> >It's not only possible for any website to read information that uniquely
> >identifies you and your PC, but that information can be modified and/or
> >sent to Microsoft without your consent. Last week, Richard Smith of Phar
> >Lap Software first identified a risk with the Registration Wizard, or
> >RegWiz.
> >
> >Win 98 uses RegWiz to process your product registration form and submit it
> >to a Microsoft server over the Internet. Two identification numbers are
> >generated based on your PC configuration and the data you enter during
> >registration. The first number, called the hardware identification number
> >(HWID), can, in most cases, uniquely identify the computer. A second
> >number, called the Microsoft ID (MSID), uniquely identifies a user and is
> >placed in a browser cookie for access to services on Microsoft's website.
> >

So, the registration process may not be that harmless. Maybe there's a future for shops who will hand you the pack and register it off their own machine, or do the registration via snail mail, or do anything else to save the end user from the registration trouble. As long as registration requires only your email address (and maybe some data from the invoice, and not your personal data), that may be OK, but if they ask me the address, phone etc etc - that's marketing info that they're getting for free. For free? No, they're paid in advance.

A registration method I'd prefer would be the serial number branded on the CD cover - and I largely detest online registration. Maybe I was in the wrong age when I first read 1984?