SNIP

>>My point is that, for years I have been sending in registration cards to MS (more recently registering online), and it really was all for nothing. There was absolutely no benefit in it for me at all, though they led me to believe that there was.
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>I totally understood your post. Microsoft contracts with outside companies to do things such as order management, mail list management, etc. There is no connection between these companies and no connectivity with MS.

Right then. I was dutifully registering, as Microsoft begged me (almost) to do, yet Microsoft didn't even know or care that I had, in fact registered.

They do this for years and then they suddenly change the rules and expect people to be happy about this?

As others have noted, if MS was going downhill one could understand this new-found concern (new-found in that they didn't care before, and didn't even know, when I did register) about piracy. But being that it is the most profitable company the world has ever seen notwithstanding all this piracy that has been going on all around us and they did exploit piracy itself for a long period to ensure that Windows took hold as they wanted, it does seem like they are going overboard in tarring the honest user with the same brush as the pirate.
Please don't come up with the argument that MS has never 'accepted' piracy. That's the same as the banks/credit-card issuers always stating that they really don't want people to carry a balance on their cards. Yea, right, they'd make lots of money if everyone acted that way, wouldn't they.

Anyway, I think people know where I stand on this issue, and I feel good that I'm not alone.
JimN