It not only starts MS shipping the updated cd's (or dvd's) to you, but also allows you to have access to the subscriber downloads. If I remember right, the card that ships the 1st time that has the activation code on it also has things like..uhh..your NAME and COMPANY NAME and stuff like that. Seems to me if you just bought the activation code and some irs guy started poking around with an audit or something you'd be in the middle of a big mess cause the stuff wouldnt even be in your name. Plus the addressing would be all wrong so the update cd's are going to be sent to the original address - unless of course you call MS and tell a bunch of lies to get the address changed. Seems like more trouble than it would be worth...by a long shot.

>For some reason I was under the impression that using activation code is what starts the process of Microsoft shipping the CD's to you...IOW, the seller provides the activation code, the seller does not ship the CD's to you, Microsoft does.
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>Maybe some of these guys are on the up-and-up, and perhaps others aren't?
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>>That way two people can use the same thing illegally really. Perhaps he was planning on selling the boxes (without the activation codes) later? Very suspicious...
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>>>So what does that mean? You don't get any of the DVD's just the activation code so that you have to download everything? I mean geeze on a T3 it'd still take forever to get everything, plus then you'd have to burn it all off to DVD-R's or have a pile of hard drives laying around.
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