>I, for one, have found MS' activation requirement a royal pain and now it's getting worse. I've had two time-critical situations with clients where something was wrong with activation on legally purchased copies of MS software and I've had to contact Microsoft on the phone to get it resolved. And one of these was a Win Svr 2003. Yeah, we get it resolved... and it only takes about 10 minutes or so. But when you feel stressed for time and you realize the only thing keeping a machine from being put into production is that you haven't properly checked in with the mother ship, and they ask you pointed questions (just shy of accusing illegal use of their software), this grinds on the nerves.

I personally don't really see the issue. The phone call uses an auto-response system and it usually takes me about 5 minutes from begining to end. I found it quite simple actually.