Last year I bought a Dell laptop, and it included WinXP-Pro. I asked Dell whether I could buy it without the OS, because I was closing down my old laptop. NO, they said. And they made it clear to me that it is MS that forces them to react that way. They said that if they didn't force buyers this way, that MS would simply stop the cooperation.
Now, I think that this is illegal behavior of Dell and, most notably, MS. They force me/us to buy one thing together with another thing. The European Commission should forbid this and perhaps they will.

Let's have a look into the future. It is the year 1010 and we are all quite satisfied with WinXP, of which we have 5 legal copies each. But we have upgraded our hardware and have reinstalled our legal versions of WinXP many many times, throwing away the outdated hardware... Is MS in the position to forbid us to do this??? I think not!


>Hi
>
>I was just reading an article (link below) which says Microsoft is now requiring people to pick up the phone and call them in order to ativate their newly purchased copy of Windows XP. You can no longer just click through the dialogs and activate over the web.
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>http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=12C80238-0E76-48DA-AA8B-B5DCA333BDE0
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>Here's a direct quote:
>
>>>
>As a consequence of this rising tide, Microsoft will, from today, require customers who purchase machines from 20 of the industry's leading manufacturers contact Microsoft directly, via the phone, to activate their new copies of Windows XP.
>
>Those who attempt to activate Windows XP using the COA product key will be denied access, with a box appearing on the screen advising the customer to call Microsoft.<<
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>This new policy apparently applies if you bought your PC from any of 20 leading manufacturers. But they don't say which ones. Does anyone have a clue as to which companies (manufacturers) this effects?
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>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.
>
>Guy