Does product activation suck?

Microsoft has hit it just about right, I've rarely had trouble with Windows and never had any trouble with Office ... most importantly, their customer service department always, always, edges on the side of customer innocence - WGA has diminished that slightly though.

The response from NewsWire is shocking.

I think Windows software should rely on Windows license key for security, and leave it to Microsoft to weed out fraudlent users.

I agree with Bob. MS is really pretty good about it. I move licenses around a lot at work and need to rebuild machines when people leave. I've never had a problem reactivating.
The obvious problem with activation is that the company can never know with 100% certainty that the person isn't telling the truth about why they need to re-activate for the 24th time. Denying someone the use of software they legitimately paid for is the sure way to lose customers.
The best use of activation is to catch known pirated keys. So in one sense it does exactly what anti-piracy measures should do, stop real pirates while not inconveniencing the individual user.

I too have had to make a call to MS.. I have an OEM copy of windows and upgraded a year later, the whole pc, not thinking about the activation.. Well ofcourse it wouldnt go on its own.. A call to MS and 10-15 Mins later, I had it goin on my new system.. They didnt even really question if I was pirating.. They did ask if it was runnin on more than one, but that was it.. And no, its only on one PC.. Didnt wanna part with my Proc so I have a PC missing one now.. :)-

So anyone that thinks OEM has to stay with your old pc.. Its true, but not totally.. People at work were actually suprised MS did this for me..

What's ridiculous here is the way he's doing licencing. It's too bad he's using something public, like someone's EMAIL.

I agree with registration, and reasonable limits, but only if the product registration is predicated on something reasonable and private.

Mr. Watanbe's response isn't unfriendly, though I certainly wouldn't appreciate being accused of piracy either.

Mr. Miller should provide a succinct response, and we'll go from there.

The problem with activation is that it inconveniences regular users (like Mr. Miller), while truly malicious users will just bypass the activation check altogether. There has never been, and will never be on backwards-compatible PC architectures, an un-defeatable activation scheme, just like there's no such thing as unbreakable cryptography. You can make it harder to break; you can make it take longer; you can make it less attractive; you *cannot* make it perfect. I think there's a reason that Apple is starting to offer non-DRM music, and it's the same reason that software activation will remain unpopular: the market, though it took a while to do so, is at work, and is telling suppliers that activation is more trouble than it's worth.

Flaky Adobe activation was a huge pain for me with CS2. I eventually got is resolved, but it begged the question, if they make is so hard to BUY a copy of their software when it is so much easier to steal it, why bother?

Although the Newsfire experience was clearly negative, people can be unfairly critical on the issue of product activation in general. There's an intriguing article (from a non-Microsoft source) *defending* Microsoft Product Activation here:
http://www.robinontech.com/2007/04/20/in-defence-of-microsoft-product-activation/