Is Microsoft stealing from me?
The following is my account of my dealings with Microsoft.
A few years back I purchased an Emachines computer. It came with XP
Home edition on it. After owning it for a year, the mother board blew
up. Wanting to get the box up and running as cheaply as posible, I
replaced the moher board and processor with an off brand mother board.
I ONLY replaced the mother board. Otherwise the box is untached, same,
power supply, memory, modem, hard drive, floppy and CD drives.
Unfortunantly when I booted the computer, Windows halted operation and
asked reactivation. Microsoft advertises this to be painless. My
experience has been otherwise. When I called in to Microsoft and gave
them my product ID number, they sent me to Emachines for re-activation.
When I called Emachines, they stated that they never can activate
Windows XP and sent me back to Microsoft. I called Microsoft and they
stated that there was a problem with my hardware and sent me back to
Emachines. Finally gettting to some techinical personel at Emachines,
they stated that there is no way to re-activate Windows, and I would
have to purchase another version of Windows or replace the board with
an Emachines board. I since returned a call to Microsoft becouse I
already own a valid legal version of Windows XP license. Microsoft sent
me to tech support. Tech support gave me a group ID and serial number
to give back to the activation personel. I called the activation number
and went through the whole automated process all over again, just to
talk to yet another person at Microsoft who refused to activate Windows
and kept trying to dump me off to Emachines. He would not listen to the
fact that tech support had given me another number that could be used
to activate Windows. I asked to speak to his supervisor. I explained to
him that tech support had given me a group ID and serial number that
could be used to activate Windows. He said let me talk to tech support,
but then hung up on me.
I do not understand why Microsoft will not activate Windows. It is a
legal version. I have not transfered it to another box. Microsoft, in
stating how wonderful Windows activation is, states that activation
will not restrict me from upgrading (let alone just repairing) my
compuer. This is an indisputable lie. The Windows activation processes
is keeping me from replacing my mother board. Can the manufacturer of
one product force you to purchase a specific brand of another product?
Micorsoft has been challenged previously on tying the sale of one
product to anotherbrand of product and lost. Anti-trust laws
explicityly state that it is illegal to tie the sale of one brand of
product to the purchase of another brand of product, the idea being
that an agreement can not be made between two different companies
forcing you to buy a product you don't want from one company so that
you can buy the product you do want from the first company. This type
of an agreement is called" tying" or "bundling" and is explicitly
illegal. Microsoft has tied the use of Windows XP to a specific brand
of mother board. This means that I can not use my Windows XP that I
already purchased, with an alternate brand mother board, becouse
Microsoft has tied the activation proccess to the Emachines brand of
mother boards. This would be like GM telling me that when my tires wear
out on my car, I can only replace them with OEM tires. It seems that
Microsoft is using the Windows activation processes to do much more
than to insure that my Windows XP version is legal. The FTC has called
Microsoft preditory. Who are they preying on? Something to think about
for the next computer you purchase.