On 4/11/2004, "Wayne Stallwood" ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com wrote:
This is why nobody should ever buy boxed Microsoft Operating Systems, they are worthless because it's almost impossible to buy a "clean" computer to install them on. Case in point, I wanted a new laptop earlier in the year settled on a Thinkpad, however despite the fact that I own a boxed and licensed copy of Windows 2000 I was forced into purchasing Windows XP as part of my chosen laptop's package.
What's worse is that I was happy to buy my Thinkpad with Windows XP because I wanted a legit copy to run in VMWare. Of course it only comes in a hidden disk partition, so I borrowed a friends retail disk. The problem was that the serial key on the sticker on the Thinkpad was not valid for the install disk.
So, bracing myself, I rang Microsoft to find out what to do. They said that the license only covered XP for that individual laptop, hence why the serial only worked in the copy in my hidden partition. I said that I WAS wanting to use XP on the laptop it came with, just that I wanted to run it in VMWare. They said that the software wasn't meant to work that way.
So I told them up-front that since I WAS running XP on the laptop it was purchased for that I was going to find a "dodgy" serial for it and that, since they knew who I was, they could try and stop me. That was about 6 months ago now and I haven't heard anything back yet...
Matt