I Hate Microsoft!

[thahouse]

nuff said. their customer service is worse than anything i have ever experienced before...apparently you cant reinstall XP on a computer more than 12 times..and now they want 60$ for a new code so i can reinstall XP on my desktop...They are rated up there as crooks as SP and politicians.

[skife]

nuff said. their customer service is worse than anything i have ever experienced before...apparently you cant reinstall XP on a computer more than 12 times..and now they want 60$ for a new code so i can reinstall XP on my desktop...They are rated up there as crooks as SP and politicians.


do you have XP running on more than 3 machine's right now?

if not, call them up and tell them your key won't work because of this, they SHOULD, fix it.
I've never tried it because all of my XP installs are a bit shady.

[thahouse]

I only run my XP on this computer, as i live by my lonesome in my house unless my gf is over LOL.

But i did tell them that my code doesnt work, and even gave them my POD code or whatever its called (the one that identifies my XP serial number thing) and they told me that i should have never had to reinstall windows 12 times and in order to get a new legit code, id have to fork over my Credit card number and purchase one.

I think im going to have to find a shady person LOL

[thahouse]

i wonder if the computer geeks at microsoft are closet ninjas...because im tempted to drive to the canadian main office with a baseball bat and my computer and demand them to reinstall the freakin thing for free

[surfbum]

buy a mac?

[Ruler_Mark]

you just answered the automated machine wrong, tell them it is your only installation of the software when you call.

[chafnerjr]

buy a mac?

Being a big mac fan I love this post

With that said, call back and get another rep. It'll probably be a different story the second time around... if that doesn't work then ask for a supervisor. Just don't give up, but don't yell. Being agitated is OK. Best of luck to you.

P.S. FYI, OS X doesn't have DRM... I'm just sayin' :D

[Hexis]

Just answer the one real question they ask correctly:

"How many computers is this copy of XP running on?"

"ONE!"




I know because I have used the same XP key for bootcamp and multiple virtual copies of XP under VMWare and Parallels.

[maxama10]

Hmm, well no help with the MS but


I just had to get my powerbook repaired. Probably my fault... anyways it was out of warranty so they quoted me 300$ to fix the logicboard.


Apple store sent it off, they fixed a whole list of parts for the same price and then shipped it back to me same day air via DHL.


Couldn't be happier :D

except if I hadn't had to fix it in the first place but... again it was probably my fault.


Hope I swayed your decision, I mean I hope you get your problem solved :D

-Max

[skife]

the thing about a PC is that when it breaks, you can easilly find a fix for it online.

when a mac breaks, you've got to send it in.

[maxama10]

True, so


crap software, good hardware and easily replaced hardware

or

awesome software great hardware, not easily replaced


eh... tough choice really... but if you have the $$


thats how it comes down to it for my needs

[Hexis]

the thing about a PC is that when it breaks, you can easilly find a fix for it online.

when a mac breaks, you've got to send it in.

If hardware breaks, you may or may not be able to replace it easily. PC Hardware fluctuates all the time. Get more than a couple of years old and good luck finding replacement parts that don't require replacing a whole other set of things. But it's far far easier to find cheap parts for PCs.

Now on the other hand, while I do have to send in any of my Macs to Apple for repair, the don't need it as much. The parts are all high quality. My 5 year old powerbook is running the current OS just fine. The battery did die at one point (easily replaceable), but that was covered under applecare at the time. I have never seen a PC laptop of any brand hold up that well. The quality costs more, but lasts longer.

[tribalman]

True, so


crap software, good hardware and easily replaced hardware (talking about a mac here? yeah, easily replaced by an intel/amd/whatever computer.)

or

awesome software great hardware, not easily replaced (once again, an intel/amd/whatver computer. you can find legit free software out there, just need to know where to look.




what do you use the computer for? if it is mostly for internet, instant message, word process and other tasks download this and burn it onto a cd. i personally love this os. http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

[bornl33t]

True, so


crap software, good hardware and easily replaced hardware

or

awesome software great hardware, not easily replaced


eh... tough choice really... but if you have the $$


thats how it comes down to it for my needs

ermm... I would say the hardware on PC is great because it's always up to date.
And since macs use the same hardware now I would call that good because you gotta buy a new mac to get the new features. Both have their uses. Just PC's have alot more of them.

I was looking for information on a piece of software for my wm device. I stumbled acrost a little vid on youtube about how great the Iphone is. The guy goes on to show several programs and concludes each with "once they fix the bugs" or " it works sometimes". The funny thing about that vid is each program he talked about I've been running on my WM device. And, oh yeah, I can text and watch youtube vids with 3g on a phone with a standalone cost less then the iphone with a contract.
Infact, now that I've educated my self a little on the iphone, from what I've seen the only things it can do that mine can't is GPS and touchflow.

On the other hand I just heard about a patent the apple filed to put solar panels behind the screen of their future iphones to charge them as they are being used...that's actually a pretty cool idea!!

[chafnerjr]

ermm... I would say the hardware on PC is great because it's always up to date.
And since macs use the same hardware now I would call that good because you gotta buy a new mac to get the new features. Both have their uses. Just PC's have alot more of them.

I was looking for information on a piece of software for my wm device. I stumbled acrost a little vid on youtube about how great the Iphone is. The guy goes on to show several programs and concludes each with "once they fix the bugs" or " it works sometimes". The funny thing about that vid is each program he talked about I've been running on my WM device. And, oh yeah, I can text and watch youtube vids with 3g on a phone with a standalone cost less then the iphone with a contract.
Infact, now that I've educated my self a little on the iphone, from what I've seen the only things it can do that mine can't is GPS and touchflow.

On the other hand I just heard about a patent the apple filed to put solar panels behind the screen of their future iphones to charge them as they are being used...that's actually a pretty cool idea!!


I only step in here to say that the iPhone doesn't do GPS (at least yet)... it can use cell towers to triangulate your position decently depending on your area but it's no where as accurate as GPS... the argument against it currently is battery drain.

Only other thing to say on the iPhone and iPod touch (which I have) is that Apple doesn't allow for really any downloadable apps yet! Everything you see added to an iPhone or iPod touch is a hack. Apple has until recently been trying to stop that so it's really not surprising that some of the 3rd party apps have issues. The good news is that iPhone firmware 2.0 is coming in early June with the App store and legitimate 3rd party apps that will be supported.

I know that this thread has now officially turned into a mac vs windows thread... but I've just got to say that my Mac is the fastest Windows computer that I've ever run... and yes, I am a software engineer :rolleyes: The funny thing is that arguably the mac is more compatible with todays software than Windows because of bootcamp... I won't say virtualization because you can get parallels and VM ware for Windows as well... The only reason they don't support OS X on Windows is because Apple says that breaks their license with the buyer... I've always thought of Apple as communisim that actually worked, though certainly not perfect.

I prefer to work on a Mac because it generally just works! When I want to build a custom machine is usually got to be Windows or Linux.



Back on to the main point... have you had any luck getting your key authorized from microsoft?????

[tribalman]

I prefer to work on a Mac because it generally just works!



"If everything on a Mac just works, then why does a website called "Mac fix it" exist?" Maddox, The Best Page in the Universe

also, if you work a bit with windows, like about 30 minutes, you can really get it to hum. i haven't done all of the stuff on my desktop that i do with my laptop because the laptop is my test machine, but when i put in the hdd in that is running xp home, i can go from running the machine and restart and be back up and running within 30 seconds. btw, the laptop has 1.25GB of ram on an Intel Celeron M 410 @ 1.46GHz so it's nothing impressive hardware wise.

[paintball72]

for all of my windows needs i just use the UNL colledge campus store. they sell os's to students for $10 and ill just give someone who goes there a $20 and they profit because they probably wouldnt use it and its a bit more reliable than the shady windows stuff ive used. i also like pc's because i can build a nice gameing machine for $600 and if i want an ubber play the newest game out at max graphic resolution without a glitch it just takes a little searching on newegg and $800-1000 which is a ton cheaper than best buy. for the same performance. just my .02

i do have to say that i do all of my online ordering on a mac because it seems that nobody makes viruses for them.

[tribalman]

i do have to say that i do all of my online ordering on a mac because it seems that nobody makes viruses for them.


really? just do a little search for "macintosh virus".

check this from http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/antivirus_on_a_mac.html :
"According to an alert issued Monday by Intego, a company that sells anti-virus software for the Mac, a number of Mac user forums are being spammed with links to video porn sites that prompt Mac users to install one of these magic codecs. Intego says the trade-off is hardly worth it, as Mac users who agree to install the software don't get to view any additional racy material, and yet they're left with a nasty little rash on their machine to boot.

Intego says the bogus codec silently changes the user's DNS settings so that when they visit certain financial sites -- such as eBay, PayPal, and those of several banks -- the victim is routed to a counterfeit look-alike site designed to swipe their credentials. " - Brian Krebs

[Hexis]

really? just do a little search for "macintosh virus".

check this from http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/antivirus_on_a_mac.html :
"According to an alert issued Monday by Intego, a company that sells anti-virus software for the Mac, a number of Mac user forums are being spammed with links to video porn sites that prompt Mac users to install one of these magic codecs. Intego says the trade-off is hardly worth it, as Mac users who agree to install the software don't get to view any additional racy material, and yet they're left with a nasty little rash on their machine to boot.

Intego says the bogus codec silently changes the user's DNS settings so that when they visit certain financial sites -- such as eBay, PayPal, and those of several banks -- the victim is routed to a counterfeit look-alike site designed to swipe their credentials. " - Brian Krebs

Read the details, the malware in that case relied up the user installing a codec for the malware to function. A clear example of a trojan horse, but not something you could pickup by just browsing. Even if you hijack the hosts file, you will still get SSL cert warnings on any of the sites that are being redirected. Not that much of a threat. If you can get someone to install software on any platform with administrative rights you can own the machine, regardless of the platform.

You can hate OSX all you want, it does not change the fact that there is almost no malware in the wild for it. The majority (more than half) of the really hard core information security folks I know of use Macs as their machines. That should tell you something about the system right there (and that infosec folks are paid well). Go to any of the major SANS conferences (http://www.sans.org) and the only MS laptop you find is the instructor for Securing Windows (well that and the targets for the last day of 504).