Windows 7 Major Upset with Mickeysoft

It is but, I will continue to check as I know HP is still working on Windows 7 drivers and all. Thanks as always. One thing I have noticed that humm, Windows 7 is running a few degrees hotter than Vista but, lets see now cores are at about 35 degrees c. I guess thats ok. Everything calm at the moment anyway. Have a good day, later!!!
 
I"m not sure what was going on with the OP, but I have to agree with the part about being "upset with Microsoft".......

I've got a laptop that's 3 weeks old. Installed a second disk and re-installed Windows 7 Home Premium there so I could partition that way I WANTED.....

It complained that it needed to be activated AFTER I used the product key to activate. Called the phone thing and the automated activation was completely goofed up, dropping out, repeating text, and so on, so I waited and spoke to one of the MS activation people...

She gave me the necessary numbers, but when I asked WHY I was having to do this when I've got a perfectly valid activation code from the bottom of the laptop she said "You REINSTALLED Windows 7. ANY reinstallation, since it's already been installed on a system, WILL REQUIRE THAT YOU ACTIVATE BY PHONE."... So I asked why this would be necessary since the installation was on THIS SYSTEM. Her reply was "ANY reinstallation, since it's already been installed on a system, WILL REQUIRE THAT YOU ACTIVATE BY PHONE." At which point, since the conversation was clearly pointless, I hung up.

I started out rather liking MS, some 25 years ago, and have long been a user of their software, which at least USUALLY installs and works (something that CANNOT be said of other organization such as Ora*le, for example), but they've gotten increasingly stupid with their activation requirements, and bloated, ridiculously overpriced software. I can certainly understand why so many out there vehemently despise MS, use alternatives when available, and find ways to obtain illegitimate versions of products.

WTF have these <insert your favorite string of expletives> done THIS TIME?
 
Hi dkperez,
sorry to hear you've been through an ordeal but could you tell me if the original copy of win 7 was either Retail or OEM?
If it was a retail version then the licence states you can re-install it as many times as you like on any computer (although it can only run on one computer at a time). It also states that after the first five automatic activations (sometimes this slightly differs) then phone activation will be needed.
If it was a OEM licence then the licence states you can re-install the os as many times as you like on the same machine and the licence is not transferable. Where the 'grey area' appears is what constitutes a 'new' machine. Some hardware does fail from time to time and usually as long as the motherboard isn't replaced the licence will hold although re-activation will be needed depending on what has been replaced. Something like a graphics card probably wouldn't need reactivation although a new HD definitely would. (with either licence)
 
kemical is the best. He's got me settled back down again. Now that I understand everything. I experiment also and there's more than a few times things well don't work out. Anyway, when I called the toll free number yesterday to a new code. Surprise surprise, as it was all taken care of by the automated person I guess you would call it, and not the real life person whom I sort of don't like cause I hate answering questions. So, I am back to normal and for once everything is working just like clock work. kemical you should win the award for the best person who can deal with just about anyone. And I got to admit I can be hard to deal with sometimes.

On the other hand, I should also add one last thing. If it was not for experimentation, I probably would have no fun at all.
Experimentation is the reason I use Clonezilla and create restore images on a regular basis, particularly before doing any "experimenting".
I've got using Clonezilla Live down pat.
It takes 5 minutes or so to restore an image vs the several hours to reinstall Win 7 and activate it. Restoring an image doesn't require activation.
One of my least favorite things to do is reinstall Windows or linux distros and do all the customizations etc.

One recent project involved installing a new 500 GB drive to my notebook, replacing the 320 GB I've been using.

I documented the project in some detail on another forum for those interested.

link ----->>>> Adventures with Clonezilla and PM 8 - Scot's Newsletter Forums

Below is a somewhat abbreviated account of the project.

I created Clonezilla images of all 6 OS's and partitioned my new drive (the OS partitions) exactly like the original and growing the my storage partitions to account for the extra space.
It then took about an 3 hours to copy my data from the storage partitions and restore my OS
images saving me at least a day of hair pulling had I needed to reinstall and customize everything.
A little anticipated tweaking of the boot manager and I had my new drive setup like the original, again no activation.

If I'm not "experimenting" I still maintain images of all my 6 OS's every other week.
It take about an hour or two to create the images and store them safely onto a 16 GB
flash drive.
I can restore them directly from the same flash drive.
 
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Hi dkperez,
sorry to hear you've been through an ordeal but could you tell me if the original copy of win 7 was either Retail or OEM?
If it was a retail version then the licence states you can re-install it as many times as you like on any computer (although it can only run on one computer at a time). It also states that after the first five automatic activations (sometimes this slightly differs) then phone activation will be needed.
If it was a OEM licence then the licence states you can re-install the os as many times as you like on the same machine and the licence is not transferable. Where the 'grey area' appears is what constitutes a 'new' machine. Some hardware does fail from time to time and usually as long as the motherboard isn't replaced the licence will hold although re-activation will be needed depending on what has been replaced. Something like a graphics card probably wouldn't need reactivation although a new HD definitely would. (with either licence)

The laptop was purchased with W7 Home Premium onboard. UNFORTUNATELY, Toshiba did a DREADFUL job on the install, creating two hidden partitions for repairs INSTEAD OF SUPPLYING A 10-CENT DVD... AND, they splattered stuff so widely that efforts to shrink the partition was fruitless - it couldn't get below 350GB regardless of the tool I tried to use.

SO, I popped in a second 500G drive, partitioned it the way I WANT, and installed there. It's the SAME box, and the only change is a new drive that I installed in the original drive slot... I figure this is just MS sticking their #$%(*& nose in places they don't belong in their incessant effort to "combat the scourge of piracy"...

Like I said, I can certainly see why there's so much resentment of MS, and an increasing base of Linux users. As well as a huge entrenched base of XP users, both corporate and home, that have NO intention of upgrading as long as humanly possible...
 
The laptop was purchased with W7 Home Premium onboard. UNFORTUNATELY, Toshiba did a DREADFUL job on the install, creating two hidden partitions for repairs INSTEAD OF SUPPLYING A 10-CENT DVD... AND, they splattered stuff so widely that efforts to shrink the partition was fruitless - it couldn't get below 350GB regardless of the tool I tried to use.

SO, I popped in a second 500G drive, partitioned it the way I WANT, and installed there. It's the SAME box, and the only change is a new drive that I installed in the original drive slot... I figure this is just MS sticking their #$%(*& nose in places they don't belong in their incessant effort to "combat the scourge of piracy"...

Like I said, I can certainly see why there's so much resentment of MS, and an increasing base of Linux users. As well as a huge entrenched base of XP users, both corporate and home, that have NO intention of upgrading as long as humanly possible...

If you indeed created a proper bare-metal backup of only the Windows 7 partitions and restored them properly to the new drive, using a backup and restore utility like Paragon, you could therefore have eliminated this annoying Toshiba partition without trouble. The activation would have still stood. In tests I performed as late as last year, the activation will not work on the same exact hardware, including motherboard, because it is reading the serial information off of the motherboard and CPU. However, if its a hard drive upgrade only, the activation SHOULD stick, provided its a 100% backup and restore using imaging software. If you ghosted the drive right you would not run into the activation again.
 
As the post said, I did NOT do a backup. I did a new install.......

I wasn't ABLE to copy the system partition from one disk to the other with the tools I have. ALSO, I wanted to get rid of as much of the Toshiba bloatware as possible.
 
As the post said, I did NOT do a backup. I did a new install.......

I wasn't ABLE to copy the system partition from one disk to the other with the tools I have. ALSO, I wanted to get rid of as much of the Toshiba bloatware as possible.

So you can't blame Microsoft for Toshiba cashing in on your laptop purchase with bloatware. Dell users complained so much that they scaled it back. But even they are still bundling McAfee (the McDonald's drive-thru of anti-virus suites?) trial and additional bloat.

This is a practice of hardware manufacturers. Wasn't this thread designed to attack Microsoft?

Everything you have said is right on point though - you can barely use your new computer because Toshiba decided they wanted to increase their profit margin by not providing you with a recovery disk. So instead they put the recovery media on the hard drive that will probably fail when you need to recover something.

This type of cashing in has been going on for quite awhile. Toshiba was renowned years ago for selling junk laptops. I have worked for an organization that used to put a second partition on the drives that was empty to make it look like the computer had 2 hard drives. I'm not really even sure why this was done.

Slowly, we find that Microsoft gets blamed for, well, mostly everything computer related. In fact, the corporations who build the computers share responsibility. Your computer should be free of useless software. But they know that maybe 1-2% of the people who buy that laptop will opt-in for one of those products and buy it.

And lets not go into the area of driver support - where a company develops a device and after a year doesn't want to support it anymore.
 
Hopefully, I was very specific that I BLAME MICROSOFT for the idiocy of having to go through the moronic activation process AND HAVE IT FAIL ONLINE. THEN of having to get on the phone and go through the even MORE idiotic process of wasting my time with their ADDITIONAL activation of providing one gigantic number to be given ANOTHER gigantic number to get the box "activated"...... It appears we've gotten to the point as a society where the presumption is that we're ALL thieves and scumbags who will commit the heinous crime of actually running a copy of software on "GASP" more than one system......

Like I said, the box works, but I can certainly see why there is as much piracy as there is. I must admit that the thought crosses my mind much more frequently than it used to that "If they're going to constantly treat me like a criminal I may as well find out if there's a way to beat the system." And it's not JUST MS. Adobe is just as bad, if not worse. 'Cause apparently charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for what SHOULD BE a maintenance update doesn't provide them with enough profit.....

Screw it, I'm gonna go find a puppy to kick!
 
I must admit that the thought crosses my mind much more frequently than it used to that "If they're going to constantly treat me like a criminal I may as well find out if there's a way to beat the system."

The piracy problem that they have been trying to combat is not coming from first world countries. It is an effort to clamp down on largely populated countries that cannot afford Windows and where counterfeiting goes unpunished. For example, the counterfeiting problem in China is massive, because people simply do not have the means to acquire certain goods due to the overwhelming power of the state. China allows western companies to incorporate as a foreign corporation, which is heavily regulated, but imposes no regulations on its own state-financed corporations. This type of corporatism/communism and censorship is one of the reasons why Google recently pulled out of China and moved its headquarters there to Hong Kong. In some ways, you have to have some respect for the software owners and shareholders of the company. Microsoft spent billions of dollars in R&D to create Windows and you cannot blame them for trying to protect their product from counterfeitting. So even though I understand your plight, imagine if you designed something great worth $200 that was being sold for 5 bucks in China... and you have people who you are trying to satisfy, namely shareholders and legitimate customers.

It makes sense for them to protect their property whereas in some countries property rights mean nothing at all. This is just my opinion and you are entitled to yours.
 
I agree with you that MS should ADDRESS the problem if they have one. But, THIS is the typical corporate shotgun/stupid approach that tars all users with the same brush. If China is acting in a manner that fosters piracy, and it's not possible to make a reasonable profit in the market - GET OUT. Like Google did.

Company X has an employee with a problem surfing the web. Do they ADDRESS the problem by correcting the employee or do they do the stupid thing and send a company-wide memo telling EVERY employee they can't use the Internet, installing a Firewall to PREVENT employees from using the Internet, and start MONITORING their employee computer use to catch any miscreant with the temerity to disregard this missive from on high? We both know the answer.....

Don't treat EVERY customer like a criminal because you have a problem in some 3rd world hell-hole...
 
@dkperez
I would argue though that this is a case of you assuming that you would be ok. You didn't bother to check on the licence details and just forged ahead with your plans. I know it's easy to say with hindsight but these things should really be properly researched.
 
OK, I know I'm going to regret this, but WHAT, EXACTLY license "details" SHOULD I HAVE CHECKED ON? It's a 3-week-old box, with a perfectly VALID license on the bottom. I shouldn't have to check ANYTHING TO INSTALL MY SOFTWARE ON MY COMPUTER WHEN I HAVE A VALID LICENSE........

This is NOT a case of user error, it's a case of an overreaching manufacturer making customers jump through stupid hoops... Just out of curiosity, was I supposed to call Toshiba and play MOTHER-MAY-I before I fixed their lousy installation? Or Microsoft to speak to some third-world hack with a nebulous grasp of English to try and explain that I wanted to install MY software on MY computer, and was it OK with them?

Ludicrous.
 
I did explain the difference between the two licences in an earlier post and I suppose this could be made clearer to help stop cases like yours. Oh and here's something that's really gonna piss you off...
The actual software isn't yours and remains the property of MS. When you purchase a copy of windows in any format what your actually doing is buying a licence to be able to use that particular software.
 
[rant-on]
Nobody likes it when something does not work as expected, but to "blame" Microsoft or announce I will never use any MS product again is going a bit overboard, IMO. Windows 7 has worked perfectly for the vast majority of more than 100 million Win7 users!

I think some history is needed here. When XP came out, security was not a big deal - the badguys had not yet caught on. The Internet was still in it's infancy and, by far, most computers, except in big corporations/institutions/governments, where stand-alone, and very few had Internet access. The only way to get infected was by sneakernet and an infected floppy left in the drive while booting.

Microsoft was bloodied and bruised badly by MS bashers and the biased IT press for forcing everybody to buy new hardware (again) and new software (again) when moving from DOS to Windows 95/98. So for XP, Microsoft was forced to weigh legacy (read: old, outdated, obsolete, insecure) hardware and software support in XP over security - their enormous customer base was very vocal - they did not want to retool everything because of XP, and the technical press/media was too busy looking to find something else to bash MS about, was not looking to the future - especially in terms of security, or the HUGE advances in hardware technologies.

Microsoft wanted to clamp down on security - even tried to integrate an AV into Windows. But NO! Norton and McAfee cried, "Foul! MS is trying to take over the world and run us out of business!" Norton, McAfee and other cried to Congress and the EU that MS was trying to create a monopoly, and that they, Norton and McAffe, were going to rid the world of malware. We see how well that went. I ask, what incentive does Norton or McAfee (or the entire anti-malware industry) have to rid the world of malware? That will put them out of business.

So Microsoft was forced with XP to ignore potential threats in order to support legacy hardware and software - designed for the DOS era.

Microsoft was forced to abandon their own anti-malware initiatives.

Then high-speed Internet hit residential areas - and so did the badguys.

Then MS was forced to endure years of bashing for XP being insecure - when in fact, it is badguys who are at fault, to include corrupt governments who fail to fund for, or to support EXISTING laws.​

Finally, MS said enough and beginning with IE7, XPSP3, Vista, the purchase of Giant AS (later becoming the free, Windows Defender), MS started pushing security over legacy support. Window 7 was designed to support current and future hardware and software technologies - NOT legacy, and insecure stuff. Therefore, it is time for users to let go, buy current hardware and updated versions of their favorite software. Stop trying to make their DOS era hardware conform to today's technologies. And stop blaming MS for every little problem - because it is probably not caused by MS.

It is important to remember that the beauty of Windows, and the hardware that supports it, is that together, they make a computer every user can customize their own way - with potentially millions (if not more) different hardware and software configurations. And for nearly 1 billion Windows users out there, more than 100 million of them using Win7, it works perfectly. That suggests to me, Microsoft got it right.

Mike said:
The piracy problem that they have been trying to combat is not coming from first world countries. It is an effort to clamp down on largely populated countries that cannot afford Windows and where counterfeiting goes unpunished.
It is not just the lost revenue that matters - in fact, lost revenue from piracy hurts MS much less than it hurts other, smaller companies. The music and movie business are hit very hard too. But the big picture, as far as pirated Windows and other software is concerned is security.

One of the largest distribution methods for malware is through computers using and compromised by pirated software. This is because the pirated software is infected to begin with, or more commonly, the users, who know full well they are using illegal software, fail to keep their systems fully patched and updated for fear of being detected! This leaves vulnerabilities long ago patched exposed to exploitation. These same pirated software users - thieves - often partake in other risky practices too, like illegal file sharing, almost guaranteeing exploitation, thus turning these machines into weapons, to be turn upon the rest of us.

Because of badguys, NOT Microsoft, I, as in me the user, must spend time and effort to keep my systems patched, updated (to include hardware), scanned, and blocked. I must avoid risky practices like visiting illegal porn or gambling sites or P2P sites that support illegal filesharing.

Because of badguys, I must take my shoes off and be body searched at airports. I don't like that either, but I do it. And I am glad they make everyone do it.
[rant off]

Toshiba did a DREADFUL job on the install, creating two hidden partitions for repairs INSTEAD OF SUPPLYING A 10-CENT DVD...
Now wait! For one, this is a notebook. I am sorry, but notebooks are work machines for the traveler and no matter how badly the marketing weenies would like us to believe otherwise, notebooks are NOT desktop replacements, nor do they make good game machines. The intense competition to make notebooks thinner, lighter, and longer lasting per battery charge causes notebooks to be very proprietary - and not really designed for "customization".

Notebook makers typically don't include disks for two reasons: (1) They are notebooks - and notebooks are for road-warriors who need to travel light. And (2) while it may cost MS a few pennies to press a disk, it cost much more than pennies for Toshiba to buy and provide them. That would force Toshiba to raise the price, and then folks would buy a Sony.

I don't know what Toshiba you have but I have a new A505-6009 and it has only one hidden partition. And while I too would like a disk, the first thing my Toshiba did on power on was prompt me to create recovery disks - just in case the HD failed. And I did that.

Since you can buy and download Windows 7 on-line, the need for the original disk is not that important - because as noted above, you don't own Windows, you own a license to use it.

kemical said:
Where the 'grey area' appears is what constitutes a 'new' machine. Some hardware does fail from time to time and usually as long as the motherboard isn't replaced the licence will hold although re-activation will be needed depending on what has been replaced.
I don't think it grey at all. An OEM license is tied to the original computer. It cannot be transferred to another computer even if the other computer is destroyed or not in use. The motherboard is the heart of the computer. As kemical noted, as long as you are not replacing (or upgrading) the motherboard, you are fine. The exception is if the current motherboard has failed, and you are replacing it as part of a repair action with an exact (same brand and model number) replacement, then you are okay. If you decide to upgrade the board at the same time to something newer, you need to buy a new license. This is where many get screwed because finding an exact replacement motherboard is not easy if the current model is out of production - and motherboard production runs don't last long.
 
I replaced a MB and CPU with a totally different MB and CPU put my Vista OEM on it called MS explained situation that MB and CPU went *** Up and they gave me series of numbers to activate my OEM Vista with no hassle. I am sure they do the same with W7
 
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They often will let you do just that - and it is worth the phone call. But nevertheless, they don't have to.
 
I should have perhaps said 'Grey area for some'... :)

Thanks though Digerati for illuminating this topic further.. :cool:
 
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