Ubuntu, no product activation. My idea! :P

[Turpin]

I have had so much trouble with product activation over the years. It's taken a lot of time away that I'll never get back. So, Linux or bust. OSs that treat me like a criminal even though I paid good money can blow away like ash in the wind.

[julio_cortez]

Well, I could second this when activation had to be made by phone. But now it's as easy as plugging the ethernet cable in and click "Proceed". I have Windows 7 and the activation + WGA check took no more than 2 minutes to me.
I can live with it (even because I'm using Windows less and less to be honest).

Acticvation (unfortunately, you may argue) is vital especially for OEM products (which serial number has to be bound to a machine ID), so I really don't see anything wrong with it as long as it doesn't collect usage/personal information.

[BigSilly]

I'm glad you've brought this subject up actually. I have Windows 7 full retail boxed version along with Ubuntu. I was hoping to do a clean install to refresh the desktop in the not too distant future, but I'm not looking forward to having to activate the bloody thing again. What's the procedure then for this? Will I have to phone MS everytime I wish to do a clean install? Do they give you a new key or something each time?

One of the brilliant things about Linux is not having to check with MS everytime you do an install. I really enjoy that freedom tbh. Pity MS can't come up with a better solution than WGA for it's paying customers. :(

[mikewhatever]

Same here. I'd always felt uncomfortable with activations and perpetual phoning home, which Windows users take for granted or don't know about. It's free sailing with Ubuntu - enormously liberating.

[gabriella]

Same here. I'd always felt uncomfortable with activations and perpetual phoning home, which Windows users take for granted or don't know about. It's free sailing with Ubuntu - enormously liberating.

Well I really dont use Windows much any more (apart from XP on a smll partition but that will eventually go) But just wondering out of curiousity does the OEM mean that:

1. If you have a LEGAL version of windows on your PC and you get a different one you can't legally reinstall it on the replacement machine? If so is it physically impossible to do so because its tied to that machine?

2 If you had a purchased (non OEM) copy of windows could you legally transfer it to another machine if you wiped it off the first one?

Really a moot point in reality as I don't intend to purchase/use Windows ever again.

[lashram]

I for one had a very aggravating and unwholesome experience with microsoft and their tactics to prevent piracy. I had Windows 7 retail box version installed on one of my laptops for the kids and then i had Windows 7 Professional that came with my laptop. I installed Microsoft Security Essentials and one day out of the blue it invalidated both of the licenses on both of my machines mind you I bought and paid for these OS's. I had to reinstall on both machines and had a hassle getting back activated. This is what finally pushed me to the edge and I am now using Ubuntu on my machine as the main and only operating system. It's good to prevent piracy but not to hurt the innocent customers who bought and paid for the product or obtained it bundled with a new computer purchase. that is just not right! :guitar:

[BigSilly]

I for one had a very aggravating and unwholesome experience with microsoft and their tactics to prevent piracy. I had Windows 7 retail box version installed on one of my laptops for the kids and then i had Windows 7 Professional that came with my laptop. I installed Microsoft Security Essentials and one day out of the blue it invalidated both of the licenses on both of my machines mind you I bought and paid for these OS's. I had to reinstall on both machines and had a hassle getting back activated. This is what finally pushed me to the edge and I am now using Ubuntu on my machine as the main and only operating system. It's good to prevent piracy but not to hurt the innocent customers who bought and paid for the product or obtained it bundled with a new computer purchase. that is just not right! :guitar:

This is the crazy crap I'm talking about above, and it's what eventually got me on to Linux in the first place. Had loads of trouble with XP in the past. I wouldn't have bought Win7, but it was going cheap at the pre-order price so thought why not. They must have sorted out WGA by now. <ahem>

[julio_cortez]

1. If you have a LEGAL version of windows on your PC and you get a different one you can't legally reinstall it on the replacement machine? If so is it physically impossible to do so because its tied to that machine?
OEM copies of Windows are bound to the machine you buy them with.
Say you bought a PC with an OEM copy of Windows, you cannot use that copy of Windows on another machine. That's why it costs less than a retail copy.
You can re-activate it (and eventually try phoning Microsoft if it doesn't work) if you change some hardware parts such as RAM or video card, but you can't use it on a machine which is different from the one you bought it with.

A notable exception is when you use an OEM copy of Windows XP to downgrade from either an OEM or retail copy of Vista. In that case I think you can phone Microsoft and they activate the copy for you. You must specify that you're downgrading anyway.


2 If you had a purchased (non OEM) copy of windows could you legally transfer it to another machine if you wiped it off the first one?
Yes, you can. I don't know how many machines you can install it on before the activation fails, but keep in mind that it can be installed upon a machine at a time.

[gabriella]

OEM copies of Windows are bound to the machine you buy them with.
Say you bought a PC with an OEM copy of Windows, you cannot use that copy of Windows on another machine. That's why it costs less than a retail copy.
You can re-activate it (and eventually try phoning Microsoft if it doesn't work) if you change some hardware parts such as RAM or video card, but you can't use it on a machine which is different from the one you bought it with.



Hmm OK.

I can see how you might need to reinstall/reactive if you replaced the HD or motherboard. But why would you need to if changed RAM or video card?

[julio_cortez]

Hmm OK.
I can see how you might need to reinstall/reactive if you replaced the HD or motherboard. But why would you need to if changed RAM or video card?
There's no need to re-activate if you change the video card (tried it myself with a MSDN AA copy of Windows 7 which I use for managing my mp3 player and sometimes for hosting gaming tournaments among friends).
Even upgrading the RAM (from 1 to 2 GB of DDR400 on my old system) didn't require my old XP copy (again obtained via MSDN AA) to be re-activated.
If you do an image of the system before changing HD, maybe it's not even necessary to re-activate if you pass everything on a new HD (but I didn't try it).

I think that re-activation comes when more than a hardware part (maybe 2 or 3) is different from the original machine setup.

Consider that apart from the 2 tests I described (which I made on my PC) I've quite always dealt with OEM copies of Windows, having been a system builder for some months.

[mamamia88]

same here. i bought a legal copy of windows 7 with the digital river student deal. i went back to ubuntu shortly after but then when i wanted to install it in virtualbox it wouldn't let me use my legal activation code. i hate dealing with microsoft customer support so i found another way to activate it.

[Turpin]

Moving an os install between hardware is a common occurence for me. Something that was usually painful with the other OS. Whatever their reasons, it's overpriced, a recurring cost no less, too restrictive, with too much phoning home (or wherever the phoning is going) behind my back! So, I shrugged and said "enough", put my nose to the grindstone to get good with Linux. I'm still with the Ubuntus because they have good hardware support, a good package manager, good software support, and does a better job than most distros of trying to be user friendly. I won't lie, it took a while to figure out how to make my personal install do some things that were once easy in the closed-source OS, but it was worth it. This is what I recommend honest people do. The dishonest ones who steal that restrictive OS are possibly just playing into the corporation's long-term game plan, whatever that may be. I'd advise against that and they wouldn't listen anyway. For those people's sakes, let's hope the big company isn't up to what I've always thought they might be up to.
This thread I started originally because I had a sudden wave of anger come over me. Really not a good reason to start a thread in such a friendly community as this. Thanks for the positive responses.

[CharlesA]

I must have some very good luck with installing copies of Windows then. All the ones I've installed are copies I've bought or copies that my company uses and I have only had to actually call microsoft once or twice and they didn't give me any crap, only asked a couple questions then allowed the machine to be activated.

Then again, I usually image the machine after installing Windows and activating it, so if I have any problems, I just reimage said machine. Haven't had any problems if I need to do reinstalls either, but maybe I am just lucky.

I suppose that's too much of a pain for some people to deal with, which is probably one of the reasons they use Linux, among others.

[Turpin]

Oops. Mispost

[73ckn797]

Will I have to phone MS everytime I wish to do a clean install? Do they give you a new key or something each time?

I have found that if it is installed on the same machine that activation works via the Internet every time. Though I do not use it except in a few cases and those are few and far between. Probably been over 2 months since I had to use Windows.

[Sand & Mercury]

In my experience, even pirated copies can be activated in 5 minutes at most.

[phrostbyte]

Hell yes! Also, no worrying about losing CDs or "license keys". You lose your Ubuntu CD you can simply redownload the ISO.

Linux is some amazing stuff. I've been using it for years and I still am in disbelief that such an awesome piece of software can be totally free. :)

[Ebere]

Same here. I'd always felt uncomfortable with activations and perpetual phoning home, which Windows users take for granted or don't know about.


Whatever their reasons, it's overpriced, a recurring cost no less, too restrictive, with too much phoning home (or wherever the phoning is going) behind my back!

You see, this is something that I don't get.

Linux people are always talking about how much more secure they are. How they are so glad they don't have the same problems that people with windows do... Like having their OS and/or apps "Phone Home"...

When the truth is, it happens all the time. Every time you boot your computer up. And on a regular basis whenever you are online.

It seems that Linux people either aren't as aware as windows people, or just simply do not really care.

Take for instance Thunderbird. (The only one I can remember, right off the top of my head.)

If you try to keep it from checking for updates... You'll find that you CAN'T. Go look. I'll wait. You see, the option is greyed out. You can't turn off the updates.

It phones home whenever it damn well pleases.

And I believe that firefox for ubuntu has some ubuntu add-on stuff. And you cannot change the preferences there.

You can disable it, but given the rest of what goes on, I have to wonder just how effective that 'disable' button really is.

I didn't notice any change whatever, when I disabled it.

I also have to wonder what kind of info that add-on is either actively passing on to mozilla, canonical, google, or whoever... Or is at least by default -allowing- it.

Go ahead and look at your add-ons. You will see that you cannot change the preferences for the ubuntu add-on.

Other parts of the OS, and/or the apps, also phone home, and either do not let you know, or do not let you stop them.

But in the linux community, it is just taken for granted. Par for the course. No one really cares.

Personally, I prefer to be able to have a say in when and how my OS and/or any apps, phone home. Whether for updates, or for any other reason.

I allow just about anything. As long as I understand what it is doing, and when and how.. And can stop it if I so wish.

Claiming that Linux OS's and apps do not phone home, is simply sticking one's head in the sand.

[Khakilang]

I don't have problem with acitivation. Just plug the ethernet cable and click next. Its the phone activation that the pain because the machine could not received the correct pronounciation and you have to keep on repeating until you get it right. But of course Ubuntu don't have such thing and it make installation such a breeze.

[CharlesA]

I don't have problem with acitivation. Just plug the ethernet cable and click next. Its the phone activation that the pain because the machine could not received the correct pronounciation and you have to keep on repeating until you get it right. But of course Ubuntu don't have such thing and it make installation such a breeze.
Yes, that part can get annoying. I can recall being on the phone for 15-20 minutes since the stupid automated system kept getting the code wrong. It was easier to speak to a person.

[chriswyatt]

Yes, it's a pain. I had to phone up Microsoft every time I did a clean install of my legal version of XP Home Edition. Which I've done quite a few times as it's virtualised and I don't have much installed on it, and if it goes wrong it's often easier just to do a clean install than spend ages trying to track down the problem.

I can't help but feel guilty when I'm on the phone because I feel like I'm being judged, I keep thinking that maybe they're thinking I'm lying, but I've no reason to feel guilty :S.

It's ironic that a not-so-legal version of Windows often bypasses the activation rubbish. That's why I hate things like DRM etc. because they seem to only plague users who do things the legal way.

[Ugluk]

You do it once in 3 years or never if you have an OEM version. I can live with that.

[CharlesA]

Yes, it's a pain. I had to phone up Microsoft every time I did a clean install of my legal version of XP Home Edition. Which I've done quite a few times as it's virtualised and I don't have much installed on it, and if it goes wrong it's often easier just to do a clean install than spend ages trying to track down the problem.

Wouldn't just taking a snapshot of a clean install be easier to do?

Opposed to doing a reinstall from scratch.

[mallaigh]

Through college I fixed countless Windows boxes, and MS has made the phone activation a lot easier. You punch in the activation code, and the machine will give you the registration code if that copy hasn't been registered. If for some reason MS thinks that copy of Windows is activated, the machine will ask you how many machines the copy of Windows is installed on and then give you the registration code. They might have changed it in the last 3 months since I left that job, but I doubt that.

Generally I have seen HDD (only sometimes), CPU, and MoBo replacements trigger the activation on an existing install. OEM copies of Windows that come with computers are specific to that manufacture. (EG: Dell OEM Windows works on Dell Machines). You will probably have to call in activation if you use an OEM copy on any other machine than the manufacture it was meant for. Even though it accepts the key, it won't activate over the Internet.

[Jay Car]

@Ebere,


Go ahead and look at your add-ons. You will see that you cannot change the preferences for the ubuntu add-on.

It's funny, just today I was wondering what, exactly, was in the ubuntu firefox modifications add-on. It wasn't hard to find the answer. In fact, here's a forum thread where you can find the information (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=826536) Look for a post by "SirYes" and you'll see what's in the add-on. Nothing sinister there at all.

You're right that the preferences can't be changed, but it's easily disabled.

It's actually an odd thing to compare it to Microsoft's activation and WGA garbage. From my understanding, Windows will make sure the copy is legitimate before activation. But it doesn't end there, it will continue checking, regularly, to make sure that legitimate copy hasn't suddenly turned into a illegitimate copy. It's stupid and intrusive and something we would not put up with for any other purchase.

Imagine if Macy's continued calling you every week to make sure that set of towels you bought last year still had the tags on them.

No product activation is a serious PLUS when it comes to using Free software.

[mikewhatever]

Wouldn't just taking a snapshot of a clean install be easier to do?

Opposed to doing a reinstall from scratch.

Do you use Clonezilla/Partimage or some commercial software for that? Does Windows have a problem with being restored to a partition with a different id/size, and if so, how do you overcome that?