This one is amusing as it seems Microsoft Deutschland (Germany) has screwed up
and gave out a bunch of the same copy of Windows XP to a good sum of people.
shipping the same copy of Windows XP over and over again. Sort of, anyway. German sites 3Dwin.de and Heise Online report that numerous copies of XP with the same product key have been turning up, and naturally these won't activate, because they've been activated already. |
The copies appear to be genuine, and Microsoft Deutschland is currently trying
to figure out what happened. It's not yet clear whether it's just one key that's
been duplicated (chewing gum stuck on the ticker?) or whether it's some kind of
production fault that's been churning out multiple duplicates. 3DWin claims a
count of over 30 for one attempted activation, and says the problem affects
several dealers, including Amazon.de.
Whether its an isolated glitch or something more widespread, it's embarrassing
for Microsoft, which has been trying to paint Windows Product Activation as a
simple, hassle-free process that doesn't trouble users at all. In this case,
however, the honest customers have paid their money for the real product, then
found themselves bounced when they try to activate online, then been told their
product's already being used by somebody else when they phone up the
hotline.
I know if I was one of these customers I would be pissed since this newest
version of Windows cost more than previous versions. I am still wondering why
Microsoft is still using Windows Product Activation as it is just annoying the hell
out of more and more customers. And as far as stopping the occasional copier, it
has been cracked already and it is not hard to find one of these cracks
either...
Source: The Register
