Ouch; they've really taken something fun and made it a pain in the neck to use.
Getting a Technet or MSDN subscription used to be enjoyable since you just got freedom to test what you wanted when you wanted and on what machines (or VMs) you wanted.
Now every time you activate you will have to think "Is this installation worth an activation?" Because what the article fails to mention is that each key has an activation limit (so 3 * 10 = 30 total activations per product).
Even on my retail copy of Windows 7 Pro I constantly hit the activation limit and need to call them. Which you would know is damn annoying as you have to type in and type back like sixty digit strings of nonsense.
I thought activation was originally meant to stop pirates not harass paying customers? Where did Microsoft lose it's way?
I agree 100%. The MSDN kits used to be like candy, but were super useful for configuration testing (test your product install on a new install, now on a new install with Office, now on a new install with ...).
This really seems at odds with "Developers, developers, developers."
Comments
Ouch; they've really taken something fun and made it a pain in the neck to use.
Getting a Technet or MSDN subscription used to be enjoyable since you just got freedom to test what you wanted when you wanted and on what machines (or VMs) you wanted.
Now every time you activate you will have to think "Is this installation worth an activation?" Because what the article fails to mention is that each key has an activation limit (so 3 * 10 = 30 total activations per product).
Even on my retail copy of Windows 7 Pro I constantly hit the activation limit and need to call them. Which you would know is damn annoying as you have to type in and type back like sixty digit strings of nonsense.
I thought activation was originally meant to stop pirates not harass paying customers? Where did Microsoft lose it's way?
I agree 100%. The MSDN kits used to be like candy, but were super useful for configuration testing (test your product install on a new install, now on a new install with Office, now on a new install with ...).
This really seems at odds with "Developers, developers, developers."
With Windows 7 you can backup a clean installation (OS and drivers), no need to reactivate, just recover from a backup ...
Same goes for a VM, just make a copy of the fresh installed VM.
So I should alter the way I use the software to work around limitations imposed by their DRM? How is that an acceptable solution?