[simpits-tech] FSX Acceleration pack activation...

[dabigboy at cox.net]

The whole activation thing is a 100% huge waste of time, effort, and (for businesses, and MS) money. I remember back when XP was going to be the first Windows version with the limited activation thing that phoned home to MS. Everyone was up in arms..."What if I replace my motherboard? What if my hard drive dies? What if I do an entire rebuild? What if Windows simply hoses itself and must be reinstalled, as it is so wont to do from time to time?" Apparently MS saw the ultimate impracticality of such draconian measures, because it is possible to active XP literally as many times as you want. Even if you get elevated to a "live" tech, they always ask the same question: how many computers has it been installed on? "One." Activation granted!

And so, all the worries from the pre-XP days were (mostly) unwarranted (not counting the crass and blatant privacy issue). Of course, that also means that the entire activation scheme was a complete and utter waste of time too. The only time I've seen XP keys not activate is when one gets "blacklisted" by MS, probably either because it has been determined to be a pirated key (so sorry for the person who actually DID buy that key, have fun shelling out for a new license, buddy), or because it was never a valid key in the first place but satisfied XP's mathematic algorithm for activation keys, if that's even possible. This happens so rarely that it is barely even worth mentioning.

I expect FSX's scheme works in a similarly retarded fashion. As soon as I heard FSX was going to go the Windows'esque activation route, I knew I would never buy another copy of MSFS again.

Matt