[BC] The Empire Strikes Back--XP WGA

[Tom Taggart]

Can't disagree with you, Harold.  Although Microsoft is going down the same route as RIAA/music industry and $20 CD's. Someone more cynical than I am might suspect that the sudden emergence of the WGA program from its coccoon is part of a conspiracy to boost the fortunes of the ailing PC industry through forced obsolescence of existing machines.

These five dying boxes at my station (and I may or may not replace them all--10 computers in a 50' X 35' building is a bit much) were, as I mentioned, all pretty much salvage machines.  And nothing much critical is stored on them.

Granted new computers are getting cheaper. $350 is about what I paid for a new electric office typewriter about 7 years ago.  However that typewriter is still around and working.  If the hard drive goes on that computer you got from a chain office supply store, good luck finding all the magic codes you need to re-authorize an os re-install from Redmond. Assuming you have an OS to reinstall anyway.

Anyway, I posted to alert folks to this issue, since in many small markets like mine no-one on the engineering side has time to pay any attention to the office machines (that is, the computers used by sales, traffic and management) until there is a crisis.

BTW, I understand that M.S. Office has a similar time bomb buried inside. A lot of us have copies of Word that came with the machine, back when Microsoft was trying to drive Corel & other competitors out of business. Now that MS has largely succeeded in driving out the competition, the price of Office suites has gone through the roof.

Not uncommon to find machines with OEM Office suites & no info on that software. Especially whether the software is the OEM version that came with the machine or is a another OEM copy used to restore that machine after something corrupted the orginal program. My home computer is like that--it's been to the "shop" & rebuilt once, back when I was working fulltime & didn't have time to fuss with a bulky box.  So I have no idea what or whose version of Office is on it & of course no magic codes to go with it.  So if MS scans and destroys my copy of OFfice I'm not replacing it, since my WP 12 will convert Office files.

After this little incident, we're going to Corel at the station. Cheaper software, most of the same bells and whistles.  About time the sales manager learned to use something more advanced then M.S. Works! 
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