From: duh@nah.meh   
      
   On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 01:24:59 -0500, Vic RR Garcia wrote:   
   > If there is NOT support/update/patches available for XP ...   
   > Why are you going to care about activation ???   
   >   
   > Put away your tin-foil hat, M$ is not as 'evil' as Apple,   
   > and anyway there are still MILLIONS of computers running XP in   
   > Corporate enterprises, and they will be running for a few more years.   
   > Plenty of Win98 machines too, running old DOS programs and is   
   > unsupported from M$ since 2006, not expiration, not kill-bomb.   
      
   Because I still need Windows XP.   
      
   Re/activation and updates/hotfixes are not the same thing.   
   Corporates mostly use volume license (VL), so the installations don't   
   require activation.   
   Us consumers, don't use VL for our PCs/Notebooks/Netbooks.   
   Non VL Windows will be crippled if not activated after 30 days.   
      
   There are times where we need to move OS to a larger hard drive, or because   
   the old one is showing signs of worn out. Windows use hardware fingerprint   
   which also include the hard drive firmware serial number, to encode the   
   installation ID. If the fingerprint changed, the current ID will no longer   
   valid, and the installation will need to be reactivated, or it'll eventually   
   cripple itself.   
      
   How would Apple be more evil than Microsoft? I'm not a Mac user, so I don't   
   know.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)