Win. Registration - Was - What's a good lock box ??

[Robin Laing]

On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 19:56 -0500, Jim Cornette wrote:
> Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > Jim Cornette wrote:
> > 
> >> I only had cell phones and no land line when my wife bought her a
> >> laptop. We could not register at home even though we had high speed. We
> >> had to wait and register when we brought the laptop over to a person who
> >> had a land line to register. Some people say that they never had to
> >> register, but authentication of the license had to be performed in some
> >> manner.
> > 
> > You (or maybe someone else) keeps saying this,
> > but does one _have to_ "authenticate" Windows?
> > I've installed several versions of Windows on virgin machines,
> > and I don't recall having to be on the internet before Windows worked.
> > I had to put in the secret 20-cipher code, and then Windows ran.
> > 
> > As it happened, last time I installed I could not get onto the internet
> > until I downloaded a driver for my WiFi device (on a different machine).
> > 
> 
> I've heard references that non-networked versions of XP are alright and 
> will function until it connects to the Internet. This might have saved 
> you from the hassle until you got the wifi connected. I do not delve too 
> deeply into the innards of M$ policies. I did however have to curse M$ 
> on the phone when getting re-activation numbers over the telephone for 
> re-installed systems.
> 
> Jim
> 

New box had to be registered.  Was over 30 days after it was put
together by the assembler (custom design).  I had to do it by phone as
the box wasn't connected to the net (no network card) and it was a pain.

What I have been reading is Vista is going to take everything that MS
learned with WGA and expand on it.  Commercial operations are going to
have to run a registration server for their machines.  These machines
will have to phone home on a regular basis to make sure they are
authorized to work.

I also understand that this will be modified for Vista for the home
user.  WGA checks and authrorizations when updates are made/checked.

Of course the proof will be when Vista is actually used.