The XMEN Clan Forums

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=143

Have a look at this article and the followup(s). A lot of detail is included about how people can get locked out of their own legitimate machines because Microsoft refuses to trust customers. A lot of the comments are interesting too.

However you feel about it, this is certainly unwise timing on their part. Linux is growing in popularity and its desktops are becoming more and more usable by the masses, and Microsoft is wanting people to pay a lot of money to upgrade their old software and replace it with this new "improved" version.

Stupid. Just stupid. I wonder what will happen when the likes of DELL push Vista / Office out and these things start happening. I would guess that most people would call up DELL tech support, and... well, you can make guesses from there. Suffice to say, DELL would not look good to those customers.

It'll affect Dell, and Compaq, and Gateway, and all the others. Including self-installed versions. They'll figure out a way to make the users feel like it's their own fault, though, at least the non-tech-savvy ones.