FUCK Microsoft and their activation BULLSHIT!

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve never had to deal with the absurd level of incompetence and run around I’ve had to deal with tonight from Microsoft.

Long story short:

Upgraded from win 8.1 to win10 pro (freeupgrade).

Switched my PC to a smaller form factor case. Had to swap out my mobo. Windows 10 would not activate. My copy of 8.1 was retail, I should be able to move it to another entirely new PC. Not so with the free upgrade, I was told by Microsoft support.

Ok, lesson learned. followed the directions form the settings menu and purchased a spanking new $200 mother effing Windows 10 Pro licence. this was last Friday.

Windows apparently never activates. It’s a week later and I’ve got the “you’re pirating windows!! Probably.” watermark on the bottom of my screen.

I try activating, servers say the key is blocked. I’ve now spent 2.5 HOURS with support explaining the situation to 6 different people, with no resolution.

Apparently the Microsoft store on the web and the Microsoft app store on your PC are completely different animals, with different support departments. The order “ID” tey sent me on the confirmation email is absolutely useless with BOTH department,s who kept on insisting it was my product key. It wasn’t. I found THAT one out by looking through the registry. Thank you MICROSOFT for that amazing level of usability.

I then spent an hour with some Indian Lady rummaging around my computer, only to determine that, yes in fact windows won’t fucking activate. JUST LIKE I TOLD HER.

Her solution? Sell me another $200 Licence… on a USB, which I now have to wait for.

30 minutes later I’m talking to the 6th person who won’t believe the order ID from Microsoft isn’t my product key, and who I can barely hear or understand trying to refund my original purchase.

Resolution? Wait till Monday 5pm (maybe) for them to call me back so that they can refund my original purchase (maybe).

WHAT THE FUCK. How is this not an easy, automated process. How is it this nightmare of Indian customer support hell??

I just want my god damn money back Microsoft. And I want your shitty activation service to WORK. My entire night is a bust, I’m guessing Monday I either won’t hear back from these people, or I’ll be stuck for 2 hours arguing about how the 32 stupid ass, useless order number is NOT in fact my windows 10 serial!!!

2

GOD DAMN IT! I just looked at amazon. They’re charging $133 for windows 10 Pro OEM.

3

Say say there are cave drawings of Microsoft boning a bison.

4

Everything I’ve read says you can move an upgraded-from-retail Windows 10 license to new hardware for up to 1 year (though I’m unclear if that’s from RTM or from the initial upgrade.)

The way you have to do it is to install your retail version again, and then do the upgrade again.

5

Yeah this.

6

Still fuck Microsoft for lying–one way or the other.

7

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!

I knew I heard this somewhere, but my google-foo failed me while I was talking to support. I thought I was mistaken.

8

You’re making an effort to upgrade to Windows 10? I don’t understand. Are there features that are worth the effort (let alone the two hundred bucks)? Needed for work? Is Win 8 really that bad (I’m on 7 and will be here until they end support, so I really don’t know)?

9

DirectX12 if you use your computer for gaming.

I plan on upgrading my mobo & CPU at some point and held off on going to Win10 for just this reason. Wasn’t sure how big of an issue it would be getting Windows re-recognized on the “new” computer.

10

This, among other reasons, is why I’m still using XP.

11

Well it was free (initially), and once I had it installed and all my programs up and running, I really wasn’t looking forward to re-installing windows 8.1. Although I guess I should have.

I’m taking 10 to 1 odds against me ever hearing back from Microsoft’s refund department Monday. Anyone want in on that action?

12

You could call your credit card company and see if they can help. If you don’t hear back from MSFT.

13

Are you still using a horse and buggy because people get into auto accidents?

14

lol, I pirated Win7 and got Win10 for free.

15

…I have a comp with an unregistered copy of 7. Can I stil get 10 free?

16

Win7 needs to be activated before it will upgrade.

17

7 is still my favorite. Does what you need it to, no fuss. 8 was abysmal (I got their Windows Update bug and waited 6 hours for that to run through. Got 10 last week, is still slow and buggy.

18

When I’m ruler of the world, one of the first things I’ll force, on pain of death, is no upgrading of OS’s except once every 15 years, and all OS’s must be fully backwards compatible, including all software and hardware.

If we can go to the moon with 1960’s technology, we don’t need the trouble of brand new incompatible OS’s to do whatever it is we need to do. We can evolve technologically just fine by being backwards compatible. Also, all plugs should be the same too. None of this different cords for different things, we just need one type of plug for everything, no exceptions!

19

Heh… My XP unit ended its useful life only recently, having briefly outlived XP support for a year. I fully expect my Win7 unit to do likewise. MSFT tried to break the “even number version jinx” by leapfrogging from 8.1 directly to 10 but you don’t fool the cosmos…

I kind of gave up on major upgrading a decade ago because of these sorts of things.

20

No, but I do still drive a car from 2001 for similar reasons. I see my friends’ more modern cars have all sorts of technology that I find marginally useful at best, but add a lot to the cost and complexity. I’m no Luddite, but I think we are selling a lot of products based on numerous features that don’t add a lot to the real value. In the worst cases, those “features” end up hindering basic goddam functionality, as described in the OP.

I also don’t update a lot of software because of all the times those processes have screwed things up. Things that previously worked fine. Hell, my company just told us NOT to update our work iPads to the latest IOS because of problems it causes in our apps.

So, got anything useful to contribute on this subject? Or would you rather just sling more bumper-sticker quality inane questions?