Microsoft eavesdropping?
Hello,
I'll put this out there in the hopes that someone on the list has knowledge
regarding this subject and can share his or her wisdom. I imagine others
have mulled this question over for themselves as well.
I bought MS Office 2000 a few months ago and installed it on my IBM
Aptiva... so far, so good. The part that I find irritating is that the
product comes with a 25-character "secret" key in order to install... don't
lose the key or you will not be able to re-install the product later (after
a hard disk crash or whatever). Okay... that's fine, I guess... but, the
part that is most bothersome is that MS absolutely requires (demands!) that
I register the product... or it will become disabled automatically after
fifty uses.
Every time I open any portion of the MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, etc.),
this counts as an iteration toward my maximum of 50 uses of the program.
Each time, I have a screen pop up and tell me that I have 49, 48, 47...
more times opening the program before it becomes disabled and I will have
no other option but to register with Microsoft to regain use of the program
again. (I am now down below 20...)
The resistance that I have for registering is two-fold. #1. I don't think
that I should "have to" register... let that be my option... but, don't
*demand and threaten* that I must register; #2. The registration process
seems rather invasive... an incredibly long string of letters and numbers
plus personal information (plus who knows what else) gets sent to Microsoft
in exchange for MS sending a special key that will complete the
registration process and allow me to use (at long last) the product
unimpeded by further threats and demands for registration.
I don't have time to turn this question into a month-long quest for
research... I'd just like to get by without having to register Office 2000
with "Big Brother" Microsoft... and get on with my life. I've done some
searches on the Internet and have posed this question a few times on-line,
but so far I have not heard anything back of value.
Personally, I rather not let Microsoft know anything about myself or my
computer. I suspect that the long, long string of characters that MS
collects contains my hard drive and processor serial numbers, thus
preventing me (perhaps) from changing processors later... or from using my
hard drive on another computer. It *may* even contain other information
regarding installed programs or other demographic data. I have no idea what
(exactly) Microsoft is collecting, but I am sure of one thing: I don't
trust it and I'd rather not go down this path with them until I am certain
of what is going on for sure.
I won't mind un-installing the entire program and reinstalling it (just to
reset the 50 clock), but I strongly suspect that MS has already thought of
that and, probably, there exists an entry deep in the Registry file (that
will survive any Un-install Procedure) that will thwart my efforts to get
around the Registration Procedure. I draw the line at reinstalling Windows
98 just to get around this...
I will appreciate hearing from others on the list regarding any personal
experiences regarding the above. Certainly, someone has dealt with this
issue successfully before.
Regarding researching this issue... perhaps one or two discussion groups
(or mailing lists) devoted to this sort of thing will help. I have not
found any that I like so far. If anyone has personal experience regarding a
*reliable and trustworthy* site/group/list to pose such questions/issues,
please let me know. The key here is finding the ones who *really* know...
not just ones who talk up a big storm.
Thanking you in advance,
Garrett Wilner
Austin, Texas
