[RANT] Finally getting sick of Windows ARGH!

i love windows, i have never had a reason for Linux, but over the last 2 weeks i have been using it more and more, from setting up Cobbler as a PXE server, to CentOS for a apache / mod_ssl server et cetera, if i can convicen our CTO i want to take our MySQL DB's to linux as well.

What has finally annoyed me is the dam windows activation, i am finally just sick of it!

We have windows 7 x64 Pro on all of our workstations, about 23 of them, all using OEM license, not duplicates, nothing, but at least once a week a system will claim windows isn't genuine and i have to reactivate it, sometimes this works online, other times it doesn't. 3 times now it hasn't worked online, so i left the system for a day cause i had more important things to be working on, try the next day and it re-activated fine with the key that was already in it.... WTF!

Today, i am moving some websites we host to a CentOS system, since i am sick of dealing with IIS 7, and SSL certs and the limitations windows has on them with things like not being able to use passphrases on an SSL cert, unreal.

So i shutdown our HTTP server running Server 2008 Web edition x64 that has been running for 7 months , rebooted a few times for updates, i plug the server back in at my desk, about 3 mins later, after taking it out of the rack and surprise!!!! Windows claims it isn't activate and wont even let me boot into windows so i can make one last backup of the files, (i have a backup already as i have the sites running on a temp VM for now, but i like to get one myself versus our backup system one last time aswell, call me paranoid.)

Okay fine, pull out my only copy of Server Web 2008 and check the serial on the box, as we only have one HTTP server running server 2008 Web and only I have access to the keys, enter it in, claims it is invalid! says it is already in use, so i figure okay, lets try the VM key included, nope, says it is in use as well, like $#%^$$@# hell it is, we have 1 web server, one server running Web Edition, and this is it!

I am so glad i am moving servers over to CentOS, i am finally after all this time sick of windows and their non-working activation BS that only screws legit customers, so much for considering buying some Server 2008 R2 license for new servers, i would rather spend a few days learning how to do something in CentOS then worry if i reboot a server it wont come up because MS claims it isnt activated.

Unreal.....

Sorry, had to rant, i do still love Windows 7 on my Asus 1201 and on my rig at home, but my patients are wearing thin real fast!

Why are you having to activate so often? Never heard of anything like this happening before

I feel ya. We had the same issue with Win7 Pro 64bit and it saying the installation is not genuine. uninstalled a lot of updates and then reinstalled them and problem would come back. Only way we fixed it was by reinstalling it from scratch, which is a pain in the butt.

So yeah, this activation crap is annoying... but I gotta play them PC games, so still stuck with Windows...

Trap05 said:

Why are you having to activate so often? Never heard of anything like this happening before

Click to expand...

I wish i knew why, hardware doesnt change, been the same hardware that was in the systems since the OS was originally installed.

Windows updates is set for automatic on the workstations, servers i update manually, and for the workstations, it is not the same ones over and over, it seems to be a different one each time, it is like MS is reseting something to make people activate again.

the PC games for, and one of our works main applications is windows only and doesn't run well under Wine unfortunately, at least last time i tried, may have to look back into that see how it works now.

Trap05 said:

Why are you having to activate so often? Never heard of anything like this happening before

Click to expand...

ya i have never seen anything like this with regards to win 7 becoming unactivated.... thats just plain weird.

Perhaps its a piece of software that all these machines have in common?

Well... I guess back to Windows XP aye?

Mr.Guvernment said:

...but my patients are wearing thin real fast!

Click to expand...

I'm no doctor, but tell them to eat something and they should put some weight back on!

On a more serious note, first I've heard of rampant activation issues like this. Crazy!

I.M.O.G. said:

I'm no doctor, but tell them to eat something and they should put some weight back on!

On a more serious note, first I've heard of rampant activation issues like this. Crazy!

Click to expand...

I only maintain 5 or so installations which is a pretty insignificant sample size, but I've had no issues.

Of course it could be a bug of some sort, but it almost makes me wonder if A) the vendor Mr.Guvernment used is doing something shady like selling the same cd key more than once which could cause the problem to pop up, but maybe they aren't selling the key thousands of times getting it outright banned. OR B) another employee in the company is selling the company cd keys on e-bay or similar

Heh, great minds think alike... I was thinking similar things about the keys being abused.

I suppose there's also a possibility its something unique to his environment - a certain software package causing the issue.

I'd first lean towards people being a problem, but I'd probably see if I could buy some microsoft support minutes or something and get it straightened out before it drives me nutso.

Corporations REALLY don't get it.

You can't stop piracy, and when you add that BS you make the pirated version the superior product.

Never had an issue with Windows 7 and activation, haven't heard of much of it either. Strange ...

I would think this would be something MS could help you sort out.

Trying new, better, easier ways of doing things is always a positive in my book. Glad you found something to make it work.

I do admit, it does seem IIS lacks simplicity. Sheesh, getting an SSL cert to work properly with host headers is a riot, something you would think could be so simple is unnecessarily complex.

chawks2 said:

I do admit, it does seem IIS lacks simplicity. Sheesh, getting an SSL cert to work properly with host headers is a riot, something you would think could be so simple is unnecessarily complex.

Click to expand...

Don't remind me. Had to put SSL on the FTP side of my server so some of my friends could update their sites without bugging me, and it was horror!!

Of course, making the FTP work in the first place was horror.

HTML wasn't as simple as it should have been either.


I hate Windows.

Trap05 said:

Perhaps its a piece of software that all these machines have in common?

Click to expand...

Could be, this issue never came up with Vista however and the systems are using the same software as they were when we had vista on most machines....

pinoy3000 said:

Well... I guess back to Windows XP aye?

Click to expand...

neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I.M.O.G. said:

I'm no doctor, but tell them to eat something and they should put some weight back on!

On a more serious note, first I've heard of rampant activation issues like this. Crazy!

Click to expand...

lol, not sure what to feed em , check an MS link for their forums [H] posted most problems of this seems to be about being sold bad disks.

DaveHCYJ said:

I only maintain 5 or so installations which is a pretty insignificant sample size, but I've had no issues.

Of course it could be a bug of some sort, but it almost makes me wonder if A) the vendor Mr.Guvernment used is doing something shady like selling the same cd key more than once which could cause the problem to pop up, but maybe they aren't selling the key thousands of times getting it outright banned. OR B) another employee in the company is selling the company cd keys on e-bay or similar

Click to expand...

I am buying all the OEM's from Directron.com, been doing business with them for 6 years, got all our vista licenses from them as well and some XP, the packages come in the white cardboard box with the sealed red sticker on top and bottom and the jewel case as well sealed with the red sticker on it, we have..22 OEM copies right now, but this has only happened to.... lets see.....

4 Support systems
1 accountants
1 marketing persons
and My desktop
and one Server

Eventually the online activation works, we only had to call MS once and we couldn't get through to anyone,the automated system did work,so sat on hold, so hung up after about 20 mins, next day did online and it activated again with the key that was already in the system

I.M.O.G. said:

Heh, great minds think alike... I was thinking similar things about the keys being abused.

I suppose there's also a possibility its something unique to his environment - a certain software package causing the issue.

I'd first lean towards people being a problem, but I'd probably see if I could buy some microsoft support minutes or something and get it straightened out before it drives me nutso.

Click to expand...

all workstations are locked down via domain controller to not allow any program installation, i am wondering now if maybe it could be a domain policy doing this, but then it should affect everyone, since all the support systems, 9 of them all have the same policy.

Shell said:

Corporations REALLY don't get it.

You can't stop piracy, and when you add that BS you make the pirated version the superior product.

Click to expand...

So very true, this is why i think most people get upset with DRM, it only affects the legit users in the end more so than anyone else, here we are paying for said product and we end up with the problems.

chawks2 said:

I would think this would be something MS could help you sort out.

Trying new, better, easier ways of doing things is always a positive in my book. Glad you found something to make it work.

I do admit, it does seem IIS lacks simplicity. Sheesh, getting an SSL cert to work properly with host headers is a riot, something you would think could be so simple is unnecessarily complex.

Click to expand...

IIS i don't mind over all, i guess cause i am so used to it and i do like it's GUI set up for doing multiple sites on one server versus apaches Virtual host file, but for IIS to not support SSL certs with a passphrase on it....seems kind of silly to me, not to mention to install apache, php, ssl on Centos is literally one yum install..... command and your done and it is working, unlike IIS needing to do a lot of manual steps (not using the .exe installer since we need files that it doesn't install) and a mix between GUI and CLI steps.

CompuTamer said:

Don't remind me. Had to put SSL on the FTP side of my server so some of my friends could update their sites without bugging me, and it was horror!!

Of course, making the FTP work in the first place was horror.

HTML wasn't as simple as it should have been either.


I hate Windows.

Click to expand...

lol, over all i guess i cant complain that much about windows, but with messing with CentOS more and more, i am starting to see some of the cumbersome things windows does that makes more work for a person and it makes ya scratch your head and think.... what are they thinking....

Not sure where you work, but is anyone messing with the computers? Possible that anyone wrote down some COAs and tried to activate them at home? You probably wouldn't be interested in this at this point since all of the machines already have windows 7, but maybe next time around opt for volume licensing. People tend to abuse those... but I don't think you ever get nagged, do you?

Maybe you should take into account theft!

It sounds like the activation is being switched from site to site. Meaning someone else is using the same key someplace else, and its doing a see-saw in activation...

Ben333 said:

Not sure where you work, but is anyone messing with the computers? Possible that anyone wrote down some COAs and tried to activate them at home? You probably wouldn't be interested in this at this point since all of the machines already have windows 7, but maybe next time around opt for volume licensing. People tend to abuse those... but I don't think you ever get nagged, do you?

Click to expand...

I am the one who picks up the disks from the shipper and they are still sealed in the white cardboard with 2 red stickers holding it closed, i just went over all the cases and none look like they were steamed open or opened in some way prior to me opening them. from there they dont leave my office, locked in a drawer only i can open, in my office, which is in the server room protected by a keypad and lock .. butttt, now that i think about it, someone perhaps may have ran jellybean key finder on the desktop to try and get a key??, since prior to about 2 months ago, people could run exe, but that doesn't explain the servers.... since only i have remote desktop access to them.

vixro said:

Maybe you should take into account theft!

Click to expand...

See above, possible i guess, for us the volume licensing was going to be costly because we needed to spend some extra $2500 to get it going? don't recall exactly, but that cost alone covers OS for all our workstations.

I'm thinking you're going to have to get on the phone with MS to get it straightened out. Does your company have a static IP? If so, MS should be able to tell if activation requests have come from anywhere outside of your company. If that's the case you'll have to figure out where the shadiness is coming into play (either the vendor sold the same key to more than one person, or someone stole keys). At least at that point you would know whether it's a problem with the OS or not.