Is anyone else steering people away from Win 7?

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I am extremely unhappy with Microsoft. They require you to buy a new OS if your hard drive fails. This policy sucks IMO.

I am recommending all my clients stick with earlier versions of OS, use Linux, move to Google chrome or anything to avoid MS products.

I have already had half dozen Dell laptops with failed HD's and MS refuses to activate the old COA on them. This costs the customer another $150.

I know in 2000 and Xp days there was a count system that you can change hardware out but once you reach a count you have to buy a new OS. But even then a complete motherboard replacement would be ok, or a cpu upgrade, or added ram, added video card. But at some point it would choak. Although I never personally reached that point on any of the computers I worked on.

They supposedly tightened it in Vista so a New CPU would trigger the activation failure. Now I hear windows 7 you cannot change Hard drives.

I'd love to hear your comments on this.

 

[Vicenarian]

Microsoft phone activation always works for me.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Microsoft phone activation always works for me.

thank you,

I have always used them....

Have you used them when replacing a dell hard drive with Win 7 lately?

 

[Vicenarian]

Are you using Dell OEM discs?

 

[seedubya]

I too am having issues with MS phone activation recently, though not so far on Windows 7. I posted a method yesterday to get a new installation ID if the first one won't activate. It's direct from MS and has worked everytime so far.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Are you using Dell OEM discs?

I will ask my tech and get back to you on that.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I too am having issues with MS phone activation recently, though not so far on Windows 7. I posted a method yesterday to get a new installation ID if the first one won't activate. It's direct from MS and has worked everytime so far.

Would you post a link or pm me this thread. Thank you.

 

[732914TECH]

ive done a few dells with windows 7 and activated them no problem at all.

 

[seedubya]

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=225897&postcount=13

HTH

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

ive done a few dells with windows 7 and activated them no problem at all.

With a different hard drive? Different mac address on the hard drive?

 

[colonydata]

With a different hard drive? Different mac address on the hard drive?

never heard of a hard drive with a mac address.

 

[ljtechservices]

I've replaced the drive in both an HP and Dell running windows 7 this past month.

The HP was a reload with a recovery disc set, COA was unreadable. No problems with activation, in-fact the activation wizard never came up.

Dell was a reload using the recovery disc that the customer made. worked fine. no activation problems.

 

[Vicenarian]

Recovery Discs generally automatically activate using SLP on large OEM machines. Recovery Disc = Image.

 

[commodore64]

So far no issues for us, just last week we did a restore with oem disks on a dell win 7 and an hp win 7. Both went smooth for activation. We've been steering people TO windows 7, prices are so cheap on new systems right now, doing lots of scouting and set up and transfers.

 

[JTS]

Yeah, it sounds like you must not be using OEM disks, in which case I believe you have to skip activation during install and then use the phone method once you're all set up. Should work normally, I know I've done it before.

You may want to make sure you're not using an upgrade disk too. You can install a fresh copy with an upgrade DVD, but it requires a little workaround.

 

[16k_zx81]

Ive never had a problem activating after a change of hard drive.

And NO I would not steer people away from Windows 7 in preference to a legacy MS-OS, 'Linux' or 'Chrome'. Not knocking Linux or Chrome - these both have their place - but I don't proselytize if I can avoid it, and, no offence, but taking a dislike to MS's current OS because of a misconception and then driving people away from it to options that all have more complex difficulties associated with them seems like standing on thin ice IMO.

Theres a lot more that could be said. But Im gonna just bite on my tongue and leave it at that.

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

I will ask my tech and get back to you on that.

I suspect that being a middle man and not doing the work leaves much to be desired in translation. I highly doubt that MS would deny activation because of a hard drive change. It sounds like a common tech mistake where a retail disc is used in place of an OEM one. It would absolutely refuse to activate in such a case.

 

[maclaptech]

I usually haven't had any issues with new hard drives and Microsoft Windows but I've heard that it can be a pain sometimes. I personally only had that issue once or twice to be honest so haven't come across it much. The phone activation works good for me too.

As far as Windows 7, I love the OS. I hate Vista with a passion like any other user and I curse Microsoft every time that I have to repair one but Win 7 is great in my opinion.

 

[Carl]

IF you have a "Dell" windows CD it has a corp lisc. and can be reused on any Dell computer. (Haven't had anybody hand me a Win Vista/7 unit that was unhappy to be offered a "Downgrade" to XP) - Same with HP units - etc.

Dislike M$ - New users are open to Linux, expect more to be open to it as it is showing up in more computers. (Only headache is getting M$ users used to Linux - some are much more receptive than others).

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

IF you have a "Dell" windows CD it has a corp lisc. and can be reused on any Dell computer. (Haven't had anybody hand me a Win Vista/7 unit that was unhappy to be offered a "Downgrade" to XP) - Same with HP units - etc.

Dislike M$ - New users are open to Linux, expect more to be open to it as it is showing up in more computers. (Only headache is getting M$ users used to Linux - some are much more receptive than others).

Completely against the EULA and licensing terms, by the way.