Corporations Suffer Microsoft Activation Bug

Uncle Bob writes "Trustworthy Computing, eat your heart out! As of the 2003-04-14 update, people are reporting that Office 2000 SR1a is now asking to be "registered" again. And again, and again. Very little information has been posted on the traditional news sites (the only link I could find was The Register. Note - The Register's story is not quite accurate, but the registration bug is real. Our company with approx 80,000 PCs has been hit...."

Sweet.

[grub]

"You have successfully activated Microsoft Office 2000.
Your computer will resume crashing.

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That's not a bug....

[levik]

That's not a bug... Remember, in the Microsoft business plan, there was a step before "Profit" which was kinda ambiguous? It was "????????".

Well, now we know that it really should have said: "Make corporate clients pay for Office an infinite number of times."

Profit indeed.

It's not a bug, it's a feature...

[xchino]

..of MS Licensing 7.0. Your software decides when you've used the program enough, and decides that you should probably be paying more for this great program.

That is NOT a bug.

[Chemisor]

First you bought Office 95.
Then you bought Office 97.
Then you bought Office 2000.
And you'll keep buying (excuse me: "registering") again, and again, and again...

open office

[w1r3sp33d]

it's too bad I am running open office, now I have to work today.

Microsoft looking for beta-testers

[blitzrage]

"Microsoft Corporation is currently looking for beta testers. No experience needed. Work from home in your spare time and make up to $10,000 a week finding bugs in our software!"

Since no one is doing it at Microsoft... they might as well.

Set your clock back as an interim fix!

[mrfiddlehead]

A reported fix is to set one's clock back 2 years. Perhaps they can set their clocks back 4 years to see if they can survive y2k this time round.

Why do corporates put up with this shit??!!??

Simpson: Nelson: Ha-Ha !

[UnknownSoldier]

Oh wait, we use this at work ... ;-)

Re:Yay for not upgrading

[NineNine]

I'm using Office 2000 SR1 (not SR1a), so I'm just fine. I never really felt a reason to upgrade, since I haven't had a problem with it since I installed more than a year ago.

Well, I'm using Office 97. Nothing wrong with it. So there.

Cracking down on Piracy?

[jamesjw]

I think Microsoft have gone a little overboard this time.. maybe they got the licence code crossed with the auto save..

"It has been fifteen minutes since you last entered your licence number, would you like to enter it again now? [Yes] [Yes] or [YES!]" :)

-- Jim.

This is only the beginning.

[Chocolate Teapot]

Within a couple of years you will not even be able to log into windows without standing with your hand on your heart, pledging allegiance to the gilded image of Chairman Gates and singing the anthem. All together now...

"Developers, developers, developers, developers.."

Did you say..... Oh.

[gosand]

Within a couple of years you will not even be able to log into windows without standing with your hand on your heart, pledging allegiance to the gilded image of Chairman Gates and singing the anthem.

Dang, I thought you said gelded [reference.com] .

We don't have this problem where I work...

[Znonymous Coward]

but then again, we aren't idoits.

Secure Computing

[rf0]

Well least it gets round the problem of any pirated software. No one can run anything now :)

rus

Nobody ever been fired for buying Microsoft...

[WetCat]

I think that will happen soon...

How to fix...

[Anonymous Coward]

search the net for a crack.
That's how.
I bet you M$ will issue a clone of that crack to fix the problem. Instead of saying "Warez R us", it will say "Microsoft, please register this fix, in order to continu in using it".

Re:Yay for not upgrading

[blahlemon]

Bollocks to your clay tablets, I spend all day working with punch cards and the only help I get is from a trained monkey who worked shuffling cards for a novelty casino.

At least you could read your tablets if *your* deranged money shuffled them.

Once again...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been proven time and time again but greedy software corps just don't get it. I've seen this time and time again since the old CP/M and Apple II days.

Repeat after me:
"Copy protection does NOT prevent piracy enough to make up for the inconvenience suffered by and resulting ill will of legitimate customers. Never has, never will."

Re:Yay for not upgrading

[NineNine]

At least you have a monkey! I have to create TCP/IP packets with bovine flatulence, a sheet, and a torch to create smoke signals. Our documents are written with sticks in the dirt. We lose all of our data if there's a strong breeze.

Re:Cracking down on Piracy?

[NickFitz]

maybe they got the licence code crossed with the auto save

Or the Office Assho^H^Histant...

It looks like you're a dirty stinking software pirate. Do you want some help erasing your hard drive?

Re:Yay for not upgrading

[Thud457]

Clay Tablets?
Monkeys?
Smoke signals?

You all poofters make me sick!

All we ever had to work with was "grunts"!
For our LAN, we'd sit around the fire and "grunt" at each other.
Our fileserver was a special member of the tribe called the "shaman" who would remember the important "grunts".
But he does an awful lot of mind-altering mushrooms and cacti, so he doesn't always remember too well.

We're contemplating a reveloutionary failover technology where the "shaman" has a "apprentice" who he teaches all his remembered "grunts", but that's running into political resistance in the boardroom.

And don't even get me started on networking! Why, it takes three weeks for a shaman to walk over to another tribe, in the snow, uphill both ways, in his bare feet, on sharp, still hot, volcanic rocks and half the time the eat him when he gets there!

And that's the way we likes it!

This isn't a bug...

[Sevn]

It's a feature that allows microsoft to make a
fortune on support calls and relicensing. I bet
the guy that dreamed this up is VP material for
sure.

Music to my ears

[almound]

I couldn't pass up tossing in my two cents. This couldn't have happened to a nicer company!

Excellent opportunity to blackmail the big wigs, no? ("Hmmmm, so you were saying that you were thinking of cutting back on the IT budget, eh? But that open source software didn't fit into the picture? Laying off personnel seemed more appropriate? .... Well, .....")

Re:Hit most of my ex-clients too

[RoLi]

Please: Go to openoffice.org [openoffice.org], burn it to a CD, go to work and tell them it's an upgrade to the new office version.

The PHB's will never know and it will solve the problem ;-)

Re:Its not a "bug", its a "feature"

[Anonymous Coward]

Get to know MS Service personnel. Your favorite dating line.

Re:This hit us.

[Lt Razak]

Hey, it's still April 17th, 1999 where I work.

What Y2K issues?

Re:This hit us.

[iabervon]

In order to get good tech support from MicroSoft, you need to use the secret codephrase. In this case, it's "We'll just use OpenOffice until you get it fixed." If you say that, they'll handle everything twice as fast. And when purchasing time comes around, don't forget the magic phrase, "We're evaluating open source alternatives" good for half off the price.

Re:This hit us.

[paranoic]

Which means that people are going to start getting very confused (and concerned) when web frontends, emails and other documents from affected companies start showing dates in 2001...



Does this mean I can get my dot-com job back?

Wouldn't it be more effective if the paperclip...

[CharonX]

Wouldn't it be more effective if the paperclip would only go away after you have registered?
That would give them product registrations AND extended exposure for their mascot.
And as an additional bonus, users could be driven insane by the clip - less work for the tech hotlines (ohhh... blue and white colours... shiny...) and increased sales on M$ products (sure, give me more, *giggle* Word, Powerpoint, gotta catch them all *drool*) ;)

Not a bug..

[lionchild]

Remember, it's not really a bug in the software, it's a liscensing feature!

Re:Oh bloody hell.

[realdpk]

You forgot to describe the Test process. In this case it would include:

* Advance clock by 1 month - run program
* Advance clock by 2 months - run program
* Advance clock by 3 months - run program
* so on up to 5 years

Do you know of any testing methodologies which include something like this, other than for say.. a clock program? What do you do if the problem only happens on certain weeks? Certainly possible given that this is time based. Do you test for every week? Every day?