TheBrain v10 Alpha is available

Posted by Paul J. Miller
Sep 4, 2018 at 08:31 PM

tightbeam wrote:

>If you buy the software, Microsoft will enable it, and will keep it enabled, for as long
>as they’re in business, which I imagine will be longer than the remaining lifespan allotted
>to me here on our wonderful planet earth. That’s sufficient “ownership” (for me).

Tightbeam is misinformed, this statement is not true.

Microsoft will enable your license key for as long as suits them.

The license keys issued with Microsoft Office 2010 can no longer be re-activated because Microsoft have discontinued the phone line which allowed re-activation. This means that an unused code can be activated ONCE over the internet, it can no longer be re-activated. I don’t know the status of Microsoft Office 2013. As far as I know the re-activation service is probably still available for Microsoft Office 2016 but Microsoft could discontinue it any time they feel like it.

To say that “Microsoft will enable it, and will keep it enabled, for as long as they’re in business” is either hopelessly naïve or quite disingenuous.

The license key system employed by Microsoft since the early 2000’s is that you get a code which you enter when you install the software, when the software is run it then checks that code over the internet with a database run by Microsoft and checks that the code has not been used before. This is what activates the software, not the entry of the code. Up to Office 2010 you could activate the code on two computers (this was for customers with a laptop and desktop machine), from 2013 onwards you could only activate the code on one machine.

Your license key would remain active for as long as you had the software installed on your machine. If you needed to re-install/re-activate your software (for instance after re-installing Windows on your machine) then there was a phone line to call and they would issue a number if you could convince them that you had a valid reason for re-activating the license.

If you did install it on more machines than the license permitted, for instance if you got a number after having said that the software had been un-installed on another machine when it had not then this would work until the machines did their updates from Microsoft at which time one or more of the installations would de-activate it’s license.

Without an active license the software stops working.

I bought Microsoft Office 2010 and installed it on my laptop, I used it for a while and then had an unrelated problem with a piece of malware which required a ‘Windows Reset’ which is like a re-installation of Windows 10. It requires all the software on the machine to be re-installed. Most of it without a problem, but when it came to Microsoft Office 2010 I could re-install but not re-activate the license on the machine on which it was originally installed because Microsoft has withdrawn the re-activation service for software which it regards as being too old!

Perhaps they want me to go out and buy a new copy, or maybe get the rental version!