Vista locking out users?

Apparently Vista will require users reactivate their copy of the OS even when it has already been properly activated. Simply installing patches to some application software can cause Vista to request you reactivate. Microsoft has said that the problem is a bug in the OS, but one has to wonder how many bugs it takes before people realize that Microsoft's concerns over piracy is getting in the way of good software design.

How many millions of dollars and thousands of man hours has Microsoft thrown at the piracy solution, only to annoy tens of millions of legitimate users?

I posted over on my gaming blog about all of the reasons you don't want to upgrade to Microsoft Vista right now. However, if you are in a situation where you MUST upgrade for some reason, then you are probably reeling at the prices of Windows Vista. Of course, the upgrade price is a bit more reasonable, and it turns out that you can do a clean install of Vista onto a new machine despite statements from MS saying otherwise.

It's been posted around in a lot of places, but the basic outline is:

1. Boot your machine from the Vista Upgrade DVD
2. When asked for a Product Key don't put it in. Uncheck the box that specifies to activate automatically
3. Hit the Next Button
4. Choose to do a Custom install to do a clean installation
   
5. Install Vista. This will be a Trial version, but you're not done yet
6. Once you reboot into Vista, you cannot activate because you have a Trial version
7. Insert the Vista DVD and run the setup.exe program on it
8. This time enter your Product Key when asked
9. Do an Upgrade installation

Vista will now be cleanly installed and you never even had to show it your XP installation.

Note that this might put you in violation of the EULA, but if you did have an XP installation, there probably won't be any problems.