Guys,
I turned my "elderly" Dell 510m laptop on last night and although it is a computer that I use very infrequently, it booted up OK and I started to use it as per normal, when a "thing" came up on the task-bar that said:
30 days left to activate Windows XP, to activate Windows XP, click here.
So I did click on the bubble and it asked me to input my product key, which I then did.
I was told the product key was invalid and that I should call Micro$oft.
I have all the disks for this computer and it is one of the 3 I have that uses "legitimate" software, so what could be wrong here, I thought.
Anyhow, I did ring M$ (after being on hold for about 50 minutes) and they asked me to give them my product key and they said it was fine at their end and that I should call Dell (I guess you can sort of work out where this is leading).
I rang Dell, because I had some rare time to kill and was promptly put on hold for 40 minutes.
When I did get to talk to the guy in India, he told me it is an Operating System problem, but he said that the 510m is no longer supported by Dell and I should look at buying a "newer" computer, with a "better" OS.
I called M$ back (only 25 minutes on hold this time) and told them what the Dell guy had said and they told me:
Sir, We cannot really help you, you are using an old computer with an old operating system, we recommend you upgrade to Windows 7
So, is this some sort of planned obsolesence that M$ has taken upon themselves with the Windas XP Genuine Advantage thing?
I have 28 days to work out what I'm going to do with this computer, it works fine, but in 28 days it will cease to function with XP on it.
I made no changes to it before I shut the thing down the last time I used it.
If this is the "ticking time-bomb" attitude M$ want's to take with it's software, I know a really decent distro of Linux I can throw on it, if it comes to that.
That is looking rather likely.
Your thoughts?
