Pirating ways: Pillaging, Raping & Plundering

After being too busy this past week to allow Microsoft to download one of their many upgrades, I log into my laptop this morning, and get notification that I am a victim of pirating!

Now, pirates are known to pillage, rape and plunder. I don't recall Gateway raping me when this computer was purchased over a year ago. Pillaging and plundering, well, I don't know. Sometimes products can be so overpriced, that could be considered pillaging and plundering. This computer, in my opinion, wasn't overpriced, although I did not receive a boot disk or any install disks for the software that was pre-loaded on it. So, I guess I was robbed of those products that I paid for. It would have been nice to have the backup install disks that would be helpful for the many times I've had to reinstall everything because the hardware crashed or died.

However, I do not feel like a victim of pirating from Gateway. I believe that they sold me legitimate software licenses from Microsoft.

I do feel like a victim of Microsoft's zealous inconsideration and insecurity. I feel raped. Microsoft has raped my computer. And with their wierd blue star in the lower right hand corner of my computer, and the notifications that pop up frequently, I am constantly reminded of this fact.

So, after clicking to remind me later to make my Windows geniune, and trying in vain to search online to figure out how to prove my and Gateway's innocence, I finally decided to see what Microsoft has waiting for me if I did click on it. Well, there was no way to prove you did have a genuine Windows license at this link. There was no way to contact Microsoft to tell them they have a glitch in their authentication/genuineness process. Microsoft just wants victims to pay them, too.

Figures. Innocent until proven guilty, nah. Guilty til proven otherwise (regardless of innocence), because that is the way it is today. Sigh.

Now, I guess I'll need to contact Gateway and figure out how to get this straightened out. Sigh.

There's nothing like getting pillaged, raped and plundered by a purchase made over one year ago.

**Update: I contacted Microsoft tech support, and spoke with a nice lady that I couldn't understand half of what she said. I gave her info on my Windows and she said that it was indeed a genuine Windows XP license. Yes, thank you, I knew that. But how do I get MS Validation to recognize that? Oh, there's a website to go to for validating that:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/diag/

So, I go there, and it diagnoses and validates everything but that WGA . . . So, I email Microsoft support, since hopefully whomever answers that types in English without any dialect issues. I also go to the forum they refer to and check that out. (Here's that link if you want to check it out: http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=442&SiteID=25)

Well, after looking at the forum conversations, I am fearful that I will have to reinstall everything on my computer. And I didn't get an installation disk from Gateway in the first place! The moderator states that Microsoft is working on a way to correct the validation error without reinstalling. Well, I'm not holding my breath.

Thank you, Microsoft, for screwing up my computer! Can I declare computer rape?