It seems that the continued popularity of Windows XP has forced Microsoft to release a new Service Pack: SP2c. The reason: they were running out of activation keys.

Link

It`s too bad they didn`t/don`t figure a way of re-cycling some. It`d be a hard thing to wrap u`r head around legitimacy-wize, but there are possibly 100s of 1000s (thinking of uk only maybe) of keys that just aren`t going to ever be used out there, especially from the likes of companies that lease pcs that come with their own licesnsed `build` of XP - but nevertheless have codes assigned to the machines. These would/should never be used.

Something like assign a number to a pack, if not used in a year - re-issue it. But there are so many pitfalls in that admittedly.

Wonder if they base sales on how many codes are issued.. cos it`d throw figures out wildly.

Second sentance:

For some, it's the lack of drivers or compatible software that forces them to stay with Vista; for others it may be the fact that Vista simply doesn't add enough for them to move from an OS they've used and (more or less) trust.

Surely they mean XP?

Are official Vista sales available? I imagine most of Vista sales are due to the Dells of the world supplying Vista by default (although they did have to re-introduce XP to the choices).

I'm sure Vista will be awesome with SP1.

XP seems to be the choice of users atm, MS need to get SP1 out and reduce the price to instill confidence back into consumers.

Been thinking of methods they could use to reclaim numbers for codes.. I could personally give m$ 100 codes this afternoon. Wouldn`t take that long with a reader.

Don`t think this is the reason for this release myself, there`s something else.

Popularity Rast.

SP3 is in the pipeline for XP with fixes...

Why would they give another reason? This states there are no changes...

Way I see it, u need to replace 1 to 3 files in xp to accomodate the legitimacy of a batch of keys.

The activation is still co-inciding with an online checking.

Could however be that nothing was planned on being released prior to sp3.. then this came up.. so there was a need to keep continuity.

Don`t we feel sp3 would contain a broadened outlook on key codes anyways ?? Otherwize u`d need to install sp2c b4 sp3 orrrr sp3 will have to be upd8d afterwards. Or integrate it now.. or heck just release sp3 since it`s gonna be in it anyways.

Meh, peoples will take a look at the sp2c and tell us what`s in it. Genuine advantage type updates get released quite frequently as upd8s, so even more meh.

But then an sp2c to accomodate more keys would only be in the form of a new cd in anycase - if u need to use sp2c as a patch, u`r copy of windows should, theoretically, be illegitimate.

could they just not add another 5 keys onto the end, just for new versions?

People buy XP?:rolleyes:



:D :cool: