“groovy mother...”

“Product activation sucks. It sucks because your continued use of the software you purchased is forever dependent on the continued availability of the license server. And it sucks because your license can be unilaterally revoked because someone, somewhere has decided you must be a pirate.”

MS try to avoid the “Volume License Key” fiasco of XP (if you used FCKGW, or another volume key to install XP, you didn’t have to go through “activation” - ie. phoning into their servers) by not issuing volume keys for Vista. Instead, they created a server that enterprises could run, and installations of Vista would phone into local servers. Someone gets hold of said server, creates a VMWare image, voila! Anyone can install Vista without having to activate! Cat, meet mouse. Mouse, meet cat. Fight!