$#@$@ Microsoft

So, as you all know, I switched to a Mac, but having Windoze available can be useful. So I've spent a great deal of this weekend getting a legit copy of WinXP on my machine as a Boot Camp partition.

Being a legit copy of WinXP it has to be authorised. No problem, I thought.

Test it out (i.e. reloaded City of Heroes and finally completed a mission that was driving me nuts yay me!)

Works fine.

Go back to the Mac side to link up the Boot Camp partition through Parallels (which allows you to bring up Windows on the Mac desktop and share applications) and guess what -


I have to activate the frigging thing again because WinXP decides it's a new hardware configuration. And of course it won't accept the old authorisation code because that's already been used.

So I've just spent the last ten minutes on the phone with a woman of an indeterminate south-east Asian accent, retyping in an authorisation code (after the automated system asked me to input a - get this - 48 digit number) just so I can get Parallels to use WinXP.

If I go back into Boot Camp and have to authorise the frigging installation again...

(I ask you, is this anyway to discourage people from obtaining the software illicitly?)