Multiple Activations

What is Product Activation?
MS Product Activation is an anti-consumer technology designed to dupe unsuspecting customers into buying more retail copies of MS software than they may legally need.

Which customers will be required to activate?
All of MS's customers who have to pay the highest monopoly-protected prices for MS software: small businesses, and individual consumers.

Is it possible to get MS to activate your PA-disabled software on more than one computer that you own?
It is possible, but you have to know how to protect your rights to your software, though MS has set up Product Activation so that it makes it harder for you to exercise your rights to the software you've purchased. The easiest way would be to create your second installation 120 days after you last activated your first installation of Windows XP, as MS purges your PA (Product Activation) data after 120 days, so activation of your second installation should go through smoothly over the internet.  If you can't wait 120 days, then the next easiest way is to do phone activation of your second installation. When you talk to the PA phone rep, say you want to activate your copy of XP. If they try to ask you any questions before asking to exchange activation codes, tell them that the answer would require you to divulge what you deem to be personal information, and that you are uncomfortable with that since giving out personal information is not a requirement of activating Windows XP. And if they continue to try to ask questions, ask to speak with a supervisor, because you have called to activate your copy of XP, not to be interrogated. More than likely the phone rep will then start the process of activating XP, but if you do have to talk to a supervisor, don't worry. Start off the conversation by saying how rude it is to be interrogated by the PA phone rep when all you want to do is activate the software you paid for. You will be activated. MS won't deny an activation unless you tell them that XP is installed on more than one computer, but they have no means to verify this info, so they must rely on the end user (YOU) volunteering that info, and MS has no right to compel you to give that info. All that activation tells MS is that enough of your computer components have changed, in the last 120 days or less, to require phone activation. MS can not figure out whether XP is really installed on another computer, or not, thru PA, unless you actually tell the PA phone rep that XP is installed on more than one computer.

What type of questions should I answer from the MS's Product Activation phone reps?
"What is your 50 digit activation ID?" and nothing else. Don't be rude, and wait for the phone rep to ask you some other question first, before telling them how uncomfortable you are answering any questions that would require you to give them what you consider to be personal info. [Hell, sometimes they don't even bother asking anything!] When you call up to activate, listen to the recording, you will hear something like, no personal information is required to activate. Remember those words, and use it against them, at the appropriate moment.

*UPDATE* - MS's PA phone reps have gotten a bit cagier in dealing with people who are protecting there rights to their copy of software and their rights to anonymity, and have been known to hang up on people.  This makes it really important to get the name of the PA phone rep before anything else happens, then if you are hung-up on, you need to explain this when you call back and that you want to talk to a supervisor.  Tell the supervisor the name of the original rep that hung-up on you.  Then if the supervisor still tries to question you, quote to the supervisor MS's own words, "The only information required to activate is an installation ID (and, for Office XP and Office XP family products such as Visio 2002, the name of the country in which the product is being installed.)" - http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/mpafaq.asp#details

Isn't it "illegal" to install the same copy of software on more than one computer?
Not at all.  There are no laws that prevent an individual from installing software on more than one computer that they own, and as a matter of fact, US Copyright law limits computer program Copyright owners by saying, it is not infringement to make additional copies or adaptations of computer programs.  Only MS's EULA states this One Computer BS, and they have had it in their OS EULAs since Windows 3.1, and have yet to try to enforce by legal means, in a civil court, as they've been too afraid that they would lose.  The whole reason that MS dreamed up PA is to trick the ignorant consumer that their One Computer BS is actually legally enforceable, so that MS can sucker that consumer out of more money, even though MS has never proven that they are entitled to it.  So you can just be another MicroSucker and believe without any proof that MS's One Computer BS is really enforceable in a court of law, and see more of your money go to subsidizing the XBox & MSN, or you can wait for some real honest proof, and protect your rights & money from the chicanery of a greedy under-handed monopoly!  Why let MS be the Judge in your own home, when they are too afraid to bring their One Computer EULA term before a *real* Judge?  Until then, shouldn't you be the Judge in your own home?