From: "Geo" 

"Randy H"  wrote in message
news:41fbfc1d$1{at}w3.nls.net...

>>Can you gaurantee that Product Activation will still function when the
product hits EOL?

Along the same lines, have you ever heard of a software vendor who used
copy protection who removed the copy protection when they no longer offered
the product for sale? It's under copyright for life plus 70 or 120 years,
why should they not restrict it just because it's obsolete in their
opinion?

Ask those who were running the OS/2 word processor Describe how it functions today..

Ask those who were running the original version of neotrace how it works
today.. There is one that forced an upgrade because they stopped the
map/location servers it used. When I purchased the software they never
mentioned that the one feature (mapping) I bought it for would stop working
when they discontinued support for that version. I even helped them collect
the information for their damn maps by entering long/lat locations for
netlink routers.

Microsoft want's to turn software into a service, no matter what they say
is going to happen you can't depend on it because things change. Unless
they are going to give you some key bypass or something that you have in
your possession or is held in escrow then you can't assume the issue is
resolved, activation makes software "service dependent".

Geo.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5