Talk:Product activation

Microsoft
Could editors of this page rather help out by rewriting the article about Microsoft product activation rather tham just deleting it altogether? I believe the scope of the text should be able to be published, since this affects 98% of pc users.It's not just a small group of people who uses OEM licences, almost every pc sold uses that. And in addition it is stipulated that even at a modest 5% share of hardware enthusiasts, this still makes for about 55-60 million people on a world basis.

Please excuse my bad language skills, but Im merely trying to get a point across here, one that shouldn't have been there in the first place, but which is going to be enforced to a much greater extent than ever before, with Genuine advatage and product activation.

Tilstad

Copyvio?
Article text is: See http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/ http://windows.about.com/cs/ productactivation/ or search for more: http://www.google.co.uk/ search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22windows+xp%22+%22product+activation%22

This page should be deleted &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.75.231.4 (talk &bull; contribs) 07:39, October 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * Anyone know if this complaint has been addressed yet? Aapo Laitinen 20:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Not as of yet. I've compared this article to the 3 listed sources, and none of them appear to contain duplicate text.  The first is a technical paper that covers the ins and outs of Windows product activation, circa WinXP RC1.  This is full of mathematical jargon such as hash functions and check-digits and such, none of which is in this article.  The second "source" is MS's page on activation; this one doesn't appear to have any dupe text, either.  The last is a now-dead link to a page on about.com. &mdash; EagleOne\Talk 02:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism: someone might have no internet connection
Is it correct to add the following in the section criticism?

Someone might have no connection to internet, and this would render activation impossible or very troublesome. Further, even those who have an internet connection might want to never connect some particular computer to the net (for example, if the are storing data which are intended to be kept absolutely secret). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Popopp (talk • contribs) 12:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC).
 * So you do it by telephone. The activation wizard asks whether you want to do it by talking to a person. SchmuckyTheCat 15:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that all companies allow telephone activation; anyway, it may cause inconvenients, be expensive etc. Moreover, as long as I do not connect the computers to some net, I can use the same code for as many machines as I want, so the activation procedure has little sense!--Popopp 15:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Not every company allows telephone activation, especially in computer games. "Bioshock" from 2K Games and every "Steam"-game are examples for that. Moreover, the product activation of these games do not work when you use a proxy server to connect to the internet. (130.159.248.36 (talk) 13:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC))

Requested move
Product activation → Product Activation — it's a proper noun, the name of a product —Ewlyahoocom 06:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Survey

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

keep at present title. See also WP:CAPS. Pro hib it O ni o ns (T) 20:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.


 * Support as per http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/mpa.aspx e.g. "The goal of Product Activation is...", "Product Activation is a simple...", "Microsoft Product Activation is easy..." Ewlyahoocom 06:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This article is about the concept of product activation in general, which is used in more than just Microsoft products. Microsoft Product Activation is a specific incarnation of this concept. — TKD::Talk 06:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per TKD. Un-redirect and expand MPA by all means, but the article currently relates mainly to the general term.  &mdash;Moondyne 07:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. Neier 08:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Per TKD's reasoning. -- Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor  ( tαlk ) 19:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

Is there maybe a more "generic" sounding name we could move this article to? On-line software license validation or something like that? Ewlyahoocom 20:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merge Key server (software licensing) into Product activation

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus for merger. --Kralizec! (talk) 01:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

A Mergeto tag was placed on Key server (software licensing), apparently proposing that it be merged into Product activation. However since the required Mergefrom tag has not yet been added to the Product activation article and as the reasons for the proposed merge have not been given on this talk page, I hesitated to post this message for fear of "jumping the gun" or stepping on the toes of the editor advocating the merge. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts on this issue.

The Product activation article describes it as: a method where a software application hashes hardware serial numbers and an ID number specific to the product's license (a product key) to generate a unique Installation ID ... [that] is sent to the manufacturer to verify the authenticity of the product key and to ensure that the product key is not being used for multiple installations.

While Key server is described as: a centralized system which provides tokens, or keys, to client systems in order to enable licensed software to run on them. It is the job of a software licensing key server to make sure that only as many copies of a software package that have been licensed by a customer are allowed to be run at one time

So ... while one (Product activation) is used by software publishers to ensure that applications are installed on one and only one machine, the other (Key server) performs license metering for large corporations or universities to make sure that they do not use more copies of a software package than they have licenses for. Since this two articles are covering dissimilar topics, I am going to have to vote oppose on this merge proposal. --Kralizec! (talk) 18:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

List of products
The article doesn't need a list of products that require activation. Seems to be focusing excessively on Microsoft. 12.155.246.10 (talk) 20:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The section on a list of products is biased; there is undue weight on Microsoft. Dragon 280 (talk) 18:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Microsoft is just about the only major corporation that requires it. Now, some security solutions require you to pay so that you can get the updates that make the software useful, and I know diskeeper requires activation.  But that's quite different from the operating system that is used on 90% of computers, and the Office Suite with the largest market share.72.147.217.126 (talk) 19:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Having a list is convenient - it is sometimes hard to find out directly what products require activation (information is hidden). Microsoft is heavily represented because they publish a lot of products that uses activation.  Zodon (talk) 02:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't EA be added? As Mass effect on the PC requires product activation IKasno (talk) 08:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Last time I checked, Wikipedia is not a directory. ViperSnake151   Talk  21:29, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed it again along with unreferenced material some that has had citation needed since September 2007. This was reverted with a comment to take it to the talk page, but that editor has not commented here, just reverting.  The information as to what products require activation is not needed as explained above.  Coin Operation (talk) (alternate account of GB fan) 23:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Above, multiple users - besides myself - have expressed concerns about removing this material from the article. Therefore, a proper WP:CON is required to remove it. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 23:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not see multiple user that have expressed concerns about removing the list. I see Zodon feels that the list is "convenient".  Then there is Ikasno that wanted to add EA to the list.  Two others commented in 2008, one said the list is biased and the other says it is not needed.  Now in 2013 we have myself and Vipersnake that feel it doesn't belong and have explained why.  You have never explained why you feel the list should be retained, GB fan 11:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I now request that at least one of the users who does not want the content in question to be in this article provide a link to a policy that supports this, preferably with a specific quote from that policy. I have looked through WP:NOT and found nothing that supports removing this information from the article. (Note that the issue of WP:RS is separate in this case, since it is likely that the makers of the products are themselves reliable sources, at least for this purpose.) Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 16:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
 * My request that I made above and at the ANI discussion still stands, Why do you think the information belongs? GB fan 19:44, 22 March 2013 (UTC)