Yes but I'm thinking that in the long run, the cost will greatly outweigh any benefits users may receive from having a Microsoft account.
Most definitely for power users. I myself haven't seen one benefit to me personally. I don't have multiple MS devices, (table, pc, laptop, phone), or have any real need for cloud storage, and the MS app store isn't even close to google or apple, so they offer me nothing. I also hate the subscription model, the minute my copy of Office 2013 stops working is the minute I use one of the free office suites. But I understand I'm an atypical case and for a great many the convenience of not being tied to a specific piece of hardware and instead to a virtual account outweighs the potentially added cost.Yes but I'm thinking that in the long run, the cost will greatly outweigh any benefits users may receive from having a Microsoft account.
That's what I'm stuck on though. I've never seen a BIOS update trigger activation and from a technical perspective, I'm not even sure how it would.
That Microsoft can't account for people updating their BIOS and replacing Video Card is on the face of it, rather silly since both of these actives are fairly common during the lifetime of of owning a computer.Really? I have, though not on Win10. My previous AM3 board has done it on more than one occasion after a BIOS update, for example (the only one I can readily think of, but it certainly wasn't a one-off or specific to that board). I've seen that kind of thing trigger tonnes of hardware redetection the next time Windows starts. I've seen VGA cards be detected as new hardware after a motherboard BIOS update as well. Perhaps some BIOS updates do something along the lines of revising the ACPI table, or bumping the ACPI revision up incrementally?
That Microsoft can't account for people updating their BIOS and replacing Video Card is on the face of it, rather silly since both of these actives are fairly common during the lifetime of of owning a computer.
I no longer use Windows anyway and haven't for three years now, but I've heard horror stories.I don't think I've ever seen a re-activation needed purely because of a video card change.
I just read the first couple pages of this thread, and I personally think there were some MAJOR changes in this BIOS:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/has-anybody-updated-bios-on-ga-z170x-ud5.227977/
It doesn't excuse how difficult MS has made things, but I don't think a few little bug fixes would have caused your license to react this way.
That's what commercial software ultimately IS (*). Throwing your money away. They're not honest, not any more than the pir8's are. If anything, the pir8's are MORE honest.So basically I threw money away for two programs I bought.
Really? You don't use Windows? I wasn't sure since you only mentioned it in five posts in this thread alone!The advantages of not having to deal with licensing keys and other issues are very good reasons to switch to Linux and FOSS.
Because then they have a greater chance of you using their other services. Email, search, appstore, cloud storage and apps, anything they can sell to you. Plus maybe one day they can convince you that it might be better to charge you $4.99 a month or $49.99 anually for the latest and greatest O/S, you don't even need a new account, just add your credit card to this one.
Microsoft just wants you in their ecosystem. They want you to treat your computer like you treat your phone. Everything tied to one account, disposable hardware, etc. For the vast majority of the population it's quite convienent. I just had to migrate my elderly Aunt to a new computer and it boiled down to a couple programs, some documents, and some settings. Had she not gone from Win 7 to 10 and instead went from 8 to 10 or 10 to a new 10 and had she been using office 365 vs office a retail 2010 all I would have needed to do would have been to install 2 games, a new web browser, and a couple mb's of files.
That's the trade. MS gets a better opportunity to sell you something and you get greater convenience. It's not for me, at least in PC land, or for most here but there is some benefit.
I don't think I've ever seen a re-activation needed purely because of a video card change.