One thing that annoys me mightily is MS attitude towards users of Microsoft Virtual PC - specifically, that the point of Virtual PC is to sell more Windows licenses. The only assurance we’ve been able to get from MS is that any copy, backup, archive or clone operation requires us to purchase another OS license. They explicitly include backup!
As far as activation goes, I’m surprised at how many programs don’t work at all without an internet connection. For most stuff I’ve bought a copy of VMware Workstation and an extra XP license, and consolidated all my home machines onto one. One activation of each product and I’m fine. This also gets me out of a lot of the other product activations - I either use the trial version or activate and snapshot, then when I get prompted to reactivate I revert to the snapshot.
The point I’ve seen a few places is that people who are the heaviest users of pirated software and media are often also heavy purchasers of same. I know I am - my tax return normally has $1000-ish of software purchases every year, and there are piles of CDs and DVDs lying about the house that were bought legally (then ripped illegally and I rarely-to-never listen to the plastic version).
(ripping is illegal in Australia, unless you have permission from the copyright holder… I have that from one artist out of about 20 requests)