Welcome to the club ;-))Andreas

listen talk to me like im a 5 year old, i went out bought FSX for 70.00 and i have not loaded it yet untill i get a better system.i also run a five com system and will need to have FSX loaded on three coms so that my views work right.so if i load FSX on my main com and then get and activation, will i be able to load FSX on my other two coms and get them activated.are you trying to tell me that i will have to go out and buy two more 70.00 FSX,sand what is with all this activation crap any way, this is just a flightsim.i can possibly understand why they do it with Microsoft operating system.i feel like im handling gold or somthing.Thanks ..........Robert

>I'll never cease to be amazed about how many people willingly>put up with this crap. Personally I will continue to buy good>software (as I always have) and use inofficial patches to>remove obnoxious and downright hilarious protection/licensing>schemes whenever I see fit.Exactly what I do. Buy the software and then bypass the protection shite.And MS wonder why there is so much piracy going on when they make it so difficult to use the fooking software that you have paid for!

Charlie,You feel EXACTLY the way I feel. W/ regards to being a "happy camper" above, I am an absolute maniac about the flight simulator series, I love it with a passion.HOWEVER: I started out with Fly!2K, which in many respects, is actually still superior to Flight Simulator (some flight models could possibly be better maybe, maybe more complete autopilots), and I want to get Fly!2, and Fly! Legacy-RRRRUNN!!! Don't walk over to the Fly! forum and check it out. I don't have the more advanced Fly!2 yet, there's nothing but raves about it, and Fly! Legacy is suppoesed to be even better. I have to say though that compared to FS9, many people might find Fly!2K disappointing, however I love it also, nice sound files, colors, awesome terrain available. but limited aircraft, awesome panels, beautiful colors, however Flight Simulator planes seem to be more exacting in their precision to land them, and the Fly!2K autopilot can be hit or miss, and not as complete as Flight Simulator, haven't experienced Fly!2 yet, and before too long Fly! Legacy will be out also, these programs will likely be big improvements. PMDG used to build planes for the Fly! series but apparently withdrew them, and there was a famous Fly! 737 payware plane also (Wilco?).So in other words, I'm not only open to other flight sims, I do use other flights sims, and am planning to expand to X-Plane (EXTREMELY SWEET PEOPLE--CHECK THEM OUT!!! And no activation BS!) There's also Flightgear.org , and I am planning to buy until I have a total of 5 or 6 FS9's, and want to have them all running, want to get 5 FSX DLX and eventually would like them all running. want to get either ten X-Plane 8.5's or maybe five 8.5's and wait for 5 more 9.0's.I am always too polite to say that one's "hardware configuration is not Microsoft's business!" I've been thinking a lot about this. I studied astronomy in college on top of everything else, for fun and enjoyment (who knows maybe I'll study physics for a PhD in the future). And in astronomy (this is also done in the study of history, however history is easily dismissed by people and ignore it, which is a bad thing), in astronomy examining history of the stars and systems etc, is an every day crucial tool that astronomers depend on every single day--there are astronomers who do nothing but examine the history of astronomical objects etc. So what they do is examine a situation in the past, examine how it has evolved, and compare it to the present, and also try to extrapolate to the future. Let's take a look backward to copyright restrictions on records and cassette tapes. All they had were simple copyright laws, THEY DID NOT ISSUE LICENSES to listen to this music. You might be incredulous to know this, but I have not listened to even one single downloaded piece of music, even though I used to work in the music industry. But I've heard that now they issue licenses for each piece of music? Any way, with records and tapes it was just simple copyright laws, there was no requirement that you allow that record or cassette to be allowed to scan your record player (records and record players are now the preferred media to many enthusiasts; I just use CD's), to determine what kind of motor you are using, whether it is a cheapo or state of the art motor, or whether it has an extremely expensive needle or tape heads, whether you have the speed setting on 33 45 or 78 rpm. And if you change any of these settings, change record needles, motors, or drive speeds, the record did not shut down and refuse to play for you, and if you put that record on a different record player, perhaps your favorite Daffy Duck record player, then that record would still play, it would not shut down and refuse to play. However Microsoft has allowed many of us to be seduced en mass to agree to COMPLEX EULA's, which if you read every day, you might possibly be awarded a JURIS DOCTORATE, especially if you understand what the HECK they are talking about!!! By the way, the X-Plane EULA is the most beautifully written EULA, bare none, that I have ever seen, it's just three short sentences, and inspires trust and confidence, that they are going to be your FRIENDS, and not going to arrest you if you don't follow the EULA!Personally I obey the EULA's absolutely to the last word. That is why I was so extremely upset about this new FSX EULA and policy. But I've learned it, understand it, and have searched out their activation policy for myself. FSX is licensed to one "device" defined as being what FSX accounts for specifically in its' hardware scan, which I've found includes the bios settings, if you change these parameters, then you have to seek ANOTHER license from Microsoft, that is literally what is happening when you activate again either online or on the telephone. Apparently, you activate two times on the internet, 3rd time on the phone, next two times online, next time on the phone, indefinitely, I have established that they will reactivate FSX indefinitely. However the developers (God bless them, they are wonderful people who bring us nothing but awesome stuff, and their PM has stated that his people have really had their hearts in this flight sim and all the previous ones also), the developers told us that FSX would be UNsensitive to hardware changes, that you would have to do something major to trigger it. It's not the developer's fault, they were just bringing us another awesome, beautiful flight sim, it is the fault of the product security department (that's a description not an actual department), who have made the FSX security features I think OVERLY sensitive. If FSX security features are so UNsensitive, why has one ordinary person had to exercise FIVE activations just to do an ordinary installation? And another person who was more advanced, who didn't like the framerates he was gettng on his cutting edge computer (I like challenging graphics btw), so he started experiementing with overclocking, so his processor speed was changing each time, and also he had to go into the bios each time to adjust for the overclocking. Sooooo, HE NEVER CHANGED HARDWARE, IT WAS STILL THE SAME HARDWARE ALL ALONG--YET HE HAD TO RE-ACTIVATE NINE TIMES OVER TWO WEEKS UNTIL HE GAVE UP AND PUT IT IN A DRAWER! The FSX developers specifically said that they would not punish hardware enthusiasts, however you start to get to feeling like you're neglecting your job and everything else in life when you spend all your time re-activating, and also it feels a little like you're on probation or something! I am not only a law abiding citizen, in the past at great risk to my own life and safety I've upheld the law, and many of these users are just ordinary people trying to activate and configure their game so they can use it. And rather than cutting down on hacking and cracking (which I am adamently against, if you don't like it don't buy it express your opinion that way, do not hack or crack, that is when THEY win, when you do that, THEY have not only your money, but also your butte-ox!), rather than cutting down on hacking and cracking, they have inspired urgent hacking and cracking, a very short time after FSX was released, there was already a crack for it! Well, I'm not one of those people, I shop frugally, carefully, and decide whether I want to agree to those terms, then buy or not buy. I can get a $10 per unit discount on the genuine product at the immediate moment, but if I wait, I lose that and have to pay full price. The sim looks so beautiful, that I'm not sure I can resist, I might buy it, but it is something to think about. NINE acivations in two weeks? And their product security settings are turned down LOW?? What is it like when the settings are turned up HIGH? "VEE HAVE VAYS OF DEALINK VIS OUR CUSTOMERS!!"I've been doing some study on OS's. Your 98SE is the standard for people who do not like the new activation policies, almost no one likes Win ME, except me, because I'm a wildman! I've wrestled and struggled with ME for some time and have a handle on it, and actually like it better than 98SE. But I use both, and I would never wish ME on any unsuspecting user, there have been many horror stories, including me when it decided to totally melt down, right when a real life, life and death emergency 2000 miles away happened. I was able to compensate and things worked out well. Win 2000 is actually, I've been told, is NT 5, XP is NT 5.1, Win 2000 does not have activation problems, anyone out there with Win 2000 correct me if I'm wrong, I've never operated it, I've used it at work and the libraries, but have never installed it at home. Any way, Win 2000 is awesome and a proven commodity that is as good as 98SE, however the problem is that it apparently, from what I've heard, does not have the driver support that 98 and ME had; XP is a combination of the good NT idea from Win 2000, with the driver support that 98 and ME had. XP is really incredible, it is hard to believe, but XP has such a good driver base, that it actually breathes new life into old equipment. If you have some unidentified old hardware like a 56K modem without the original driver that came with it, rather than spending a week tracking that driver down on the internet, all you have to do in most cases is just plug it in, and XP has the driver for it. But as I understand it, if you've got OEM XP I think you have a limited number of hardware upgrades (processors or motherboards), then I'm not sure what happens, I think it shuts down and you have to buy another XP license, because the OEM XP is much cheaper than the full RETAIL XP, and that is where you compromise, whereas the RETAIL XP I understand has unlimited activations. And most diehard users don't complain about it at all, except there was one poor person on this thread who did have acivation problems with XP. Have I told you the old, boring, story about how I unplugged my 98SE hard drive from my pentium II, assembled a pile of parts only, no case, on an inert desktop, and plugged in the 98SE hd and turned on that pentium III adhoc computer? It was exciting and fun, given the same video card and monitor, it had deeper richer graphic colors! After taking notes, I took it apart, and reinstalled my 98SE hard drive, and Microsoft was never required to be called to do any of that. That was back before these obsurd hardware scanning and licensing issues, back when Microsoft was our friend and pal. This scanning of our hardware for licensing purposes is maybe a "Bladerunner" futurism, where the future is progressing in a not very friendly way. What happens when these scanning and licensing programs get even more advanced, instead of being controlled by state and local government, we might be controlled by software companies that offer something we want, as long as we agree to the terms of the LICENSE for its' use. Notice I said LICENSE, not COPYRIGHT. On top of the COPYRIGHT, there is the LICENSE for product use. I think in the past that ordinary individuals had no problem obeying simple copyright laws, however now on top of that, we have to agree to the terms of the LICENSE to use these products. BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR RIGHTS? WHAT ARE OUR CONSUMER RIGHTS? ARE THESE RIGHTS DISPENSED FROM THE MANUFACTURER, OR FROM THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WHO ARE ELECTED TO OFFICE TO PROTECT US? So if these government people are here to protect us, ARE THEY SOUND ASLEEP? OR PAID OFF?I really love Microsoft, but what about OUR CONSUMER RIGHTS ISSUES? They have not always been accommodating to me in the slightest, on three issues in the past, they turned me down each time, and I was holding their genuine product in my hand! And in their Pre-sales and Licensing department, their people had a tendency to be accusing, when I was asking questions, "PRE-SALES" questions, and I was just asking about buying up to five FSX DLX's. If you go on to read the EULA, as everyone knows, this is "shareware" a word we've all come to know and not think about. But technically, Microsoft owns all this software, we never bought it to own, we spent a significant amount of our hard earned dollars/clam shells/do-re-me on these products to be able to simply USE them while in the good graces of Microsoft. Technically speaking according to such EULA's they have the right to take back possession of these products, as Microsoft retains ownership of them, and just "shares" them with us.Microsoft is in very hot water right now with the European Union, an EU judge has recently ordered Microsoft to hand over software code to other software developers before Thanksgiving or face significant daily fines. So they are being forced to allow other software developers to use their proprietary code to produce alternative products. As I understand it Microsoft has already assisted Linux based Suse in a cooperative agreement, outside of this EU debacle.As time progresses, software becomes more and more advanced, and there are also alternatives now to Microsoft, there's Linux and Apple. Ha! I bet you never thought that I would mention Apple! I was actually going to buy a Mac before the previous recession, however that plan was put on hold, and instead over the recession learned to love PC's and Microsoft products. But I've recently looked at a big Mac, which will in a few months be capable of housing EIGHT Intel processor cores!! WHAT EVERY MAD SCIENTIST DREAMS OF!!! Muuhahaha! Muuuuhahaha! Any way, I still love PC's, and Microsoft products. But why can't they be more friendly to their customers? Any way as time progresses, more and more there will be alternatives to Microsoft, one thing which has been very difficult for gamers is that Microsoft has had an iron grip on games using windows and DX9/(10), however there are now rudimentary signs that Linux is going to be capable of playing these games also. If you take a solid gaming Linux distro, and add on Wine, or ReactOS, or another payware product, you can to a certain extent play some Windows games in varying levels of capability. I just came across a payware company which says that for I think they said $5 per month that their product subscription will allow you to play any and all Windows DX9 games. Boy, that seems like a step in the wrong direction, but I'm sure that some people will pay that. But products like freeware Linux and Wine and ReactOS will allow playing of Windows games in varying stages of capability, right now it seems to be touch and go, and maybe disappointing, except for that payware company, which seems to defeat the purpose in the first place.There are Linux and Mac versions of X-Plane and Flightgear. X-Plane is really cool, because all three OS options are bundled together.So what could be done to make Microsoft a more user friendly company that will give us nice user friendly products like Win 98SE, FS9, 8, 7, etc? And not a futurist big brother company that is constantly scanning our hardware and licensing us to death? Are our nostrils and ears safe, are they going to be scanned next? Perhaps we'll be forced to comply with an agreement to attach "X-Files" type of alien probes on your monitors to probe our nostrils and ears? How much more do we have to agree to in these progressing licenses?And then there's price, OH MY GOD! $550 for Vista Ultimate standalone? Up to this point, the airlines due to deregulaton have been so extremely tooth and nail competitive that many of them are chronically running in the red, and pilot compensation has gone down from at some places as high as $250K to $350K, all the way down to $144K and lower. And recently several airlines tried to raise their airline ticket fees by $6, just six dollars! And they couldn't, they backed down because the competition was too severe, and they were afraid of losing customers. How much did Win 98 SE originally cost? $25? I don't know, $50? Now it is a staggering $550 for their top product which hardware enthusiasts can have unlimited re-activations, the price is cheaper for the upgrade but don't remember the price quoted. Does it seem like there is not much competition? Well, I for one have become more interested in older OS's, and also Linux, I have a whole new directory in my favorite links, all to Linux options. So what is your opinion, what could be done to make Microsoft a little nicer to their customers? I thought their Pre-sales and Licensing people were a little snippy, but their Activation Center was exceedingly nice far beyond my expectations, however what about these ultra sensitive hardware scanning programs, and are they soon going to be using "X-File" alien technology to scan our nostrils and ears, and why do we have these back breaking activations, and constraining EULA's that might make us intimately associated with many nice people in India? Or potentially shut off the software we purchased, because that is just our hard luck? I don't experiment with my XP computers, I experiment with my 98/SE/ME computers. And I have several Linux variations lined up to try them out. So what can we do about our CONSUMER RIGHTS?

Robert,Licensed to ONE computer. If you have three monitors attached to ONE computer then that is cool, however if you have THREE computers and want to install FSX on THREE computers total, then you need to buy THREE copies of FSX.