Loyal employee that [Paul] Engel was... - Tim Jackson, Inside Intel page 130
Normally this would be a funny thing, but the people dumb enough to buy XP or Vista are unable to validate. Scratch that, it is hilarious.
You can read a nice letter from Phil Liu, chief DRM inflictor at MS, and other responses here.
When will it be fixed? Not a clue, and ironically, that is the same answer that Microsoft gives.
It just goes to show that MS DRM infections and inbuilt malware are unacceptable. If you buy anything with activation, you are simply wasting money. Avoid Vista like the plague, it simply isn't worth it. If today is not a warning sign in big red letters, I don't know what is. ยต