Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

[zridling]

[Curt]: I have never heard of this before. Quite frankly: You are scaring me! Will you (any of "you") please tell what this is about?
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After five reinstalls, Vista kills itself and you have to purchase another license and activation key. Worse, if you flash your bios, change something like a videocard or processor, you either have to call Redmond and obtain another activation key, or, you have to buy another copy of Vista when you change too much on your system that Vista is licensed to — it's all in that crazy EULA that drove me to GNU/Linux last year. I torch my system at least once every few weeks, not to mention I build and upgrade my own computers. Vista really put a damper on the enthusiast market. At least they're getting rid of the remote kill switch in SP1!

[Armando]

[off-topic]

After five reinstalls, Vista kills itself and you have to purchase another license and activation key.

-zridling (February 12, 2008, 08:30 PM)

How about system images ? Can't you image your system drive after a basic installation and just reuse the image instead of reinstalling ?[/off-topic]

[Darwin]

That was on topic, Armando. Particularly if the imaging software was purchased on impulse! Better yet, the Vista machine that you image was purchased capriciously. Now you're talkin' 

[PPLandry]

At one point I did buy on impulse... now I code on impulse

[Target]

I suspect Vista would be classed as an impulse buy...

My own needs are meager, so I can always get away with freeware - last check I think I had about 2G hoarded away, of which I've probably only ever looked at about 5% (maybe...)

can't imagine how i'd feel if I'd done that with $ware 

Target

[Renegade]

...

I am not much of an impulse shopper for anything...not even food. My husband loves sending me to do the shopping, because I stick to the carefully planned list. It saves him a lot of money.

On the other side of the coin, I'll never ask him to pick up milk on the way home from work because it will be the most expensive milk in the world and come with 10 bags of free groceries. 

-app103 (February 12, 2008, 07:13 PM)

Your husband and I would get along very well! I am incapable of spending less than $200 at the grocery store. Doesn't matter if I only need to buy 1 case of something or not -- too many other things in there that I ***NEEEEEEDDDDD*** badly! Ooooo! Shiny new fluffy soft body pillow! Need one of those for sure! Ooooo! Looks like a case of rootbeer! Must buy! (Find out that it's actually cream soda when I get back home...) Oh! Cases of Snapple! Got to grab one of those! Ah - a 6-pack of that super soft kleenex! (Nevermind that I still have 2 boxes left at home...)

It's a disaster.

I nearly bought a 6-bottle case of Rum along with the cream soda that I thought was root beer. What would I do with that? (It was about $25 --- very cheap. Some new import from the Philippines.)

Shiny software... Shiny groceries... Sigh!

Grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do! I love it! Especially when I get out of the country. There's nothing like foreign grocery stores for a good time! SE Asia just ROCKS for grocery stores! There's always a ton of amazing fresh fruit and it's dirt cheap.

Ok --- I'm so very far off topic...

[wraith808]

[Curt]: I have never heard of this before. Quite frankly: You are scaring me! Will you (any of "you") please tell what this is about?
________________________________________________
After five reinstalls, Vista kills itself and you have to purchase another license and activation key. Worse, if you flash your bios, change something like a videocard or processor, you either have to call Redmond and obtain another activation key, or, you have to buy another copy of Vista when you change too much on your system that Vista is licensed to — it's all in that crazy EULA that drove me to GNU/Linux last year. I torch my system at least once every few weeks, not to mention I build and upgrade my own computers. Vista really put a damper on the enthusiast market. At least they're getting rid of the remote kill switch in SP1!

-zridling (February 12, 2008, 08:30 PM)

Incorrect.  Actually, what it does is limit your ability to transfer the OS to another machine.  The OS can only be transferred once.   If you change things, then yes, since it seems to be another machine, you have to call for reactivation.  Annoying, but not so much so as 5 reinstalls would make it.

a. Software Other than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device."

b. Windows Anytime Upgrade Software. The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time, but only if the license terms of the software you upgraded from allows reassignment.

Ref:
http://www.techweb.c...e/software/193300234
http://it.slashdot.o...2240214&from=rss

To read for yourself, go to: http://www.microsoft...seterms/default.aspx

See sections 15 and 16.

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And on this topic, I used to be bad about impulse purchases, but now I'm terrible!.  Bits Du Jour and Software Deal of the Day are mostly to blame, though DC shoulders some of the responsibility.

[tsdragon]

Wow!!! I'm not the only one! And I thought there was something wrong with me.

I prefer to download free software, but I'll buy it if I really want it (which I usually do), especially if there's a discount. DC and Iconico's Daily Deals have been very dangerous for me, but I've got some cool software out of it.

And, yes, I usually buy too much at the grocery store too. I try not to go near eBay more than once every few months.

[wraith808]

^ OMG!  It must be a general condition.  Whenever I start eBaying again, I overdo it and have to lay off visiting the site... and I have to go to the grocery store with a list and stick to it, or I buy *way* too much!

[exold]

I've gotten better about it, but I still have the occasional "Drink too much, crave a new app to play with, buy the first thing I find" occurrence.

-allen (February 11, 2008, 10:38 AM)

That's me in a nutshell. (Well, OK, this is me in a nutshell, but I fall right into the category of "getting better, but still occasionally drunk-buying." 

[tide]

I buy plenty of software, well, actually, more than plenty. However, I rarely buy it on impulse because the few times that I have done so I have fully regretted the purchase. Either the software is buggy, unstable, useless or less than useless and doesn't even come close to fulfilling its promises.

Even with a cursory trial you can weed out the junk so I make it a point now to try out every package before I buy. Of course, that doesn't guarantee they won't turn out to be disappointing but it helps a lot!