I've always hated MS' licensing policies. Today they turned ugly. My mother has a desktop and a laptop. I got her all set up with a home network this week, ready to run the desktop headless and just use the laptop for everything, plugging it into the monitor, keyboard, and mouse while it was in the house. Then I found out that the *older desktop* came with Office 2000; the laptop came with Works. Enter the demon that is the MS EULA--I had the privilege of informing her (being people of integrity even when it hurts) that she wasn't licensed to use Office on the laptop, even if she removed it from the desktop.

She cried.

I haven't seen this woman cry in 10 years. She cried because she felt cheated. She cried because she thought she "owned" the software, and could do what she liked with it, at least use it on one and only one machine. She thought she could use Office on the laptop and Works on the desktop, and be within her rights. She cried because she doesn't have hundreds of dollars to throw at Microsoft when switching systems. She cried because she felt we had wasted two days' effort with the networking et al. She cried because she felt trapped.

So I re-re-routed the KVM back to the desktop, and we worked through some of the residual issues of connection sharing (she's still on dial-up, out in the sticks), email, document sharing, etc.

So thanks, Microsoft, for a wonderful evening. You're certainly winning the hearts and minds of the consumer. Mr. Gates, may whatever roast beast you consume this day or any other turn to ashes in your mouth. And all you wonderful OEM's who kowtow to them, get completely and irreparably bent.