Microsoft’s effort to force customers to pirate their software never ceases to astonish me. I have lately been trying Parallels versus VMWare Fusion on my Mac with my purchased version of Windows Vista Ultimate. I know some people will point out that I’d be better off by burning it down altogether but I have nothing against Windows users and I’d like to be able to compile my applications for their system.

That being said, it seems that using Parallels and VMware Fusion causes the platform detection system quite a headache. It has by now decided that I have Windows installed in several machines therefore I’m not entitled to use it anymore… I must say that at this point it’s a similar effort to go through Microsoft telephone service or just get a cracked key. Being in a good mood and all I decided I’d give Microsoft dudes a chance and made the phone call.

First thing I need to point out is that if you thought having to manually copy the serial key to the Windows installation dialog was hard enough, then you haven’t seen anything. Microsoft telephone activation service presents itself as a total of 48 digits you need to dial in to the phone just to get back another bundle of freshly baked 48 digits. If my math does not betray me this is a total of 96 digits that Microsoft expects you to copy flawlessly in order to prove yourself worthy of running a fully activated Windows Vista system. After spending 15min on the phone I believe that even my girlfriend started getting jealous of this woman voice that seemed to be bonding so well with me with so many numbers being dictated back and forth.

Eitherway, I’m quite glad to say that it all worked and I have now a VMware Fusion Windows Vista image that is actually activated. I’m now not so impressed with the 30GB it seems to already be taking even though I installed the smallest Windows footprint possible with Visual Studio. I guess I’ll leave this rant for another post. Taaa!