MSDN Universal and Microsoft’s anti-piracy product key activation software stinks. I’ve got a new subscription (hard to gripe – it’s free, compliments of the MVP Program) and the Passport ID I’ve used to get on to MSDN in the past no longer works, telling my my sub is no longer active. I know that – let me enter a new one! I tried to create a new Passport ID and use that one to register the new subscription ID, and it complains that that subscription doesn’t exist.
This all wouldn’t be more than a minor annoyance, except that it is happening during a workstation crash. My Omnibook 7100 crashed, following the installation of a Microsoft USB Optical Intellimouse, and all attempts at repair were fruitless. Rebooting from CD and choosing repair got me as far as the Product Key string and – foolish me! My bad! – I hadn’t written it down somewhere. No Key, no run. 24 hours of frustration. Microsoft finally got back to me, 20 hours after I send in a technical support request email… and asked for my address. They promise they can “escalate” it with that. Another day lost…
Experiments with Twiki templates and skins were less than stellar. Managed to change the background blue. Messing with the page headers resulted in awful results. More study needed.