OK this thread has gone on far too long anyway, but it is a real hot button of mine so I will add my two cents worth anyway. I work for a startup, Anadgim Inc. as a Sr. Software Engineer. You can see my work on our website www.anadigm.com, my project is AnadigmFilter. The first generation software was free, the second generation costs around $2500 depending on what options you enable. We now have two people full time managing just who is allowed what options. We do it through a registration and encryption scheme and it is a never ending hassle. All of our software staff have MSDN Universal licenses which INCLUDES Win XP, but we ALL use WIN 2000 for our development because we have had five lockouts due to software glitches. One was directly traced to loading adozen upgraded drivers at once. A Win XP lockout is no joke - you entire system is a paperweight until you reauthorize the code. Since the default logon doesn't know about your LAN setup you get to do it all by phhone! About a two hour process when you include repeats for screwups. Just what you don't need when you are trying to get a enw software release out! So, we show on MS' books as having Win-XP (about 60 copies) but actually use win 2K! I suspect there are a whole bunch of people doing the same thing. Oh yes, I saw the first "cracked" WIN-XP a week after I got my MSDN copy, that was before they hit the stores. I don't like piracy any more than anyone else, but when the so called solution causes more grief for your honest customer than it does for the thieves it is supposed to protect against then it truly is not working! I use Win-XP as a horrible example, but there are now almost a dozen formerly good software packages which I refuse to upgrade for similar reasons.