*"It seems to me the only people who are concered, if you will, are those moaning and bitching about Windows validation.  Now if your Windows is valid, meaning legally purchased, what the hell is the problem?  "Oh, No!  Oh Shit!  My pirated copy of Windows or whatever else I've illegally downloaded is about to be discovered!  I'm going to have to spend my own money now!""

*This sounds similar to the argument "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear," to justify police-state enforcement and stomping over people's rights, especially the right to privacy.  As well as Micro$oft (and the entertainment industry) treating their customers like common criminals.  (And for validation, a form of monopolism by actively working to prevent their stuff from running on an otherwise compatible system).

Activation is first and foremost a pain in the ass.  At least several times I have been on the phone for over 20 minutes to activate Windows XP after a clean install.  Fortunately they have given me the activation code each time.  (I have read about instances of legitimate or seemingly legitimate users being denied activation and told to purchase another copy of Windows.

*"The other concern is DRM.  That one I can understand.  Hell, even Bill Gates thinks DRM is a bad idea..."

*Bill Gates is not Microsoft, for one thing.  He doesn't even run the company more.  Even when he was, there was a lot that he didn't have much control over.  Even if Bill personally wished to give Windows away for free, it would never actually happen.

DRM isn't even about piracy.  It's about control and trying to milk as much money from consumers as possible.  If the RIAA had their way if you wished to be able to listen to something on your CD player and on your computer you would have to pay twice for the same content - even though ripping a CD to your computer for your own personal use is supposed to be completely legal.  DRM schemes could very easily abused for applications that have nothing to do with copyright, i.e., vendor lock-in (where a company - i.e., Microsoft, could make it prohibitively difficult or expensive to attempt to switch to a competitor's product, ensuring that the consumer is "locked in" to their products), forced upgrades, and censorship (through revoking of certifications to render a document unreadable, if the government or a large corporation wished to make something they didn't like disappear).

Anyone with any degree of intelligence (who doesn't have Big Brother fantasies) knows that DRM is a load of crap.

With any degree of luck the Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) bullshit won't be going anywhere as hardware vendors quite naturally are not going to want to play ball (as it will necessarily make far more work for them)

*"XP64 is all you need for many years and for 32 bits applications almost everything works with Win98, faster and with much lesser risk of virus."

XP64 is essentially broken.  Probably intentionally to try to force people to get Vista if they want 64 bits, and submit to whatever crap Micro$oft tries to foist upon them.  (98 is flaky and notoriously insecure - having been built upon the MS-DOG kernel, but 2000 is solid)