There must be laws either here or in the EU that prevent Microsoft from its insidious and invasive practice of hacking into private computers to determine whether the software is kosher, or has been illegally obtained. Clearly if they are doing it right across the board, they are using some form of robot, because that’s what it must be, to cover the whole country. This robot will have been programmed to look for certain aspects, and when finding some, or one, to shut the computer down, arbitrarily. There seems to be no way in which the circumstances can be discussed, or that the robot has made an error, because Microsoft only retains the information concerning purchasers of its software for a limited time. I for example, had installed in a brand new computer Microsoft Works, that I had purchased at least 20 years ago, and registered, but because Microsoft did not retain the records and therefore did not recognize the software, and its code number, as I said, arbitrarily, shut my computer down, partly because of the above and also because I would not sign in to a request for information because that included having to deal with updates again.
Another computer which I purchased about two years ago was also shut down because I have had to have a specialist take out software which had gone walkabout and inhibited me from shutting the computer down, even by allowing the battery to run out. So, I was sitting with two computers that were relatively new in one case brand new, and could not get onto the Internet, as it appears that that is the only way people communicate today, There seems to be an assumption that everyone has a computer, and even worse, that they are computer literate. When one has obtained software, either through purchase or as part of a package when purchasing a computer, there should be no time limit on when one can install this, it doesn’t have a ‘use by’ date.
As some of my readers will know, I have been under serious pressure for some months, and this was the last straw. For two days I lost considerable sleep, and it was only when I resurrected an old computer and put it into service, I felt I was in the land of the living once more. This should not have happened to anybody, and I propose to take it up with my MP, but as somebody who is 87, has purchased more than seven computers with Microsoft on them, for myself and members of the family, I feel severely badly done by.
Be warned