To fight piracy, Microsoft tightens MSDN and TechNet terms again

Ouch; they've really taken something fun and made it a pain in the neck to use.<p>Getting a Technet or MSDN subscription used to be enjoyable since you just got freedom to test what you wanted when you wanted and on what machines (or VMs) you wanted.<p>Now every time you activate you will have to think "Is this installation worth an activation?" Because what the article fails to mention is that each key has an activation limit (so 3 * 10 = 30 total activations per product).<p>Even on my retail copy of Windows 7 Pro I constantly hit the activation limit and need to call them. Which you would know is damn annoying as you have to type in and type back like sixty digit strings of nonsense.<p>I thought activation was originally meant to stop pirates not harass paying customers? Where did Microsoft lose it's way?

Well that's good to know. All this time, I've always been super cautious with my MSDN keys figuring Microsoft keeps a tight eye on activations and whatnot. Stuff like not activating a machine because I might reinstall it within the grace period. Good to know I don't have to worry.

"Welcome to ZDNet!" covering the article. Goodbye ZDNet. Why do companies insist on things like this? Many times I see "Would you like to take our survey?" I haven't even seen your damn page yet!

Suddenly I'm happy that I did a big technet download spree a while back for a bunch of older software. This also reminds me to request the rest of my keys and download the XML dump of them.

Surely this will prevent people from downloading pirated copies of said software.