Follow Up--Office v.X Antipiracy Registration

We received numerous emails in response to yesterday's artcle. All of them suggested or stated that Microsoft's antipiracy scheme is no different from Adobe's or FileMaker's, i.e. it checks computers on the same local area network that are running Office v.X with the same serial number and if it finds one then it quits. One respondent noted that he chacked and Office v.X can be installed on several networked computers but its applications can be launched on only one at a time. If so, this is acceptable to us. However, Office v.X does its checking over TCP/IP, not Appletalk. The original writer stated that he could only get Office v.X to launch if he disconnected his DSL modem from the internet which would mean that Office v.X, unlike Adobe and FileMaker applications, is checking beyond the local area network to the internet. This CNet article (scroll to the end) has several quotes from Microsoft on the issue but they do not address the possibility of internet checks.

-- TGIF, October 26 --