Faced with countless pirated copies of XP roaming the seedier parts of Internetville, the army of lawyers at Microsoft had two choices as it crafted the license terms for Vista. It could encourage legal use by allowing flexible, consumer-friendly usage. Or, it could make the terms to onerous that they'd be ignored and/or flaunted.

Guess which one they chose?

If Redmond is to salvage its reputation as a nickel-and-diming Evil Empire, it could do far worse to start than to make nice with the most enthusiastic PC users, who often build their own boxes from individual components. Rather than an olive branch, Microsoft extends to them a closed fist:



So, every other time you build a new machine, or buy a new machine that didn't come with Vista bundled (like, say, a dual-boot-capable Mac), you get to pay for Vista all over again. This makes sense only if you repeatedly bash yourself in the skull with a copy of the Windows Server 2003 Administrator's Companion.

Another thing that geeks like to do is run OSes in virtual machines. For many, running Windows in a VM under a Unix or Mac system is very convenient and powerful. Microsoft has a middle finger ready for them, too. If you somehow resist the allure of Windows Vista Ultimate (which will set you back a cool $399 -- per two machine upgrades) and settle for the more pedestrian Home or Home Premium flavors, you'll be greeted with this thank-you:



Thank you for paying money for software when you could have easily pirated it. Oh, and screw you.

However, those who pony up for the full Ultimate experience will get this grudging concession from the MS crew:



If you were concerned that Vista might offer something more compelling for XP users than a thick layer of DRM, you can rest easy.

Finally, this might be my favorite, if only for its humor value:



Any bets as to how many Vista upgrades Microsoft will actually sell? Clearly, it will reach critical mass at some point as Dell and HP and everyone else stop shipping XP in favor of the new flesh, but how many real users are actually gung-ho about this thing?