You don't own your computer, Microsoft does
Found on The Inquirer on Friday, 12 February 2010
Even if you are running a legitimately purchased copy of Windows, your system will check-in to make sure there's no funny stuff going on. If there is, you will be downgraded to non-genuine status, your background wallpaper will default to black and you will have to prove to Microsoft that your copy is genuine or buy another one.
Quite why Microsoft is delaying the rollout of this update in the Middle Kingdom remains unclear given that China is the country with the highest rate of counterfeit and hacked versions of the Vole's software.
All that activation is so annoying. And if you change your hardware of your computer, activate again. MS puts lots of effort into making things that should be simple complivated. Just like reboot-loops or bluescreens when you restore your OS onto different hardware; as if it is impossible to switch to e.g. default harddisk drivers, like Linux does.