Just before Christmas I had to buy a new laptop because I threw my old laptop across the room in my sleep (as you do), I popped into my local computer shop (Milltec) and the manager gave me a very thorough demonstration of one of their popular lines. It had all the latest software and was rocking Windows 7 Pro and had been marked down from £300 to £200.

I snapped it up.

When I got it home I was installing the security updates and discovered that the operating system had not been activated, I looked under the laptop and found an activation key for Vista. I went back into the shop and the manager suddenly disappeared and left his assistant to deal with me.

I explained the problem and with a rather concerned look on his face (at me beating him up) he explained that they do not activate the operating systems and this is the responsibility of the buyer. I was annoyed at this as at no point did the manager point this out to me but I realise there wasn’t really anything I could do and I was starting to notice the assistant was growing more and more concerned at the raising of my voice.

As I stormed out of the shop I did think about hurling the laptop through the window but they have my address and I didn’t really fancy a visit from the police and a night in the cells and a fine that would surely accompany it.

So I went home and looked online to see how much it would cost to get an activation key, I had about 28 days left until the 30 day trial ran out, I didn’t find a site to buy just an activation key from but I did find a very good deal for Windows 8 – £25.00.

After spending nearly all day Saturday installing it I am now rocking Windows, take that Milltec!