We interrupt this story for some ancient history. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, software piracy was an existential crisis for Microsoft. Windows was the core of the company's business, and independent local PC builders represented a disproportionate share of the Windows business. Unfortunately, a depressingly large number of those resellers bought a single license and installed it on multiple PCs. Microsoft created a network of activation servers designed to flush out "non-genuine" copies of Windows to prevent that sort of flagrant copying of retail and system builder packages.