In fact, even the writers of the Wall Street Journal regret it, and the Journal is usually pro-capitalist. So, what’s going on? Basically, you are bullied around during the installation of XP. Microsoft requires a “profile” of your hardware configuration that will prevent the same copy of XP to run on any other machine. Worse, perform significant changes to your machine, and your license might stop work. Hey, don’t forget that there are alternatives: Macintosh, Linux, BSD, just to name a few.