Can anyone here who owned a legit copy of Windows actually say that this happened to them, or to someone they knew?
First time, I had an HP laptop with Windows XP Pro OEM in 2006. All worked fine, but one day out of the blue it told me that my copy of Windows wasn't genuine. I don't know what caused it & reinstalling Windows over the top from DVD didn't fix it. I seem to recall Windows then kept shutting down after 2 hours, so backing up my data before a reformat was extremely difficult. Once I reformatted & did a clean reinstall, it worked again.
The second time, I had a MS BizSpark membership via the Association Of Software Professionals, and was testing my software in Windows 7 VMs. 8 months later, my Windows 7 claimed it was non-genuine. I enquired with Microsoft, and they said my business shouldn't have been eligible for BizSpark because it was more than 3 years old, so they'd cancelled the BizSpark membership & blacklisted my Windows keys without notifying me. I would've preferred if MS verified my eligibility upfront.
I switched to Apple as a result. I know, it's another proprietary OS and tied to one hardware vendor, but at least in 9 years it has never locked me out of my data or my machine.
I can almost say. I had a genuine Windows 7 license in 2011 that I used for gaming. When I'd turn on the machine, it'd give the scary "this copy may not be legitimate" message at boot. When I'd enter the product key, it wouldn't work. I could push through that message, but every 10 or so minutes I'd get a pop-up screen I couldn't ignore that said "this copy may not be legitimate" and I'd have to enter my key that should work that doesn't, or hit "ignore for 10 minutes."
So, Microsoft didn't remotely deactivate it, but they, through their error, inconvenienced me such that I got rid of something that was a $300 value (it was Win7 ultimate, 32 and 64 bit licenses. I got it for free by hosting a Windows 7 launch party. So it's the most genuine Windows you can get.)
I'm a case study of "DRM provides no advantage for legitimate users, and occasionally inconveniences them." Of course I'm just an anecdote, but you asked!
If Microsoft is disabling a legitimately purchased copy of windows - or accessing it without the authorization of the owner - that could be a violation of the CFAA (or other laws; ask a lawyer).
Trying to say the customer somehow authorized all of this by throwing a contract of adhesion at the customer after the purchase has been made is almost certainly not binding, and is explicitly illegal in some jurisdictions. It's patently not a contract as it lacks all of the required elements.
Because there's a way to communicate the point without casting aspersions on the commenter.
Yep. Just recently my windows 8.1 installation deactivated itself and I had to call in an talk to a person to get it reactivated.