I thought of an award for the best B2B website that does not support Internet Explorer.Recently I bought a copy of Windows XP that I installed on a virtual machine using Parallels Desktop on my Mac. I mostly need it for testing web sites in Internet Explorer. In order to test on various versions of IE, I duplicated the virtual machine. When running the copy I was asked to activate Windows within 3 days, because my hardware had changed significantly. Parallels Desktop 4.0 seems to be smart about this: When copying from one disk to another, it asks whether one copied or moved the virtual machine, when selecting “moved”, one does not need to re-activate windows. Obviously they have a deal with Microsoft. Copying between various disks and having to lie and feel like I am doing something wrong is not acceptable for me in this case.

I don’t use the system I bought on more than one machine, I just want to have two configurations of the system. I only use it, so I can make my sites work on Microsoft’s lame browser. To me that seems like a totally correct way of using the software that I paid for. Not being allowed to use it in the way I intend it is very probably collateral damage in Microsoft’s intellectual property war. They just don’t have a way to avoid that I get under the wheels.

It feels humiliating that I waste time and money, just to make something work on a system that no one in his right mind would ever use without being forced. I think it is time for a statement: An award that honors proudly ignoring Windows.