You seem to forget that under 3.315 if a valid hoster license was installed an update could be done WITHOUT the floppy or internet. I felt this was a step in the right direction. First, you can't get the upgrade unless you are a registered user (that's one level of protection), Second if it's pirated this won't stop anyone from using the product. Having been in the IT field for 30 years I've seen protection schemes come and go. They have never stopped piracy, only lost loyal customers to companies with similar products and less stringent update policies. You either trust your user base or you don't.
I agree that MTU should protect new installs from piracy, but updates requiring re-registry each time?? Too much like Microsoft... I'm sure if I look I can find a crack for MTU and bypass the license all together. So the next logical step in software protection is to do what microsoft is now doing with Vista and force registration verification every 180 days in the background without user consent or knowledge until one day they get an error message that they have 30 days to buy a new license.
