ZDNet Blogs – October 11, 2006:
I’ve seen several sites point to Microsoft’s new Software License Terms page, which contains PDF versions of the license agreements for many Microsoft products.
I read through the license agreement for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate (PDF) and saw lots of new language. Much of it just formalizes what Microsoft has been doing under separate agreements for some time, such as the Validation requirements introduced with Windows Genuine Activation.
But I have yet to see anyone point out one significant change in retail licensing terms. Think you can transfer that retail license to any machine you want? Think again.
Sections 15 and 16, “Reassign to Another Device,” and “Transfer to a Third Party,” are new. You can go read the exact terms for yourself. The sort version is that you may “reassign the license to another device one time” or “make a one time transfer of the software, and this agreement, directly to a third party.”
That limitation on retail licenses is a remarkable change. Previously, a retail license could be removed from one computer and reinstalled on another with no limits. Now, you get to reinstall one time and one time only.
Will this affect a lot of people? Not really. Those most likely to be affected are hobbyists who constantly rebuild, replace, and upgrade systems. Presumably, the new two-machine limit will be enforced by Windows Product Activation.
Is it any wonder that most computer hobbyists are switching to Linux? It’s almost as if Gates wants us to switch!
The only users M$ really has a lock on is:
1. Business, who require Windows to run specialized applications
2. Clueless home users who don’t know of anything else or simple don’t care about computers other then checking their email or myspace accounts.
Anyone else who doesn’t fit into these 2 categories can easily tell M$ to dry up and switch to OSX or Linux. Fortunately for M$ the first 2 groups are pretty big. I personally will never use Windows for my personal use beyond XP. I have already been using Linux for 6 mos and am planing to get a new mac once 10.5 comes out. I don’t need or want anything made by M$.
What constitutes a new “device”?
I think their much-ballyhooed “gigantic” market share is going to get a little smaller with all these restrictions. I wonder what percentage of copies of Windows aren’t 100% legit under this (and other) definition(s).
Quite frankly, as much as I love macs, Linux is really going to benefit from this. I could see a strong migration to the linux platform for lots of organizations who just won’t have or won’t want to pay the scratch for Microsoft in the future.
It’s time some venture money went into making linux-based software for large organizations that was really good. Steal some MS guys to ensure corporate features and Apple guys for the UI and ease of use, hire some convincing corporate sales people that wear ties and then make a bucketload of money…
Hobbyist guys wont worry, there will be a crack for this as soon as it starts impacting them. It happenned with XP, it happenned with office, and it will happen here. Microsoft is making a huge miscalulation here, the guys now running the back end systems at the fortune 500 started by running non-official copies of workstation and server software at home. Make it difficult to do so, and they will start playing with whatever is easily available..i.e. linux.
Make the re-installation difficult and you will see large corps and large installations stay away in droves. I dont know of any XP install that has stayed viable after 12 months, the replacement cycle for most large installations is 3-5 years.. so that machine in it;s lifetime will be reloaded 3 or 4 times at least.
Microsoft has made bone-headed licensing changes at every release lately, only to have to drastically change it once the enterprise players weigh in. Remember when software assurance came out (aka forced upgrades)?
Ahem. Even WinXP factory installed OEM is like this. Now.
There’s a fancy Windows license sticker on the computer casing for OEM. If you change the motherboard or a major component, the license becomes invalid. You can call their 1-800 # and get it revalidated.
This revalidation is graciously & temporarily being done by MS for free.
Now the why. Go out to your Best Buy or Staples and buy WinXP SP2 retail. How much? When you buy a Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc, how much do you get removed from the price if you tell them you don’t want XP? Zero.
IOW, when buying brand name, the XP is essentially worth about 35$ for Home and 50$ for Pro. (Not exact, but pretty close $)
So the why you cannot transfer that license, is because HP bought wholesale (and comitted to a huge number of licenses), to resell their PC’s to compete with “clones” (or like I call them, “custom PC”).
So Microsoft says, sure, but one condition. The OEM KEY # is tied to the machine’s BIOS & Plug & Play Bios.
So even now, it’s impossible to install an OEM key from an HP-Intel-NVidia box into a custom computer with an ASUS mobo + AMD + ATI.
So everyone quit whining about not being able to transfer a 35$ license that’s worth over 200$ retail.
If you buy XP retail, you can transfer that Key into another computer you build. The old computer will become “invalidated” during it’s next Microsoft Update. Fair is Fair.
It never was acceptable to install Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 from one single paid copy into 25 computers. Same thing for the OS.
The REAL issue is how MS purposely ALLOWED illegal copies of Microsoft Office and Windows to be made, be fully functional, with absolutely no key checking.
They KILLED Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and OS/2 by allowing pirated software to circulate unchecked.
NOW that MS has the monopoly, and zero growth these last few quarters, decided to go after the non-companies for pirated software.
This is all in the EULA, but not necessarily in the code. The EULA says I can’t store ISOs, but XP’s says that too I think.
We won’t know until it is released.
In speculation, this is the result of Microsoft forgetting the little guy who does more to sell their software then they realize. People come to me when they want help buying a computer. They don’t talk to Dell or Microsoft. I usually point them at the right seller then help them purchased it online without dealing with their sales guys. If these things prevent me from helping my neighbor put in a new motherboard if they should need it, I’m going to have a hard time not recommending an Apple.
I’m no Windows fanboy but this is not really far fetched if it only meant the copy of Windows that comes with your “branded” PC. But this is totally unacceptable for the retail box license. I’m constantly upgrading my gaming rig every 6-8 months and if I can’t transfer my license over to my new hardware, I guess I’ll be the few that won’t be able to utilize directX 10. Until Microsoft gets off it’s high horse I will not be upgrading to Vista. But I must withhold ultimate judgment until Vista ships to consumers and maybe through some act of god Microsoft will change this limitation.
I’m not exactly planning on upgrading to Vista right when it becomes available….
I’ll probably wait until at least 3 months to see the stuff shake out. Besides, I want someone OTHER than Microsoft supplying the anti-virus protection, CD burning software, and various other utilities.
I’m really enjoying ubuntu Linux on my 2ndary workstation, other than the fact I can’t run my FPS games on it. Everything else is great!
I’ve said it before, but I say it again… when Windows 2000 is no longer good for me, I’m going for Linux. Screw this subscription OS.
I’m slowly moving over to Ubuntu for my work computer needs, not dual boot either.
I’m very impressed with it so far… though it’s still not what most windows users will want (eg – they won’t give a crap about “dependancies” or “packages” they just want to install stuff).
no care. I use macs and buy one install disk for both my computers
#1: You forgot gamers. I’m tech-savvy enough to want to switch to Linux or Mac, but I can’t because neither of them run my games without resource-sapping emulation or virtual machines.
It still kind of amazes me what people will put up with. My father-in-law was visiting with his Dell/Windows lappy and had problem after problem, and kept looking at me for help… He clearly hates the computer and doesn’t get a tenth of the pleasure out of it that my family and I get out of our Mac. Did he really save money? Not to my way of thinking, since he ends up avoiding his own computer. And it looks as though the Vista experience will be, more or less, the same kind of treadmill of crashes and malware etc. I sort of hope I’m wrong about that.
Sure, y’all get some game titles that are unavailable for Mac, or you get them earlier, but damn! Is it worth the trouble?
Reading about MS makes me feel approximately like reading about the Bush presidency; I just keep shaking my head at each new disaster and feel helpless for those people who don’t have the courage to admit that it’s just a clusterfrak. (And yes, that’s two troll-like statements rolled into one. Sorry. Please be gentle.)
Hi,
With the “restrictions” on transferring the licence, I see no references to motherboard or other upgrades.
With Windows XP, OEM licences are not allowed to be transferred to a different motherboard, however you are allowed to replace a faulty motherboard (of the same type I assume).
Current Windows XP Retail licences do not have this restriction.
In practice if you need to activate XP Home OEM more that twice you need to contact MS via phone to re-activate.
They generally seem fine with motherboard upgrades and replacements; at least I have had no problems to date with this.
The Vista licence speaks of transferring the licence to another device, but has no definition of what “another device” is.
It could be that “another device” is just another separate and distinct PC; not upgrades on the same physical PC.
Until the licences are used and we see what Microsoft wish to enforce there is no telling from the licence agreement. Perhaps MS might clarify this point.
Regards
Simon
gquaglia
When you get a mac, you’ll be introduced to a new friend. A friend that can only come with a >5% market share… Forced Obsolescence. Oh, and Mac hardware ain’t that great. They look nice, but I don’t think their reliability is any better than any other Taiwanese manufactured PC. Regardless of what those Mac Fanboi’s say…
Disclaimer: I use them all… Linux (Ubuntu – ROCKS!), Windows 2K, XP, OSX10.4 and even support OS9 at the office (god awful OS)
This seems really hard to believe. Are you referring to a STANDALONE retail version of the OS (not a pre-packaged one that comes with the purchase of a new PC)? Let’s face a fact. We all play the innocent PC enthusiast but, honestly, how many times have you abuse the license agrrement in the past? I work for a large corporation but my department are such tight wads that all of our equipment (PCs, printers, paper and floppy diskettes, etc.) are stolen from other departments. The ERD Commander software (retails about $500) are bootlegged copies shared a hundred times over by our IT department. People never want to see the bigger picture, and that is that when we cheat on licensing we are really cheating our fellow citizen from a livelyhood. It’s the same thing like a user at my company fixing his own computer troubles instead of calling in a ticket to get an IT guy come over. They don’t call in a ticket, upper management sees less demand, they get rid of IT personnel.
Microsoft has a right to protect their software engineer’s jobs. All this protection is due to YOU (and you know who you are) who are dishonest in honoring a single user agreement. Think of it this way, if Bill Gates can minimize stealing of his software, he can lower the price. We all benefit.
I don’t mind XP, i have gotten used to it and I have made it work for me, but I am going to hold off on Vista, until the 1000th patch comes out for it. By then all these problems should be fixed.
#17
“………….. if Bill Gates can minimize stealing of his software, he can lower the price. We all benefit.”
As a sceptic, I sometimes envision myself believeing 😉 But I’m always falling back to reality pretty quickly.
BTW, have you seen the Vista prices?
“…if Bill Gates can minimize stealing of his software, he can lower the price.” Oh yeah, sure, you bet. And Catherine Zeta-Jones might stop by my place this afternoon to take a bath.
I’ve begun the possible transition to Linux last week. I tried out 4 or 5 different versions until I found one that works with my hardware. Ubuntu seems to be the most complete out of the box experience so far, and it’s highly customizable. My desktop is in fact cooler looking now than with my tweaked out XP.
The BIGGEST bitch I have about linux is :
If you hose the system (which is pretty instantaneous and insurmountable to a newb) by that one last system tweak, say to change your boot screen colors… there isn’t an easy way to reinstall the o/s over itself like XP will do.
Meaning, if you haven’t backed up all your cool settings and email, etc, you’re faced with a complete reinstallation of everything from scratch.
That pretty much sucks. I hosed my system 3 times in 3 days to the point of reinstallation, but each reinstallation got faster and easier.
Good thing about that is now I know what NOT to install the next time around. I guess that’s a good thing. Since it’s such a pain reinstalling, I might be a little more careful in my computing habits.
maybe.
All in all, since Wine works fairly well on my system, and the Macromedia suite seems to work fine (except for inserting an SWF into Dreamweaver with the buttons), I’m thinking this might replace Vista for me. Fireworks will take the place of Photoshop, the plugin filters even work. And Flash’s SWF standalone player plays flash files beyond version 7, as does Wine Firefox and IE6, which are installed also via wine.
Linux and games don’t get along yet, so I still have to run XP to play BF and UT, etc. Such is life.
Kinda nice not having to do the daily antivirus / antispyware / antitrojan updates daily, too. 😉
The only thing that changed was the wording, and it changed to reflect their existing policy with regard to online activation. What it says, basically, is that once you’ve activated windows, you can activate it again on different hardware. That transfers the license. Once you’ve done that, you won’t be able to activate on different hardware a third time without calling Microsoft. This is nothing new. The first time I moved XP MCE to a new machine, it activated. The next time I moved it, I could not activate until I called the hotline. Once they confirmed it was only on one machine (and they will take your word for it) they gave me an activation code. But, ever since then, when I’ve reinstalled on the same hardware, I’ve had to call to activate.
The big difference in Vista will be the WGA check: You can’t cheat it by tell them it’s only on one machine. If MS sees many machines phoning home with the same product key, that key will probably get deactivated.
#21
You make some good points. So I agree 🙂
And a little more to #17’s idea of lower price;
What would be a reasonable price for an OS “the whole world”‘s using?
I’d say max $50. Maybe $49.99;) Then there would be no problems what so ever to get a brand new OS for any new PC I’d make/buy/get.
And make that a one for all version. Not some “Wheelchair Lite” “Lite” “Normal” and “Get it All” versions.
If The World is your market, and you’re running a defacto monopoly, and can enforce a pay-for-play policy, it’s a down right rip off to ask for more than $49.99 for the one and only full version.
I guess that won’t happen.
And we have a winner: Linux
I remember this same discussion three years ago — if you upgrade, your license won’t be any good!
I have yet to encounter any problems. If I’m building another box, I buy another copy of XP. But I’ve also upgraded the mobo and cpu without any problems. The only time I run into registration issues is when I have to reformat a hard drive because of crap the wife and kids have downloaded. But even then, I just call MS and they renew the registration. I have never had to purchase another copy to replace a legitimate XP license — not for any of the six computers in my home.
Now maybe that will change with VIsta, but I’ll refrain from MS bashing (on THIS issue) until it does.
Yah know, us real IT people dont care about this at all. Last week I purchased 4 compaq computers (IIRC XP Pro, 512 MB Ram, AMD 3700+,DVD writers, free unused PCI-X video card port, and 19″ wide screen monitors, big enough hard drives{I quit looking at hard drive size unless it is a server}) and they were about $550 each.
Setting up the software for our purposes took about 20 minutes on each computer. (Joined a domain, canged the anti-virus software to clam av, installed accounting and support software)
In all likely hood (I have done this a lot) I will not even look at these computers again until one of them breaks in about 2 years time.
If I were to get a Mac, I could only buy one computer what I paid for these 4 computers(Mac Pro starts at $2500). Asthetics aside…
If I were to install linux on custom rigs… Well that would take probably a whole week, and still not all my software would run properly, never mind it is debatable that you could buy a custom rig for what these computers cost…. Then you still have to put it together…
I expect Vista to provide a similar experience.
Nope, Microsofts future looks bright indeed. It will continue to make me piles of cash, and that is really all I care about.
Or did you guys want to talk about games?
Disgusting caption on the picture. Below your usual level of content. Sophomoric.
#13 – Sure, y’all get some game titles that are unavailable for Mac, or you get them earlier, but damn! Is it worth the trouble?
Comment by bquady — 10/12/2006 @ 11:29 pm
In this case, we are still talking about XP, right? If so, then I swear on my God (who is either Martin Scorsese or David Bowie depending on how I feel) that I am absolutely serious when I ask this question…
Is it worth the trouble? you ask… What trouble are you refering to? XP works. It’s stable. It’s secure. At least my machines are. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck here… I know what I’m doing, and I say Windows works.
No really. It does.
It is also something that Macs are not (to me)… intuitive.
I guess what you guys with Windows troubles need to do is become gamers. It seems that gamers have working PCs.
If this is the case, Vista damn well better repair itself or XP will be making the record books as the world’s longest surviving OS. At least until Linux is “grandmother-proofed”.
Is my case a “machine” or is my case and a motherboard a “machine” or is it my motherboard and the heap of wires drives and peripherals lying on my floor with no case a machine . . .
How do a bunch of “executives” sit around a table and conjur up this BS? It is laughable.
Folks you are forgetting about if that current install crashes and you have to re-install it. Most re-format the drive and setup the OS from scratch. If this is the case you better pray your PC doesn’t crash again or you upgrade too many components again.
Granny can go buy a PC, plug it up following the really big pictures in the setup blurb, turn it on, answer a few questions then compute happily away for years. I can build a PC, do really bad things to it, install whatever in it, crash it on purpose, and it still comes back for more abuse. If I take my time, do the proper research to ensure that all the children will play well together then I can pretty well do whatever I want for a few years, until the next big candy apple (unfortunate choice of word there?) computer flavor reaches critical mass and I have to rebuild. I don’t care how many orgasms per second it can simulate, all I’m interested in is if the forty dollar shareware that I just downloaded that does exactly the job I need will work, along with the sequencer from yesteryear that works so well with MIDI.
So what, I wonder, is the problem?